Why Turtle

[ArtistofWarfare]

And PS, I have proven the greater the distance, the more royally screwed you are.

If there are 4 factions under player control and I'm France, while you're the Byzantines - there wouldn't be a situation where you would be bee-lining it to my faction right off of the get go. And if you did, you just threw your chances of winning out the window.

Let's be real...

If we're far apart, by the time we do meet - I'm not 6 provinces and undeveloped. You might be bigger , but you're putting the ENTIRETY of what determines who wins a war into who controls more land.

[Lancome]

If there are 4 factions under player control and I'm France, while you're the Byzantines - there wouldn't be a situation where you would be bee-lining it to my faction right off of the get go. And if you did, you just threw your chances of winning out the window.

Let's be real...

If we're far apart, by the time we do meet - I'm not 6 provinces and undeveloped. You might be bigger , but you're putting the ENTIRETY of what determines who wins a war into who controls more land.

Not to Mention Pizza's Large amount of troops and underdeveloped economy to support them in far campaigns.

[Askthepizzaguy]

To be clear:

I'm only referring to two-player, turtle versus blitzer games.

And in all cases, 100% of the time, turtle loses. Ask those who have played turtle against me. Visit my duel thread.

In all other cases, blitzer will lose because all the other nations rise as one to attack me. Two different arguments.

If you would like to test your theory, in one on one campaign battle, I invite you to duel me to the death and see the results.

[Askthepizzaguy]

LOLZ

Underdeveloped economy?



The single fastest way to grow an economy is sacking other territories while building your own. Before this discussion continues further, please read my duel thread and hear testimonials and witness the results of actual death combat, turtle versus blitzer.

And if thats not enough, I cordially invite you to battle me.

See my signature.

I must go now, but I will be back to hear your responses.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Final note... this is for fun, and I'm not trying to be unfriendly. I just love a good debate. No hard feelings no matter how it turns out. Just making sure you know that.

[ArtistofWarfare]

Well to be clear myself: I'm not talking about a duel to the death between 2 player factions and the rest AI farm factions.

I'm talking about a real multiplayer campaign ...with anything from 3 players, to every faction controlled by players.

In that situation, my previous thoughts apply.

p.s.- Again, in that situation the blitzer is excomm'd almost immediately and DOES have an underdeveloped economy. Your army sacks/pillages and profits yes...but your Kingdom does not have a developed economy. Your economy stalls as soon as you get into a war with a faction who starts beating you on the battlefield. At that point you're at the old "decrease troops or start losing money" choice. A faction in that shape, taking losses, is hardly some blitzing war machine that is going to paint Europe it's own color.

[gardibolt]

Well to be clear myself: I'm not talking about a duel to the death between 2 player factions and the rest AI farm factions.

I'm talking about a real multiplayer campaign ...with anything from 3 players, to every faction controlled by players.

In that situation, my previous thoughts apply.

p.s.- Again, in that situation the blitzer is excomm'd almost immediately and DOES have an underdeveloped economy. Your army sacks/pillages and profits yes...but your Kingdom does not have a developed economy. Your economy stalls as soon as you get into a war with a faction who starts beating you on the battlefield. At that point you're at the old "decrease troops or start losing money" choice. A faction in that shape, taking losses, is hardly some blitzing war machine that is going to paint Europe it's own color.

The problem is, there's no such game as this. In the game we have, there is no "faction who starts beating you [the blitzer] on the battlefield." It just doesn't happen. Maybe if the game were modded to make all the AI factions fully-upgraded Timurid armies at the beginning it would but otherwise, uh, no.

That said, I enjoying turtling myself when I play the game. It's just how I like to do it. But clearly it ain't the most efficient way to go about things.

[Pater Familias]

It's an interesting question. At some point in my computer gaming life I became a turtle without realizing it, having started out as a blitzer.

I think it's because the AI in so many games could only counterattack. It couldn't mount a successful assault; that was too complicated to program. It couldn't defend particularly well; that was way too complicated to program. But in early computer wargames, one after another, if you were successfully attacking, the AI would build (often with built-in cheats to enable it) a Stack of Doom and drive it through the weakest part of your territory. It was mutually assured destruction, because it didn't prevent you from doing the same. And yes, Sid Meier, I'm looking at you here. And SSI.

Then, after the first enemy suicide-attacked, the AI, sensing weakness, would pile on until every enemy on the board followed suit. Even if you survived, just triggering the suicide SoD made it almost impossible to win.

So at some point, I got in the habit of building big honking garrisons and keeping at least one defensive stack to defend the counterattack, regardless of what game I was playing. As games have gotten more sophisticated, it's less necessary (just ask ATPG here, or Sulla over on the Civ IV sites), but now it's a habit.

[ArtistofWarfare]

The problem is, there's no such game as this. In the game we have, there is no "faction who starts beating you [the blitzer] on the battlefield." It just doesn't happen. Maybe if the game were modded to make all the AI factions fully-upgraded Timurid armies at the beginning it would but otherwise, uh, no.

That said, I enjoying turtling myself when I play the game. It's just how I like to do it. But clearly it ain't the most efficient way to go about things.

Did you not read the post of mine that you're quoting?

It clearly describes the situation I'm talking about. As mentioned multiple times: It's hypothetical since we don't have a real MP campaign to play.

That said: I doubt you go the entirety of your VH/VH campaigns and never lose one battle. I just...really doubt that.

But once again: In a real MP campaign, we don't know whether turtling or blitzing is more effective because we don't have a real MP campaign to play against eachother as things stand today.

[Askthepizzaguy]

If referring to me, and from your post's wording you're not

I do lose around 10 battles or so by the end of the campaign. Mostly it's naval battles with my leftover mercenary ships dying from pirate attacks.