Turtles in RTS. Best tactic?

[Matt B]

I don't think so. It's effective, but depending on the game there is usually units/methods to destroy defenses from afar, to where it's simply a matter of time.

Agreed. I love to Turtle and build up a massive force, but for any tactic to be effective there has to be variation. You need to keep your opponent busy and make sure they don't have control over more resources than you do while you're simultaneously building up your army.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

My Medival TW2 tactics tend to be: Archers, heavy infantry (heavy billmen, I usually play as England, in which case I also have spikes infront of my archers) stand in front of them. The enemy usually charges it's heavy cavalry straight at me, because they're retarded. They are being anhilated, and by the time their infantry joins in my cavalry has swept around behind them and trapped them.

 

[Trivun]

I only ever turtle if I'm playing against people who are likely to rush me. Otherwise, my style is always to build a decent defensive line, then hold it and progress forward. Build another line, and use the territory to my advantage. I play for the long haul, always, and if my enemy is of a decent tactical mind too then we usually have a decent epic fight where we're evenly matched. I absolutely loath rushers though, they're the one thing that I hate to play against, because I'm forced to turtle and it takes the enjoyment and strategy out of the game.

Anyway, I usually try to use real-world tactics as much as I can, and that helps me out a lot. In real life, no army is seriously going to try Zerg-rush tactics in battle, unless they have no other choice (example would be D-Day, and they had no choice - for the record, I half-watched parts of Saving Private Ryan last night...).

 

[Nouw]

Company Of Heroes turtling is very easy. Just build mines, wires and Machine Gun Emplacements and slowly push forward.

All of these can easily be killed by artillery though that was my original point.If you do build a wall of defences if the enemy uses artillery you end up having more holes in it than a big budget porno.

Hmmm... I'll have to think about that. Maybe a Turtle and Tank attack?

 

[Evil Alpaca]

I find that turtling helps beat the rush strategy but its is no ultimate strategy. However turtling is a terrible strategy against someone who expands. If you sit in your base fortifying while your opponent grabs the rest of the map, you're gonna get overwhelmed. I usually use turtle as a way to look at my opponent and figure out how to best attack them.

I'm curious though, does anyone really enjoy playing a rush game multiple times? How many times can you see the same 6 zerglings rush a base before you shut the game down out of boredom?

 

[DividedUnity]

Company Of Heroes turtling is very easy. Just build mines, wires and Machine Gun Emplacements and slowly push forward.

All of these can easily be killed by artillery though that was my original point.If you do build a wall of defences if the enemy uses artillery you end up having more holes in it than a big budget porno.

Hmmm... I'll have to think about that. Maybe a Turtle and Tank attack?

THe way I usually do it is like that yeah. Get a few shermans and a few defences. I find the artillery route alot easier if youre plyaing the american/british.just build a few defences then gun batterys behind them then build another line of defences slightly further out. If anyone attacks use the artillery barrage. Is kind of like aggresive turtling

 

[ethaninja]

I love turtling as it makes the gameplay much longer. Plus I'm more of a defense man so it works well for me anyway.

 

[Nouw]

Company Of Heroes turtling is very easy. Just build mines, wires and Machine Gun Emplacements and slowly push forward.

All of these can easily be killed by artillery though that was my original point.If you do build a wall of defences if the enemy uses artillery you end up having more holes in it than a big budget porno.

Hmmm... I'll have to think about that. Maybe a Turtle and Tank attack?

THe way I usually do it is like that yeah. Get a few shermans and a few defences. I find the artillery route alot easier if youre plyaing the american/british.just build a few defences then gun batterys behind them then build another line of defences slightly further out. If anyone attacks use the artillery barrage. Is kind of like aggresive turtling

I'm a newcomer to Company Of Heroes and I thought of that?

 

[DividedUnity]

Company Of Heroes turtling is very easy. Just build mines, wires and Machine Gun Emplacements and slowly push forward.

All of these can easily be killed by artillery though that was my original point.If you do build a wall of defences if the enemy uses artillery you end up having more holes in it than a big budget porno.

Hmmm... I'll have to think about that. Maybe a Turtle and Tank attack?

THe way I usually do it is like that yeah. Get a few shermans and a few defences. I find the artillery route alot easier if youre plyaing the american/british.just build a few defences then gun batterys behind them then build another line of defences slightly further out. If anyone attacks use the artillery barrage. Is kind of like aggresive turtling

I'm a newcomer to Company Of Heroes and I thought of that?

It only works on occasion though because tanks take a hell of a lot of resources to build. So if the enemy simply builds many squads of infantry then takes all the fuel points then youre pretty screwed

 

[Nouw]

Company Of Heroes turtling is very easy. Just build mines, wires and Machine Gun Emplacements and slowly push forward.

All of these can easily be killed by artillery though that was my original point.If you do build a wall of defences if the enemy uses artillery you end up having more holes in it than a big budget porno.

Hmmm... I'll have to think about that. Maybe a Turtle and Tank attack?

THe way I usually do it is like that yeah. Get a few shermans and a few defences. I find the artillery route alot easier if youre plyaing the american/british.just build a few defences then gun batterys behind them then build another line of defences slightly further out. If anyone attacks use the artillery barrage. Is kind of like aggresive turtling

I'm a newcomer to Company Of Heroes and I thought of that?

It only works on occasion though because tanks take a hell of a lot of resources to build. So if the enemy simply builds many squads of infantry then takes all the fuel points then youre pretty screwed

Thats what happened to me playing AI. All the fuel points were gone and I was screwed. Except I was playing Airborne.

 

[mb16]

i play DowC, world in conflict and supreme commander 1 for my RTS's and i always use artillery or sometimes heavy air (bombers)

if valid i like support weapons

 

[DividedUnity]

i play DowC, world in conflict and supreme commander 1 for my RTS's and i always use artillery or sometimes heavy air (bombers)

if valid i like support weapons

I always use air units in supcom. Their power against land and sea units is ridiculous, except for cruisers!!. I dont really use the artillery though as the range is very limited. Unless its experimental.

Thats what happened to me playing AI. All the fuel points were gone and I was screwed. Except I was playing Airborne.

Anytime I play AI I use infantry commander. Just get a few 105s and thats you sorted. Airborne is alright but sometimes the enemy just puts their soldiers in buildings and it takes forever to get them out with out grenades.

 

[mb16]

i play DowC, world in conflict and supreme commander 1 for my RTS's and i always use artillery or sometimes heavy air (bombers)

if valid i like support weapons

I always use air units in supcom. Their power against land and sea units is ridiculous, except for cruisers!!. I dont really use the artillery though as the range is very limited. Unless its experimental.

its all about positioning i can get a tech 3 arty in range of a base it all about 'hiding' them until you have a good defence for them. the UEF tech 4 arty is the win

 

[DividedUnity]

i play DowC, world in conflict and supreme commander 1 for my RTS's and i always use artillery or sometimes heavy air (bombers)

if valid i like support weapons

I always use air units in supcom. Their power against land and sea units is ridiculous, except for cruisers!!. I dont really use the artillery though as the range is very limited. Unless its experimental.

its all about positioning i can get a tech 3 arty in range of a base it all about 'hiding' them until you have a good defence for them. the UEF tech 4 arty is the win

I never really used them for offence before. It was mainly for defence. I must try that out. Or you could just get loads of mobile artillery. Get a few transports then take a sneaky route around his defences or line of site. Use scouts and make sure he sees them so he thinks the other units are just more scouts. Start firing. Win?

Also have you played forged alliance? The experimental aeon artillery is amazing. It has a air blast shell that pretty much kills everything

 

[mb16]

snip

yes but i didn't like the interface as it was too clustered, my mods and maps from supcom often didn't work and the game-play seamed generally slower to me.

 

[DividedUnity]

snip

yes but i didn't like the interface as it was too clustered, my mods and maps from supcom often didn't work and the game-play seamed generally slower to me.

Ah. Yes supcoms UI was a bit easier to use. When playing skirmish with AI i thought it was a bit slow to start but I thought the campaign and online play were quite well paced.

Some of the mods for it were good too. The one that adds a fourth tier of space units was quite interesting.

 

[ploppytheman]

(This does not apply to Starcraft/Age of Empires)

What? I always turtled when I was a casual RTS user and most people did that too so they could see huge battles with the big units. In fact if you play starcraft all the noobs have NR 20min which means you don't attack for 20 minutes and they play on MONEY MAPS so they don't have to expand and can turtle. Rushing a dedicated turtle is bad play unless you found a hole. You expand and macro when they turtle.

There is no offensive rush. Any decent player takes map control and resources and swoops out of the sky like a badass, grabs the turtle out of the water flies high as it can and drops the turtles on rocks and swoops down and eats its guts NOM NOM NOM.

You don't read.

No u. I got into RTS through C@C where every strategy is mass units with telsa coils and move out. I think I own every C@C up to the two newest and I have played a lot of other RTSs. The single player is 99% build up defenses and amass an army while fending off bee lines off a few units. Just because I reference SC in argument to casual users didn't mean i didn't read your post. When I first got starcraft I sucked, I turtled/massed because thats what ALL OTHER RTS TEACH and I have had to relearn how to play, and I'm plat in SC2 Beta.

If you can defend from all angles then the game is flawed. Thats why Starcraft has been around for a decade, is the only real pro gaming, is the national sport of Korea, and is RTS perfection. Playing some idiotic Yuri's Revenge or any C@C is just blatantly IMBA and thats why they churn out those games. I've been playing RTS since I was probably 5 and sim city before that. I remember playing Red Alert in 4th grade, thats like 15+years of RTS.

I don't really care if you think your strats are good because I'd wreck you in SC/SC2 trying some turtle strat. I look at how the pros play and try to imitate/build on that rather than go "lol I am the best evar I haz towas".

And your obviously stupid... I never said it was my strategy, nor am I saying I'm better than anyone else in any RTS for that matter The fact you even brought up your skills shows your arrogance. Anyway, I said what I needed to say. Get back on topic.

BTW - If you didn't care, you wouldn't have replied.

Having defense be greater than offense doesn't make a game. Thats what turtling is. If defense was better than offense no one would go offense and there would be a stalemate every game.

My skills show I have authority on the matter, and more so I learned my skills from the best who play games professionally 12hrs a day. Sometimes its smart to listen to those who are better than you rather than think you know everything. Do you think I care what some random on the internet thinks? Replying doesn't mean I care what you think. You care when you reply so you are just putting your own mindset on me, which is why you suck at RTS because you don't understand that people think differently.

 

[ploppytheman]

My RTS experience is pretty much limited to Blizzard (including SC2) but assuming the general tactics are roughly the same for most strategy games, I just let people turtle. It limits their economy by definition, so while they're hunkered down, snickering about steam-rolling me to themselves, I try to ensure I have double their income, and can completely reverse it on them when they push out. Keeping a scouting eye on them is obviously important to ensure they're not doing some sneaky cheese like a mass drop or something, but turtles often destroy themselves just by hoping you don't out-macro them.

QFT. Oh wait I think thats not allowed here. This is how RTS is played. Just because your strategies work vs terrible noobs that are even worse than you does NOT mean your strategy is good. As skill level increases your options decrease. For instance in Arena I can often get a quick CC or chain mana burns on a bad, while the same tactics would be useless vs someone with any competence. RTS has the highest skill cap of any game and when you get to be decent probably 50% of your "strategies" won't work anymore. I know because I went from silver to platinum and things which would win me games in silver barely scratched platinum players. This goes for all games but is most evident in RTS or other high skill cap games.

 

[ploppytheman]

or 4. which I see most of the time, is "turtle until I lose".. or the "Hope for Allied Victory"

Lols if they do that, they've lost already in my mind.

The most important part of a proper turtling strategy (and I probably should have mentioned this) is knowing when and where to expand to, and when to go on the offensive. When you expand to a new resource zone, do so deliberately and install defenses there. They don't have to hold off the whole world, but they just have to hold long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Perform regular reconaissance, and adjust your plans accordingly.

I think it's also important to note that turtling doesn't necessarily mean staying exclusively in your starting zone. it just means picking your expansion points and fortifying them heavily. If someone turtles but doesn't leave their starting area, then you're quite right; they will most often lose. However, that's an indictment of the player not the strategy. I play defensive, and in many cases I win. I'm not super-badass, but I do well enough to think that turtling is viable.

Turtling isnt expanding, or going offensive for a long time, its building static defenses and staying in one area to try to mass an army. There is teching and playing defensive but turtling is pretty much 100% sit in your base. Otherwise its called a timing push or teching.