Since only kills by money are counted for the winning condition, the best strategy which works 90% of the time is to camp it out in your home sector with cheap units and perpetual camouflage+radio silence. Any attack on you is more expensive then what you loose, and even though you're doing miserable, if you manage to hang on for 25 minutes, you've "won".
Any game where there is a single best way to win is badly unbalanced.
This is most definitely NOT a winning strategy.Originally posted by pyalot:
Since only kills by money are counted for the winning condition, the best strategy which works 90% of the time is to camp it out in your home sector with cheap units and perpetual camouflage+radio silence. Any attack on you is more expensive then what you loose, and even though you're doing miserable, if you manage to hang on for 25 minutes, you've "won".
Any game where there is a single best way to win is badly unbalanced.
I see it occasionally, and it usually leads to the most out of hand scores that I get. For one, you are allowing the other player to grab the economic advantage by ceding them map control. Two you never are attacking and assaulting. And most importantly, you seem to operate under the assumption that the other player will blindly suicide his units against you. While that may be true for bad players, against good top competition, you will not get a single kill because any good player knows exactly what he is going up against with recon.
When I am in a game like this, its boring as hell, and the for the first 5-10 minutes the score will be zero-zero. But I am grabbing every depot I can, while the turtler sits behind what he thinks are an impenetrable wall of defenses. I then have free rein to build and upgrade absolutely whatever the hell I please, and also have a huge economic advantage (these kind of games usually end with me having around a 2000-800 resource advantage).
But the final straw for this strategy comes when the player you let sit for 10 minutes with majority map control and no harrassment is able to build a prototype building, and pump out the most effective arty units his faction can field. Sure you have camo net and radio silence, but the opponent can slowly creep up with his force using recon to spot AT guns and the like, and move closer and closer to your base. If you try and build arty units yourself, the enemy can target your arty which will pop up through the radio silence when they fire (and indirectly hit your buildings since you are holed up inside your base). Whereas your arty wont be doing **** since the smart aggressive player will only have units with armor which are effectively invulnerable to arty.
Like I said, I have seen it many many times. And its never pretty for the turtling player.
You also assume that the turtler has no resources of his own. When i turtle, and i admit to being an avid turtler against the AI, i love to build those admin buildings and put a ring of defenses around the supply depots i dont need or want. Once the enemy has exhausted his supply, he comes towards my bases looking for resources. Is is when i open up with my incredible defenses and pound his units with artillery while my fighter-bombers take out his long reaching units.
No, its not pretty and no, its not awesome fun to watch. But its how i like to play sometimes as i am interested in how units are arrayed on a strategic battlefield and i like to see how different defenses interact.
Turtling has its fanbase for various reasons and im tired of seeing people harp about it. Its no different a strategy than the lame tank rush or arial bombardment. A turtling strategy is more in line with an actual war; neither side wants to needlessly risk resources or units in combat. No one strikes until their own defenses are in place and they are assured of victory.
Just sayin. There is a time and place for the Turtler
Semper Pie
I emphatically disagree. You are playing against awful players if thats how you win, or the AI. But in ranked 1v1 games, you will be beat down hard when you turtle if you face anyone with a pulse.
And no you will not have anywhere near the resources of the other player when you turtle. Admin buildings cost 100, and only net you 15 resources a minute. Therefore it takes about 7 minutes just for the admin building to pay for itself. A supply depot only costs 40 and nets about 18 resources a minute. Therefore it only takes a little bit over 2 minutes to pay for itself and everything afterwards is profit. And notice still that the depot gives MORE resources per minute then the admin building. What this means is that after 10 minutes, the player controlling the map has way way more resources then the player who stayed in a corner with only 2-3 depots and built admin buildings the rest of the way.
This is really all that matters. If you turtle, you end up having way less resources then the player who has map control. So sure you can have artillery and bunkers and fighter-bombers of your own. But the player with map control will have more. Way more.
If you are really unsure about this, I play on the xbox, and would happily show it in game. My username is the same.
I've won 4 games like this against players who way outlevel me.
It doesn't work equally well on any map, some maps are better. It works best if you have 3 depots within one sector and lots of wood and city around which you can place lots of ambushing troops in.
Yes of course you're screwed when the opponent sends in recon, but that can be handled with a few artillery pieces, well placed AA and two fighters.
Eventually the game spirals down into either a suicide attack, or a resource slaughter, and since the other player always needs to bring in more expensive units to beat cheaper ones, again the disadvantage is on the attacker.
The gist of it is, having the economic upper hand does not ensure you're winning. If you're unable to bring to bear your economic superiority within 25 minutes, you loose.
I've played a bunch of games where I had the better strategy, occupied most sectors and had every toy I could wish for. But the opponent just camped it out, and I lost. That sucks.
Armored recon is countered by artillery or fighters? Thats news to me.Originally posted by pyalot:
I've won 4 games like this against players who way outlevel me.
It doesn't work equally well on any map, some maps are better. It works best if you have 3 depots within one sector and lots of wood and city around which you can place lots of ambushing troops in.
Yes of course you're screwed when the opponent sends in recon, but that can be handled with a few artillery pieces, well placed AA and two fighters.
Eventually the game spirals down into either a suicide attack, or a resource slaughter, and since the other player always needs to bring in more expensive units to beat cheaper ones, again the disadvantage is on the attacker.
And yes, every top player will be sending armored recon at you right off the bat. Unless they are US in which case its $5 jeeps. So by all means, use the turtle against bad players. But dont be surprised when you start facing more and more competent players as you move up and get beat horribly time and time again.
All of the above is one of the reasons why france is the most broken nation right now. Its a faction that focuses on turtling, but turtling is so positively easy to beat with artillery.
Again, you didnt counter turtling correctly then. You counter turtling with lots of the best artillery your faction can get. Period. Thats all there is to it. I have 93 total victories and 1 minor victory to 2 losses. (And the losses were definitely not to turtling players). I am not speaking out of my *** here when we are talking counters and strategy.Originally posted by pyalot:
The gist of it is, having the economic upper hand does not ensure you're winning. If you're unable to bring to bear your economic superiority within 25 minutes, you loose.
I've played a bunch of games where I had the better strategy, occupied most sectors and had every toy I could wish for. But the opponent just camped it out, and I lost. That sucks.
That's all well and true, but a good turtler can last 25 minutes during which he costs you more then you cost him. You *only* win if you can overrun the turtler, and if you can't be sure he'll magick some nasty surprise out of his radio silence hat, you can't simply expose your expensive hardware or you'll loose even more points, every one of which brings you further from victory, and all that while time is against you.
I have so far only seen one really good counter strategy to turtling, which was a last ditch bomber run.
Basically amass a lot of bombers before the turtlers fortress, and time it just right such that the bombrun finishes just as the game ends, before the bombers have turned around and get blown to pieces.
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