Re: Which Nations Are Best for Turtling?
 

I've always seen any real turtling strategy as a simple build-up of resources that either have no cost to maintain or pay themselves off. On one end of the spectrum are the much maligned gem-gen items that pay themselves off and at the other end you can acquire SCs and thugs that have no cost to maintain.

I mean, if a guy has the income to make one SC a turn, a turtler can wait ten turns instead of five because that doubles the numbers of SCs he can bring to war when he finally decides to do it.

Another example would be: keeping ten mages with an average research of six at home for ten turns equals 600 research points and that far exceeds what another player might have gained by simply sending those ten to acquire provinces in a war in terms of short-term turn advantage.

In the worse case, an opponent will drain gems, gold, and mage-time to such a degree that no amount of provinces or sites gained will offset the cost of the war before the game ends. Only wars that pay themselves off are worth it, so to continue our example with ten mages sent to war, we can see that they must take enough resources to buy more mages that can eventually close that 600 research point gap and lost turn advantage before the game ends or important enemy benchmarks are reached (globals going up, SCs built, etc.).

One of Dominions basic problems is that there is a large incentive to not fight wars until you have some tactic worked out that can bring a bloodless war. The problem with that is that by then your opponent usually has some way of making your war NOT bloodless, thus leading to even more turtling. Like a samurai or gunslinger staring duel, the win goes to the one who can strike without the opponent getting a strike in.

That being said, Bless rushers also make fine turtlers since they can often grab an empire large enough in the early game that no one wants to attack them for fear of unacceptable losses.

Re: Which Nations Are Best for Turtling?
 

There are definitely some nations who will be better than others at turtling. The obvious problem is a likely lower gold and gem income compared to someone who has expanded aggressively. Thus good turtling nations should probably have:

1) Cheap research mages - if you can get 1 research per 20 gold or less, that's great.
2) Lots of magic paths, either national, or from a rainbow pretender. You want to maximise gem income from your limited provinces.
3) High resource, low gold troops. Generally, more resources spent make units more combat effective for the gold cost, thus you need fewer and it saves on upkeep. Nations that can reanimate or summon allies are handy here.

A major determinant of the usefulness of turtling will be your strategy: you want good scales. A nation with +order, +growth, +magic can equal or better the development of a larger nation with bad scales. In particular, growth means your income keeps on improving, whereas turtling with death dominion is a recipe for disaster.

Re: Which Nations Are Best for Turtling?
 

A nation who's troops have high resources and low costs have to build up their army while at peace. That is terrible for turtling. Yet those with very low resource costs, like Hydras, can horde their income and pay for armies on the fly. It means that when you do build an army, it will be bigger then if you built one up during peace because you saved a lot of money on upkeep costs.

Re: Which Nations Are Best for Turtling?
 

@K

Well, your points are valid, however mostly so when you already have an advantage.
If you are making SCs only your enemy can make more this doesn't help you much. Same for research, only when you are going to have a good income already (or skull mentors), otherwise you just fall behind.
Chance is that early on is your best bet to fight a bloodless fight with/against the right nations (Hinnom vs. Ulm for instance).
Even if you loose 2000 gold but take provinces worth 500 gp per turn it pays off very early and you can then more than catch up on research.
And if you are turtling through this with a third nation if you wait until they catch up through income you haven't gained that much.

Re: Which Nations Are Best for Turtling?
 

Your troops and mages don't necessarily have to make up their cost in gold return. They can also make it up in gold loss caused to the enemy. If they take 300 gold from the enemy and put it in your pocket, provided that enemy is really standing in the way of your victory, it's effectively a 600 gold gain.

Re: Which Nations Are Best for Turtling?
 

That's only true if he's your only enemy, Sombre. Not a usual case. (its still only a 300g improvement relative to nations you didn't take the provinces from).

Re: Which Nations Are Best for Turtling?
 

He doesn't have to be your only opponent for you to /have/ to take him down. As long as he's actually in your way and you need to conquer him and some other opponent doesn't benefit from his gold losses, I think it works out as a better deal than just gaining 300 gold. After all no matter what you do you'll have to use whatever gold (or other resources) you get to eventually beat your opponents. While the 600 gold could be used on any of them, the truth is it will essentially be used on one of them (you research a key spell which is particularly good against one of your opponents, etc).

Re: Which Nations Are Best for Turtling?
 

True, but in my view very unsafe.

Without a substantial, standing military, the first thing an aggressor would consider would be to drop thugs/SCs or heavy unrest on all the fortresses. Thus he'd be facing a nation with no army and at least a few turns before he can build one. The turtler should be able to clear his fortresses and build an army eventually, but by then half his empire might be occupied.