Turtlers and Rushers?

[Atreidi]

It was not until I played a 500 province map that I remember reading something about players being turtlers and rushers.

I realize now that I am defently a turtle. I expand slow and give priority to building up my defence instead of expancion. I counter my slow expancion with high dominion and very high city defence.

I've tried different strategies but I think Im stuck being a slow-and-steady type of player. Is it like that for everyone? Are you either a Turtle (Defensive) or Rusher (offencive)?

The Defensive strategy works best for small maps and offencive on bigger ones, I've come to learn from my experience.

[MaxWilson]

Closer to offensive than defensive in the early game, because I hate losing the economic war and you need provinces for gems. Later on I turtle a bit as I'm doing research and building up resources for my second war, just because I find a never-ending offensive psychologically draining. I like to bite off a discrete chunk of war, finish it, and pause for a bit before beginning the next war.

-Max

[Sombre]

In my experience most dom players seem to be total turtlers. They like to sit back and research, build up etc before attacking someone clearly weaker, usually from fighting and usually with the help of another turtler ally or three.

Aggressive people often get ganked for being too big too early or are weakened by fighting and get outpaced by turtlers who were left alone to get too strong.

[Ironhawk]

Whether you turtle or rush depends on what nation you are playing. If you are playing a nation which blew all its scales for a huge bless on awesome sacreds then you need to attack without ceasing or you will lose. On the other hand if you are playing a nation with awesome, cheap researchers, then you will probably want to turtle for a long time until you have reached magical dominance.

Sombre, I think the pattern of play you have noticed is what occurs in most games... but your application of "turtler" to most players is excessive. After all, a player which is too agressive will be ganged. But a player who turtles too often will be dwarfed by more aggressive neighbors. I have found most dom players to be a mix of the two.

[JimMorrison]

Atreidi said:
It was not until I played a 500 province map that I remember reading something about players being turtlers and rushers.

I realize now that I am defently a turtle. I expand slow and give priority to building up my defence instead of expancion. I counter my slow expancion with high dominion and very high city defence.

I've tried different strategies but I think Im stuck being a slow-and-steady type of player. Is it like that for everyone? Are you either a Turtle (Defensive) or Rusher (offencive)?

The Defensive strategy works best for small maps and offencive on bigger ones, I've come to learn from my experience.

Playing a lot of strategy games in SP mode teaches you to turtle. AIs universally tend to be hyperaggressive, and you eventually learn that an unassailable defense means that -anything- that you accumulate over time is an advantage over the computer who is flailing impotently against your walls.

I found that win Dom3, even in SP, the best way to force yourself to understand aggression, is to learn how to build an awake SC. Bear in mind, at first you probably won't do it right, and he'll get afflicted and/or die within the first several turns. After several tries, experimenting with Fear, and Awe, and easily accessed buffs, you will start to get the hang of it. But the trick is to force yourself to use the SC to take a constant string of territories, while still performing your normal expansion attacks with your other forces. So for example as a nation and/or player that tends to just take 1 province per turn for the first year, try to keep yourself gaining 2 per turn, with the aid of your SC.

Then you get to experience the next frustrating thing, being slightly overextended and having 2-3 AIs suddenly declare war on you on opposite sides of your empire before you can get forts in place on your front lines to hold them off.

[Agema]

It's balance, really, isn't it?

Your main resources are gold and mages. Gold that goes into troops can't go into mages and castles. Mages that are out fighting don't do research or site searching. But rushing = territory = money & gems = more mages and castles.

If you over-rush or over-turtle, either way you'll potentially get yourself into trouble by being overextended and underdeveloped, or being too economically small. Possibly you either want to expand at someone's expense by picking on the weak or allying, so you can grow with one hand and develop with the other. Alternatively, maybe go all-out against an opponent, and then consolidate your gains for a while, and switch between development and war.

[thejeff]

Turtling only works in the long run if you can clam (the other gem producers to a lesser extent).
Sure, getting in protracted wars too early is a big problem, but you need to keep expanding your economy. If you can clam, you can do that without actually taking more territory, since gems become the real resource later in the game. If you can't, you need to get more gems by taking territory, which means fighting other nations.

I think 'rush' is generally used to mean very early attacks, to take an opponent out while most are still in the indy expansion phase.
While "turtling" usually is used for a strategy of avoiding war, after the initial expansion, until the endgame.
Most strategies, whether more or less aggressive, lie in between.

[Sombre]

There's also the added factor that for some nations the simple upkeep of a war machine is a big problem - their battle mages are not their cost effective researchers etc

So if they have their war machine rolling it's best to keep using it - if it hasn't taken losses it's just sitting around eating upkeep.

[chrispedersen]

...wears a "I am not a turtle!" lapel pin!

[OmikronWarrior]

I'd say, in general, turtling really doesn't exist in Dominions "gameplay" (in quotes for a reaon to be revealed later). Turtling means not playing slow per se, but investing in your defense. And defense comes in three forms: PD, forts, and a few globals. The globals aren't viable to late game, so I'd say they're not a real turtle defense. PD in general is weak and certainly won't stop any reasonably supported army or equiped SC. That leaves forts, but unless you find a choke point they're too expensive to use in that capacity.

That being said, one can still turtle using "diplomacy." Just make a lot of NAPs, buy players off and otherwise keep your nation safe and hope nobody decides to attack.