How to "Turtle"

[DaSwede97]

I've been playing for a while now and I cannot get myself to Turtle well.
I want to know,

What tactics you use to turtle effectively?

What factions you use to turtle?

And Is it a good idea or should I just rush?

[Macilrille]

Only if you are very skilled should you turtle on VH/VH difficulty. If you want to win you should Blitz, if you want to play according to Lore, you turtle.

If you want to Turtle;
-build up growth buildings, then economy then military.
-build very few new units and adopt no new Generals unless they have very good traits. You might even want to disband a few units if you have no use for them (I always disband HE fleet).
-Use spies and watchtowers to give you an early warning of approaching enemies, so you can gather your armies from the towns, fortresses and forts you keep them in to take advantage of the free upkeep (I myself am not too good at that- I instead use a halfstack - fullstack at each front as a mobile force to meet and check the enemy, but that is expensive).
-If you have faced and weathered a major invasion (not the Crusade-invasions by Sauron), and you can see no new one coming, disband any units who you cannot garission for free that does not have significant experience and that can be easily replaced. So inexperienced Militia; disband them.

Those are the few pieces of advice I can think of right now. There are probably more- I might even use more, for I like to turtle, but those are what I can think off.

Factions for Turtling; none, they all suck at turtling, except MOS Dunland, but for the good factions Dale and Gondor are the worst whereas FPoE, SE and HE are easier to turtle with. I have not tried to turtle with an evil faction except Dunland, but I changed sides with those.

[Dude with the Food]

Elves are porbably easiest to turtle with but if you want to use the benefits of turtling then Dale or Isengard can be fun. (Don't try an Isengard turtling campaign though unless you are crazy.) Especially as those faction (except Isengard) abuse forts. Even more especially as SE because you can place one at each forest entry with a watchtower and you get a few free upkeep units in TATW for forts. (2 or 4) Use the forts for your best units because I think they take any units as opposed to 'militia'-type units.

Build up the economy first like Macrille said and definitely use spies wher you can. Clear out rebels immediately for experience and wait for the attack. Then you can either send soldiers to the forts, to border cities/castles or meet them on the field (or as SE don't meet them at all and shoot them before they notice you ).

[DaSwede97]

Thanks Dude w/ the Food and Macilrille, I will be sure to try it out

[Lanier]

I'm curious... what is you all's definition of "turtling" (by this, I mean what does the term mean)? I have always considered turtling to be playing a defensive game - that is, making sure my borders are secure before going on the offensive and making sure my economy is secure before adding to my military. While I do use watchtowers almost religiously, I feel like I don't all/most of the rules that Dude w/ food and Macilrille layed out. Personally, I have never had a blitzing/rushing game before... and I mean never. I just feel like its boring and not realistic. Therefore, I guess I've always considered my playstyle to be a turtling playstyle, but it doesn't seem to line up with what you two described. I don't necessarily focus on economy buildings before military buildings, I don't really notice/care about free upkeep at all (my armies usually sit outside cities or move across my borders when not attacking), and I hardly ever disband units or bother with forts (I prefer field battles). Also, my playstyle doesn't feel more difficult than blitzing, though maybe I just don't have enough blitzing experience to be able to adequately compare the playstyles. Is what I always thought to be the definition of turtling wrong?

[Aldor]

Personally, I have never had a blitzing/rushing game before... and I mean never. I just feel like its boring and not realistic.

Concerning the 'realistic'...

I think Hitler, Napoleon, Caesar, Hannibal, Alexander, ... all used a rush strategy to some extent.

Caesar for example was a dead man if he would have failed. He created a huge debt to get his chance (and almost lost against Vercingetorix).

Alexander is another story about an insanely succesfull blitz.

While building up, you're momentarily weaker. This is a first element that plays into a rusher's strenght.

The surprise element coupled to the advantage of choosing the place of attack and fighting in enemy territory.

Specifically for LotR. Saruman might have build up a short time, but he performed a rush-like strategy. It's also a known fact that Sauron is basicly the rusher of middle earth, attacking before building up.

One could argue that Sauron and Saruman were unsuccesful. This isn't really true. Their plans actually worked out great. However, they both got beaten by a deus-ex-machina: ents and the one ring destruction.

[Duke of Metz]

It's also a known fact that Sauron is basicly the rusher of middle earth, attacking before building up.

I disagree with this statement. In the Third Age, Sauron was as patient as could be in prepping to take over Middle Earth. Remember, he returned to power as the Necromancer in Dol Gulder ~1000 TA and the events of LOTR didn't occur til nearly 2000 years later. Over that time he used his servants to destroy the Northern Dunedain, corrupt Mirkwood, eliminate Rhovanion, and secure alliances with the Southrons and Easterlings. Only the knowledge that the One Ring had been found really caused him to rush - as he knew it was the only way he could be defeated.

[Macue]

Turtling means going slowly forward, not attacking enemies. Doing the more realistic thing more or less, you build your economy before the army.

[knight of meh]

@Lanier you are the rare breed of snapping offensive turtle...

generally turtles never go on the offensive , and they usually play very hard games so there economy is quite tight

[ElvenKind]

Turtling is, something like not going too fast... Like in this picture:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Macilrille]

In TATW, you have to expand at some point- as in all TW games. But generally I do not do so until Turn 100, and then only slowly. This makes for a more realistic, but also kore challenging game I believe. Though of course a real Blitz is very difficult as well- at least it is in EB.

[Lanier]

100 turns, eh? That sounds pretty fun. This rare breed of snapping offensive turtle will have to try it out sometime.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

War Turtle....for...the...win!


I think Harad is a good faction to turtle with. Basically you give Gondor a bloody nose then give them cease fire with trades rights and $100 a day tribute. While Gondor and Mordor knock each other senceless, you build your economy and snake Rhun's southernmost province from them. They don't need those mines anyway. Mordor breaks their alliance with you but is more than happy to realign once you make peace with Rhun.

I like playing to see the changes in the campaign map and building a solid economy so that when I do go to war I'm fighting with swords, not pitchforks. Am currently 110 turns in playing vanilla 3.2 with total diplomacy which comes in handy if other factions don't see things your way. I just launched an invasion stack to go take the drawfs western settlements from them. They won't be needing those mines either!....

Yes, I did you total diplomacy to send Gondor's scripted turn 80ish Invasion stack back whence it came. It when to Isengard and got spanked after initial success helping out Rohn.

I'll work on knocking out a turtling guide once I get them campaign squared away. Go Turtles!

[Flinn]

I'm curious... what is you all's definition of "turtling" (by this, I mean what does the term mean)? I have always considered turtling to be playing a defensive game - that is, making sure my borders are secure before going on the offensive and making sure my economy is secure before adding to my military. While I do use watchtowers almost religiously, I feel like I don't all/most of the rules that Dude w/ food and Macilrille layed out. Personally, I have never had a blitzing/rushing game before... and I mean never. I just feel like its boring and not realistic. Therefore, I guess I've always considered my playstyle to be a turtling playstyle, but it doesn't seem to line up with what you two described. I don't necessarily focus on economy buildings before military buildings, I don't really notice/care about free upkeep at all (my armies usually sit outside cities or move across my borders when not attacking), and I hardly ever disband units or bother with forts (I prefer field battles). Also, my playstyle doesn't feel more difficult than blitzing, though maybe I just don't have enough blitzing experience to be able to adequately compare the playstyles. Is what I always thought to be the definition of turtling wrong?

well I think it depends on which game/faction and difficulty you play, basically in any case blitzing makes things easier on the long term, because you will take more settlements (and money) to your side while taking them from your foes; in some cases they will never be able to recover and never become a treat for you.

I'll work on knocking out a turtling guide once I get them campaign squared away. Go Turtles!

I have had mine ready since some weeks, but I was in doubt it would be so useful; looking at this post I think I'm gonna upload it right after I finished here

On a side note I thought it was common practice to build economic buildings first no matter how you play

I can't but agree 100%

Flinn

[LuckyPistol]

In my experience, some factions can't even turtle unless you get rid of specific settlements (Dwarves and sometimes Mordor). But those that can easiest are probably Harad and Elves. If you can get peace with the Dwarves, the Orcs of Gundabad can have a relatively easy turtle campaign until Eriador decides to go ape**** on you, but in general, you shouldn't turtle with any horde faction. Horde factions need to be constantly expanding to support an ever growing army, which makes Isengard (espeically MOS Isengard) the third hardest campaign no matter how you play (if you turtle with Gondor, it moves down to fourth of course). Mordor is the only instance of a horde faction that can turtle effectively, but that's because of its godly defensive position and Harad backing it up.

On a side note I thought it was common practice to build economic buildings first no matter how you play

[Flinn]

Guide uploaded http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...4#post12821274

Turtlers, please have a look

Flinn

[Macilrille]

However, they both only attacked almost 40 years from the start of TATW, so they, as well as Rhûn and Harad had 160 Vanilla turns of turtling and building up power first. And no good faction expanded much in that period.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Mega's Third Age of Turtles: A guide to Turtling

As promised guys...

[Ulfgard the Unmaker]

I'm a dedicated turtle, myself (at least until late game; at that point I liken my strategy more to Juggernaut-- ignoring the fact that he's huge and the Dwarves are short). I'm also a dedicated player of the Dwarves. As a faction, they are excellent candidates for the turtle-game: they have an incredibly stout defense, a godly economy once you develop your mines (which should be done at the earliest possibility), and most of their units are effective against armor, which is always a good thing for you. Your western settlements almost never come under threat, unless OoG really trounce Eriador early-game, so you're free to prioritize your eastern holdings (Erebor and the surrounding provinces). Really the only thing you have to worry about is that Rhun is sitting on the richest real estate in Middle Earth, and they also get crossbowmen really early on. Since most of your defensive stats are grounded in your armor, you'll have to make the tough decision of trying to either stay well out of range or take them head on.

My biggest advice as a player of Dwarves is to remember one thing: your troops are siege-battle gods. A well-commanded force of Dwarves can be devastating on an open field, so long as they don't get kited to Hell and back, but where they really shine is siege warfare-- particularly of the defensive variety. Personally, I avoid field battles like the plague. Siege warfare gives you a chance to pin and destroy the enemy, not quite with impunity, but without having to worry about never quite catching the foe to destroy him. Chokepoints are immensely important for any faction (even horde factions, except the important part there is for them to avoid chokepoints at all costs), but are particularly important for Dwarves. Against low-stat horde units (namely the orcish factions), it's as simple as putting a corpse in a wood chipper. Mid-to-late game troops? Tougher, but the challenge is usually not insurmountable. Actually, in these instances may be even better for you: with the exception of Rhun whose late-game units include a lot of armor-piercing (or crushing) weapons, most other factions can't really do much to counter your armor while you can smash through theirs. It's the same kind of long attrition as against a horde of Snagas, except that the enemies are slightly less terrible and don't come in lots of over 200 per unit. I call those pretty good odds. Of course, once you've gotten the enemy bogged down along one or two main pathways in the city, you're free to move your heaviest hitters into position to smash the enemy apart. I have a love-hate relationship with defending the walls themselves. Against a large force, I usually let the enemy march right into the city. In any siege defense situation, and especially against an enemy fielding trolls, your units on the walls are generally sacrificial lambs. I find it easier to let the enemy flood the streets and then bog them down in the chokepoints before moving in for the kill.

Back on the campaign map, the only thing I really do that some people may say is non-traditional for a turtle is I keep a large reserve force of Dwarves tromping back and forth across Dale's provinces that border me. Before I started this, I usually ended up surrounded on all sides because Rhun's economic leverage allowed it to munch Dale; it took them a while, but once they picked up momentum, I found the eastern provinces to be, metaphorically, great pillars of stone battered from all sides by a wrathful and tireless sea. If you make a point to devote one force to helping Dale hold their own settlements, you'll free up some of Dale's resources to help them keep the pressure on Rhun and off of you. One hand, in this case, truly washes the other. While the eastern settlements have definite priority, directly bordering a far more formidable foe, do not utterly neglect your western settlements of Thorin's Halls and Kibil Dum. It is ultimately from the west, from these two settlements, that all my major offensives are launched until Dwarven armies may march from Thorin's Halls to Erebor without leaving Dwarven lands. When your armies do finally roll westward, Juggernaut-style, you're all but guaranteed to face down most of the forces that the Orcs of Gundabad have amassed during your long rise, and what's left of the Orcs of the Misty Mountains, who usually don't fare very well into late campaign. The settlements you take in this push will take a long time convert to your culture, or be in any way useful in unit-production. However, if you maintain some level of public order, these settlements can be used to significantly boost your economy (shifting it into a sort of "financial overdrive," if you will) long before you can bring them up to a level of military production useful for more than basic garrisons. If Eriador and the High Elves have fared particularly badly in the given campaign, these "bridge settlements" connecting the settlements in Ered Luin to the eastern provinces will face a secondary turtle stage while any hostile forces immediately southward throw themselves against your newly-acquired territory. This can actually be the single most dangerous phase of a Dwarven campaign, according to the tactics I employ. If executed too hastily, this push to unify the two disparate sets of holdings will leave the newly captured settlements woefully undefended only to be captured shortly thereafter, resulting in a total loss of all expenditures involved in that step of the campaign. On the contrary, as a dedicated turtler, it is exceptionally easy to get bogged down and play overly cautious, moving on only when the captured region is self-sufficient. If, and only if, you have the manpower to spare, this problem may be alleviated by pushing west from Erebor and the related provinces to meet somewhere in the middle.

At that point, you should no longer be surrounded. As Dwarves, if you're not surrounded, there's comparatively little to worry about. Your options are to go back to wait out the rest of the war for Middle Earth to see who comes out on top, or to grind down from the north with all the inexorability of a glacier made of of steel, mithril, and stout Dwarven bodies.

[Ulfgard the Unmaker]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I'm a dedicated turtle, myself (at least until late game; at that point I liken my strategy more to Juggernaut-- ignoring the fact that he's huge and the Dwarves are short). I'm also a dedicated player of the Dwarves. As a faction, they are excellent candidates for the turtle-game: they have an incredibly stout defense, a godly economy once you develop your mines (which should be done at the earliest possibility), and most of their units are effective against armor, which is always a good thing for you. Your western settlements almost never come under threat, unless OoG really trounce Eriador early-game, so you're free to prioritize your eastern holdings (Erebor and the surrounding provinces). Really the only thing you have to worry about is that Rhun is sitting on the richest real estate in Middle Earth, and they also get crossbowmen really early on. Since most of your defensive stats are grounded in your armor, you'll have to make the tough decision of trying to either stay well out of range or take them head on.

My biggest advice as a player of Dwarves is to remember one thing: your troops are siege-battle gods. A well-commanded force of Dwarves can be devastating on an open field, so long as they don't get kited to Hell and back, but where they really shine is siege warfare-- particularly of the defensive variety. Personally, I avoid field battles like the plague. Siege warfare gives you a chance to pin and destroy the enemy, not quite with impunity, but without having to worry about never quite catching the foe to destroy him. Chokepoints are immensely important for any faction (even horde factions, except the important part there is for them to avoid chokepoints at all costs), but are particularly important for Dwarves. Against low-stat horde units (namely the orcish factions), it's as simple as putting a corpse in a wood chipper. Mid-to-late game troops? Tougher, but the challenge is usually not insurmountable. Actually, in these instances may be even better for you: with the exception of Rhun whose late-game units include a lot of armor-piercing (or crushing) weapons, most other factions can't really do much to counter your armor while you can smash through theirs. It's the same kind of long attrition as against a horde of Snagas, except that the enemies are slightly less terrible and don't come in lots of over 200 per unit. I call those pretty good odds. Of course, once you've gotten the enemy bogged down along one or two main pathways in the city, you're free to move your heaviest hitters into position to smash the enemy apart. I have a love-hate relationship with defending the walls themselves. Against a large force, I usually let the enemy march right into the city. In any siege defense situation, and especially against an enemy fielding trolls, your units on the walls are generally sacrificial lambs. I find it easier to let the enemy flood the streets and then bog them down in the chokepoints before moving in for the kill.

Back on the campaign map, the only thing I really do that some people may say is non-traditional for a turtle is I keep a large reserve force of Dwarves tromping back and forth across Dale's provinces that border me. Before I started this, I usually ended up surrounded on all sides because Rhun's economic leverage allowed it to munch Dale; it took them a while, but once they picked up momentum, I found the eastern provinces to be, metaphorically, great pillars of stone battered from all sides by a wrathful and tireless sea. If you make a point to devote one force to helping Dale hold their own settlements, you'll free up some of Dale's resources to help them keep the pressure on Rhun and off of you. One hand, in this case, truly washes the other. While the eastern settlements have definite priority, directly bordering a far more formidable foe, do not utterly neglect your western settlements of Thorin's Halls and Kibil Dum. It is ultimately from the west, from these two settlements, that all my major offensives are launched until Dwarven armies may march from Thorin's Halls to Erebor without leaving Dwarven lands. When your armies do finally roll westward, Juggernaut-style, you're all but guaranteed to face down most of the forces that the Orcs of Gundabad have amassed during your long rise, and what's left of the Orcs of the Misty Mountains, who usually don't fare very well into late campaign. The settlements you take in this push will take a long time convert to your culture, or be in any way useful in unit-production. However, if you maintain some level of public order, these settlements can be used to significantly boost your economy (shifting it into a sort of "financial overdrive," if you will) long before you can bring them up to a level of military production useful for more than basic garrisons. If Eriador and the High Elves have fared particularly badly in the given campaign, these "bridge settlements" connecting the settlements in Ered Luin to the eastern provinces will face a secondary turtle stage while any hostile forces immediately southward throw themselves against your newly-acquired territory. This can actually be the single most dangerous phase of a Dwarven campaign, according to the tactics I employ. If executed too hastily, this push to unify the two disparate sets of holdings will leave the newly captured settlements woefully undefended only to be captured shortly thereafter, resulting in a total loss of all expenditures involved in that step of the campaign. On the contrary, as a dedicated turtler, it is exceptionally easy to get bogged down and play overly cautious, moving on only when the captured region is self-sufficient. If, and only if, you have the manpower to spare, this problem may be alleviated by pushing west from Erebor and the related provinces to meet somewhere in the middle.

At that point, you should no longer be surrounded. As Dwarves, if you're not surrounded, there's comparatively little to worry about. Your options are to go back to wait out the rest of the war for Middle Earth to see who comes out on top, or to grind down from the north with all the inexorability of a glacier made of of steel, mithril, and stout Dwarven bodies.

I guess I should add a disclaimer to my earlier post: I'm something of a one-trick pony, and if things don't really go according to plan, I really have no back-up for this. Plan(s) B (C, D, E, F, etc....) is your own responsibility.