Turtling Discussion

[ArtNJ]

I may be moving away from the Scrambler. If you cant prevent the turtling from reaching a certain point, the Scrambler just isnt enough to win, particularly if its a Feedback v Feedback match when you need to fear hidden Scramblers yourself.

Bombshells and Mobi's are generally better at preventing turtling. The Scrambler is fantastic at killing non-feedback turtlers on Sharkfood and perhaps other smallish maps, but on larger maps (Peekaboo!) I think it can be defended against by turtlers. As long as soldiers/runners are in front of the heavies (or other soldiers) the scrambler just isnt cost effective.

I have come to believe that Peekaboo is a good reason to prefer Bombshell or Mobi to Scrambler. Peekaboo is also a possible illustration of a problem with the game (crazy long defensive battles), but I need a few more matches after switching to another faction which may cure my neg view of the map.

Edit: I meant Sweetie Plains, sorry! The big adorables map.

[aaronINdayton]

I am curious to see if one team ends up having an advantage in the turtle wars, I can imagine Mobi chains harrasing, lines of Scramblers ready to convert the front lines of the other army, and bombshells inching forward threatening doom... but who wins?

[Harti]

(07-25-2012 06:09 AM)aaronINdayton Wrote:  I am curious to see if one team ends up having an advantage in the turtle wars, I can imagine Mobi chains harrasing, lines of Scramblers ready to convert the front lines of the other army, and bombshells inching forward threatening doom... but who wins?

It's usually RPS: Bombshell > Scrambler > Mobi > Bombshell.

Mobi has the highest chances to break out of this scheme though because it's a flying unicorn whale (which obviously grants you lots of flexibility).

[swimj]

Why is scrambler>mobi? Mobi obviates the fear of the 4 space "no zone" which both scrambler and bombshell make. It doesn't seem as clear cut rps to me.

[Harti]

Mobi doesn't like pressure. The Feedback, with their instant-ready special unit, can - if shielded properly - completely disrupt the adorable strategy. It's not as clear as with the others but it's still an edge. Most of the time you can outplay that but we're currently talking about turtled up situations.

[crump7]

I am saddened but not surprised to find that some players are quote “disgusted” with turtling or “hate” rushers, or runner spammers, such reactions seem excessive to say the least, and personally I like the challenge of facing a variety of strategies and unless there is something genuinely broken, I am just as happy to play a 30+ turn game of turtling attrition as any other as long as I get variety, which I certainly have so far.

On the subject of Turtling it seems to me that in most games it can generally only get to this stage if both players adopt a strategy of building up their forces prior to making an attack, for instance it was mentioned earlier that a player used 3 Mobi’s to break a defence, this takes some significant wit saving so at the same time would give the opponent time to build their forces to actually have that defence. Also if someone is genuinely just going to defend and counterattack the other player now has the initiative in the game, and should develop their own strategies accordingly.

There is also an inherent problem playing a skilled Adorable’s player with Scallywags as a Mobi attack can be so devastating, therefore if you fail to get the initiative in the early phases without specials you are tactically forced to think defensively because of Mobi, and this can naturally lead to what is described as turtling.

Anyway I would hope we could embrace all players and strategies without such vilification.

[Syvan]

You are almost definitely referring to my post. Let me try to lay out the problem with turtling more consicely.

We know that player 1 has an advantage by going first, this is not debatable, we also know that it is more costly to attack. If player 1 decides to play completely defensively, they are hoping that the second player will attack leading to a dramatic wit advantage for the first player. Smart player 2s will also not attack knowing their position is already disadvantaged, leading to comical force buildups.

The real problem lies with how to respond to a person who has decided to turtle. In many games, the appropriate response is to use a mobility advantage to capture additional resource nodes, which eventually allows for the generation of an overwhelming force and discourages turtles. In this game, there are very few resource spaces and they are often included in the defensive territory meaning that there is no cost effective way to respond to a player 1 turtle except to hope that they make egregious mistakes.

I think the purpose of this thread is, how do we respond when someone, especially player 1, turtles? Aside from ArtNJ, there hadn't been any discussion about the real question.

(And I just want to comment that I'm not vilifying the players who turtle, on many maps you will put yourself in a position of not being able to lose. I think it is probably the optimal strategy. That is why turtling is a problem.)

[Harti]

(07-25-2012 09:06 PM)Syvan Wrote:  In many games, the appropriate response is to use a mobility advantage to capture additional resource nodes, which eventually allows for the generation of an overwhelming force and discourages turtles. In this game, there are very few resource spaces and they are often included in the defensive territory meaning that there is no cost effective way to respond to a player 1 turtle except to hope that they make egregious mistakes.

During beta, we tested the game with 3 wit gain and two additional wit spaces per map scattered towards the fronts. The game pretty much became a Runnerfest which wasn't really helpful either. I do think that 4 would be a good deal though and would grant us further options to limit FTA a little (e.g. by P2 having one of these 2 or 3 wit spaces pre-owned so that they save themselves 1 wit to step on it and they got 5 wit on their first turn).

I just hope OML does consider that...

[Cookie]

When you mentioned runner-fest, how about a wit-space that is so heavy to push down that a runner can not claim it?

Another way to discourage turtling would be unit limits for the players (max 15 units?) and I think this would probably solve the problem as well, or go some distance toward solving it. In that case, it is not possible to hide the strong units behind runners because the other player could build up only strong units and just advance.

For the FTA, 2 or 3 wits for the first player on the first turn is definitely the most elegant solution.

[crump7]

I don't disagree that this is an important thread, and I do not suggest that it is about vilification at all.

There have been other threads, e.g. who is your least favourite player which are only about negativity, but when Syvan posted a match demonstrating this problem and then followed it with:

Quote:I had another game with the same player that I was able to win using 3 mobi's to bust a hole in the turtle and end the game in a single turn. I forgot to save the reply because I was so disgusted.

I felt moved to comment because an individual player was named via the replay, personally I don't think these sort of remarks are productive.

Replying to mkaen

Quote:I also disagree with crump's assertion that the adorables have an advantage when attempting to break through a turtled scallywag's defenses. Scallywags are the ultimate turtlers. Siege up with a few strategically placed bombshells and your opponent simply cannot attack you without taking extremely costly damage.

I didn't say that adorables have an advantage at all, I was referring to the situation leading to turtling, this is what I actually said:

Quote:There is also an inherent problem playing a skilled Adorable’s player with Scallywags as a Mobi attack can be so devastating, therefore if you fail to get the initiative in the early phases without specials you are tactically forced to think defensively because of Mobi, and this can naturally lead to what is described as turtling.