Notebook of a Gamer: "Turtling"

[Xhad]

Starcraft

This is actually the game where I first heard the term “turtling”. Turtling is when you build a large number of defensive structures around your base. Turtling in Starcraft sucks.

Turtling is the natural newbie reflex in this type of game. What happens is, the bad player loses very quickly the first times he plays against a person. This is because he is slow and generally doesn't know what he is doing, so the good player can “rush” him with little difficulty, ending the game very quickly.

Why turtling sucks: Real-time strategy games are very much about resource development. Large numbers of defensive structures don't do much to improve one's control of the map, which often consists of numerous resource pools. While the new player is protecting his one base, the good player is often building an army, along with several other bases that are harvesting more resources so the good player can build more armies. In the end the good player is still going to win because the newbie isn't doing anything that is actually going to win him the game; he is leaving his opponents free to develop whatever advantages they need to eventually take him down.

It is true that rushes don't work anymore; the good player has to do some more work. But the turtling newbie still loses, he just loses more slowly.

Magic: The Gathering: There are several ways to win a match at this game, but the most common one is to kill the other player by dealing enough damage to reduce his life points to 0 over the course of the game.

While both players start with 20 life, it is possible to increase your life total using certain cards. While a lot of newer players tend to be attracted to such cards, it is pretty much universally accepted among competent M:TG players that life gain cards usually suck. There are exceptions, of course; any card that gains life and does other things may be improved by the lifegain ability, and sometimes a card that can gain a large amount of life can be worthwhile.

Why do lifegain cards suck? The intricacies of a Magic game are more complicated than anyone who doesn't play could possibly care about, but suffice it to say that this is what usually happens when someone casts a card that only gains life:

-Hero is winning: Not really worth discussing, do you see why?
-Game state is about equal: Hero gains 4 life, not doing anything to improve his board position. Villain improves his board position on his turn. If Hero has the advantage otherwise, see "Hero is winning." Otherwise, this is essentially the same thing as...
-Hero is losing: Hero casts card and gains 4 life. Villain draws a card, does something that deals 4 or more damage. Hero is in exactly the same state as he was before; he has not helped his game state at all by gaining the life.

So a losing Magic player who plays weak lifegain cards generally loses; he just loses more slowly.

MTT Poker

In poker there are a lot of people who realize that in a tournament there is the constant danger of going broke and not being able to rebuy, which can cause strategy to deviate from typical cash game play.

This causes some people to take an irrationally cautious approach to the game. They pass up slight edges early, sometimes even when they believe themselves to be the favorite, in the name of “not busting out”.

Most of these people are not taking their “board position” (i.e. chip count) into account. They ignore the fact that better players are often building stacks early that allow them to bully the other scared players around. They ignore the fact that waiting out too many hands causes their chip stack/blinds ratio to dwindle so badly that they will eventually have to go all-in on a desperation steal anyway. They ignore the fact that “I'm weak tight so please take shots at me” is just about the most suck-ass table image to have against other good players, especially if it's true.

In the end these people don't win; they lose more slowly. Just like in any other game I've ever played.

Good old SC. I remember before I got any good at RTS games, I would play in like nr 15 minute games where everyone would turtle. Damn bastards! Good thing I learned how to play.

[pzhon]

Nice essay. I suggest writing it up with a little bit more polish and submitting it to the 2+2 Magazine.

[TimsterToo]

Very good post, the Starcraft and Magic examples really drive your point home.

Thanks!

[Goodnews]

[ QUOTE ]
Starcraft

This is actually the game where I first heard the term “turtling”. Turtling is when you build a large number of defensive structures around your base. Turtling in Starcraft sucks.

Turtling is the natural newbie reflex in this type of game. What happens is, the bad player loses very quickly the first times he plays against a person. This is because he is slow and generally doesn't know what he is doing, so the good player can “rush” him with little difficulty, ending the game very quickly.

Why turtling sucks: Real-time strategy games are very much about resource development. Large numbers of defensive structures don't do much to improve one's control of the map, which often consists of numerous resource pools. While the new player is protecting his one base, the good player is often building an army, along with several other bases that are harvesting more resources so the good player can build more armies. In the end the good player is still going to win because the newbie isn't doing anything that is actually going to win him the game; he is leaving his opponents free to develop whatever advantages they need to eventually take him down.

It is true that rushes don't work anymore; the good player has to do some more work. But the turtling newbie still loses, he just loses more slowly.

[/ QUOTE ]

you do haave exceptions buddy. the general terran strategy is to turtle and expand with their superior long range weapons. as zerg and protoss player, it is very difficult to contain a terran when hes got siege tanks that can hit you from china.

i noteced you used the the term defensive structure, however the main defensive structure for terrans in quite easily the siege tank (a tier 2 unit), and serves a dual purpose of offense and defense while missile turrets are cheap and fast to build.

also note that as a terran player who has decided to turtle temporarily, it is often a grave and costly mistake to expand too fast since risking discover may in fact lead to losing over 400 minerals. this is an important note because by expanding you forego units and in fact need alot of time to actually reap the rewards of the resource edge. furthermore, in the turtled position, the terran player can also employ many harassment tactics (mainly drops and the occasional wraith abuse).

it is said that terrans, if placed and built properly, have an impenetrable defense. the terran race is much like lava spewing forth from a volcano, although somewhat slow, will turned everything it touches into ashes.

[Xhad]

Hi Goodnews,

As I understood the term "turtling," I didn't think it referred to people temporarily stationing Siege Tanks in their base while they built up a force, or planting a photon cannon at the edge of the plateau to prevent rushes. Turtling was the guy who builds almost nothing but sunken colonies and spore colonies, making it impossible to expand because his well-playing opponent has a mobile force that can take out attempted new bases immediately, meaning he sits there until he runs out of resources and loses to a bunch of reaver drops or siege tanks or whatever. I could be wrong, though, I haven't played that game in years.

Other than that I agree with everything you said.

I disagree almost completly with this post.

In a MTT you WANT to play defensive early on to survive. Taking risks early on is going to get you burned, and it will get you eliminated.

What you want to do in a MTT is build you chip stack slowly without taking many risks until your in a position late in the tournament where you can change gears and become the agressor. You want to build you image up as a tight weak player, and then vary it as you go later.

Remeber, the longer you last the better chance you have at cashing, whcih is what its all about.

Everyone on this forum is always going for the final table. This is a dumb move. You want to go for the bubble, and have enough chips to make a push for the final table.

Everyone on this forums seems to thinkits final table or die trying, and thats the only way to play a MTT. This is not the right way to approch a MTT.

[Xhad]

[ QUOTE ]
Remeber, the longer you last the better chance you have at cashing, whcih is what its all about.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is blatantly wrong, and exactly the reason I made this post; the fallacy that taking steps to "not lose early" is the same thing as winning, which it isn't. You cannot limp into the bubble in MTTs consistently without taking risks, for the reasons I outlined above.

EDIT: Unless your opponents are awful, "Building your chip stack without taking any risks," is fantasy.

[Snoogins47]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Remeber, the longer you last the better chance you have at cashing, whcih is what its all about.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is blatantly wrong, and exactly the reason I made this post; the fallacy that taking steps to "not lose early" is the same thing as winning, which it isn't. You cannot limp into the bubble in MTTs consistently without taking risks, for the reasons I outlined above.

EDIT: Unless your opponents are awful, "Building your chip stack without taking any risks," is fantasy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Funny enough, building your chip stack consistently while avoiding large risks is precisely what early aggression can do for you.

To the starcraft example: Expanding aggressively and focusing on 'turtling' with the Terrans isn't what the OP was takling about. The OP was talking about what I used to do, which was making sure that I had Toss Cannons on every square of map within there screens of my base.

When you said turtling, I actually thought of the days in my youth where I was hardcore into Killer Instinct and later Tekken. Seems like similar things hold in fighting games though. I could annihilate most opponents that were from 'bad' to 'decent' with an approach that focused on counter-attacks and letting the opponent make the first move. A good player would own me every time.

Anyway, to bring this back to poker: The survival mantra about MTTs is awesome, especially when EVERYBODY does it because they're "Better than the opposition" and therefore can "find better spots."

Great read!

I think the arguement is a little skewed in the responses.

The OP is talking about a winning strategy. There are two stratagies for MTT:

1. To win
2. Place in the money.

Thats not to stay both do not share commom componants or are exclusive to one another.