paradox486 wrote:

tw2000 wrote:
With turtling, the greatest advantage is having a huge specilaist:outpost ratio. What you're saying is that the bigger player would have to have all his speciliasts at one outpost as well... But wait, that doesn't work, because the turtle can just attack another of your outposts. See what I mean? There's a saying which goes "Sometimes the most powerful thing is to have nothing left to lose" which is kinda true, except you can't lose your queen in this game. The more you have left to lose, the more vulnerable you are.

Another factor that goes against you is that his outpost will have about 80 or so shield, and since your attaking him you'll have to deal with that shield.

This is why I suggested turtling's strength be brought down by limit the number of "active" specialists at a base. A player who's been pushed down to 1 base shouldn't be as exponentially difficult to take over as they are.

Or if the maximum number of specials allowed to be "active" at once base were driller cap/30 then a player sitting on 1 factory would still have 5 specials they can use which would give them a decided advantage over someone attacking since only 3 specials can be sent on 1 sub. Plus inactive specials global abilities still affect the base as if they weren't there.

No I think if turtles can be like this then the Devs probably intended them to be like this. From what I can tell it fits in with the whole subterfuge-diplomacy idea very well. If the Devs thought that the game was indeed unbalanced in a way that isn't tolerable even by subterfuge standards, then they probably would've already done something about it. There has to be a reason why they haven't limited the number of specialists at one outpost (which is probably the fact that it makes the whole game more interesting)

Turtling is just another aspect of the game.
It means that a player sacrifices their chances of winning, in order to stay alive or for revenge.

It's a strategy, just like rapid expansion and specialist combos. Saying turtling is unfair is like saying 3 Kings is unfair.
While 3 Kings is a string strategy, it would consume 6 specialist hires and a ton of luck to pull off (even with allies). Some things just make this game more exciting.

I am experiencing my first turtle. A lack of diplomacy on the part of the other players is keeping him/her in the game. Having a truce with them, I won't be attacking but I will begin funding them soon in hopes that they work with me.

I don't think it ruins the game at all, it is a facet that encourages the complexity of the diplomacy. Cowabunga dude.

I turtled myself in one game. I was hit very hard from two players from the beginning and had to retreat until I only had 1 outpost left but I had a lot of specialists there. At one point one of these players offered me a truce because he knew that he can't eliminate me. I would have accepted but this particular player betrayed me and some of my allies in this game, so everything I wanted at this point was to hurt and annoy him. One of these players got eliminated by me later, the other ended up 2nd or 3rd.

Did I ruin the game for him? Sure. But only because of how he treated me before. Did I ruin the game at all? No. My ally won the game and I got the satisfaction to eliminate one of the players that annoyed me from the beginning and from making sure the other one isn't winning. Remember that this game is not about eliminating every other player but about diplomacy.

Turtling isn't ruining the game as a whole. It is ruining the game for one or two players in the game, but so does every other strategy. When I get a queen hunting combo and kill the queen of the leading player 2 hours before he wins it ruined the game for him. Same for turtling.