*PICs coming soon!!!*


Alright, so I have been told a number of times now that I am a VERY annoying turtler, and just thought I'd write up a guide of tips and tricks to help you newer turtlers out there (and maybe even some more experienced ones as well)
So here it is:



A guide to turtling

The first concept I will cover is house placement (Some of this information is from a guide called "House Placement" by turbo supra in the old AOE strategy guide). Anyhow, there are several ways to place your houses in order to add to the defense of your town. Since I don't have any pictures yet, I will do my best to describe.

Part 1:

A technique used by many players is placing houses around your TC in order to prevent the enemy units from getting to your TC:

For example: x=house T=TC -= nothing

xxx
xTx
x--x

The houses allow for vils and shipments to leave, but prevent more than 9-10 units from attacking at once.

This can also be used on plantations, mills, and other gathering sources as well:

Part 2:

A. Place houses around the mine to provide extra protection

B. Surround the outside of mills with houses, leaving a small space for gatherers to enter and leave



C. Place houses about half a screen from the mine.

Examples A and B allow you to gather from the mine/mill while providing a little bit of extra protection to your vils

C allows more gathering from the mine, but provides for less protection. The benefit from this is having extra time to garrison vils from attackers by being able to see farther with the houses' LOS.

Also building houses together allows fewer units to surround and therefore takes longer to destroy:

Part 3:

x=house -=nothing
-xx
-xx

Fewer units can siege, which gives you more time to prepare for another wave.

x--x--x--x

This is less effective, as it takes up more space, and more units can attack, and one of the points to a turtle is having a compressed base. Not small, but compressed.
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The next subject is outposts. I play many people who send their vils halfway across the map to mine. This isn't the smartest idea, but if you use a few walls and an outpost, you allow more time for an army to come to defend or a place for vils to hide.

Part 1:

x=outpost z=mine/ herd l&_= wall -=nothing

_______
l-x--z---l
l______l

The wall prevents calv from just running in and smacking away at your vils. Also, the outpost provides a garrison place for your vils.

Part 2:

Outposts can also be spammed throughout the map to gain control and LOS

In order to do this, just make an outpost in the desired place. Then, once built, use the building's LOS to measure. Take half that distance and build an outpost that far away from the outpost's LOS edge.

x=outpost B=your main base -=nothing

x---------------------x----------------------x
-
-
---B----------------------------------x
-
-
-
-
-
x-----------------x-----------------x
-
-
-
By having this LOS, you have more time to prepare for an attack, and you also can pick off some stray units out to raid.
* This technique can also be used with houses, but they have less LOS (I think), and don't have an attack.
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The third I will talk about is defensive units. Many units are underused, and many of these units are for turtling!

Part 1:

Culverins. Amazing. They out-range all artillery and according to marneus, are like snipers. Culvs also have a huge multiplier VS Artillery. By using culvs, you can take down cannons more efficiently, as 500 resources and 4 pop is better than say, 600 resources and pop (3 hussars), which can't take down artillery as effectively, as a) you have to actually move to his cannon, b) HI can sit around and pick off your horses, and C) the cost/ pop space is less efficient.

Part 2:

Another unit I find very defensive is Ruyters/ Dragoons. Low siege, but they tear apart calv and knock down cannons pretty well too. Not so much underused, but they are definitely defensive. Once again, Low siege and less than a 1x multiplier VS vils, but they eat cav like crazy. What's not to love about these guys?

Part 3:

I also will acknowledge some mercs as defensive. Jaegers have, like LC, low siege, but can outrange any other type of LI. You can just park them in the middle of your towers and fire at any HI trying to take down buildings.

And again-Black Riders, similar to Dragoons, except you have to get them from your home city.
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And now, my fourth and final section, random tips ^^.

Part 1:

-Build your market against the back of your TC, it saves space and provides protection for your TC

-Use minutemen! They have approximately 25 attack, which is plenty to know out a small rush:

-Using walls seems kind of noobish, but whenever I am playing and see that he has walled up, the first thing I think is," Oh crap."

Part 2:

25 attack X 6 minutemen=150 attack per volley. And that doesn't even include the bonus VS sieging units.

-Don't put your rax or stable in front, it will end up being destroyed there. Make it to the side, or even better, right by the TC.

-Oh, and don't forget the counter system. For example, don't attack his raiding Hussars with your Lbows; you will be down protection and resources.

Part 3:

Walls are useful in numerous ways, they prevent raids, they buy time, and you can hide LI and LC behind them to fire at HI and HC without being shot back at.

-As a turtler, expect to lose vils and have to rebuild. It takes an immense amount of skill to turtle your base all the way up. And remember, practice makes perfect.

Now, before I conclude, I will talk about another important aspect to turtling, your deck. You cannot turtle with a rush based deck (go figure). Some cards I recommend for a turtling deck are:

-2 outpost
-4 outpost( if you have it)
-improved buildings
-tons of resource cards, as you wiil most likely not have map control
-extensive fortifications
-jaegars kick ass at beating inf, lands and swiss pikes pwn cav
-any other card centered around improving your eco, defenses, or just helping your turtle overall
-pioneers( with Great Coat & Blunderbuss you can really kick ass with Cdbs ^^)

Sort of random summary of the turtling guide I just wrote. Key points, if you will:
-Use houses, outposts, and wall segments to get LOS throughout the map, as you need to be prepared.
-build markets and houses around your TC or other economic gathering buildings for extra protection.
-use defensive units, such as culvs, LC, and LI. My favorite combination is skirms/dragoons/culvs. With walls and outposts, it's pretty darn hard the enemy to get through.
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Sources I used to gain additional info about turtling:


House Placement, by turbo_supra
Jaafit's Counter Guide, by jaafit
General Tips, by Elpea

Well, there it is, my guide to turtling, while I realize it is very long, congrats if you read it all, took me about an hour to think up and type.

Please feel free to comment on any grammatical or spelling mistakes, I am sure I made at least 100(thank you fenris for the list ^^).

ESO is in sig if you have questions.

Muchas Gracias,
Socr ^^

PS: I may come up with some actual BO using turtling skills I described, if you guys would like. :O

[This message has been edited by socrstar (edited 11-09-2008 @ 12:06 PM).]