Tired of turtling?

[Gelsk]

So I keep falling into games where people just go straight defense from the start to the end. I try to go offensive but at a certain point it's just dumb.

I've played 1 person that actually pressed the advantage and bam they got me fast, but really as I learn it more, the game is very anti attack. Bonus tiles being camped, movement eating up actions. So a move + 2 attacks is 3 actions or 2 moves and 2 attacks is 4 actions. All of which can be healed with 1 action... so if you didn't get a kill you got nothing done...and you probably have a unit sitting in the middle of their guys.

Maybe you guys have some mad strategies, but once someone turtles the game takes FOREVER and it's pretty much a huge advantage. I still get wins but it's really tedious and they have to make some dumb mistakes as I throw my units at them.

Shot in the dark idea but every square closer to their side gives a cumulative 5% bonus damage. That'd give a great reason to push forwards. Really I don't see an aggressive possible strategy without them editing the game overall.

[floyd_99]

Certain teams are more aggressive than others. Dwarves and Council are turtlers IMO. Elves somewhere in the middle. Tribe and TF are very aggressive.

Some quick tips:
-Turtling is very vulnerable to AOE attacks. A medic-linked demoman with do nicely there!
-With Tribe, try using their 'wave' item to screw up the turtling formation and take out valuable units (usually archers, ninjas or healers against Council)
-With TF, the extra 1 AP when stomping an enemy is huge for aggressive tactics.

[Trip]

Crystals are the key to breaking turtlers. Only the Dwarves can effectively stop a good crystal rush with purely defensive measures, and even that is inconsistent.

[Alucardy]

Sadly advancing 4 squares with demoman + advancing 2 squares with medic = 3 AP

Even if you have already established the charge the turn before, You're left only with 2 attacks, which will be healed with 3 heals, more or less. On the other hand, your demoman got much closer and your medic a bit closer to them, so they can retaliate quickly with their aggro units.
I guess engineer + medic charge on demoman might to a little bit better, but it's still a stretch considering the enemy can always turtle while to do this you need all this APs and all this specific units.

[KOX]

Originally Posted by floyd_99

C
Some quick tips:
-Turtling is very vulnerable to AOE attacks. A medic-linked demoman with do nicely there!
-With Tribe, try using their 'wave' item to screw up the turtling formation and take out valuable units (usually archers, ninjas or healers against Council)
-With TF, the extra 1 AP when stomping an enemy is huge for aggressive tactics.

-As TF2 you can use sniper to force your enemy to play attack. Sniper with upgraded weapon, standing on bonus damage damage tile and linked to a medic deals insane damage. Then you can use scout to quickly stomp the dead enemy and run back.

-Witch and Necromancer with upgraded damage are also good for attacking enemy player. You use 1 AP to move forward 3 AP to kill the target (900 damage will bring down most enemies, and 1 to destroy the corpse.

-Chieftain is great aggressive unit, you use 1 AP to charge, then you have 4 moves to do his aoe attack. Its good if the chieftain is upgraded and you have some meat in your inventory, you might even kill all units in enemy's defense and he is done for.

-Remember you can also win by destroying the crystals, dwarves are best for this since they can attack both the crystal AND nearby units.

-Void Monk with full upgrades is almost impossible to kill in 1 round, unless one have spy, archer, ninja, supercharge or something else to deal massive physical damage. So you can move him to enemy base, deal some damage, and theres a high chance he won't be killed the very next round, so he can continue to AOE the enemies. And thanks to self-heal, he will fully heal himself after every round. So he may go on for the whole game, and you won't even need other units.

[Gelsk]

I mean I get what you're saying, and I do such strategies but still. It takes a heavy amount of tactics, often requires the suicide of a specific unit, and if they have one item to muck up your plan...they just mucked up your plan.

In one way I can play the ninja on the aggressive and get a lot of kills...or I can play the ninja on the defensive and drag the game out, never chance him dying, and he still gets kills. Not to mention the train station stage, it's so anti attack. Also if a unit doesn't have a 3 on attack or a 3 on range it's near worthless except for very specific things...which makes it a good idea to turtle and wait till you get a unit for all situations.

[Trip]

A few thoughts:

- If an opponent wants to lose a long, drawn out match, it's tough to prevent that on certain maps (like the train map). However, turtling is not -- by definition -- a winning strategy in the long run, unless you are banking on your opponent resigning out of boredom. Personally, I love taking on turtlers, because it leaves the details of combat almost entirely up to me.

- You cannot fully prevent the loss of units against good players, and should not try. What you CAN do, however, is make sure you are getting good trades for those units. And this is where turtling falls apart: you cannot dictate the terms of trades if you are not the one initiating the attack. Against a turtler, look for big plays where you can (AOE attacks, healer assassinations, etc...), but if none are available, look for incremental gains. Maybe that's setting up a safe crystal-attacking position. Maybe that's taking out one of their key upgraded units with one of your base units + a scroll. Whatever it is, it's your puzzle to solve -- they are leaving the controls in your hands. And I've never seen an early to mid-game turtle scenario that was uncrackable. (Late-game is another story, because you may have much more limited resources if the early game went poorly for you.)

- Don't give defensive-minded opponents time to get comfortable. This is ESPECIALLY true against the Dwarves, who are almost unbeatable once they've gotten three healers and three shielded super-units on the board. Defenses are most vulnerable in the early game, before they've had the chance to deploy fully -- therefore, you must be constantly threatening something valuable to them (whether it's a key unit or a crystal) and forcing them to respond, or suffer the consequences. Evaluate your own openings -- are you encouraging defensive play with defensive play of your own? If so, look for ways to be a bit more aggressive, and try to set up favorable exchanges and superior positions right off the bat. This doesn't mean going kamikaze with each unit as it comes out, but it does mean putting disposable units in strategically vulnerable positions and forcing your opponent to make tough decisions.