Why Turtle is not a good Strategy

I still believe in the Turtle strategy, you wont win in this game if that is your gameplay for an entire match because of how PA works in contrast to games like Supcom and Command & Conquer. As someone mentioned, because we're actually fighting and battling on planets, you cannot safely defend on a sphere from all sides as well as air at the same time. Traditionally, turtling would mean you have yourself 1 corner of the map which you fortify to a point of it being almost an UN-breakable defense, typically only defending from 1 actual side, maybe 2.

This cannot happen on a sphere map, there is no corner to set up your base against knowing that nothing can suprise you from behind or find another way into your base. You then have the trouble of air assaults, orbital bombardments and tactical nukes to deal with that will fly right over your defenses. In Supcom you could easily defend against most of that stuff by deploying a shield bubble, or a network of shield bubbles, in games more along the lines of C&C, you had your tech labs that would unlock the air super weapons like the ion cannon to help nullify an enemies super weapon system.

Now back to my very first words of this post as why I still believe in the turtle strategy because of two main reasons. The first being we should never dictate to anyone or any player how they must play the game, I believe that anyone should have the right to play the game anyway they deem fit, I'm all for helping and improving peoples strategys but dictating how they game must be played and thats it without remorse, you play turtle your just an idiot and deserve to lose simply because they turtle. The 2nd reason is because turtling can be very viable for game tactics (if done correctly). Expanding is a must, but you can do it while turtling too, building defensive turrets around each square inch of landscape you move into building your metal extractors, expanding slowly outwards to the other metal extractors. Compared to someone who is a rush expander which is just about everybody playing at the moment, more then half of their extracts are extremely vulnerable to attacks because their already moving onto other extractors though this tactic might bring you rewards early in economy, there is always a danger of over-stretching yourself to where you cannot simply defend half the stuff you have.

At the moment the game is a mass rush to whoever can get nukes first, and a rush to reach other planets, there are different ways to get there, turtling is fine for awhile untill you get to launch your commander somewhere else, its a good survivability tactic to use, but if you just sit in some defensive hold for the entire game, you will loose. PA is about fast paced gameplay and constantly on the move, if you sit still your opponent will just simply win with the massive economy over your own and just simply overwhelm your defense and units you have....

To me, it sounds like you don't actually believe in turtling as a strategy, but more as a tactic which forms part of a strategy.

Actually you are incorrect. Turtling, in many RTS games is a viable strategy, even in some rushing orientated games.

Turtling in PA is not a good strategy sadly.

Turtling is a good short term strategy, but a poor long term one.

Why is turtling not a good strategy?

No shields.

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Petition for shields

I'd say that this game is more flexible than this. I don't even know what to call what I'm doing atm.
It's a mix of both expanding and turtling. What my base usually looks like at the end of mid-game:

Many mexes all over the place, T2 preferably. Central base = factories, power plants and storages. Many anti-air turrets around my central base, and one anti-air turret at every outside-mex. 3-4 anti-nukes at my base. Laser-turrets + walls + anti-air turrets + pelters (turret walls) at chokes between my base and an enemy's.

Is that turtling or not? I tend to expand as fast as I can, and as soon as I come in contact with an enemy base, I start pelter creeping. I fortify my pelter creep with anti-air turrets and laser turrets, so I can smash counter attacks. All that while usually having 6 factories producing ants constantly. I also tend to go T2 catapults as fast as I see need for it so I can defend my shore lines with them (they're pretty good vs navy), and also to replace the pelter creep with catapult creep. If I see a counterattack coming from an angle for which I have no turret protection, then I usually have enough fabs hanging around to quickly set up some turrets there. Like I said, I also have many ants just sitting at my base, defending my pelter/catapult creep and reacting to counter-attacks.

So to me, that is a mix of turtle and expansion. What is it in your view?
(The good thing about it, is that it's working)

Greetings

is like the PD creep

well but if your enemy start to rush your fabber when they are making defences, and them make a Big army of T-1, he can start to avance before all your turtle is done.

Nope, you don't need shields to make "a good turtle".

LOL good point i guess...

And yet, it is the main reason turtling isn't working for this game. If there were shields, it would be more effective.

That's not really a good way to balance things.

Don't add stuff into the game to accomodate for one particular strategy. Adding things should compliment interactions between players in a large multitude of situations.

The reason why turteling doesn't work in this game is because there is upto 50% more area to defend. That means that you need to be able to rely a bit on defenses that can cover a substancial part of entire base. Which is something, Holkins, Catapults and Nukes are good at, which are all advanced tech.

Turteling(while still expanding) only works if the other players in the game leave you alone for long enough to tech up.

Yes, but you like I say before you don't...

Because to make a "Good" Turtle you need only to make a lot of Def that can't be destroyed.
A guy make a theoretical Impossible to Breach Turtle in Spring.
it is some like: 4 Buzzsaw, a lot of AA,... and 4 Anti-Nukes.
you could not destroy it, and he don't use one piece of shield.

I am correct because I was only talking about Planetary Annihilation - not other RTS games.

no, you are corret because Turtle is not a viable Strat, when you just hold the Line and not make Agressive moves.

Why is turtling a bad strategy?

Reason 1:

This is a macro game. Meaning that your main goal should always be to expand your economy quicker than your enemies do. It also means that you need to expand your base to aquire new ressources, preferably from your enemies. Because the one with more ressources will have more units, simple as that. And expanding is quite the contrary to turtling. Now, expanding doesn't exclude building towers or stationary artillery if done correctly.

Reason 2:

No defence is unbreakable. In this game, you need to manage your ressources as efficiently as possible. Meaning that turtling yourself in by building a huge array of towers and artillery around your base can be a huge waste of ressources if they don't actually ever shoot on something. Good players won't even bother sending their ground units in there.
Why? Because there are other methods to bypass those fortifications by either nuking, using bigger artillery, using bombers or using orbital units. And we don't know as to what is yet to come.
There is also no urgency to attack someone turtling, because he usually doesn't really pose any threat to you. Which leads us to point 3.

Reason 3:

Turtling yourself doesn't set your enemies under pressure in any way. It let's them basically do whatever they want, expanding freely while laughing at you behind your back. Soon they'll have a way bigger economy than you, which will ultimately mean your defeat. In an ideal situation you want to limit your opponent in his/her actions. You want to pressure your opponent, and force them into positions that they might not like. Behaving submissive in a game like this nearly always tends to be a bad strategy.

Greetings

As much as it pains me to admit, you are correct. You don't need shields to make a good turtle, but you do need metal fabrication to be competitive as a turtle.

Being a turtle does not make you passive or a push over. It means using everything you've built as efficiently as possible. Reducing the risks to your units and trading a higher overall initial income for lower overhead. A turtle is not stationary, he just moves slow.

them the enemy has a lot of units when you can catch up his 15Min Eco

So all your saying is that turtles need time to tech up?

Shields'll do that.

to answer the thread title: because you called it turtle.
In RTS gaming that title itself has a negative connotation as a "bad strategy".

If you derive it from the roman testudo formation it just means a trade between better protection and speed/offensive effectiveness. But even there it's only one of many tactics, which alone would never win a war.
In RTS games it's used at a bit larger scale, so you might call it a strategy using the same trade off, while here the speed reduction also includes economic growth.
But at its heart it has the same inherent problem, alone it doesn't win a war.
If you use it to bridge a certain time span to reach an alternate goal, e.g. development of specific technologies, building a game ender, etc., it's a valid strategy but the game has to allow it, specifically it has to be worth to sacrifice economic/military growth to do something specific, don't think PA will have the options for that but we will have to see.
Another case where it might be worthwhile to turtle a bit are games with multiple teams, where you might win some time while your enemies kill easier targets first, if they get hammered enough an initially defensive strategy might work.

As a side note, in RL usually defensive strategies work better then in RTS games because the shorter line to defend is worth more in RL. Due to the speed of games (build, move and attack speed of units) it's easier to control more territory and with respect to defences, it's more difficult to recover from a once broken defence line.