Anti-balistic defenses

Sun Tzu's ramblings apply to all forms of war. I use some of his more famous writings in every game I play, ranging from L4D2 to SupCom. Admittedly the guy has a bit of an ego, stating that his writings are the magnum opus of warfare advice and basis, but they kinda are if you look at them. It's kinda like a fortune teller, everything they say is right, but it may not be anything extraordinarily specific; I.E. Laser Towers.

There's a reason most military academies still use his (translated) writings as a textbook.

I'm a turtle player and I think you should be able to make a very well secured base, but allow the biggest super weapon in the game, a asteroid be able to break it instantly, making sure anyone who built massively in one place gets punished.

These posts make me a sad panda You already have a counter to long rang artillery... it's called scouting. But, as a long reformed turtle player myself, I understand the temptation to play simcity, and it can be a total blast to do against AI opponents, but it is the wrong way to balance a game if you want fluid gameplay.

Turtling can, and should be a viable strategy under some circumstances. It should be no more fundamentally biased against than steam-rolling, rushing, teching up, or any other general strategy, providing the player has an end-game in sight.

The general rule I've found in most decent RTS games being when there is no opportunity to expand without conflicting with a numerically superior force, the best option is to turtle in order to buy time for setting up a snipe, nuke-rush or other game-ending type play. Because static defences, for a given amount of metal, normally have a higher damage output and health rating than an equal amount of units, the turtle trades the ability to take the initiative for relative efficiency and choosing where the battleground is. This means that a turtle can either hold of a proportionally larger amount of units, or force their opponent to take time binging fragile artillery along. The defences will never hold out forever, but they will pause an advance.

Thus, a wise turtle knows that turtling alone is not the path to victory, but can be part of it.