Why such boundless contempt for turtling players?

[Mausolus]

I just read changelog, and by Hades and Set both, I feel cold sweat on my back. As die-hard turtle, seeing towers’ attack cut in half while making them more than 200% slower to construct, I do realize my favorite strategy will be even more handicapped than before (and that comes from person that plays already with handicap, with all that “minimalize killing animals as much as possible” attitude). I noticed similar pattern in AoE 3 DE, where towers were reduced purely to hideouts for villagers, upgraded trading post is borderline pointless and forts’ sole role is to produce units, because other than to settlers, defenses’ attacks pose no real threat to any other unit (being basically just symbolic) and mortars (or their equivalents) are basically waste of resources and population. So I have to ask: what is with this attempt in modern RTS games to make turtling (one of three major archetypes of RTS) borderline pain in the behind? Yes, I got accustomed that turtling is generally looked down upon by so called pros, and any attempts to get some tips how to turtle effectively is either void or downright replaced by tips how to counter turtling instead. But why the devs insist on making remake of just another game from our childhood even more unfriendly towards us turtlers?

[tacohunter]

change log? where? hhhmmmm?

[Mausolus]

Originally posted by tacohunter:

change log? where? hhhmmmm?

https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Changelog_(Retold)

[Yvaralys]

I don't agree. The Wonder Age is the most turtle-heavy mechanic that has been implemented. On the last day of the beta, when everyone finally seemed to figure this out, the early aggression was toned down by eagerness to fully develop a faction and then go all out in the Wonder Age.

[Paradox101]

I believe that "hardcore" gamers are a minority. Those who pay for the game are the most loyal casuals.

[Mausolus]

Originally posted by Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy:

I believe that "hardcore" gamers are a minority. Those who pay for the game are the most loyal casuals.

That is most likely true, and I'm one of those casuals. Unfortunately I have a feeling (strengthened by those nerfs to usefulness of defences) that devs are aiming to appeal to that hardcore minority.

[Mausolus]

OK, after finally trying the game myself, I have to say I was wrong. It is true that defences are weaker and building less durable than in OG, but changes aren't so drastic that defensive playstyle is unviable, as I managed to hold my position against AI many times. I do not want to delete this discussion to be a sore loser who can't admit he was wrong, but wrong I was!

[Orb]

I pretty much only play defensive and barely raid because I can't be bothered. Playing this way I got pretty good at defending, it's quite hard in this game but with Hades or Freyr or the right relics it's very possible to get away with 2/3 Town Center full on greedy sim city boom with very little army into gg. It is a fun but hard playstyle in this game, I do hope they increase tower damage and fortress tc melee armor by a little bit. The towers are pretty much useless. I do mostly play ranked though and I'm probably a 'hardcore RTS player'.

Also if you don't kill animals it will be extremely hard since your chickens and deer give the fastest food and building farms costs lots of wood and is slower in gathering. The boars are happy to be killed in this game otherwise they dissappear in the void which is far worse.

[Heimdall313]

Turtling gets stripped out by the "match needs to end within 40 mins max or I quit and go next match" base because of things like eSports spending stacks of cash by the hour to rent a venue, etc. Fast, flashy rushes are much more "exciting" to American football brained people than two riot shields clacking until one drops of starvation / exhaustion.

Seen it with Pokemon, time limits implemented on match duration and even move selection to get faster rounds. You ever see a venue manager SWEAT over the brutal durability I can shove into a problem's face until they surrender and have all afternoon to do so? I have.
Seen it in every other RTS I've played. The entire game becomes centralized around fast match turnaround times because I guess it keeps a Tik-Tok addicted audience engaged and retained better and they're worth more than the dying breed of people with even a modicum of patience.

[Valkez]

I mean, how can you blame someone for not wanting to spend an hour and a half slowly destroying buildings because you won't commit?

Turtling is a doomed tactic anyway, you will never be able to dominate the map because you can only build so many fortresses, so if you win your opponent was just worse than you to begin with.

[Heimdall313]

Originally posted by Valkez:

if you win your opponent was just worse than you to begin with.

you know I could just maliciously apply this statement to a 12 minute rush, thus, rushing is a "doomed tactic".
Rushing is not being precisely targeted for total obsolescence - defensive play and turtling are. Rushing is good for eSports. Turtling is not.
The tactic is not "doomed" because it's fundamentally unfair, unbalanced, or over-centralized. The tactic is "doomed" because the devs have made a deliberate, obvious, and possibly even pressured decision to kill it on purpose.

[Many-Named]

turtling wastes time if too strong

[Valkez]

Originally posted by Heimdall313:

Originally posted by Valkez:

if you win your opponent was just worse than you to begin with.

you know I could just maliciously apply this statement to a 12 minute rush, thus, rushing is a "doomed tactic".
Rushing is not being precisely targeted for total obsolescence - defensive play and turtling are. Rushing is good for eSports. Turtling is not.
The tactic is not "doomed" because it's fundamentally unfair, unbalanced, or over-centralized. The tactic is "doomed" because the devs have made a deliberate, obvious, and possibly even pressured decision to kill it on purpose.

Rushing has to be properly executed, while it might seem cheesy, it's the quickest win-or-lose scenario - if you fail to win in a rush, you're pretty much done for.

Turtling is nothing but a stall, the worst waste of time, easy to counter but time consuming for both parties involved, hence my sentence which you quoted out of context. If your opponent loses by throwing his army against your fortresses cluster, or because he couldn't / wouldn't take the rest of the map left unprotected, then you could most likely have beaten him by age 3 saving both yourself and your opponent a fair bit of time.

[Heimdall313]

Originally posted by Valkez:

Originally posted by Heimdall313:

you know I could just maliciously apply this statement to a 12 minute rush, thus, rushing is a "doomed tactic".
Rushing is not being precisely targeted for total obsolescence - defensive play and turtling are. Rushing is good for eSports. Turtling is not.
The tactic is not "doomed" because it's fundamentally unfair, unbalanced, or over-centralized. The tactic is "doomed" because the devs have made a deliberate, obvious, and possibly even pressured decision to kill it on purpose.

Rushing has to be properly executed, while it might seem cheesy, it's the quickest win-or-lose scenario - if you fail to win in a rush, you're pretty much done for.

Turtling is nothing but a stall, the worst waste of time, easy to counter but time consuming for both parties involved, hence my sentence which you quoted out of context. If your opponent loses by throwing his army against your fortresses cluster, or because he couldn't / wouldn't take the rest of the map left unprotected, then you could most likely have beaten him by age 3 saving both yourself and your opponent a fair bit of time.

Stalling, defensive gameplay, and turtling, all in general terms, have been and are currently being phased out by developers and game series, not because of non-viability, but because of eSports rapid-iteration and turnover.
You can speculate that a turtle / stall / etc could win faster but is "wasting time" for whatever reason. The observable reality of it, however, is that a lot of different game series and genres so very often "nerf" defensive strategies as they progress, and iteration times of matches substantially decreases. Pokemon's Video Game Championships (VGC) have a long history of this, and I have personal experience with it. The Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic the Gathering tournaments, same thing: time and turn limits imposed to quicken iteration and round times. Many major MMO series, DPS "power creep" is on purpose, many boss fights have mechanics that directly or indirectly impose hard time limits to discourage hours-long stall kills and such.
Crippling the damage output of Towers (which were already medicore) is very clearly not an attempt to balance or correct an over-centralization, nor to balance or correct a strategy with an unhealthy win rate.
Pokemon simulators like Smogon's "Pokemon Showdown!" have collected enormous amounts of data that pretty strongly indicates the average user prefers three ~5 minute matches over one ~15 minute match. AoM is not as fast paced of course but both AoM and AoE show an enormous bias for a 14-22 minute benchmark for game durations, aiming for 3-4 matches in one hour as opposed to 1-2 matches in one hour.
It's the same general attention and patience deficit that has optimized YouTube and podcast durations downwards for most audiences. The mere existence and outrageous popularity of Tik-Tok again shows, creates, and sustains the attention and patience deficit.

It's not that turtling is non-viable, OP, top meta, or anything else: it's that most people are literally not getting enough dopamine out of it and thus it needs to be minimized to retain audiences and engagement. Its basically a punishing strategy against mass brain damage.

[The Owlogram]

Someday the people who spam threads on turtling need to add context other than "tower bad" because it makes them all sound like they tried to go mass tower spam and expect it to let them afk boom without ever defending with units. But no, apparently it's easier to make a thesis to explain why it's Tiktok's fault than to say "I was god A against god B, I did this and that etc..." Like seriously defensive play with units, strategic walls, chokepoints with buildings etc... works just fine in this game

[Heimdall313]

Originally posted by The Owlogram:

Someday the people who spam threads on turtling need to add context other than "tower bad" because it makes them all sound like they tried to go mass tower spam and expect it to let them afk boom without ever defending with units. But no, apparently it's easier to make a thesis to explain why it's Tiktok's fault than to say "I was god A against god B, I did this and that etc..." Like seriously defensive play with units, strategic walls, chokepoints with buildings etc... works just fine in this game

Nobody makes a tower wall and goes AFK. Pre-nerf as Norse I'd have Herdir tower drop right behind a push to have some support, LOS, and deny resources if there wasn't a Cavalry problem, etc.
As is, there's no reason to build a tower aside from static LOS and even that hardly justifies the resources or build time even for Norse who don't need to waste Gatherer time.

Towers aren't even a factor or deterrent against a rush. Take AoE2 for example, a tower drop by your lumber absolutely will save them against spearman, scouts, or skirms to prevent resource chokes. Doesn't stop much else, but it is a reasonable defense against things like feudal raids. AoM I can't think of anything except Ravens that are deterred.
AoE2 Palisades, it just blocks Spears, Skirms, and Monks and are so trash tier that people prefer to use Houses as walls despite the clear dangers that having your pop cap crashed can have.
Castle, it takes a pair of Rams or other dedicated units to actually take it on AoE2. AoM, Fortress buildings are something you can squash with just about anything that deals Crush damage and a handful of your general purpose units or cavalry. It's actually not much more of a raid stopper than an AOE2 Guard Tower despite the large resource difference >_>

Its not like we can drop Heavy Scorps into a choke on Jotunheim either.

So to repeat myself for the third time, Tower nerf was obviously not done to balance or correct an over-centralization or lopsided win rate. It was done to forcibly discourage defensive play and limits your raid defense to, quite literally, having an equal or better raid at the same time frame.
Turtling is being killed across genres across the board from card games to RPGs to MMOs to RTS games because its "boring". It doesn't provide enough dopamine. It isn't an exciting spectacle that fits into a less than 30 minute timeframe. It's not that it's a bad strategy or playstyle: it's a bad product, and gets killed as a bad product.