Tactics against tech 2 turtle in mid game

[Kasai]

Hello all, this is going to be a longish read, just a heads up.

A group of around 6-8 of us recently started playing again after a longish break and we've been slowly progressing out of the "turtle until experimental and then finish game" strategy that a lot of new people seem to utilize. We virtually exclusively play in house games.

Now, at least personally, I've been attempting to try to incorporate as much early game aggression as I'm able to maintain, because, all things considered, I feel that that aspect is where our group is the weakest. So far, I've been able to at least get a grasp on tech 1 combat and I feel that I've been able to successfully learn what counters what in tech 1. At least as far as I've experienced, in most games I'll usually end up with a favorable position coming out of tech 1.

Tech 2 happens and at this point I feel that I'm just missing something regarding how I'm supposed to counter tech 2 shield/pd walls. I've tried things like PD creep, but ultimately a smart opponent would just build a handful of PD a few sections back which would stop my creep. I've tried MML but unless I seriously want to commit a lot of mass to building a huge group of them, it seems that TMD will just eventually make them not viable. Not to mention they get slaughtered if the opponent gets combat units and tries for a push.

What eventually happens usually is that I sort of just stall on the front line with little idea of what to do in order to advance. Generally, it's not the person who I'm attempting to break who ends up pushing me back, but rather because I'm not able to break through them fast or efficiently enough, the person behind them eventually just is able to just walk through my line with an experimental that I have no hope of stopping.

I understand that in a 1v1 situation someone with early aggression will win against someone who simply focuses on eco, but I'm finding it hard to counter this tech 2 stall tactic fast enough to potentially stop someone from just ending the game with an experimental, which effectively makes anything I do worthless.

Feel free to tell me that I'm doing everything wrong. I have no illusions that I'm what would be considered a "good player." I'm basically just trying to make the transition from the tech/defensive play to a more aggressive one and I find that without being able to decisively turn early aggression (and early victories in terms of positioning ) into an early kill and/or pushing someone out of their base, it becomes hard to counter any sort of teching/experimental rush.

I'm not sure if there's an easier way of copying a replay into the forums so I'll just upload the local file. If that doesn't work, if you search Kasai in the online vault, it's the most recent replay from 31/3/15 (Replay Id: 3271078). I'm top right position and we're playing the map top vs bottom rather than top right vs bottom left. Also don't read into my rating as the truth. We only play against each other and while I may be one of the better players in my group, I'm far from whatever my rating actually implies. If I had to make an assessment, at general aggression I would rank myself and the opponent that I'm fighting at probably the top of our group and roughly equal to one another.

3271078-Kasai.fafreplay

(226.52 KiB) Downloaded 104 times

Ignoring the fact that one of my team gets sniped, the kind of stall that I'm talking about happens around 16-17 minutes. I have to fend off some harass and by time I get a foothold again the opponent I'm against already has 3-4 t2 PD, a decent bit of TMD and I kind of just run out of fuel.

Any advice would be very appreciated. Again, feel free to hit me with a good helping of constructive criticism, but if possible focus it towards the aggression, rather than little general things (unless of course it's something significantly, then lay it on me). I primarily play seraph with a little bit of aeon but feel free to give both general and faction specific tips for any other factions.


Sorry for writing a small book and thanks in advance for anyone who's willing to help.

[Col_Walter_Kurtz]

Every PD your enemy builds is a victory for you, because he is sinking resources into something that can never come and attack you. If anything, you should trick your enemy to make as much static defenses as possible because you are safer on every other part of the map as a result. Use the map control you receive to get a superior eco. What you need to stop doing is trying to break that specific point where the defense is concentrated.

2. Go around it. Make transports and drop units behind the lines (T2 transports loaded with T1 artillery can wreck a base in no time or just drop a handful of higher tech units to raid eco further out). Send units everywhere.

3. If you really must attack it directly, use your tech and eco advantage. Make T3 mobile artillery. Use the superior range of naval units, crush it with experimentals etc.

Late game can be a different story, at least I have trouble breaking late game massive turtles. A late game Setons slugfest so to speak. But at the T2 and early T3 stage you should not have any trouble.

[Reaper Zwei]

First off never try to out turtle a turtle especially against UEF. If your playing against someone of relatively equal skill the UEF player is going to win the turtlefest as you experienced in that game. If at all possible always I repeat ALWAYS go around the firebase. There's no point engaging when you can just go around and raid all his eco which you could have easily done in that game. If you opponent is sitting building up a fire base hes not coming after you so what you do is eco eco and eco some more as long as your still putting out some mobile units for defense, keep killing off their expansions if they have any, then just build a ythohta or a ton of t3 tanks or a nuke or whatever and then go in for the kill.

Second SCOUT, you had little idea what was in his base because you didnt scout. you had an idle airfac you might have well used it to build some airscouts and see what hes got. Nice thing about Seraphim is the selen. When it stands still for 4 seconds it cloaks and stealth's so that only omni can see it, meaning that for the entirety of that game only his commander would have been able to see them had you placed them around the map and told them to hold fire.

Third ECO, at the end of the game you still had t1 MEX's in your area of the map while your opponent was out ecoing you for virtually the entirety of the match. You let him have the two mass points in the middle uncontested till something like 30 minutes in or the mass point that was on the other side of the mountain in front to of your base. sending out a tank and a selen early on to harass expanding engies and take down some MEX's can really hamper the enemies early game especially your opponent in this game considering his ACU was his only offensive unit for like the first 10 - 15 minutes.

[Vee]

You have two options:

• Go for hard t1 push with a good amount of t1 arties mixed in with your tanks. Focus his pds with your arties while tanking the damage with your t1 tanks and acu. Make sure you have overcharge to overcharge his pds. You could also make gun upgrade, but with such pushes timing is everything: once he gets 2+ pds up you cannot win. So if you make gun upgrade make sure you get it fast.
• Go for mex upgrades. Make sure you annoy him with acu or gun acu and try to raid with your t1 in places where he does not have t2 pd. Make a few t2 mmls to force him to build shields and tmds. Make some air drops or air attacks. Just make sure that he has to spend a lot to defend himself, meanwhile you spend more in economy upgrading and eventually you will be able to afford t3 land that way and easily break the turtle with t3 arty.

[codepants]

Like some other folks have said, if your opponent is making static PD, you are probably winning. Some people are "good" at turtling; IMO you usually have to be +1-200 high rank than your turtling opponent to beat them, but you can beat them. The fact that none of the pros turtle should tell you that.

There are many ways to win against a turtle, most of which have been stated... going around is one of my favorite. On small maps this isn't really possible though. If you can catch it early it's a ridiculously good idea to rush in and crush it before it starts. One of my favorite examples in any 1v1 is when both ACUs upgrade at the same time, but one gets gun and the other gets t2. If the gun ACU pushes, assuming all else is equal, he wins. If the gun ACU doesn't push, he probably loses. So step one is keep pushing.

Once you know you can't break it by pushing though, pull back immediately, as you are just giving them mass. Every attack has to mean something. If it doesn't, you are just giving your opponent mass to eco with. I will turtle if my opponent insists on dumping mass on my doorstep -- EG if I make more from reclaim than I put into the PD. So will your opponent.

If it gets to the no-rush stage and I can't go around, I spam MML. This is not true:

it seems that TMD will just eventually make them (MML) not viable.

MML will always win over TMD. They are less expensive than TMD, so if you keep spamming MML and your opponent keeps spamming TMD, you will win. Be sure to coordinate their attack: turn them all to "Not Attack," wait until they are ready to fire (yellow bar below health bar is full), then turn them all to "Attack" and they will fire at the same time. Yes, you do have to micro them. A great way to lose is to build a bunch of MML and then click and forget. They will die. You will die. But if you babysit them a bit (pull back when they get rushed) you will prove a very annoying opponent and often come out victorious.

You could also go the eco route.

The short answer is, do what your opponent isn't countering. There is always something. If they are countering everything (PD everywhere, flak everywhere, TMD everywhere, air units, land units), then focus one thing (all land on one part of their PD wall, a ton of TML, take out their flak in one place then fly in gunships...). One focused strategy beats a generic counter. Play actively, not reactively. If you see PD and think, "Man, how am I going to defend against this?" you will lose. If you see PD and think, "Okay, what is he not building that I can exploit?" you will win.

[Vee]

Most pros do turtle in team games, though the reason is not that turtle is the best strategy. The reason is that the pro in a team is expected to win the game. If you attack with t1 you may kill one enemy and then you have no eco to do anything else, and then you get crushed by an experimental from another guy on the enemy team who just ecoed. No matter how good you are you won't defeat an experimental with t1. If your allies are bad they will not support your push with their acu and then the enemy can defend easily with 2 or more ACUs even if they have almost no units. If you put two pros 1v1 on a team game map without any allies but with the restriction that they can only use the mexes and reclaim that would belong to them in a teamgame, then you surely would not see as much ecoing as you see in teamgames, because then you get crushed by aggression. Just compare it with winter duel, since most teamgame maps are similar to 4x winter duel. On winter duel if you upgrade even one t2 mex at the start you will lose. If you put two equally skilled teams against each other and one team goes for the usual strategy of mex rush + turtle and the other team goes for full t1 spam, including full intie+bomber spam from the airplayer, then I'm pretty sure the t1 spam team would win. Sadly you cannot rely on your allies like that Note that some extreme turtle maps like thermo and setons are exceptions, there eco is clearly superior. But consider a map like Wonder where you do have a few mexes to conquer and deny, and the middle stone reclaim, there the t1 spam would win. Maybe I'm wrong though

It's true that MMLs do win over time, but they take a lot of time, and by that time your enemy has his own mmls + shield, then you need a shield too, then he pd creeps forward and you need your own t2 pd to stop him from going forward, and by that time his investment in eco has paid off. I think in many cases it's more effective to eco yourself and make t3 land.

[codepants]

It's true that MMLs do win over time, but they take a lot of time, and by that time your enemy has his own mmls + shield, then you need a shield too, then he pd creeps forward and you need your own t2 pd to stop him from going forward, and by that time his investment in eco has paid off.

Most of the time when I see this happen I go back and go, "Ah, I could have rushed him and won before he put up his first pd." EG, the example where one ACU goes gun and the other goes t2. All else equal, the gun ACU wins if he pushes right then and there.

Also, they can't possibly be ecoing harder than you if they are building pd and you are not. While I agree that ecoing can be a good response, most of the time when I do that they just pd creep right into my base and I can never use the mass I get. I still think stopping a turtle before it gets started is the best approach.

[theeggroll]

First off, talk to a trainer, they'll help you refine your opening land spam and thus you can deny the early turtle. (Go to the tutorials tab in faf and click the link to the trainer list, you can talk to me if you'd like) If you are a cybran player then spam vipers any time you see t2 pd, they will win. If you are another faction, eco and tech up. Build just enough units to keep him from pressing you and eco whore like all hell. Try and go heavier air to go around his turtle base, that kind of movement gives you a huge advantage over him, and normally makes their life hell. Overall drops and eco'ing are what are going to win. t3 mobile arti is great against turtles.