On Turtling

I usually make comps of the cheaper units and use units higher than level 2 sparingly. My current Ram team is what I would call a 'theme' team. It is not built for power or ease of wins. The comp is 7 units, with a lvl 5 BP and a lvl4 Necro. I am usually an aggressive player. Using this build has given me a much better understanding of some turtling players. If you are using high level weak units against some compositions and deployments you will absolutely have to turtle.

I played a guy using 3 Gargoyles. He complained about me turtling. He was right I have never turtled so hard. His build was ideal for easily defeating my 'theme' team. If you use high level weak units, you effectively have a 'VIP' and are taking a big risk just by using it. I won that game but it really should not have been possible for me to defeat that build. He had 3 archers to my 1 and could have positioned his 3 Gargs close but safe, and harassed me with missile to weaken or force movement and exploit an opening.
What using this comp has taught me is the real power of the cheap low level teams (Zergish) is that you have no VIP. You have no one to protect which makes advancing much easier. You also have no unit that when it dies you have effectively lost the game.
High level and AP weaker units (like mages, but not only) can often look 'OP' as they destroy your company sometimes in an activation or 2. You really need to use some of these weaker units against a variety of comps and deployments to see what difficult decisions you have to make. Just how vulnerable you can be.

I find that the only time people complain about Turtling is when both sides are doing it, and the complainer get upset because they want to continuing doing it and are pissed that you aren't attacking them (like they think you should). It's a double standard. People who don't Turtle usually don't care if you do, it makes attacking you easier. They know where you are going to be and can set up how they want to attack you.

In my opinion Turtling is not a problem in this game, like at all. The problem is whinny players who don't like to lose and want the opponent to play in a way where they are easy to beat.

On a separate note, I don't think running is a problem either. You know what happens when someone is loosing a battle in almost every war ever, they run. It's the potential winners job to chase them down to win. I agree it can be frustrating, but if you can't kill that final fleeing unit, it's not a total victory (and you should have planned ahead and set up units to catch them).

I think the only thing that should be done to help with Fleeing is a more complex calculation of distribution of Ducats and XP at the end of a draw, where the AP left on the battlefield and the HP of those units can allow one side in a Draw to get more than the other, but in short - if you can't kill the fleeing unit, you didn't win.

The problem of Turtling and Fleeing is not one IMHO that the Devs should waste their time with. No matter what they do, the players who whine about those two things are always going to find some reason to whine about why they lose. If it's not Turtling or Fleeing, they'll just find something else. It's not a game problem, it's a player attitude problem.

I must say that after reading Hod's piece I'm pretty inclined to agree with him. The existence of draws after all seems a sensible thing.