Turtling too strong?

[Incompetent]

I really like Creeper World in all its incarnations (well, 1 and 3 at least...), but it seems like there's a basic balance issue with the game that has got more extreme with each iteration.

In a conventional RTS, you can fortify your base, but eventually you are forced to push out, because you run out of resources.  Also your ability to power up your economy and upgrade your units is limited.

In the Creeper World games, if you hold out for long enough, you can generate absurd amounts of energy using reactors.  It's even more dramatic in CW3, as you can get a massive number of upgrades to everything (assuming enough Aether).  In addition, the weapons are much more powerful now if you have the means to support them, so that almost any assault (on land at least) is a simple matter once you can run a few shields and the like.  The result is that on a standard map (i.e. one without an explicit mechanic to make you get a move on), being able to hold a defensive line with a totem and a decent amount of land behind it is more or less equivalent to total victory.  Certainly it's all over for the creeper by the time you are able to destroy creeper faster than it is produced.  I realise that you get a better score if you can rush or at least advance quickly, but it seems that when it comes to the basic question of victory or defeat, the creeper is only in danger of killing you in the first few minutes, as you scramble to get both enough defences and enough energy to power those defences.  The rest of the game is disappointingly easy in comparison.

The main problem, I think, is emitters, spore launchers and so on producing stuff at a constant rate.  If they gradually ramped up over time, that would force you to be a bit more decisive and take more risks on the offensive.

Thoughts?

[Helper]

Thoughts?

Hard to tell what thoughts you're looking for. In some of the maps (with many notable exceptions), you can go sit in a corner and do nothing but build massive energy and defenses. At that point you can, indeed, sit there and watch your weapons hold off the attacks on your position.

To keep yourself occupied, you could also build up a whole bunch of Terps and flatten the entire map surface.

I've done both of those when I was bored and waiting for more maps to be developed, but it doesn't rise very high on the excitement scale. Nor does it really fill the bill for the "S" in "RTS" (Real Time Strategy).

Stategically, sitting in a corner playing infinite defense simply doesn't win any games (or wars).

[Overbyte]

/quote

The main problem, I think, is emitters, spore launchers and so on producing stuff at a constant rate.  If they gradually ramped up over time, that would force you to be a bit more decisive and take more risks on the offensive.

Thoughts?
/quote
This new game is in it's infancy.. When map builders come to speed. you may be amazed at what you have to fight, (and maintain) just to stay alive, let alone win..

[TLMike]

Incompetent, I think you're seriously undercutting the complexity of the game.

I will admit that it is true of the game, sometimes, that the more straightforward maps can be boring. That is, a map with only one or two emitters set at a relatively low rate of creeper manufacture is surely not very exciting, and indeed "a line of shields with a nullifier at the end" seems like a surefire victory. However, that sort of surface analysis belies any in-depth understanding of the game itself. In fact, it suggests to me that all you've done is play the demo. (Of course, for all I know, you've beaten every map there is, and yet, you find yourself legitimately disappointed.)

While I hesitate to tell you that you're wrong, I do so even more to tell you that you're right. Some maps are indeed too easy. And while it's always clear at some point in the battle that you, the player, have effectively won, the remaining battle shouldn't serve to diminish the feeling of satisfaction in victory. Achieving a goal should never set your mind in a state of boredom even before the task is fully complete. (In fact, that's a kind of lapse in human logic, but that's another discussion.) This sort of "Oh, I bet I've won, so now I'm too bored to finish the map" attitude is exactly the kind of thing that fables like The Tortoise and the Hare are meant to warn you against. Giving up finishing a race because you spied the finish line 200 yards off isn't finishing the race; it's giving up and blaming it on imaginary boredom.

Again: the game can sometimes be too easy. In those cases, the battle isn't against the creeper so much as it's against the community. That is, trying for better scores. (Scores may not be your thing; I know they're not mine; I'm an "enjoy the ride" kinda guy.) But, honestly, even easy/standard maps, even when you're not trying for good scores, have a sort of meditative quality about them. There's a simple pleasure in working your way through a task, even if that task is too simple.

I delight in maps which I can beat easily. I delight in puzzle which challenge my strategy. I delight in maps which make me feel frantic. That's the beauty of this game: it suits my moods, which are often numerous. It's subtle, yet engaging. It sometimes feels like work, and sometimes feels like great fun. I don't think the game mechanics are absurd. I think they're just malleable enough to suit any player. And I think Virgil nailed it with this one.

[allu]

A little addition to what TLMike said: With CRPL you can make emitters to increase their output or you could increase the amount of spores been thrown at you. ( Wich has always been possible) You can limit the amount of energy one can build or how many techs one can choose. Or you can use hidious CRPL code that drains more and more of players energy as time passes or just randomly blows up reactors. 

  Short: There are countless ways to prevent that from happening. We just have to find and use them.

[pawel345]

Well I guess that that's the reason why the score is determined by fastest time. And while some maps allow for this strategy, other don't as sometimes there is a CPRL'ed enemies or a time limit(farbor) or sometimes the initial space you can build around so small that if you don't expand aggressively early on the creeper will overwhelm you. Ofc there is always a point at which victory is sure, or one can turtle for a while to get upgrades.

[Loyal]

One could argue that turtling is in fact the weakest strategy, at least among those that are successful. Insofar as any successful strategy produces victory, the strongest strategies are those that get the job done in the least amount of time. Turtling has a high success rate, but takes a very long time to get anything done.

Turtling is not an optimal strategy in CW3. It is what you do when you don't have any better means of progressing through a map.

[Incompetent]

I'm not saying the game is too easy, just that a conventional level splits into a few phases (with some overlap, as things can happen at different times on different parts of the map), and the early phases are much harder to get right than the later ones:

1. Initial land grab.
2. Contact with the creeper/spores, getting enough weapons to form a stable front.
3. Consolidation: building up the energy supply, upgrading, and using weapons to maximise creeper attrition
4. Main offensive

1 and 2, and especially the transition from 1 to 2, are generally difficult, because you don't have much energy or time and if you're too inefficient or indecisive, the creeper will overwhelm you or leave you with an unacceptably cramped position.  But assuming you do well and get a solid defensive position with enough space behind it, the rate at which you can ramp up your power in phase 3 simply overwhelms the disadvantage of steadily accumulating creeper (an accumulation that can often be halted with heavy weapons).  You can mess up by building too much at once and starving your weapons, or by launching the offensive too early.  But as long as you aren't too reckless, once you start the push, you'll keep pushing and victory is assured, especially once you start knocking out enemy structures and getting PZs on your side of the line.  I wouldn't say phases 3 and 4 are boring, but they don't have the excitement of phases 1 and 2 and your choices don't seem to have the same consequences if you make a mistake.

[pawel345]

Sometimes on space island levels with digitalis and spores, moving anywhere beyond your initial position is really hard and you need all the firepower you are able to build. But you cant build too much of it as you need the space for your reactors. And sure if you mess up the assault you can just try again, but there is no way to turtle through the level. Also your definition of turtling is such that it simply means "Once you build up an overwhelming force you can overwhelm the enemies" and this stands true for any strategy, in CW3 the enemy simply has a different manner of attacking.

[arandomhalo]

I hear what you're saying, Incompetent, and I've certainly been in places where I felt like the fun part was behind me and all that is left is the cleanup work, but I'm with TLMike on this one.  Finishing the puzzle is only boring if your goal is to finish the puzzle.  If your goal is to enjoy putting together the puzzle, then I think Virgil left tons of room for that, both from the map-maker's perspective and the map-user's perspective.

Using army-building RTSes as an analogy, I'm not the kind of guy that plays the early rush.  To end the game quickly by crippling the enemy before he's a threat is just not fun for me.  I enjoy building an army and upgrading it so that when the epic battle takes place, I can edge out the opponent and not feel like it's a cheap shot.  At that point, the battle's not over because I know that in order to finish I still have to push toward an opponent who still has the infrastructure to oppose the advance.  It's for this reason that I rarely use shields in CW3.  It feels too much like a rush game and less like a strategy game.

Two of my favorite innovations in CW3 are the super-massive maps and the islanding of maps.  It means that once you've finished a short term goal, taking the emitters immediately in front of you, the next island has built up some pretty big strength.  I think that's what you're looking for.  Something akin to a tower-defense game - each wave is larger than the wave before it.  As allu pointed out, the game allows for a lot of creative ways to make each wave greater than the one before it.

[florrat]

Actually I agree with the OP. I'm mostly playing the hardest Tormented Space missions I can find so far, and usually if you can survive there for 5-10 minutes while steadily building reactors, and reached equilibrium with the creeper, the rest of the map is just tedious clean-up work. Here I mean tedious not in a too bad way: it is still fun to do the clean-up, but there is hardly any danger anymore. Usually the biggest danger is that you lose some of your attacking units because you're too careless and have to retreat for a short moment.

Using CRPL or in custom maps in general, you can definitely design your map to decrease this problem. But still, in all randomly generated maps (and I predict also in most custom maps) the first few minutes are the hardest, and once you built enough reactors, there is no real threat of losing anymore.

[Imposter]

For a lot of maps you can, but not on the harder ones. And really, I don't see why this game should be just like other strategy games where you have to move out to get more resources. It's nice to have a game that isn't the exact same as others.

[Nephthys]

...being able to hold a defensive line with a totem and a decent amount of land behind it is more or less equivalent to total victory. 
Thoughts?

I take it you would never work a jigsaw puzzle? /Friendly  :)

[Grayzzur]

I take it you would never work a jigsaw puzzle? /Friendly  :)

That's different. You never know until the very end if a piece is missing!

[Grauniad]

I take it you would never work a jigsaw puzzle? /Friendly  :)

That's different. You never know until the very end if a piece is missing!

I would contest that statement. It is near the end that one might know without doubt that a piece is missing. In Churchill's words, I'd say it would be at the beginning of the end that suspicion may arise first and then be confirmed as the end continues to unfold. :)