You shall not pass strategy

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This article is an example of something that inexperienced players often do, and it will almost always throw the entire game. Even against moderately skilled opponents, this strategy will not work. Thus, the article should probably be focused on the mentality that encourages players to try this sort of thing and why it's not a good strategy. 

Primary Purpose 

The "You Shall Not Pass strategy" is a blatantly ineffective form of turtling that assumes, incorrectly and against all conventional wisdom, that your opponent is not capable of recognizing or overcoming obstacles despite the numerous tools offered to him within the game. This strategy consists of the player forming an unbroken line of either T2 or T3 Point Defense and AA, thus devoting an absurd amount of firepower, energy, time, and mass to a highly concentrated area. Because this is a sure fire way to lose games anyway, you may as well spam T2 Artillery stations like they're going out of style - they won't protect your line from tactical missiles, but they can at least rival other artillery, depending on your faction. Since this strategy is inflexible and reliant completely on your opponent behaving in the manner most beneficial to your defensive line, it creates a comfy illusion of safety that makes an inexperienced player feel all warm and fuzzy, right up until they're smacked in the face with a brick in a sock - the one thing the line wasn't prepared for. You will find out quickly that the worst enemy of the line is any enemy who does not attack the line. These are, indeed, the cleverest of foes, and if you face one, try to be a good sport as the strategy costs you the entire game.

When implementing your line, you'll find that your flanks and rear are usually exposed to all forms harassment or even direct attacks. Enemies that fail to overwhelm the line will most likely resort to artillery, nuclear assault , experimentals, coordinated air attacks, tactical missiles, stealth, shield generators, or - most devious of all, they will go around the line - so Strategic Missile Defenses and a good sense of humor are a must, as well as T3 radar so you can watch, helplessly, as an overwhelmingly superior force simply marches around your static weapons and directly into your base unhindered. It would also generally be a good idea to have multiple torpedo bombers on standby if they decide to make an amphibious assault on your base, if you can afford them while spamming static artillery, which is improbable.

This line is rather ineffective without a large number of Tactical Missile Defenses , shields, and just stupid amounts of luck. It's also ineffective if your opponent doesn't lollygag until you're ready for him to attack. In fact, anything unexpected makes the line ineffective. Each T2 point defense costs roughly 540 mass and 3200 energy (faction dependant) which can rapidly deteriorate your economy if you are unable to support the construction, and each defense will be useless against any attack that exceeds the range of the structure. 

Saving a template of the line can also be of great use. It gives you plenty of time to go grab a beer so you can get smashed while your base is getting smashed.

Positives for 'YOU SHALL NOT PASS LINE"

1. Maybe your opponent will get frustrated and focus on easier targets, which allows you to claim the ground you are defending until your opponent finds a way to crack your line.

2. Point defenses are often more lethal for their cost than mobile attack forces, which means that, if you're playing on a team, there may be a brief window during which you are not over-committed to your line and your opponents will have to stall their attack temporarily. Your allies may then capitalize on this ephemeral stall, but you will need a talented ally if he's to use this advantage effectively enough to make up for your own fundamental non-involvement in the battle.

3. If you're able to perform this strategy at all and it's having any degree of success, your opponent is either terrible or not taking the game seriously. That means you should have the opportunity to build your defenses in a beautiful pattern, like a blossoming rose or a nude sketch of a pretty lady if you have enough space. It may not win the game, but if you're really good, it will impress your opponent.

Negatives for "YOU SHALL NOT PASS LINE"

1. In "The Art of War", Sun Tzu very explicitly discourages this kind of behavior, saying, "A general who attempts to bolster his defenses everywhere will quickly find he has no defenses anywhere". In other words, if you're devoting thousands of points of mass towards a line of T2 turrets, you'll definitely stop anything that can be stopped by T2 turrets, but because you're fighting an intelligent human being, your opponent will likely recognize this and attack where there are no T2 turrets. This will force you to build more turrets, which takes more time and resources, and ultimately, by the time your entire base is protected by T2 defenses, your enemy is at your door with an experimental.

2. One nuke can destroy the entire line, wasting vast amounts of resources. In fact, many viable strategies can stall or otherwise destroy a line like this. For example, while you are building the line, it is possible for your opponent to send bombers to focus on your engineers and point defenses. In response, you may feel encouraged to build numerous AA guns, at which point your opponent simply shows up with a strong ground force that can do significant damage to the line, wiping out a number of the AA guns you just built. Then the bombing resumes again. As you're dealing with this, your opponent can build tactical missiles under a stealth field, which can easily catch you unaware as you attempt to prepare for the next ground or air attack.

3. A Czar crash will take out the line, which is just absurd because that means the entire line fell by functioning exactly as you intended.

4. Any player with half a brain will just simply avoid it, attacking vulnerable targets that aren't yet protected by static defenses or, depending on the map, using air transports to flank you or attack from the rear.

5. Focusing on building a turtle position likely means that you are allowing the enemy to gain more mass points than you, thus giving them an advantage in terms of resources. If your opponent controls more of the map, you will never have enough resources to rival everything they can throw at you, and in time your opponent may very easily put together a force that could erode your defensive line in a head-on assault.

6. It is almost completely implausible to build a static defensive line that can withstand a variety of experimentals. Experimentals are in a class entirely of their own, and they will put your line at a severe disadvantage in terms of cost effectiveness. Although this defensive line usually costs less mass and energy than most of the things coming towards it, the line is still static, and building it, especially with numerous artillery emplacements, will cost you enough mass that you may as well have built your own experimental. And heaven forbid your enemy build a Soul Ripper or a Czar, both of which can just fly around the line.

7. This strategy ensures you will have no control and that your opponent will dictate who wins the game. Again, to paraphrase Sun Tzu, "The best is an army that is formless. That can take any shape at any time. An army that is rigid is one that can be broken." This strategy provides you with a rigid force that can't move, harass, or do anything other than defend their operational area. That rigidity makes this strategy extremely brittle and prone to failure under pressure. It can't compensate for unexpected attacks or unorthodox maneuvers.

8. In spite of your line, your ACU may still be vulnerable, especially if it happens to be operating at the front, trying to build your defensive line. While your ACU is spending several minutes building the twentieth artillery emplacement, it's a ripe target for tactical missiles or a strategic bombing. If your ACU isn't operating on the defensive line, it's likely in a sparsely populated base where a squadron of air-dropped fire beetles will have no trouble walking right on over to the commander.

9. This defensive line is wasteful towards your unit cap. Each defensive structure will count towards that cap and is one more mobile unit you won't be able to build. For games with a very large unit cap, this is no problem, but otherwise it becomes a serious consideration.

10. If your enemy starts building T3 artillery emplacements, you'll find your line is utterly helpless and your base will be shelled relentlessly. Since you devoted all your resources to establishing a forward turtle position that can't move or respond to anything with a longer range than the line, it's unlikely you'll have an adequate bombing squadron to nix that artillery before it takes out whatever structures your opponent has declared a personal vendetta against. It's unlikely you'll be able to respond with your own T3 artillery since your opponent, who controls more of the map and has presumably been harassing you all game, will be able to build them sooner and faster. Your disadvantage will teeter to embarrassment if your opponent builds a Scathis or Mavor.

11. For this strategy to work, you may need to notify your opponent that you're doing it. Most players will kill you within ten minutes if you attempt this strategy, but if they know you're trying it, they may show some sportsmanship and decide to play around with unorthodox tactics they haven't practiced yet. This way you get to enjoy building a Sim City of defensive emplacements and your opponent still gets to try out units or strategies he doesn't try very often.

12. Ultimately this is a terrible, terrible, terrible strategy that only works if both players are doing the same thing, thereby hilariously building tight-knit defensive lines to defend against the other person's tight-knit defensive lines, even though both opponents aren't going anywhere and will never attack each other with their defensive lines. It's a common trap many inexperienced players for, but that's because inexperienced players really only grasp the power of the defensive structures and they aren't yet able to understand the tactical advantages of mobility and formlessness. The reason why point defenses are more dangerous for their cost is because they're so deeply limited in their uses, which makes them actually very weak compared to mobile units. Truth be told, most experienced players build static defenses somewhat sparingly, just to add a little kick at a choke point or to deter harassment. There are few, if any, strategic advantages to investing your entire economy into a massive network of static defenses, and it should strictly be avoided.

Why Do People Try This?

If I hasn't become abundantly clear by now, this strategy, though common among less skilled players, does not actually provide any tactical advantages. Plenty of experienced players have seen this behavior, and overcoming it is not a matter of really being all that clever. There are many ways to defeat this strategy - some methods involve harassment, others involve taking advantage of map control, and some players may prefer a direct assault. And a direct assault really will stop this strategy, since a more experienced player will be attacking before all the walls and turrets are operational. Just by applying pressure early enough, a defensive line like this can be cracked, no problem. The direct assault method is a bit more challenging to pull off because it requires a bit more consistent intel. You need to know the proper order to pick the defenses off, but the fact that this strategy fails even against direct assaults is a testament to how useless it really is.

So why do players do this? Many experienced players will tell you that a turtle is perhaps one of the easiest opponents to defeat, so why does anyone attempt this sort of strategy?

It's most likely two reasons. The first is that the player may not be terribly comfortable with the concept of an RTS yet. Without having a good grasp of multi-tasking, micro, and macro, it can be very difficult to wrap one's head around actual strategy and tactics. It's not practical to recommend feints and other clever ideas to players who can't control their armies well enough to do two or three things at once. It's daunting. Often, new players getting defeated by more abstract tactics can't even really fathom how it's happening. They recognize they're being hit in one place and then another, but they only see "attackers here, attackers there", and they're not yet able to assess real threat levels. To the new player, they're just being hit from all sides.

To such a player, static defenses must seem very alluring. At a glance, they're stronger for less cost, and a ton of the things can put an end to some of the more advanced tactics. A feint or harassment on a base armed with more static defenses than good sense will likely not do a whole lot, and a player can't be confused into sending his forces to a false front if he has no forces to send in the first place. The inexperienced player notices the bombers being shot down by AA guns and it feels like a reward, like they've done something right.

What they don't notice is what they haven't gained. As their area of operation has shrunk to protect a limited region, they can't perceive the sheer amount they're falling behind by. They aren't harassing their enemy, they aren't being proactive, and they aren't building as strong of an economy. Consequently, when they lose, they'll notice it will be due to something that seems like it should have been stoppable. They think, "Oh, if only I built torpedo bombers," or "Oh, if only I'd built more gunships", but the truth is, their opponent knew there weren't enough gunships or torpedo bombers. There was no way the turtle could have stopped that attack, and the more experienced player counted on it - that's why they attacked in that manner in the first place.

The second reason players may feel compelled to turtle is because humans are naturally more averse to loss than they are fond of gains, and this is especially true among some people. While the experienced player cares less when his T1 army gets thrashed, as long as he can bounce back, there are some people who just hate to see that. They place a certain amount of psychological value on every individual unit, and losing them winds up being a stressful experience.

Static defenses are harder to lose because they're more effective per cost and they can be shielded. They don't go anywhere. They're just safe. Not doing anything. Such players often rely on bombing. They may build a ground army, but similar to the defenses, they try to keep those units safe in the base where no harm can come to them. The irony is, the aversion to loss eventually promotes more loss in the long run. A player who doesn't worry about it may build a forward radar station, allowing him to intercept bombers well before they get to anything important, but a loss-oriented player will feel compelled to protect his forward radar station with shields, AA guns, a stealth field, maybe a few point defenses, and now that forward station feels like a major investment. The player freaks out if it gets attacked. It almost gets to be a strange mental illness, where the player would theoretically want to build a forward radar station to protect his forward radar station, going on for infinity or until the player is building a heavily defended radar station in his opponent's base.

Why Is It More Effective to Avoid Turtling?

Simply put, because anything has more tactical value. When first getting into a game, it's hard to asses the strategic value of each unit. Some units may be built around certain duties on paper, but in practice they need too much support to do as they're intended. Other ideal roles may need a lot of set-up time, and as a general rule, if it takes more than thirty seconds to execute a strategy, that strategy is either a bit of a Hail Mary or it's just never going to work. A good example would be tactical missiles under a stealth field. It takes a while to set up and it relies on your opponent not flying overhead at some point as you're getting the structures built, so although it can be effective, it's not a trick that works with a lot of dependable consistency. Any tactic that relies on your opponent being unaware of your plans for a few minutes can be like that. There's risk and reward.

Turtling provides a very low risk, but sadly, it really achieves no reward. It doesn't allow map control, it doesn't hurt your opponent, it's expensive so it slows down your economy, and ultimately it stops being a question of risk versus reward and more of a question of investment versus returns. A "You Shall Not Pass" defensive line is a huge investment that nets virtually zero returns, excluding, perhaps, a few mass extractors your opponent will have a very hard time reaching.

Mobile units, however, have multiple uses and purposes. By investing in gunships, you can get a variety of positive benefits from them, whether you use them defensively, as air cavalry, for harassment, or even just for scouting and testing defenses. The same goes for most units, although all mobile units are specialized towards their own roles. A defensive turret does one thing: it attacks enemies within its range. The mobile units do numerous things.

Although the mobile units are less expensive and more vulnerable, they have more tactical value and they're more versatile. That means that, although turrets do their singular jobs more effectively than their mobile counterparts, the mobile units still have more value. You're paying less to get more versatility - you're paying less to, in a sense, get a turret that you can simply load into a transport and send straight to the enemy base. The tactical value of mobile units is implicit. It's not something you can describe in terms of mass or energy costs, but having it is essential to winning a game. In blunt terms, static defenses are highly cost-inefficient once you start factoring in strategic considerations.

Using Defenses in a Functional Manner

There is no such thing as a "You Shall Not Pass" defensive line. Your enemy will pass. They'll go around, they'll blow up the line, they'll attack it with experimentals, and so on. It's a huge waste of resources to try to build a line that can't be cracked. So given the weak strategic value of static defenses when used in this manner, how can they best be utilized?

AA Defenses

AA defenses are your most practical defenses and the ones that are built with most frequency by the average player. Although interceptors are more practical when there's time to react with them, the AOE damage provided by T2 Flak cannons can knock chunks out of a bomber squadron. Often times, static AA defenses may not be sufficient to stop a flight pattern from hitting their target, but they will be enough to prevent a second bombing run from the same squadron. Additionally, flak cannons that fire on incoming transports will perform damage to the units being transported, which occasionally results in the death of the payload even if the transport itself doesn't go down.

T3 AA turrets, meanwhile, are capable of intercepting strategic bombers. They're also effective at softening airborne experimentals. However, they are not terribly useful for dealing with large squadrons.

Finally, T1 turrets are functional, but easily the least useful of your three options. They will bring down enemy aircraft, but not with the same reliability as an interceptor, and often times, during the early game, it's more effective to produce mobile AA guns. This rule can actually apply with T2 flak cannons as well, since it's possible to build mobile flak cannons. The only turret that can't be replaced is the T3 AA gun.

Despite that the T1 and T2 turrets are less useful than interceptors and mobile AA, it's a still a good idea to place them around your base for the simple fact that they can bolster your defender's advantage. It's not uncommon to find your enemy has invested more resources into his airforce than you have, and in those cases it could be catastrophic if a superior squadron of interceptors were flown into your base to eliminate your ability to respond to air threats. Having a few turrets around helps prevent this tactic. An inferior force of interceptors that is assisted by AA guns can pull through, forcing your opponent to retreat and recoup losses.

So in these cases, it's observed that the AA guns are actually supporting your air force. Your air force itself is the primary method by which you control the skies, and a small network of AA guns is the safe haven to which they may retreat if the tables turn. As long as you maintain a formidable air force, you should only require a few AA guns placed strategically around your base. The number you'll need is dependent on the size and sprawl of your base, but as long as you have decent coverage, you'll find any attempt to dominate your personal skies being thwarted well enough for your mobile units to deal with the slack.

Point Defenses

Point defenses, like AA guns, should also be supplementary in nature. A T1 point defense is powerful enough to cause real trouble for a T1 army, and it can easily earn back the mass that was spent on it. This fact is common knowledge, and it's why many inexperienced players tend to want to rely on point defenses instead of a mobile ground force. The problem is, the point defense only projects your influence as far as their range, and no further. Even the lowly LABs, meanwhile, can run all across the map, killing engineers and denying mass points.

Consequently, point defenses are most useful for two things: deterring ground harassment and defending hotly contested areas. Though it may seem counter-intuitive, your primary base is not a hotly contested area in most cases. In fact, it's one of the least contested areas of the game because it will spend most of battle crawling with your own units. If you opponent can build a forward base on top of your own primary base, you have done something terribly, terribly wrong.

Ultimately, you should find yourself building very few point defenses, and if you do so at all, it will often be to assist a forward position that is producing mobile units. Alternatively, you may choose to build point defenses if you see an advancing force you aren't ready for, perhaps spotted during a bomber fly-by or simply by radar. In these cases, the point defenses will be supplementing your army, which is, at that moment, too small to defeat the incoming attackers. The important thing to recognize here is that the point defenses are not going anywhere once they're built, so they absolutely need to be placed only in areas where you know the enemy has to pass through or is going to pass through.

Just as with the AA turrets, point defenses function most usefully as a fall-back position. If the tide of battle turns, your ground forces can retreat to a point defense and benefit from the extra fire power, which will cause a pursuing enemy to fall back. Your mobile ground troops control the ground, and your turrets are a merely safety net in case of catastrophe. If it's some distance between your own base and the enemy, there's little benefit to having a large quantity of point defenses in your primary base, since it's impractical to fall back from the front all the way to your primary base. Think of turrets as rally points, not as a solution to enemy aggression.

Artillery

Artillery has multiple functions, and very few of them are outright defensive in nature. In most cases, it's actually a superior strategy to build mobile, T3 artillery if you need this kind of force projection. The way you use your artillery also depends on your faction. The Cybran artillery is useful for softening enemy mobile formations, whereas Aeon artillery is better suited for attacking priority targets. One way or the other, they're most commonly built in an attempt to resolve a duel between forward bases.

There are many maps where controlling a particular region can be beneficial, and often, two opponents will build forward bases and attempt to secure these regions. These types of battles can become very bloody and may result in vicious stalemates if neither side can overcome the other's position. The tide may turn back and forth, but each player struggles to overwhelm the other's forward base.

This is when artillery comes into play. Neither side is intent on going anywhere, and the artillery will provide consistent fire which can tip the scales. Defensively, they are a poor option because artillery is very expensive and it's not a good idea rely on them as a deterrent. They make prime targets for bombing runs, too, because of their high price tag. They can be very powerful on the assist, but they can't be built lightly and it's sometimes difficult to determine if their use is rightly called for over other methods. Often times, they appear after the use of tactical missiles has failed.

Tactical Missiles

Usually the preferred method of static force projection, tactical missiles are purely offensive and should never be built except to threaten static enemy positions. They are both cheaper and have a longer range than artillery, with the one considerable drawback that tactical missile defenses can prevent them from performing their job. As with artillery, they are helpful in resolving duels between forward bases. If the enemy is continually falling back to point defenses that your ground forces can't overcome, a few tactical missiles can clear that problem right up and allow the next wave to finally overwhelm the enemy.

This brings us to the consideration of tactical missile defenses, which should usually be built as early as possible on any forward position that may be threatened by enemy missiles. It typically requires two defenses to halt one missile, so this can quickly become a conflict of escalation. It requires mass and time to build new missiles, but missile defenses can react under any circumstance. These situations therefore often require intel since the two opposing sides will be attempting to exceed each other with regards to these measures.

If tactical missiles can be built covertly, before the enemy can build defenses, the missiles can eliminate numerous high priority targets within their operational range.

Torpedo Launchers

Although the same rule generally applies as with other static defenses, torpedo launchers provide fewer benefits once an opponent arrives at T2, where various ships obtain an attack range that exceeds the torpedo launchers. The launchers can be helpful to deter submarines and they may force your opponent to slow their attack, but as far as naval confrontations are concerned, nothing is more effective than a competent navy.

There is one notable exception in the form of the Cybran HARMS. Due to its unique status as a submerged weapon, its high DPS, and its reasonable reach, it can serve as a much more productive fallback position. Its respectable range of 80 means that any naval unit that can attack it will also be within range of the HARMS.