Games - Turtle

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	Games - Turtle

In computer and video games the term turtle, named after the turtle animal, has different meanings depending on the genre.

Fighting games

In the world of fighting games, especially those of the 2D variety, a turtle style of play is a defensive style that focuses on patience, positioning, timing, and relatively safe attack options to slow down the pace of the game and minimize the number of punishable mistakes made during the course of the match. This style can be very useful in timed matches, as it allows a player to deal a negligible amount of damage to an opponent, and then win the match by running down the clock.

Compare with: Rushdown

RTS games

A Turtle strategy is commonly used in real-time strategy video games. When turtling, the player protects his territory, to the exclusion of creating any forces for attacking the enemy. The Turtle tactic is a common counter to the Zergling rush tactic.

The most common way to turtle is to build massive amounts of towers to fire upon enemy units, however these mass groupings of towers are easily countered by longer ranged or heavily armored siege units that deal large amounts of damage to buildings.

Turtle armies may also incorporate large groups of stationary units, such as Siege Tanks in "Siege Mode" in the popular real-time strategy game StarCraft. These particular units are unable to move but are reasonably resistant to damage and deal massive damage to a small area, thus making them excellent for defending a position from the enemy.

In Red Alert 2, an entire playable nation, France, is considered the "turtling" team. The French "Grand Cannon" fires a powerful, extremely long-ranged shell effective against tanks and infantry alike, preventing all ground-based long ranged attacks from succeeding. With adequate air defense and a large source of power, the player using France may form an impervious defense line and wait for enemy forces to be decimated. For this reason, France is generally prohibited from many online games.

One major problem with the turtle tactic is that it is normally designed as an attempt to stop an early rush. This leads to the problem of having an army comprised of units that are not advanced or varied. This army consumes resources and time to create, yet is ineffective at stopping a prepared enemy. A varied and well built army will normally be able to defeat any opponent who uses the Turtle strategy.

One of the most common types of custom maps now made for distribution and play in WarCraft III multiplayer is "Tower Defense" map style. These maps have many pathways, on which players can build different types of towers to kill monsters running along the pathways, thus earning gold and the ability to purchase more towers or upgrade existing towers.

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Games - Turtle

Fighting games

RTS games

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