Turtling is a gameplay strategy that emphasizes heavy defense. Ostensibly, turtling minimizes risk to the turtling player while baiting opponents to take risks in trying to overcome the defenses. In practice, however, games are often designed to punish turtling through various game mechanics. Consequently, while turtling strategies are usually simple enough for novices to learn and are effective as such, they are easily defeated by experienced players who understand the game's methods to counter turtling.
As a metaphor, turtling refers to the defensive posture of a turtle, which retracts its limbs into its hardened shell for protection against predators. A player who concentrates on defense is said to behave like a turtle, reluctant to leave the safety of its shell for fear of suffering a lethal attack.
Turtling Strategies[]
Interestingly, on straight to the point, if defeat is inevitable, it is entirely possible to hold out on one of the islands for long periods of time, this is best achieved with a British Marine deck. Firstly, both islands have one tree-less patch somewhat inland, and this can be used as a supply helicopter landing point. Next, using special forces, set up points around the island to prevent landings, it is recommended that these units are either Spetsnaz or Royal Marines '90, Ideally back them up with recon infantry. This should cover you from most landings as it can be very hard for any player to get past a decent number of either of the above units, especially seeing as how tanks will be useless in the trees. Next, air, the best unit for this is probably a large number of sas, they are unlikely to be spotted due to their inherent stealthiness, and unlike standard aa infantry, they can hold their own against other infantry divisions, as well as tanks. (although their lack of a proper secondary weapon, e.g CQC, makes them somewhat inefficient against infantry) And they will easily bring down helicopters. You may wish to also use vehicle based SAM launchers, but they will be much more vulnerable, and 8 sas squadrons should be able to bring down any jet, even with their short aeroplane targeting range. Next, ships, whilst land based asm launchers are not amphibious, and whilst they don't come in transports, it is possible to load them into another units transport. If you are going with the recommended British Marine deck, buy your asm launchers, then buy an equal number of scorpion light tanks from the naval tab, unload the scorpions, and load up the ASM launchers, and then ship them to the island. Once there, they will almost always be in range of the enemy fleet, and it is nearly impossible for any fleet to fend off every asm launcher available to Blufor if they fire together. This can be useful even when not turtling as it can take out an enemy fleet preventing a landing. Finally, artillery, this is the biggest issue for an Island turtle as it is altogether possible for the entire island to be shelled at once, the only real solution to this is shipping in your own artillery and firing back.
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