Starcraft II is a game of tactics much like Chess. However, unlike Chess, your opponent is covered in a thick fog of war. A subset of players fear the fog of war and what lurks inside of it, many of them are new players while many others are veterans who have long been “pwned” by what lurks out in the unknown. This causes a strange effect where many players will try to turn their base into Helms Deep in order to prevent any early or mid-game attacks so that they can tech into endgame units and annihilate their opponent with an unstoppable army of capital ships.

This has been going on since Starcraft and the early days of battle.net and lan gaming. It happens in other RTS games, but is more prominent in Starcraft. It starts out like this. A match will start and one player will not scout their enemy out because they will move straight to defenses. After all, they simply need to wait until Gandalf the White rides in on his Carrier from the east in order to win the game. They build cannons lining their entire base or a mixture of bunkers/tanks/turrets or rarely Spore/Spine Crawlers. Once their defenses are setup correctly they will finish teching to capital ships (Carriers/Battleships/Brood Lord).

Now, the match will go one of two ways and there is no other way the match will go. The first is that their opponent employs a similar tactic and it becomes a game of who can make 200 food worth of Carriers the fastest and attack move them the best. The other is that they face a player who isn’t afraid of the darkness, discovers their motives, and then busts their choke point and finishes them off with ease. Just as if the Orcs win, except Gandalf requires a lot more vespene gas.

The sad end result of turtle vs. turtle.

If this sounds like you then I have a bit of advice. Don’t fear the darkness, instead embrace it. The darkness applies to your enemy as well. They cannot see you unless they come to your base and they never know what you’re up to. As long as you continue to “turtle and tech” you’ll quickly see that it’s only advantageous when facing the similar strategy and only if you’re quicker at pulling it off.

I read forum post after forum post around the Internet of people complaining about why they’re losing and always you’ll see a build order similar to Pylon -> Forge -> Cannons. This confuses me, because mineral for mineral, Cannons are a bad investment in bulk. They offer a great early game defense, but by the mid-game most units can shred them apart. Colossi for instance easily walk over cannons chewing them up for lunch while Immortals can blast them away. Siege tanks can strike from a distance while a good Zerg player will mass Mutalisks and just ride through the cannons straight to your economy.

Additionally, stationary defenses are just that… stationary. A Photon Cannon outputs 20 damage, has 150 health/shields, and is an armored structure at the cost of 150 minerals. By comparison, a 250 mineral/100 gas Immortal outputs 20 damage with an additional 30 damage vs. armored units and comes with 100 health/200 shield. In a one on one fight, the Immortal is going to win because it will also negate 10 of the cannon’s 20 attack as long as its shields are up. Not only that, but the Immortal can actually walk to the enemies base and kill them. Zealots, at 100 minerals, do 16 damage (8x2) and move rapidly. While they don’t have the range of a cannon (nor can they attack air), they still can walk to the enemy and take them out.

Of course, that’s not to say turtling isn’t a valid tactic in certain matchups (like Terran mirror matches). Although, most of the time, a player who is turtling is making great use of a variety of units in order to defend their base instead of building nothing but stationary defenses.

That’s not to also say that stationary defenses are inherently bad. Photon Cannon rushes are a popular legitimate strategy that can actually win. Cannons near your minerals can defend your economy while attacking stray observers. There are a lot of neat things you can do.

At one time, I was one of those people who built lines of cannons around my base and thought that my army of Carriers was going to win the day. Of course, after many, many, many losses I soon learned the error of my ways. If anything, it taught me a valuable lesson. You can leave your base, you can walk into the enemy’s base, and you can defeat them without hoping for Gandalf to ride in from the east. You just have to believe in yourself.

Well, I hope my rant has educated some. For those of you who have to suffer through matches where people turtle and tech, come to our forums and post your stories. Are you one of those who are scared of the fog of war? Come on over to our forums as well and maybe we can help.