7 – Cossacks: Back to War
Lately, I have seen a lot of people commenting here about the Cossacks: Back to War here, so it’s time to give it some love, because it’s actually one of those series I used to love when I started playing it. In fact, the reason I don’t play Cossacks as much anymore is that the latest game in the series wasn’t all that great. Fortunately, that’s not the case with Cossacks: Back to War, a game where I spent an ungodly amount of hours building towns, and walling them, then building another town near it, and walling it, and then connecting them with walls, and on and on. Of course, each town had its own towers and detachment ready to get into battle, and I would set up patrols between the walled roads connecting each town. You see, when compared to other games at the time, like Age of Empires 2, Cossacks’ maps were a lot bigger, making it the perfect playground for these long and overly complicated defensive mazes. Cossacks also stood up from the crowd because it allowed players to create much bigger armies than most games at the time. Oh, and don’t forget that I used to have Ships of the Line patrolling the coasts, quite possibly, the most overpowered unit in the history of any RTS game ever.
6 – Creeper World 4
Creeper World 4 has to be the most unique game in this list. Rather than traditional armies, players are pitted against an unstoppable, ever-flowing substance called the Creeper, forcing them to build layered defenses, supply chains, and chokepoints on the map. The game rewards foresight and patience, and players must strategically deploy reactors, barriers, and long-range weapons to hold back the tide while steadily expanding their territory and resource network. With its relentless escalation and emphasis on efficient, adaptive defense, Creeper World 4 is a turtler’s dream, where there’s nothing at stake but survival, and managing to have your defenses running flawlessly and just watching them go is super satisfying.
5 – Company of Heroes
Now, World War 2 is not the ideal setting for turtling tactics. In a war that was marked by massive maneuvers, tanks blitzing through the enemy lines, and the development of ground-support aircraft, the appearance of Company of Heroes here might be a bit out of place. However, with the release of the Opposing Fronts DLC, the British came out as a defensive powerhouse that allowed players to build all kinds of insane strategies around defending their bases from enemy assaults while destroying the enemy using their massive artillery pieces. Vickers machinegun emplacements, trenches, barbed wire, sandbags and mines formed the basis of any defensive operations, and now add to that the Bofors 40mm cannong that shreds infantry and vehicles alike, as well as a 17 pounder AT gun to take out the big cats, while the 25 punder howtizers punish any movement from afar and suddenly, movement comes to a halt, and it looks like you’re back in World War 1.
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