I generally like TBS better, because I like to mull over my moves by looking over the map to get the big picture, move sliders around to test options, and just make sure all my Ts are crossed and all my Is dotted (so to speak). The big exception, is that I really like real-time tactical combat. Overland planning should be turn-based for me, battles and such should be in real time. The Total War series and even the much maligned Master of Orion 3 are both decent examples of how this would work. A pausing option in the real-time tactical combat is a possibility; I can see valid arguments for and against.

All this goes out the window when multiplayer enters the picture, however. From my experience, strictly turn-based games falter a bit when two or more players are participating simultaneously. Often, in such cases, artificial constraints, such as time limits for turns, must be used to make the game flow a little better for all concerned. Sure, some TBS games fare better than others in this regard, but I still much prefer a RTS, such as Sins of a Solar Empire, when playing with friends.

TBS forever, but I do like some RTS games on occasion :)

RTS is okay but I feel like strategy actually matters a lot more in TBS, punishingly so at times.

Turn-based are generally my preference.

I did have a relatively brief fascination with RTS games back in their earlier days, but as the focus in such games seemed to shift more towards competitive multi-player, I lost interest. I'm probably one of the least competitive people around, and my gaming is almost exclusively single player, so that's not too surprising.

I ... Don't really like TBS most of the time TBH. In some cases I do, for instance, I love Total War series, or when it comes to big management games like Civilization. As for turn-based battles, I only like them very rarely. I hate the inability to immediately react to my opponent.

Well the bad RTS games do that. Some manage to make the process fun, but that doesn't make it good design. Of course, if you actually played some of the good ones, your opinion might change :-P

RTS games in general don't tend to be very strategic - they're much more tactical, and reward quick thinking and fast decisions. Still, there are RTS games which genuinely reward strategy, like Supreme Commander or Sins of the Solar Empires - both of these are very slow-paced, so they give you a lot of time to think your next move trough and both try to minimize the micromanagement and allow you to focus on macro and overall strategy.

Then there are games which go out of their way to not reward 'turtling' (the behavior you have described) - Company of Heroes and Dawn of War games would be the most notable ones. The only way you can acquire resources in these games is to keep as much of the map under your control as possible, and so you get into an endless conflict in which you only win if you're good enough to outmaneuver and outsmart your opponent. That's where the heavy tactical focus kicks in.

And even when a game allows you to turtle heavily, it's rarely the best approach to play it - by being aggressive and expanding you can keep control over map and your enemies, whereas via turtling you are only going to allow your opponent to gain the initiative - sadly enough, most AIs are utterly unable of exploiting that initiative.

Both! Some games are meant to be RTS and some are meant to be TBS. Red Alert, Warcraft, Starcraft, Agies, Dawn of War are meant to be real-time. Civilization, XCom, Alpha Centauri, HOMM, Age of Wonders are meant to be turn-based. I couldn't do without any of them. Honestly don't know which is my favorite

TBS for me, they actually require to plan ahead your moves rather than just build a huge ass army and overwhelm your enemy.

Where do you guys get that crap? I will kindly refer you to the post I have made almost right above yours :-P

That was my impression from playing RTS games (mainly the early C&C/Red Alert games).

I'm fairly sure my impression from playing early TBS would not be all that great either :-P Yeah, they didn't work very well, I think that novelty was what pushed them forward. RTS games came a long way in preventing that behavior - including games sharing mechanics with RA by large margin, just having AI clever enough to overwhelm you when you don't expand.

In terms of strategy, TB is far more intricate. Conversely, it is also more time consuming. Hours simply waltz by when you are playing a tbs game. A RTS is also immensely fun and includes just as much of a strategic element. For a quick playthrough - I'd prefer the latter. However if it is a lazy Sunday afternoon with nothing to do then a TBS it is.

Oh, i forgot to mentioned my fav TBS games:
Nectaris
Empire Deluxe
Nam

The hours i played those games......

RTSs quickly evolved away from the simple tank-rush. In really low-level play you'll still see people just send their armies towards each other, and the one with the biggest army wins, but as soon as people start to get the hang of the game, a lot of new (and far superior!) strategies open up. You can't play StarCraft against even a semi-competent player and expect to win by just amassing the largest possible army. That would depend a bit on the TBS though. While something like Korsun pocket or Combat Mission will require a lot of invested time (both for learning the game and for actually playing it), while something like Future Wars will require less time than your average RTS.

For me, the stereotypical image of TBS is something like Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Man, did I see night turn into day with that game...
But, the stereotypical image of RTS for me is Red Alert. A fast and furious game.

There are many cases where these things are reversed. Slow paced RTSs like Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain can take longer than HoMM 3 to play, yet the levels in a game like Highborn the levels can be over in just in under 30min. And I don't think it is quite fair to talk about stereotypical TBSs or RTSs, considering there is no real set standard for how these games are made, you should instead look at the individual game.
And while it should be noted that there were indeed a lot of Red Alert/C&C clones being made during the second half of the 90's, the traditional base-building RTS is not the norm these days. HoMM-style TBS were never all that common.