Decent RTS

[Appleshampoo]

After playing Starcraft 2 and enjoying the crap out of it, I've lost interest in most other RTS games as most of them are just 'Go kick the crap out of this base, and in the next mission do it again but this time with 3 different bases!' I know Starcraft 2 was a lot like that, but at least they hid it well with interesting features.

Anyway, I'm looking for a new one to play. I got Battle for middle earth 2, but haven't played past the first mission because I got side tracked with other things. Is it worth playing through, and are there any other decent ones out there? Played Red alert 1, 2 and 3, and C&C 1, 2, 3 and the horrible piece of turd 4.

Red alerts face paced action appealed to me, and company of heroes was decent too. Didn't like Dawn of war 2 because playing the exact same map 20 times is boring.

Help please!

 

[Rokusi666]

My personal favorite is Age of Empires 3

 

[Jonluw]

Age of empires II has plenty of awesomeness. Or at least that was the case the last time I played it. I haven't played any other RTSs though.

 

[repeating integers]

As usual, I am going to recommend Homeworld.

Again as usual, I'm going to copypaste in a list of reasons from a PM I once wrote.

Not as usual, I'll split it into separate spoiler tags to prevent it from being daunting.

Spoiler: Gameplay

The game takes place in full 3D. What's surprising about this is that it's all implemented rather simply - you press M to move your units, and hold down the SHIFT key to move them upwards or downwards (the tutorial is quick to teach you about this). Once you get used to it (which doesn't take too long) it becomes second nature, almost. You have incentive to do it, too - all capital ships have weaker armour on the top, bottom, and rear sides.

Combat is also handled fluidly - there's a Group Attack feature, where you can hold down CTRL and drag a selection box around your enemies. Your units will promptly go and attack the whole group - I found this so useful, I couldn't remember how I'd ever done without it when I went back to Age of Empires II. There's another cool functionality with the group function (as in, assigning units to groups with CTRL+) - unlike most RTS games, Fleet Command - a voice which provides you with updates on the battle and such - will recognise the groups; so when you assign some units to, say, Group 1, Fleet Command will say "Group 1 assigned", and continue to provide status updates ("Group 1 is under attack", "Group 1 reports victory" etc). What's even more useful is that you can set groups within groups - i.e you can assign your fighters to group 1, your Corvettes to group 2 and your capital ships to group 3, then select all of them and assign them to group 10 (CTRL+0) without it erasing the individual groupings. What this does is removes the irritation from the classic micromanagement of RTS games, making it easier to organise your units - and it doesn't remove any of the challenge.

When it comes to the long game (is Meta the word?) Homeworld's campaign has a gameplay attribute you have to get used to - a persistent fleet. This means that units you build/capture on one level carry over directly to the next. It also means you have to be really careful - winning a mission with only 1 ship and no resources left isn't going to cut it for the next mission, so you have to not only win, but win well to effectively progress. You have to be careful to conserve your units and not throw them away like Zergs, because each mission only has limited harvestable resources with which to rebuild - and you have to, at the end of each level, think carefully about which ships to construct. You don't know what you're going to encounter on the next mission, and you have to be prepared for everything. It's this, above all, which makes the game so very difficult - I've heard horror stories of people who've ragequit because they went and acted stupid by not saving very often and throwing away most of their ships on a particularly hard mission.

Spoiler: Story & storytelling

Homeworld's story is simple, in itself, but at the same time it's what an RTS needs from a story. There are no real characters (though there are named voices), no McGuffins - the story focuses on your people and their plight as a whole, to get Home. Hence the title. Still, I'd say the roughly average story is far eclipsed by the way it's told - there's emotion and atmosphere in droves, and you really are emotionally invested in the civilisation you carry between the stars.

Spoiler: Graphics

Being 11 years old, you'd expect the graphics in this game to look absolutely goddamn awful, comparatively to today's games.

... They're not. The graphics technically aren't that good, and if you zoom in close enough and are on a low enough setting you can play "Let's count the pixels!" to pass the time... but Homeworld is beautiful. Really, really beautiful - from about the 4th mission onwards (out of 16). Never before has space been such a scenic place.

Spoiler: Music

The music is haunting, atmospheric, and absolutely brilliant. It's my personal favourite game soundtrack, because it really fits the game - you really do get the feeling that Space is really, really goddamn huge from some of the pieces, and the battle music is catchy and very cool.

Spoiler: Conclusion to gushing recommendation wall-of-text

So, there you have it - why Homeworld is awesome. If the difficulty daunts you, you can find walkthroughs scattered about the intarwebz (particularly on Gamespot's "hints and cheats" section, as well as their official walkthrough). I also feel as if I should warn you - I have a friend who got Homeworld to run on his magnificent and wondrous gaming rig, but he had to change it to window mode as it tried to double the framerate when it was fullscreen - which, of course, caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

The game costs like £5 (5 pounds; not sure what's wrong with the symbol) from Amazon (not sure what that is in fake money dollars) so really, there's no reason why you shouldn't at least try it.

 

[Kenko]

Try Napoleon or Empire Total War.

 

[Seaf The Troll]

Supreme commander all the way, the first one not the 2nd. it has a large Tec tree and works well on-line against lots of people. I have had games that took almost 8 hours and after that we started up again.

the map and the scale of subcom make it more interesting with being able to have a total of 1,000 units on the map at one time.

if you want a total change you could always go Dragon-shard (PC) or Valkyria Chronicles(PS3)

 

[Wraith_V]

Dawn of War, the first one

The campaign is excellent, and the AI is a challenge.

The game is a little smaller scale than most RTS's but the units all have alot of character.

The game uses squads of units rather than individual infantry which you can upgrade and customise to suit your playstyle. Most units can also engage in melee as well as shoot.

With expansions there are 9 unique races to choose from.

It also takes a different approach to resource collection. You capture strategic points on the map with your infantry to generate resources which encourages expansion.

I'm not sure how many people play online now though.

Dawn of war 2 is a much different game, its more of a real time tactics game than a real time strategy due to the very small scale of the game - some armies max out at 30 soldiers (not squads of soldiers), there is also no LAN (its on steam).

 

[Hawk of Battle]

Achron. Genuine time travelling game mechanics. Yes.

Also Dawn of War and its expansions up to Dark Crusade.

 

[RastaBadger]

I'm not that into RTS to be honest but I loved Sins Of A Solar Empire.

 

[Kurt711]

Any of the Age of Empires games were excellent.

 

[Scout Tactical]

In before Starcraft 2 bashing.

I doubt you'll find an experience like Starcraft 2, though. The campaign was excellently executed, even if they fumbled with Battle.net 2.0.

 

[Tibike77]

Supreme Commander + S.C. Forged alliance (stay away from SC2). Heck, even Total Annihilation, the really, really old one SupCom is a spiritual successor of.
Homeworld 1, HW Cataclysm and HW 2. Each have their interesting things. I enjoyed the gameplay of Cataclysm most, the story of the first one most, and the graphics of HW2 most. Don't get me wrong, all three were above average in all those aspects.
Sword of the Stars, not exactly a RTS per se, mostly a 4X game but with pretty decent RTS-esque elements. Sins of a Solar Empire, mostly a RTS with 4X elements, so basically the same kind of hybrid but with reversed ratios.

Oh, and before I forget, a few lost gems very few people ever bothered with : Darwinia and DEFCON on one hand (same publisher), "Giants: Citizen Kabuto" and "Z : Steel Soldiers".
The last one... you must have heard about "Z" from waaaay back (I hope), and that one is also quite fun (even if a bit dated from the moment it appeared back in the day with its top-down 2D not even cartoonish look)... Steel Soldiers however was a proper 3D game with quick, hectic and fun sessions. Can't hurt to give it a spin, even if by now it might also look more than a bit dated (it's 9 years old, afterwards) and the interface can feel quite a bit clumsy. Oh well, I guess you can skip it since it hasn't aged all that gracefully.
For the first two, they're a bit oddball and the graphics are intentionally odd-looking, but they're mighty fun... especially multiplayer DEFCON in "office mode".
Kabuto... umm... that one is REALLY hard to explain in a way that does it justice... and it's not really just a RTS either. It's... odd. It's like a funny 3rd person shooter (afterall, it's from the people that made MDK) mixed with some RTS and a little bit of RPG in it for fun too.
Speaking of Giants - Citizen Kabuto, the closest game that somewhat resembles it would be Battlezone and Battlezone 2. Those was "part RTS" too. Had quite a bit of fun with them back in the day.

P.S. Bask in the hilarity of Kabuto (multiplayer has max 5 meccs, 3 reapers and 1 kabuto player):

Spoiler

and soon after

Spoiler

and at one point

Spoiler

 

[Ldude893]

Company of Heroes. It's a WWII strategy game with an actual automatic cover system for infantry, fully destructible environments, and good fun gameplay that actually requires you to use tactics rather than simply rushing an enemy with cheap units. You may need a good computer to play it though, it's got its own physics engine.

I also recommend World in Conflict, but it's more of a Real Time Tactics game than an RTS. It involves the Soviet Union invading the west coast of America in alternate history Cold War. Unlike most mainstream RTS games, you build absolutely no buildings and gather no resources. You buy units and tanks with points which replenish themselves after the units die. You can also get points to use "Tactical Aids" such as artillery strikes or nukes.

 

[sms_117b]

Haegemonia: Legions of Iron, it's a 3D space RTS, I prefer it to Homeworld.

Age of Empires and Rise of Rome, Rise of Nations are really good.

I used to love RTS, but have slowly been going off it for the last few years, these games I do still play though.

 

[Best of the 3]

Warcraft 3 and Praetorians will be my favourite of all time RTS's and they run on practically anything due to their age.

Praetorians for the PC, although I'm not sure if anyone plays online today, has great lan and very well done. With Romans, Barbarians and Egyptians battling it out over snowlands, woodlans etc. I'd give it a quick look if you can find it.

 

[Lord Kloo]

Company of Heroes. It's a WWII strategy game with an actual automatic cover system for infantry, fully destructible environments, and good fun gameplay that actually requires you to use tactics rather than simply rushing an enemy with cheap units. You may need a good computer to play it though, it's got its own physics engine.

I also recommend World in Conflict, but it's more of a Real Time Tactics game than an RTS. It involves the Soviet Union invading the west coast of America in alternate history Cold War. Unlike most mainstream RTS games, you build absolutely no buildings and gather no resources. You buy units and tanks with points which replenish themselves after the units die. You can also get points to use "Tactical Aids" such as artillery strikes or nukes.

You totally and utterly ninja'ed me in almost every way possible..
I also recommend getting the first expansion for Company of Heroes (Opposing Fronts), it has good value, don't get the 2nd expansion though..

Also for the real fans, Company of Heroes and DoW 2 (relic games) both have incredibly good world-builders for consumer usage, takes a bit of getting used to though..

 

[random_bars]

Give Brutal Legend a go. It's not a straight RTS, it's an action-RTS - basically meaning the base-building is simplified and micromanagement isn't needed much, but you yourself are the most powerful unit in the game - you can fly to anywhere on the battlefield, land, kill stuff yourself, and fly off again.

You can play any from a huge selection of solos which will do anything from melt the faces of any enemies nearby, to attaching an anvil to your opponent to stop them from flying, to spawning a pulsating boil in the ground that acts as a land mine, to dropping a flaming zeppelin on the map. And alongside this you have the double team attacks - you can team up with any unit you make to do a combo attack that's more powerful than either of you could do alone, which can range between simply controlling a stronger version of their normal attack, to doing something completely different - like one unit which can be used to possess on of your opponent's units.

All in all, it's very different to conventional RTS games (and conventional action games) but is incredibly fun once you get your head round it.

 

[thahat]

Company of Heroes. It's a WWII strategy game with an actual automatic cover system for infantry, fully destructible environments, and good fun gameplay that actually requires you to use tactics rather than simply rushing an enemy with cheap units. You may need a good computer to play it though, it's got its own physics engine.

I also recommend World in Conflict, but it's more of a Real Time Tactics game than an RTS. It involves the Soviet Union invading the west coast of America in alternate history Cold War. Unlike most mainstream RTS games, you build absolutely no buildings and gather no resources. You buy units and tanks with points which replenish themselves after the units die. You can also get points to use "Tactical Aids" such as artillery strikes or nukes.

company of heroes! definitally company of heroes.
surprising it was not named earlier XD