Ok you called me out. Now I?m calling you out. Name me some RTS.

[furnatic]

I would say War in the Pacific, however I will make the assumption, you do not have a lot of patience, and that's a turn-based game anyway...

Warcraft 3, Starcraft, C&C Red Alert.

 

[ohgodalex]

Age of Empires II, if you've got a lower end PC.

 

[Vrex360]

Halo Wars... okay I won't insult you sorry.

Seriously the only RTS I ever got into was Alien Versus Predator: Extinction on the original Xbox. Also I'd recommend Dawn of War, solely from what I've seen of the Tau campaign

GO KROOT

 

[Zorg Machine]

RTS games are good because it is pretty much sim city but instead of houses you build factories and research facilities and instead of happy citizens you get soldiers, tanks and/or monsters that fight with other ppls units and (at least in starcraft) you can have an entire alien race look too you as a hero without ever firing a bullet yourself and (quoting from R vs B) "being a leader doesn't mean you run up and shoot people... it means you tell others too run up and shoot people". I went off the subject slightly in the end but you get the gist of it.

 

[Triple G]

Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War
Cossacks: Back to War
Blitzkrieg

These are like favourite RTS games. They have what you need to have a good RTS without all the useless crap and pretentiosness of modern games. They also run very good on old PCs.

 

[NezumiiroKitsune]

You can get Dawn of War for £3 second hand now, and the full set with Dark Crusade, and Soul Storm for £10. Dawn of War is simply the best RTS I have ever played, outstandingly balanced and absolutely beautiful even with a weaker PC. The factions are imaginative, fun, and overall varied. The maps bring a whole new level of tactics and strategy every time you play, and each campaign has been immersive and a pleasure to play.

You cannot go wrong with Dawn of War and it would be a superb introduction to RTS, and start you off in the right place.

Older games I could reccommend are Total Annihilation (if you can get a hold of it) and Command and Conquer Tiberium Sun. Incredible games the both of them.

 

[UltimatheChosen]

Diablo (If you can count it as an RTS?)

I'm deeply confused how you could possibly construe Diablo (or Diablo 2) as an RTS.

 

[Inco]

Unlike Starcraft, which someone will yell is good, it isn't nearly as slow as Starcraft

I'm sorry to point out, but starcraft is not slow, Supreme commander is slow (40 mins to build 1 unit?!). Also i found that with DoW the basic units became useless at the end, whereas starcraft's ones are always useful.
OT- Don't get starcraft as your first RTS on PC, cause the steep difficulty curve will put you off the game and genre. Go something simple first as these people are nicely suggesting, Warcraft 3.

 

[Zac_Dai]

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident.
Not so much an RTS as an RTT game (Real-time Tactical game) since you never command more than a handful of Starships, somewhat unusual controls, but very fun once you get the hang of it. Not sure how good the multiplayer is, but the campaign is top-notch and so are the visuals.

Holy Shi... I wasn't planning on commenting in this topic because frankly I'm lazy and mostly just enjoy blabbing in a semi-poetic and overly verbose manner towards topics where I can inflame peoples tempers (ie feed the flames... don't judge me!).

But I gotta say, you are the first person EVER that I have seen read or even 'thought' about that's ever heard of this game other than me. Hell, at one point I was considering the possibility I might have imagined the whole games existence and that the box on my shelf was little more than a manifestation of my own insanity... but you sir... you have proven me wrong.

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident is a *real* game. (It's even pretty fun!)

Shock and Awe!

Yeah its one of those real gems that no one ever knew. But I use to play EVE-Online and a lot of people had played Nexus, but EVE has a really hardcore Sci-Fi crowd.

Other than that yeah no ones heard of it. You know they were going to make a sequel? It looked amazing from one of the preview vids, but sadly I think the company went bust or something.

 

[Catchy Slogan]

C&C series definitely.
Age of Empires is always a good choice.
Populus. It's an old game on the PS1, but I always loved it. No-one I know has ever heard of it. It makes me sad.
Halo wars was okay, not anything good, but not anything bad either. Like most console RTS's it suffers greatly from not being on a computer. Having a mouse just makes everything so much simpler.

 

[teutonicman]

If your pc is lacking power then I recommend trying to get Age of Empires 2. Or for newer RTS' try Medieval 2 or Empire Total War

 

[PersianLlama]

Other than the obvious craft games, I'd suggest World in Conflict, and Empire: Total War. The demos are both on steam, try them.

 

[jeroen77]

'Command and Conquer Red Alert'. With the 'Aftermath' Expansion Pack.
[snip]
'Command and Conquer Red Alert 2'. With the 'Yuris Revenge' Expansion Pack.
[snip]
'Command and Conquer Generals'. With the 'Zero Hour' Expansion Pack.
[snip]

I second this! Although I haven't played Generals, the Red Alert games were fantastic and I'd recommend them to anybody looking for good, enjoyable RTS games.

This, exactly this

I Do agre whit you on RA 2.
But Generals still being a decent RTS dit not deserevt the Command & conquer title.
Generals just didden had anyting to do with the C&C back story's and was given the C&C title purely for marketing.

Must say, EA redeamt them selfs with Tyberium Wars.

 

[Outcast107]

I would say start off with either Starcraft, warcraft, or the DoW series. Those 3 are the best you can go with. Then move on to CoH. CoH is just amazing, and fun to play. Vech actually like vech in the game, and cannot get killed by rifleman(unlike sc where a marine could hurt a BC). Unless they have rockets, or sticky bombs. Has great cover system, can enter buildings, and other transport vech. So I would wait to start off CoH, since thats for more people who know how to play a RTS. But still get it if you find the RTS genre fun.