Real time strategy

[Merkavar]

Well i have the urge for playing a RTS game. Ive played starcraft 2 and cultures recently but feel like a new game.

Any of you guys know of a good RTS where atleast in the singleplayer campaign there is like atleast an illusion of your missions meaning something. Like how in Dawn of war your taking over a planet or how you have a main dude that you upgrade gear through out the campaign.

Are their any RTS games that are like the board game Risk where you take over territories and get benefits

 

[Nouw]

Well Dawn of War:Retribution is coming out soon and the Campaign looks fantastic with 6 races and the same plantery take over so I'd recommend that.

 

[The Madman]

You could always give the Total War series a try if you're into the whole 'Risk' aspect of strategy games. It's not strictly an rts, the campaign section playing much like Civilization and its turn-based kin (Which is incidentally where you wanna look if you're in the mood for grand strategy, rts tend to be more of a skirmish thing!) but in which the battles play out in real time, pausing aside.

Alternatively you could try out Dawn of War 2. Chaos Rising has multiple endings to the campaign, some of which are quite badass, although the actual focus on the game is on a much smaller scale than most other RTS. Upcoming expansion is also very DOW1ish as well, so you might want to keep an eye open for that!

There's also the older but still awesome Rise of Nations game, a global scale RTS with a few interesting and quirky twists. You'd probably like that one, it seems almost exactly like what you're asking for. Age of Empires meanwhile doesn't have a grand scale map or anything of the sort, but is another RTS you might want to look into. The second Age of Empires game is easily the best of the series and still holds up well today, but the third game has a persistent 'mother city' element you might enjoy.

There's another RTS I'm thinking of that was similar to Age of Empires in that your games would take place over a long expanse of history, but I can't remember its name right now. Ah well!

 

[Dango]

Are their any RTS games that are like the board game Risk where you take over territories and get benefits

Go for Rome: Total War if you want that. Other than that I'd definitely recommend Company of Heroes.

 

[Cyberjester]

King Arthur: The Roleplaying Wargame is pretty fun, turn based overmap, RTS battles, text based quests and all in the Arthurian legends.

It's pretty awesome. There's provinces to take over, you get gold/food for each province you own. There's a bit of economics to it, keep the villagers safe, healthy, etc otherwise they start rebelling. Which is free Rightful/Tyrant points so I just let them rebel, until I get swarmed by..

And here's where you play it and find out. ^ ^

 

[The Madman]

Sins of a Solar Empire is another good one I'd forgotten. Crank the settings on a custom game up and you've the potential for campaign length epic matches with multiple factions doing battle over control of entire solar system. Definently one you should look into, all in real time as well!

 

[Merkavar]

Alternatively you could try out Dawn of War 2. Chaos Rising has multiple endings to the campaign, some of which are quite badass, although the actual focus on the game is on a much smaller scale than most other RTS. Upcoming expansion is also very DOW1ish as well, so you might want to keep an eye open for that!

oh thats good cause dow 2 changed to much compared from dow 1.

And thanks everyone for the suggestions ill have alook into them

 

[microhive]

I would recommend WarCraft III. The campaign is amazing and has a really nice length.

 

[warrcry13]

I know I plan on playing Dawn of War 2 Retribution. For one I absolutely love all things Warhammer/Warhammer40K. Two they are dropping Games for Windows Live, and the trueskill system. I cant think of a Third, but I'll say HUZZAH!

 

[Scout Tactical]

Most rts, shouldnt be called strategy games, they are nothing about strategy and the top competitive level. Micro and macro outweights strategy and mind fights. Top players know what the other player will do but they will still go for their boring expected and predictable build order

Ruse is one of the games that i can say has a potential of becoming a good only strategy game, i am bored of the stereotypical rts games like sc2 and cnc(even though i loved cnc, well expect when ea raped it)

Exactly! I get frustrated when people call chess a strategy game. All the grandmasters and international grandmasters know all the best patterns. Chess is not a strategy game.

And war? Seriously? Does anyone ACTUALLY believe there is strategy in real life war? I'm calling bullshit. Any real life 'strategist' will tell you that there are some basic patterns all rational countries will follow. They really shouldn't be called strategic at all.

Honestly, I'm only disappointed with one part of your post. You said RUSE was a strategy game, or had potential to be one, and it's just another bad pattern game. You order around units and can't come up with anything unique. There's a best build order, et cetera.

Team Fortress 2 is probably the best strategy game on the market right now. There's so much psychology involved in fighting as a spy and against spies.



Oh wait, just remembered, micromanagement (tactics), macromanagement (strategy), and psychology (diplomacy) are all parts of modern strategic games. Anyone who fails to realize this hasn't understood the genre at all.

 

[Merkavar]

No SupCom recommendations? For shame. That game is like StarCraft 2 except on a larger scale and better in every way. That goes for both the original SupCom and the sequel. The full title is Supreme Commander, in case you didn't know that already and started looking for just SupCom.

i have played supreme comander. i didnt really like it. it seemed its only positive point was that you could make some really really big units.

I might just play DOW again or maybe warcraft. i play wow but only ever played the demo of warcraft 1 and keep my eye out for the new dawn of war

 

[Liberaliter]

If you don't mind an older game, Cossacks: European Wars is amazing, there are two expansions to it, a standalone one is available on Steam very cheaply.

 

[Lyri]

Last RTS I played was Starcraft 2, without background knowledge of SC1 I dumped my WoW subscription and bought the collectors edition.
I've sunk hours into that game working my way through ranked matches as Zerg, it's all I played until recently where I've been delving into League of Legends right now.

I've recently got my laptop back from the repair center so I'm back to dabbling on SCII, hoping to get my micro and macro back up to par.
I haven't played it for 4 months.

No SupCom recommendations? For shame. That game is like StarCraft 2 except on a larger scale and better in every way. That goes for both the original SupCom and the sequel. The full title is Supreme Commander, in case you didn't know that already and started looking for just SupCom.

Supcom is awful, it doesn't even compare to Starcraft at all. I know it's only your opinion but that one pokes at me like a stick, sorry.

 

[Umwerfer]

I would recommend WarCraft III. The campaign is amazing and has a really nice length.

Best advice I've heard all day

 

[Arayle]

If you are looking for an RTS, have a look at a game called Ground Control.

it's an old game though, but It's still great (and looks good, for its age anyway). It's based around squad type RTSs, you get x number of units to finish the mission with. It's single player campaign is pretty long as well, so that's always a plus!

 

[Carboncrown]

For something traditional,

I would recommend WarCraft III.

For something different, Homeworld.(3D Space awesomness)

For a turn based and a serious time sink, (Seriously. "All right I'll need to go to hockey practice in an hour. Oh, it's been three" True story.) Civilization V

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Sins of a Solar Empire is one of the best strategy games I've ever played. You get a load of playtime for your moneys worth outta that game.

 

[AK47Marine]

And war? Seriously? Does anyone ACTUALLY believe there is strategy in real life war? I'm calling bullshit. Any real life 'strategist' will tell you that there are some basic patterns all rational countries will follow. They really shouldn't be called strategic at all


Oh wait, just remembered, micromanagement (tactics), macromanagement (strategy), and psychology (diplomacy) are all parts of modern strategic games. Anyone who fails to realize this hasn't understood the genre at all.

I agree with most of your post, but these two paragraphs stood out, the latter is an excellent point and one I heartily agree with, most modern RTS games don't pay much attention to the third virtue of diplomacy. Subtly manipulating and spying or using cats paws to batter your enemy before you crush them is just as satisfying and saves your own people some lives. For the majority of RTS games diplomacy is too slow to keep up with the high pace most campaigns seem to take.

I completely disagree with the first paragraph of the above though. Strategy, tactics and diplomacy are vital tenets of any military command, in the modern combat environment even small unit leaders have to operate with diplomatic and strategic mindsets above and beyond the tactical concerns they used to be focused on. Diplomacy especially extends all the way down the chain of command to the lowest set of chevrons walking around with a rifle. There is nothing in warfare that is reliable or predictable. There is no "basic pattern" that everyone follows. Even other western nations operate differently then we do, the UK and Canada's armed forces operate in a similar pattern then ours... but even then, they have completely different tactics and strategies then we do and a completely different method of implementing all of
those.

OT:
I'm a big fan of the longer view games, Hearts of Iron III and Civilization V are a lot of fun. For more of an RTS I always recommend the Star Wars RTS, the ground engagements could get a little clunky and repetitive but damn did I have fun with the space battles. Heh heh crush the rebel scum!

 

[moretimethansense]

Well i have the urge for playing a RTS game. Ive played starcraft 2 and cultures recently but feel like a new game.

Any of you guys know of a good RTS where atleast in the singleplayer campaign there is like atleast an illusion of your missions meaning something. Like how in Dawn of war your taking over a planet or how you have a main dude that you upgrade gear through out the campaign.

Are their any RTS games that are like the board game Risk where you take over territories and get benefits

I know it's been said but the Total War series sounds like what you are looking for, other than that:

Gemfire - it's an old TBS for the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) plays a little bit like what you're looking for.

As others have mentioned you could try Supreme Commander, it's the spiritual successor total Annihilation, the only thing is every battle can easily take a number of hours.

Men of War - A WW2 RTS (I Know) but it's about as good as they come, units can take almost no punishment before dying and one well placed anti-tank shell can do away with those as well.
You can also aim manually if you think that you can do a better job than your soldiers.
The real fun comes when you steal enemy tanks and use them to devastate their line.
Bonus points for having Russian and German campaigns.

EDIT: Whoops double quote.