Real time strategy

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth 2 would actually be perfect for you. You can play war of the ring and play a risk style board game for different areas and choose whether you play stats or go into real time combat to take the territory.

There's the civilisation but that's turn based strategy. It's still an amazing series, though, and Civ 3 complete is only £3 on Steam.

Company of heroes is a good RTS if you like WW2 and I've heard good things about Men of War so that might be worth a throw.

Black and White 2. It only has a campaign as far as I know but you can do things differently each time and with a new Godly creature.

 

[latenightapplepie]

Someone's said it already, but I'll say it anyway:

Rise of Nations. It's an alright RTS not too dissimilar to the Age of Empires series, save for that there is more emphasis on economy and macro. Also: your civilisation can progress from the ancient times to the space age.

In any case, it has a Risk-like "Conquer the World" game type where you pick a civilisation and play on a giant map of the world, taking turns to invade a new territory (and doing some other stuff), which must then be captured by winning a typical RTS scenario. Certain territories have different resources that are provide economic, technological or military benefits in the RTS battles . While most of this gametype is still about the RTS, there is still some weight with the turn-based gameplay, such as placing armies, using wealth (accumulated via controlling territories) to forge alliances, trade or add defenses to your territories.

Essentially it's Risk, if instead of rolling dice to see who wins battles between plastic figurines, you play a game of a half-decent RTS.

EDIT: You say in the OP you want a singleplayer campaign. Well, you might want to avoid Rise of Nations then. Because even though it has that Risk-like game mode, it doesn't have a narrative campaign sequence of scenarios like I imagine most RTS games do. It's just one-off skirmishes with the AI or human opponents, that aforementioned 'Conquer the World' thing, and a pretty bland tutorial.

In short, there are no characters, no narrative, and no story.

 

[Scout Tactical]

snip

Everything before the last paragraph was sarcastic. You're unintelligent if you do not think chess is a game of strategy. It's the quintessential strategy game. A master of strategy is often called a chessmaster. Chess is strategy. I was using it and real war to illustrate how absurd it is to think that just because there are 'best' patterns means that there is no strategy.

 

[omega 616]

How about risk?

I have just been playing the demo on PSN and apart from the obvious bull shit going on (the chances of rolling the same number as your enemy is very likely) it is still really enjoyable.

 

[1nsignia]

Try Any of the command and conquer games, any total war games or the company of heroes games, Those are my favorite RTS franchises.

 

[Trolldor]

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

Dawn of War: Dark Crusade operates like that. So does Soul Storm, but Soul Storm has some compatibility issues with Vista and 7. Dark Crusade operates fine though, as I'm playing it through at the moment.

 

[bbad89]

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.

Ewwwwwww....Starcraft gives me goosebumps when i think about how bad it is.

 

[Shanked_Salt]

Try Any of the command and conquer games, any total war games or the company of heroes games, Those are my favorite RTS franchises.

Loved the C&C series prior to C&C 3 (EA rape).

IMO the only C&C games that require some genuine strategy are the original C&C & Red Alert 2 single player and multiplayer alike. Both remain excellent games. The rest can pretty much fall into the hoard resources and tank rush categories. Tiberium Sun and C&C4 I won't even bother talking about.

I long for the RTS games that are simple in design yet not obsessed with build orders and frantic rush tactics but involve some actually thinking, intimacy and planning. Seems they are few and far between...

Lots of comments I agree with in here.

 

[Layz92]

Black and White and maybe Company of heroes.

 

[Nunny]

Europa universalis 3 is pretty good, Lots of depth

 

[AK47Marine]

snip

Everything before the last paragraph was sarcastic. You're unintelligent if you do not think chess is a game of strategy. It's the quintessential strategy game. A master of strategy is often called a chessmaster. Chess is strategy. I was using it and real war to illustrate how absurd it is to think that just because there are 'best' patterns means that there is no strategy.

Chess being strategic or not certainly depends on who your playing against lol. You haven't seen sad till you've seen someone attempt a pawn zergling rush.

I apologize for going off half cocked, that's what I get for posting under the influence.