Recommend me a good RTS.

[night_tiger9]

I have been itching to play an RTS for a while, and I recently found an old Age of Empires game, the Age of Kings. After going through hours of building up my civilization and making a huge hord of soldiers, I got screwed when my entire battle force were converted by monks and sent to attack my own keep.

Could someone recommend a fun, challenging RTS thats easy on noobs? Preferably without a standard unit for everyone that can turn 40 men against me?

 

[Hoplon]

World in Conflict is a good RTT but never was really in to RTS.

 

[warhammerfrog]

Cant go past company of heros. It is about $20 and has a good following. Requires a bit of practice though.

 

[Caveworm]

Relic offer some fine RTS action.

They have the Dawn Of War games. However, depends if you like the subject matter of 40K. I didn't have much preference for it but love the Dawn Of War games. First set are base building style and the sequel is squad control with hero's.

Company of Heroes is another fine RTS. Again, squad based but set in WW2. Quite epic it is.


Supreme Commander for some robot pew pew fun on quite a scale. I didn't care much of the sequel.

Total War games are great. Lose many hours of your life in them.

 

[lRookiel]

Its either starcraft 2 or company of heroes.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Starcraft comes to mind. Or you could look into it's little cousin, KKnD.

Warlords Battlecry combines RTS with hero building.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Sins of a Solar Empire is a cracking RTS, if you're a fan of sci-fi settings. Truly epic space battles, research and industrial development micromanagement, diplomacy between warring factions to create (and exploit) temporary truces - the list of things to like about this game goes on and on. And like all good RTS games it's easy to get into and hard to master - which means you'll be playing it for bloody ages.

 

[Shirastro]

IMO starcraft 1 will always be the best RTS there is...so i would recomend trying that

 

[Wieke]

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Battle_for_Middle-earth] is quite entertaining and not too complex. The game did some interesting things regarding base building (limited and streamlined but with interesting results). Avoid Battle for Middle Earth 2, all the interesting innovation from the first was left out and replaced with standard fps stuff.

Oh and I second the posters advocating Dawn of War, SoSE and Starcraft 1&2 (though for the last two I'm not so sure on the noob friendliness).

 

[Caveworm]

Sins of a Solar Empire is a cracking RTS, if you're a fan of sci-fi settings. Truly epic space battles, research and industrial development micromanagement, diplomacy between warring factions to create (and exploit) temporary truces - the list of things to like about this game goes on and on. And like all good RTS games it's easy to get into and hard to master - which means you'll be playing it for bloody ages.

Yes, that was the other one I was racking my brain to think of. Solar Empire indeed, sir. ^_^

 

[Blunderboy]

Homeworld is great if you want a pure RTS. Also Dungeon Keeper 2 is enjoyable.
If you want a TBS/RTS hybrid, grab any Total War game that takes your fancy.

 

[Neverhoodian]

The Dawn of War series is excellent. It eschews turtling by forcing the player to go out and capture strategic points to gain resources. I prefer DoW 1 and its expansions over DoW 2, as you can field larger armies. I would recommend getting Dark Crusade, as it's a standalone expansion that has a wide selection of factions to play as (seven in all).

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 is another favorite of mine. There are few things as cathartic as roflstomping a CPU opponent in Skirmish mode by swamping them with cloned Conscripts. There's also OpenRA, a project that is recreating the first two C&C games (Tiberium Dawn and Red Alert 1) on a custom game engine. You can download it for free here:

http://openra.res0l.net/

And before anyone raises a stink about it, EA released these games for free a few years ago, so there's no legal issue. This is merely an easier alternative to jumping through hoops to get the games to work on modern operating systems.

 

[jonyboy13]

Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. Amazing game with even more amazing mods.
Since you like AoE, did you try Age of Mythology and Rise of Nations?

 

[merck88]

The two best RTS's (in my opinion) are Company of Heroes and Sins of a Solar Empire. CoH is all about combat but does it so well you won't miss the economic/cultural side of game play. The 'economy' is capturing and holding vantage points on the battle field. They also do individual unit placement and commands really well. It does require a good bit of microing though. Sins is the opposite. Start with one planet and go and conquer the galaxy. There are tones of nuances to the game if you want to get into it, but the game won't punish you for not maximizing your output. The AI is pretty good and you don't have to micro unless you really want to (you'll be dealing with literally hundreds to thousands of ships). Both games are cheap on steam.

 

[Idlemessiah]

The Total War series are great. You can usually buy them bundled on Steam for cheaps in most of the sales. Rome, Medieval 2 and Empire are very good, not played any of the recent ones myself though.

The Dawn of War games are also very good if its futurey shooty RTS you want.

 

[midget_roxx]

IMO starcraft 1 will always be the best RTS there is...so i would recomend trying that

It's brutal for noobs though.

Something like Company of heroes is easier than your traditional RTS, or you can try starcraft 2 which has better matchmaking (CoH is dieing). SC2 is good because of the massive amount of content out there that will make you improve, not to mention coaching and small level tournaments. I definitely recommend a tournament it is a huge amount of fun

 

[Orks da best]

Dawn of war, starcraft or warhammer battle march, there be good rts games.

 

[Memoriae]

I would recommend Supreme Commander, although, it is pretty hard on players who don't think their attacks through properly. Not quite to the degree that Total War games do, but it's still pretty brutal at times.

 

[gigastar]

Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun & Firestorm, Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge.

All 4 of those games, and more, are available as a bundle and can be found quite cheaply on Amazon or your local retailer as Command and Conquer: The First Decade.

If looking for more modern RTS's then the more recent C&C games are available on Steam, just avoid Tiberian Twilight, no matter how good it looks to you.

 

[Sonicron]

I second the recommendations for the Dawn of War series. Warhammer 40k is not everybody's cup of tea, of course, but the games are excellent in and of themselves anyway.

If you're looking for classic RTS with base-building, upgrade research, amassing armies etc, you're best off with "Dawn of War" and the expansions "Winter Assault" and "Dark Crusade"; disregard "Soulstorm", it's a disgrace.
If you're willing to try something of the RTT (Real Time Tactics) variety, "Dawn of War 2" is your game, along with the expansions "Chaos Rising" and "Retribution". (It's worth noting that "Retribution" concludes the story arc begun in the very first "Dawn of War".)