Favorite RTS Game

Azza

Having a discussion with a friend recently about the best RTS games and lamenting the fact that outside of Starcraft 2 it seems to be a very niche genre now.

Played many great RTS games over the years, Total Annihilation, the original CnC's, AOE 2, Dawn of War but I think my overall favorite is Company of Heroes.

I'll admit CnC had enjoyable and camp cutscenes and Starcraft 2 has hands down the best story and presentation in any RTS but overall COH is my favorite.

Hard to describe why. At the time in 2006 it had the best graphics in any RTS ever and still looks really great to this day. The attention to detail is amazing, not just visually (tank shells deflecting off tanks) but the audio as well with reams of really funny dialogue from your disgruntled soldiers.

As a single player game it was solid without being amazing but it was multiplayer where the game shined best.

The multiplayer while never the best balance had a great amount of depth and the units where quite diverse. The factions where polar opposites, the Americans being all about versatility while the Axis where more rigid and about role specialization. The territory system worked well and the concept of cutting off supply was excellent and wish it was done in more games. The use of cover and the different types of cover was also pretty unique and resulted in some great infantry battles as you sought to use your troops to the fullest potential in the early game. Had 3 phases (early game infantry dominated), mid game (the vehicle phase) end game(tank phase+ specialist troops) which gave you enough time to play with each unit and know their strengths and weaknesses. Keeping your early units alive to mid/late game could obviously tip the balance, but it was a constant battle of unit preservation and the need for map control (i.e resources).

Played it for years, and while I enjoyed the sequel it didn't have the same spark and didn't hold my attention for long.

Anyway's what your favorite RTS?

Bepolite

Sins of a Solar Empire

BlibBlab

Empire Earth for its multiplayer and scenario editor. After that Age of Empires II.

Golden age of RTS was in the late 90s/early 00s, they don't make games like that anymore. Focus seems to be on graphics and smaller amount of units than the gameplay of the old RTS classics, I'd love if they made a comeback, sadly most of the developers are gone

Sephiroth_dude

Couldn't agree more you azza, coh is mine too, I was blown away by it when I first played in may 07 and didn't play much else for about a year and half when I got burnt out by playing too much, I remember downloading loads of maps off the relic forums, I also loved c and c tiberian sun and red alert 1 and 2, I never really got into c and c 3 or red alert 3, they just weren't as enjoyable.....anno 2070 is up there too not a conventional rts I know but I still love it, supreme commander also although I never got use to the economy, always would run out of money, I never played total Total Annihilation and wasn't a big fan of the dawn of war games.

Azza

BlibBlab wrote: »

Empire Earth for its multiplayer and scenario editor. After that Age of Empires II.

Golden age of RTS was in the late 90s/early 00s, they don't make games like that anymore. Focus seems to be on graphics and smaller amount of units than the gameplay of the old RTS classics, I'd love if they made a comeback, sadly most of the developers are gone

Well COH certainly had less units than CnC and AOE but I think the units COH require more specific micro than units in early RTS games. It wasn't about having number of units and all of them simply being in range to counter the enemy but positioning of troops in COH was extremely important.

I suppose the only other recent RTS game that played on a massive scale was Supreme Commander but it didn't do particularly well which is sad in its own way I guess.

degrassinoel

So many awesome titles to choose from

Emperor:Battle for Dune
Dune 2
Dawn of War/2
Command and Conquer/RA/RA2/TS/Generals/3
Company of Heroes/2
Homeworld/2
Soldiers of Anarchy (not related to Sons)
Shogun: Total War/Rome - the battles were RTS so they count imo

Probably Emperor, dated as it is and everything by now it's a classic game and the first of it's kind to use the graphics it had. The campaign was great, it had the C&C cutscenes, and it was set on Arakis with a dynamic campaign map - you could easily lose territory whilst attacking other sections of the map and would have to retake it with whatever resources you had.

Wormsign

Gbear

I think I always liked the idea of the older CnC games rather than the actual execution.
Tiberian Sun was fairly good but like the rest the single player campaign mostly consisted of sitting in your base, building up an unassailable army of tanks and squashing the enemies.

2/3rds of CnC3 was excellent. The gameplay in the campaign was far more varied.
The aliens just sorta ****ed everything up.

CnC Generals was a great side-step as well. There absolutely has to be a market for that kind of game.

Starcraft made me fall in love with the genre and 2 is, I suppose, technically the best. It's extremely polished.
That's the problem I have with Blizzard games for the most part though (at least since Diablo 2). Polished to a mirror finish but a bit lacking in imagination.

The polish and control of content has lead to lots of innovation itself though and Warcraft 3 was a huge step forward in player-made content - DOTA for example, was a Warcraft 3 mod. WC3 could well be the most influential strategy game ever made because of that.
It introduced the RPG elements that were later doubled down on to create WoW and, as far as I know, invented the most popular genre of gaming today.

Homeworld is by a distance my favourite RTS. It literally has another dimension. And the voice acting, music and everything required to effectively deliver the plot were on a whole other level. It felt like a real story rather than some fluff to flavour the missions. H2 failed to really improve the core gameplay unfortunately and in some senses they actually went backwards, but it has the same quality of storytelling in the single-player campaign.

Kiith

Homeworld, without a doubt. I enjoy the genre, and have played RTS games for years, but i've never fallen in love with one like Homeworld. It was proper space opera, and i regularly go back. The gameplay, ships, music, voice acting...everything was brilliant. It also has the Return to Kharak mission, which was pretty emotional...and in an RTS, that's pretty rare.

Starcraft 2 is probably the only one that comes close for me, and again, it's because of the setting and story. By far the best story in an RTS, and excellently presented. It also had the best launch trailer for any game i've ever seen.

Azza

Must get homeworld. I hear gearbox intend to re-release it soon.

degrassinoel

Azza wrote: »

Must get homeworld. I hear gearbox intend to re-release it soon.

Word has it, that it's due for release in January 2015

BlibBlab

Has anyone played the re-released Age of Empires or Rise of Nations games, and are they worth getting?

Azza

Age of Empires 2 HD got pretty mixed reviews. I think at launch it was quite buggy. Should be all sorted now. Its a pretty bare bones upgrade with higher resolutions being the only thing added.

If you liked AOE 2 and have an itch to play it again it probably the best way to go.


Not sure about Rise of Nations...never played it before.

Sarky

While Homeworld has yet to be bettered in my view, I will nevertheless always have a special place in my heart for Ground Control.

Cravez

I always love replaying CnC Tiberian Sun. Granted I haven't played much Real Time Strategy in a good while except for AoE2 HD, mostly play turn based.

Thargor

Supreme Commander 2, nothing else like it really, biggest armies you can get, actual challenge instead of tank rushes, battles turning for or against you several times per fight, zooming out to tactical and zooming back in to watch your orders play out is done so well, the whole thing plays like how you used to picture games would be in the future when you were playing C&C on a p90 back in the day.

Mal-Adjusted

I don't know if it counts as a true RTS game, but i really love the original Dungeon Keeper. From planning your dungeon to laying traps and training creatures. The game economy is fairly simple but it kind of works that way. sense of humour is great too.

Sephiroth_dude

I forgot Age of empires 2 and star wars galactic battlegrounds which I both loved.

abbir

Starcraft is my favourite. Have replayed that game many many times and lots o af multiplayer.
The sequel too is excellent.
Really enjoyed most of the C&C series, in particular Red Alert, Red Alert 2 and Generals. 4 was garbage.
The Warcraft games were also favourites of mine, played a lot of Warcraft 2 and 3.

Kiith

Sarky wrote: »

I will nevertheless always have a special place in my heart for Ground Control.

Best artillery ever.

Sarky

Those snipers were the dog's bollocks too.

TerrorFirmer

Company of Heroes or Dawn of War I think, the amount of afternoons spent in LAN with the curtains closed in a baking hot room playing those two games...

Honorable mention to C&C Red Alert.

Shiminay

Red Alert, Dawn of War and Starcraft 2 are my faves I think. Special mention to Total Annihilation for the rare LAN game I could get going with my brother.

ShadowHearth

I love so many rts games and I had played a ton of them back in the day.

One Rts will have always a special place in my heart. WC3 and WC3 TFT. Perfect single player campaigns, awesome online, amazing map editor, which gave birth to so mamu games. Damn, me and my friends would make our own rpg games and trade them on floppies.

Where I came from WC3 non pirated game costed as much as minimum monthly wage. I was lucky enough to have.

jill_valentine

Dawn of War will always camp on the strategic point of my heart.

Thargor

Yeah Dawn of War and the Imperial Guard expansion were fairly epic RTS experiences alright, I loved playing as the Necrons in the one after that aswell, really did not enjoy DoW II at all though...

Skerries

I played a demo of an rts years ago and always wanted to play it but can't remember the name of it, it was kind of a mix of old world maybe Egyptian feel but with robotic units and the title was the something of something maybe???

Nody

Dune 2 as it was the first real RTS I played for hours, and hours, and hours... I still remember the face of the Harkonnen advisor and his snarky tone for the "Oh there were more enemies there then I expected; oh well you handled it so now..." and how I hated him for it. Then there was the sand worms and their three steps of eating, luring enemies out on the sand and racing to get rid of your own harvesters in time.

I simply adored the game; I fully recognise that later games were much better (Starcraft 1 with single unit missions etc.) but it was my first true love...

Kiith

Warcraft 2/3 and Red Alert 2 are two standouts as well.

Warcraft 2 was probably the first RTS i ever played. Definitely the first game that really sucked me in, and made me want to read into the lore and backstory. Also, the manual was fantastic, with some amazing artwork. I never did manage to clear The Dark Portal expansion though...by god that was difficult. Warcraft 3 was also brilliant, with a fantastic story. Shame so much of both games have been retconned quite a bit in WoW now.

Red Alert 2 was just a lot of fun, with some brilliant units. Nothing like taking out a squad of Soviet subs with dolphins, only to have a squad of giant squid attack you. Plus, i love the cheesy FMV's that they had. Had some fantastic multiplayer games with my mates as well.

abbir

Kiith wrote: »

Warcraft 2 was probably the first RTS i ever played. Definitely the first game that really sucked me in, and made me want to read into the lore and backstory. Also, the manual was fantastic, with some amazing artwork. I never did manage to clear The Dark Portal expansion though...by god that was difficult. Warcraft 3 was also brilliant, with a fantastic story. Shame so much of both games have been retconned quite a bit in WoW now.

What's WoW?

SeantheMan

Starcraft 2
Company of Heroes

jill_valentine

jill_valentine wrote: »

Dawn of War will always camp on the strategic point of my heart.

Never play Dawn of War II, is it really that bad?

I loved the first one.

Dave_The_Sheep

M!Ck^ wrote: »

Never play Dawn of War II, is it really that bad?

I loved the first one.

DOW and DOWII are completely different games. One's base building and point domination. The other is squad based tactical combat, point domination not really required. Just handy respawns. Multiplayer though, DoWII doesn't come close to the first one.

I loved both. I've replayed the DoWII campaigns several times, from the original all through Chaos Rising and Retribution. Well worth a look.

Sarky

DoW 2 has much better writing, visuals, cover/terrain use, wargear upgrades and general polish. Also I think better balanced. I also hate base building so I dig the general lack of it.

jill_valentine

DOW's requisition points system got the balance perfect for me. Base building - which I like, tbf - was important yes, but the game also demanded that you stayed mobile and aggressive or all the base building in the world wouldn't save you. DoW2 was a huge disappointment to me, and there was an awful, awful push for microtransactions that the previous title and its expansions cast shade on. I haven't picked it back up in forever, whereas I still jump in and out of Winter Assault.

Zillah

DoW 1 online play got a boost recently with its launch on Steam. Really fun game, never cared for 2 all that much. Fun single player but the multi isn't a touch on it.

Gbear

I bought a DOW bundle in some Steam sale.

Loved 2 and Chaos rising.

1 just looked really dated. Considering it's only a 2004 game it looks really poor. I found it too ugly and unmanageable to play.

Is it worth persevering with?

Fired up Generals this evening, still as brilliant as I remember. Having loads of fun in the USA campaign on Brutal.

For anyone that's interested, I followed these guides to get it running on modern spec;

http://www.wsgf.org/dr/command-conquer-generals

http://www.commandandconquer.com/en/news/362/running-cc-generals-on-windows-7

Azza

jill_valentine wrote: »

DOW's requisition points system got the balance perfect for me. Base building - which I like, tbf - was important yes, but the game also demanded that you stayed mobile and aggressive or all the base building in the world wouldn't save you. DoW2 was a huge disappointment to me, and there was an awful, awful push for microtransactions that the previous title and its expansions cast shade on. I haven't picked it back up in forever, whereas I still jump in and out of Winter Assault.

Dow 2 and its first expansion had no DLC, the 2nd expansion did alright.
Dow 2 was basically an attempt by Relic to make Dow play like Company of Heroes.

It was also mean't to attract none RTS players by removing base building, what they believed at the time was a major turn off for many people who don't like the genre.

XsApollo

Generals and Zero Hour.
My first ever PC game and Only one I played continuously .
Saw my bro playing generals one day and gave it a crack and was hooked.
Spent 4 solid years playing online.
Tried every other RTS and found nothing could come close to the feel and fun.

Pity they cancelled Generals 2, was stoked when I saw it was getting made and then they pulled it.

ShadowHearth

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

DOW and DOWII are completely different games. One's base building and point domination. The other is squad based tactical combat, point domination not really required. Just handy respawns. Multiplayer though, DoWII doesn't come close to the first one.

I loved both. I've replayed the DoWII campaigns several times, from the original all through Chaos Rising and Retribution. Well worth a look.

I loved DoW 2 original one. I have played A LOT multiplayer of it and it was Fierce fun.
It got way out of hands with expansions. I did not liked changes to tyranids too

Zillah

Gbear wrote: »

I bought a DOW bundle in some Steam sale.

Loved 2 and Chaos rising.

1 just looked really dated. Considering it's only a 2004 game it looks really poor. I found it too ugly and unmanageable to play.

Is it worth persevering with?

I think it looks quite nice with everything on maximum. It's up to you if you really want to try and get into it. The main appeal is multiplayer, and there are nine teams, each with quite different play styles and completely different tech trees, so it takes a lot to get good at. Absolutely cracking fun if you can play a LAN game with some friends.

EDIT: Obviously you should be playing Soulstorm, the last expansion, it does a lot of rebalancing and adds two new races. They're probably the least popular races (although I quite like them), but the expansion really just fills out the game nicely. A bunch of stuff was overpowered and skewed the races in the earlier versions.

Sephiroth_dude

XsApollo wrote: »

Generals and Zero Hour.
My first ever PC game and Only one I played continuously .
Saw my bro playing generals one day and gave it a crack and was hooked.
Spent 4 solid years playing online.
Tried every other RTS and found nothing could come close to the feel and fun.

Pity they cancelled Generals 2, was stoked when I saw it was getting made and then they pulled it.

Completely forgot about general and zero hour, how I loved both.

Nody

Azza wrote: »

Dow 2 and its first expansion had no DLC, the 2nd expansion did alright.
Dow 2 was basically an attempt by Relic to make Dow play like Company of Heroes.

It was also mean't to attract none RTS players by removing base building, what they believed at the time was a major turn off for many people who don't like the genre.

And utterly failed alienating the people from DoW1 while not getting enough people for DoW2 to be worth a follow up...

Shiminay

Since we were talking about it, PC Gamer has a 10 year anniversary catch up with one of the DOW devs: http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/09/19/dawn-of-war-retrospective-ten-years-of-war-in-the-41st-millennium/

EoinHef

After reading this thread decided to plump for the CnC Ultimate Collection,17 of the games in one

Only €9.73 here for all 17

http://www.kinguin.net/category/1000/command-conquer-the-ultimate-collection-origin-key/

Zillah

EoinHef wrote: »

After reading this thread decided to plump for the CnC Ultimate Collection,17 of the games in one

Only €9.73 here for all 17

http://www.kinguin.net/category/1000/command-conquer-the-ultimate-collection-origin-key/

Ewww, origin.

EoinHef

Zillah wrote: »

Ewww, origin.

Might be in a minority but ive no problem with origin,fast downloads,automatic updates,and recently,free games aswell.

Guess some people are harder to please:)

ShadowHearth

Zillah wrote: »

Ewww, origin.

I would not be buying games on origin, but other then that, its grand for basics. Still beats fecking uPlay!

Gbear

Speaking of DOW, I've tried to give it another go.

Has anyone had any luck getting it to work on W8.1?

jill_valentine

Gbear wrote: »

I bought a DOW bundle in some Steam sale.

Loved 2 and Chaos rising.

1 just looked really dated. Considering it's only a 2004 game it looks really poor. I found it too ugly and unmanageable to play.

Is it worth persevering with?

Well, I aged with it, so I can't really say. They look fine to me, I preferred the big blocky proportions to the DOW2 tiny-head guys.

I do think there's more depth and variety to it though, it's got the same magic as Medieval: Total War in that it's even fun to play while in the process of losing horribly.

Thargor

Great post RopeDrink (Is that a new name? I never saw you around Gaming or Galway...), must investigate some of these mods, I remember Dark Omen blowing my brother and I away even though we thought it was just a boobie prize in one of those "10 Smash Hits" boxes of random pc games you used to get back in the day, absolutely brilliant RTS even though we'd never heard of Warhammer back then.

The first one was just as good imo even though I played them in the wrong order, Shadow of the Horned Rat:

What a pair of games, by far the most satisfying cavalry action and charges you could get years before the Total War games, same for the artillery and cross/long bow regiments, building up your army, collecting relics, fcuking up whole enemy regiments with just your wizards, Im going to say they're my favourites aswell instead of Supreme Commander II.