An RTS for a newcomer?

I've barely played any RTS in my life. But I want to take a little break from the midless shooting in my fps games and try out the RTS genre.

Basically I want a fun, engaging rts with an immersive story and neat game mechanics. Any suggestions?

Starcraft 2? I think there is about 10 threads about it :p

What about Supreme Commander and Warhammer series? Are they any good?

Tbh it depends on what you look for in a RTS.

I stated what I looked in a rts in my first post.

Tbh it depends on what you look for in a RTS.

Warcraft 3 it is a good choice. It has great tutorial. And a awesome game overall.

I stated what I looked in a rts in my first post.

megamagition

I think perhaps the best starting RTS is Red Alert 2, but only if you do NOT have a multi-core computer. Its engine is incompatible with multicore.

Otherwise, I highly recommend the original StarCraft, or if you'd like something more modern Command & Conquer 3 is good.

Original Starcraft and the DoW games work. Dawn of War and its expansions are all about fighting with huge armies and outrageous units and upgrades. I fooled around on it a lot as a newcomer to RTS games.

Original Starcraft and the DoW games work. Dawn of War and its expansions are all about fighting with huge armies and outrageous units and upgrades. I fooled around on it a lot as a newcomer to RTS games.

r4v3gl0ry

What about Supreme Commander and Warhammer series? Are they any good?

megamagition

Supreme Commander isn't suitable for beginners. StarCraft or Warcraft 3 would be a good place to start if you've never played an RTS. Others have suggested the Command and Conquer series, but those games have been garbage for a long time. The only Command and Conquer games that are any good are Tiberian Dawn (the original C&C) and Red Alert, and those are both so old, it's hard to recommend them.

For people New to rts games:

Starcraft 2

Dawn of War 1

Command and conquer (pretty much take your pick from that series, except C&C4, which is bad. (you can download the first C&C games for free, the concept is the same, so the firt games paints a pretty good picture of what the later ones are)

If you have the will, the tad more difficult games (but just as fun, Ive seen more veterans in rts games then newcommers having trouble adjusting to these)

Supreme commander (game is at a very large scale, it is pretty fun, and the foundation of the game is simple enough, it is the scale that makes it a bit messy to some)

Company of Heroes (really good rts game, related a bit to Dawn of war, in the way it controles, but a great deal more... tecnical, I do not advice it from the get go, but heck Even my dad found it fairly intuitive, and was his forst RTS game, so far from impossible)

Darwinia

Original Starcraft and the DoW games work. Dawn of War and its expansions are all about fighting with huge armies and outrageous units and upgrades. I fooled around on it a lot as a newcomer to RTS games.

r4v3gl0ry

Starcraft 2- You really can't go wrong with this choice. A great story, fun and varied campaign, very balanced multiplayer and some of the best match making will give you a great start to the genre.

Dawn of War 2- It's loads of fun. It's brutal, violent and bloody and very fast paced. The campaigns are very fun, but can get repetitive. If you can get a couple fo friends (you don't have to) the Last Stand Mode is a blast to play. Get the gold edition to get both the core game and expansion.

Warcraft 3- Another great RTS. It's community is still up and running with custom maps and whatnot and an amazing campaign to boot. Get the Battle Chest to get the core game and expansion.

Sins of a Solar Empire- Another amazing RTS, this one is extremely slow paced and can take hours or even days to finish. The game is a space based empire building RTS where the maps are huge and the ways to play are many and all fun. Just make sure to get the Trinity version to get both expansions for the best gameplay.

Dawn of War 1 is also a great game and one of my favorites. However I'm not sure how many people still play it. If you do get this, only play up to Dark Crusade because the Soulstorm expansion is not good at all.

Civilization 4. Oh man that game is too addicting...

Starcraft 2 easily the best RTS out right now.

I don't know about immersive story, but I found the AoE games (particularly 2 and 3) to be very good to get used to the mechanics and gameplay.

I never cared for the story of any rts game.

As for fun and immersive, I would get Company of Heroes or a total war game. Total war is especially immersive because its my empire and I shape it. It has a really good singleplayer.

Company of Heroes has some neat gameplay mechanics, cover, supression flanking etc, shines in MP

There is also starcraft 2 that perfects the classical rts gameplay and Supcom where you build hundreds of units but the MP in Supcom is kinda dead.

I've barely played any RTS in my life. But I want to take a little break from the midless shooting in my fps games and try out the RTS genre.

Basically I want a fun, engaging rts with an immersive story and neat game mechanics. Any suggestions?

megamagition

What about Supreme Commander and Warhammer series? Are they any good?

megamagition

Supreme Commander is a massive RTS game, on a grand scale, while it is a great game, it is probably not wise to start out with it!

I would suggest some of the more streamlined (less of a learning curve) RTS games, my personal favorite is the Command and Conquer franchise.

If you like realism you should go with the Total War series.

just got a gaming PC last month after 10yrs :P

got SC2 and i would suggest it to anyone.. it is accessible to newcomers like me but still can give a hard time on high difficulties to anyone.. + mp is great..

Takes a while to get into, and the VA is horrific.... and extemely annoying. But I've been enjoying, UFO Afterlight. It's especially fun playing via Dead is Dead rules. Not as good if you reload every time a character dies. But then I only payed about 3 bucks for the game. It's 10 bucks typically over at Steam and ATI cards don't like the game all that much. Cat 10.6 plays it alright, but there are a few glitches in the menu's... via. thin lines, but they are barely noticeable. 10.4's hate the game. That one throws text outside of where they are supposed to be. And does funny things to the portrats and the inventory menu. Don't think Nivida drivers have any problems, though... at least, it always worked fine with my 8600GT.

I thought the Homeworld Trilogy was good, too... Homeworld. Homeworld: Cataclysm, and Homeworld 2.

I'm a newcomer to RTS also and want a decent one myself. Years ago I tried Age of Empires and just got myself completely lost. I'm a little different and don't care about the story but care a lot about the graphics. I'll need great graphics and a decent tutorial. I guess from what I've read here, I'll need to go with Company of Heroes???

As the best RTS game ever made Age of Empires II would be well worth checking out. Rome Total War is also superb although it's not technically an RTS game.

Company of Heroes is well worth checking out as well although it is a very difficult game to master.

I just bought SC1!

is the multiplaye still alive? or will they eat me alive :O

I just bought SC1!

is the multiplaye still alive? or will they eat me alive :O

markcaniga

lqtm if it is still alive, they will eat you... me... or just about anyone else who tries to get on it, or back on it!

I would recommend world in conflict as there no resource gathering or base building lots of action and the campaign is one of the best out of any game very immersive story that feels real and the presentation and pacing of it is suberp you can get the complete edition for $15 now so no reason not to get it.DJ_Headshot

I completely forgot about that game and wold also reccomend it for its simplicity and lack of resource building etc. It also has a storyline, never followed it for long, but from what I recall it was quite simple and easy and enjoyable for a novice to rts games.

Once you've tired of hte simplicity, I'd reccomend a Red Alert game for basic building management and then maybe company of heroes, Age of Empires or a total war game for a completley immersive 'rts' game.

Personally I've never found the Dawn of war, Starcraft or supreme commander series that enjoyable but its a matter of taste. There is plenty of variations out there.