Looking for RTS reccomendations

Hello all,

I recently got a boon and went all in and bought a new PC. I've been wanting to play some RTS games like I did when I was a kid. I bought the old classics I enjoyed long ago (morrowind, oblivion, star wars EAW and Stronghold Crusaders) but I am overwhelmed with the amount of RTS's on Steam.

I've browsed Homeworld, Sins of a Solar Empire, Warhammer Dawn of War, Total War Shogun 2, Supreme Commander, c&c red alert 3, company of heroes, and just saw frostpunk and thiught that looked cool too.

Rather than spend days researching them all, I want to know what everyone else enjoyed. What do you guys and girls think? What would you recommend and why?

Thanks in advance for the suggestions!

@rmiller365: I went on a hunt for a descent rts as well, seems like the genre is dead, at least on multiplayer. Total war and StarCraft still have communities... Sad really. I want c&c back.

Halo wars (Haven't bout the second but I have played the demo for pc capability purposes and can say I will be buying it in the near future.) Any of the Age of Empire games. And although this next one is not on steam, I'd highly recommend Rise and Fall, Civilizations at War.

Age of Empires 3 is definitely worth a look, and the best in the series imo. C&C Generals is still a lot of fun today also, especially if you get the Rise of the Reds mod. Also speaking of mods, Third Age Total War is really good if you're a Lord of the Rings fan. All of the Total War games are excllent actually, and also Star Wars Empire at War.

From what you mentioned though: Generals > Red Alert 3, Company of Heroes > Company of Heroes 2, Supreme Commander and Homeworld are great, and have heard good things about Frostpunk. Never played Dawn of War though, and couldn't get into Starcraft.

Oh yeah, and check out World in Conflict too!

Rise of nations is always a blast to play (the matches tends to be a bit long though).

I want to recommend World in conflict and, Medieval 2: total war. Loved both game, but for total war series you may want to opt for newer in the franchise like the shogun 2 or Warhammer/ Warhammer 2.

C&C generals and C&C red alert 2 still have communities. Do check out discord.

I haven't been into RTS for a while, but one of the last ones I played and really enjoyed was Company of Heroes. This one gets my vote for a must play RTS game.

I have Ashes of the Singularity Escalation and it's pretty good, although I haven't really got into it. The music is stupid and it doesn't have the C&C Generals destruction physics (after 15 years!). Other than that it's solid, it has a lot of different units and buildings so it takes some time to learn. For the price you can get it on key sites it's definitely worth a try.

Hell yes! I picked up 2 copies for my brother and i to play it's fantastic, it was on sale on steam last week for 10$. It's a good chill rts not to brain busting but easy to smoke and drink, set back and have a good time with out having to manage every goddamn thing. It's Halo in a RTS, the soundtrack is absolutely awesome. And it's coop it's a blast!

Have you tried Lothgar Online? Its a fairly new MMORPG just came out last year its got that old school 2d pixel feel and it has PKing, Vast loot and tons of creatures to hunt, was created by one of the original developers for Ultima Online, Dransik, Ashen Empires.

I just took a look at the game that you mention and it's amazing it seems one could really have a good time playing it. It's really sad it isn't on steam though. I personally recommend Rise of Nations and a similar one I haven't been able to find on any platform, but if you find it, it's worth the time looking for it: Rise of Legends. If you like strategy games, I also recommend Civ V, which is really deep and it literally consume hours and hours of your time. Actually, any Civ game after the third would work. Finally, a game I recently purchased is Endless Legend. I highly recommend these, since they have given me such many hours of joy and hard-thinking.

Thanks for all the great recomendations peeps! You guys named some I never even noticed so my wishlist ever grows like a tumor on my wallet lol. I have to hold off on Halo Wars since the money's on my Steam wallet, but I have to get total war since I love Lotr, and I added Rise of Nations for good measure. Thanks again for the assistance!

Homeworld 1 is awesome, but it's a 1 time play thing i.e. 10-20 hours. so get it on sale.

Maybe a bit different from what you're looking for, but Anno 1404 is a great game!

I found The Guild 2 to be a great game, even with all it's flaws

The Command and Conquer games are always good choices up to Red Alert 3. Command and Conquer 3 with the Kane's Wrath expansion is one of my favourites of the series. Good singleplayer campaigns and a world conquest mode in Kane's Wrath. Don't bother with C&C 4. It's a F2P game that EA forced to be a sequel before shutting down the devs.

Supreme Commander + Forged Alliance is good too. Spiritual successor to Total Annihilation from some of the same devs. 2 is ok but not nearly as good.

Company of Heroes. Really good WW2 RTS game.

Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War. The complete collection has the most content with 9 different armies from the 40k universe. One of my personal favourites. Dawn of War 2 is alright but no base building and less armies. Dawn of War 3 is junk.

Go play Starcraft 2 it's free and fun to play.

This post is 7 months old. Stop.