RTS games. Need a good one.

Warcraft 3 - favourite of mine. Great story. Starcraft 2 is extremely cinematic. Very solid campaign, with a lot of variety. Maybe Supreme Commander 1 or the Total War games? Stronghold! Stalin vs. Martians!!

There's Homeworld 2, it's a pretty old game, but it's one of my favourites. However, it doesn't have base building, perse, but an interesting feature is that because the game takes place in space, all your building units are space ships, and thus you can move your entire base aroundif you need to.

Resource management is similar to Starcraft, but with asteroids in space, but you don't need a command unit near the resource collectors (just a refinery ship). Sometime you'll find yourself sending off some resource gathers and a refinery ship quite far from your base and just forget about them, but usually the CPU will find them and take the asteroid for themselves. Another interesting this is that the larger ships when destroyed will leave behind some wreckage which can be collected for resources.

Also, it's a 3D game, so you move along the XYZ axis; unfotunately though the AI rarely takes advantage of this, but it is possible to mount attacks from above and below, as well as from any other angle. The single player has a not so exciting story, but it has some fairly enjoyable missions and a very cool soundtrack. The space action and the units are all fun to use and play against (Might be the only game where I don't mind losing).

Edit: Woops I cut that short: wasn't sure what else to say other than it's an awesome game and I wish there was a Homeworld 3 on the way :(

Your just going to get reviews here as well, although maybe you trust gamers more than reviewers.

Only recent RTS I got is Starcraft 2.

Campaign - It's actually pretty short, probably about 20 hours the first time to explore everything on Normal difficulty. High production values from Blizzard as usual, but it's only the Terran missions/story (with a few Protoss ones thrown in). There some replay value to be had if you want to try out different units/researches in the missions (you get to choose some of the units/researches as you finish missions).

Challenges - These are some extra single player missions that help you learn multiplayer. They are pretty fun even if you aren't interested in multiplayer.

Skirmishes - There is a skirmish mode, but like Warcraft 3 it's not all that fun. The AI is pretty easy to beat on all but the highest difficulty, and only because it cheats on the highest difficulty. I'm guessing after you've played around a lot with each race, you won't have much fun just playing skirmishes.

Leagues - This is the main multiplayer mode. You can play 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4. 1v1 is the only good one if you don't have other friends to play with. Random 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 you just can't rely on teammates to coordinate at all. Battle.net does a pretty good job with matchmaking, but you will lose games. It's made so that you are supposed to lose about half of your games. (even top level players have a bunch of losses) You get ranked in these leagues. As you get better or worse over time it bumps you up and down leagues so that you keep playing the right skill level players.

FFA - Battle.net matches you with 8 random people to see who wins. These can be fun for trying out rushes and just not caring what happens. Every game is chaotic.

Cooperative - This is a pretty casual mode. You get matched with 1 or 2 other random players to fight against the computer. Just like skirmish though, the AI is not very hard unless it's on the highest difficulty. That makes it good for casual players who just want to play without the pressures of facing real players. It's also pretty good for trying out a new race or some wierd build, when you don't want to hurt your League ranking.

Custom Games - This is the main casual multiplayer mode. Just whatever maps the community comes up with. The map listing is kinda bad. The most popular maps are always at the top which makes it hard for newer maps to ever get played. This means it can get stale if you don't like the current set of popular maps. (unpopular maps just take forever to find other players)

All of these have a bunch of achievements if you're into that sorta thing. People who like achievements will spend a lot of time playing this game. That's mainly it right now for the content. I think SC2 is a game where you have to like competitive multiplayer if you want to get your money's worth out of it. You will be done with single player within a month. You may not like the custom maps available. That just leaves leagues as the lasting gameplay, and not everyone is into that.

Someone mentioned Homeworld on another forum I go to. I heard it is one of the best RTS games ever, yet I have never heard of before making that post. I looked up the original and the graphics are pretty bad. I will check the other one out though. Stronghold... That is one I forgot about. Fantastic game also had beautiful graphics. I love medieval games. I only played the first as I heard the others were terrible. I hope they make another. Total War. Here about it a lot, but I heard it's just big battles, not building empires or anything.sexygirl6t9

thanks for your review on Starcraft 2. The skirmishes in SC1 were absolutely horrible. Totally predictable. Fighting Zerg... - First rush only Zerglings. - Second rush a mix with Hydras. - Third rush usually air units. - Fourth rush usually mixed units and maxed out units. That was it. The enemy bases always sucked hard, so easy to take out. Is it at least better than that? Yeah not too interested in MP. I heard SC2 has a better map editor though if you want to make cool custom missions. Also Supreme Commander... I have heard about it. Apparently the maps are huge and you can have massive armies. But the AI sucks bad? I heard it has physics though.sexygirl6t9

I think the AI is a little better. It has to scout you to see where your base is and what units you have. The AI does use a few different unit combinations. It knows a little about unit counters. If it attacks and sees certain units it can retreat and build counter units. It's just that you can pretty much always out-build the AI. No matter what units it brings your army will be so much bigger, you can always fight it off and attack whenever you please. Now there are a few difficulty settings: Very easy, easy, medium, hard, very hard, insane. Insane is the only hard one, and that's because it gets +20% resources. In a straight up game, it always ends up with a much bigger army early in the game that you can fight off. At the same time the AI is pretty easy to beat with rush strategies. However, there were some AI mods during beta that were tough. This is one of the new things that the map editor can do. Here's an AI mod that seems to still get updates: http://sc2.nibbits.com/assets/green-tea-ai/

By the way, the map editor is more powerful, but also way more difficult to use. You can pretty much do anything now, but that means it's a lot more complicated. Editing units for instance is a lot more tedious to do and sometimes hard to find where to do it. Triggers are more advanced now as well since you can use custom script code to do a lot more than the basic trigger functions do. You can also mod the interface for your map/game. Modded UI example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKedeLKK8h4 But these things take a lot of time. That custom map has a bunch of custom code for the puzzle stuff.

Just try warlords battlecry 3 you wont regret and its not too expensive about 10 $ usd ultimate and unlimited source of fun , 13 races mixutre of rts and rpg you have main warlord which is like champion hero of the race he have level and items + you have base , units , buildings every thing story is very very good i play it like 10 years :D Or something incredibly funny game i am 103 lvl warlord deamon warrior so if you want we can do it by hammachi or something cuz they closed their servers so old players playing by hammachi ! so just download demo and try you wont regret

I don't know if it would be something you were interrested in, but Dawn of War 2 comes out with a new expansion, really REALLY soon. It is its own stand alone game, Kind of a mix between Coh and Starcraft. (and yeah I know Wh40k came first, but on these boards more people know of SC ;) )

Im not sure if its what youre looking for tho, while it plays very much like Coh, it has alot less building in it, and a way smaller pop cap, so there is never that many units in play.

The campaign in the DoW2 games plays more like a hibrid of an rts and a Rpg, while DoW2 itself were not that good, Chaos rising were, so might be worth checking out.

Also DoW1 is worth looking into, seeing as it has basebuilding aint so old that it is directly ugly, and playied more like an rts :P + theyre cheap ^^

If someone allready mentioned those games, then ignore this post ;)

I suggest Battle Realms with the winter of the wolf expansion pack. My all time favourite RTS game.

A good challenge, great graphics at the time, great story and each of the four clans arevery different from one another. The game offers a unique experience to all the other RTS games.I believe there is a unit cap of 30 and all you can build at first are peasants. You then train peasants in specific dojos/training yards to create specific warriors. Also there are no overpowered/dominant units albeit a select few. Everyone has their strengths and weakness.

I wont babble on any more. Check it out if you have not heard of it. :)

Someone mentioned Homeworld on another forum I go to. I heard it is one of the best RTS games ever, yet I have never heard of before making that post.I looked up the original and the graphics are pretty bad. I will check the other one out though.sexygirl6t9

You can buy Homeworld 1 and 2 (used) from Amazon.com or Ebay for $9 and up.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dvideogames&field-keywords=homeworld&x=0&y=0

Check out Act of War series, yes it older, but it was a fun RTS game similar to C&C.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/actofwardirectaction/index.html?tag=result%3Btitle%3B0

Someone mentioned Homeworld on another forum I go to. I heard it is one of the best RTS games ever, yet I have never heard of before making that post. I looked up the original and the graphics are pretty bad. I will check the other one out though. Stronghold... That is one I forgot about. Fantastic game also had beautiful graphics. I love medieval games. I only played the first as I heard the others were terrible. I hope they make another. Total War. Here about it a lot, but I heard it's just big battles, not building empires or anything.sexygirl6t9

Try Stronghold Crusader. The Shogun2: Total War demo has just been released as well.

Im actually going to recommend a game that people often overlook out of sheer ignorance.

If you like resource gathering, base building and take/hold kind of resource you will likely enjoy Act of War Direct Action and its expansion called High Treason.

AOW is a brilliant RTS game, it has the BEST gameplay intuitive engine, so simple yet so hard to master. I have been playing RTS games from the Warcraft 1 days, and no game plays soooooooo smooth as AOW plays. In fact I experienced Company of Heroes after AOW and I could not enjoy the game because it was prettier but it wasnt 10% of the fun AOW was (still is, after all I still play online after 4 years :) )

Another good things about Act of War

- It has basic physics, destructible scenarios

- The AI is brilliantly hard and variable, even for a competitive RTS like me ( In expansion High Treason, Direct Action granted has poor AI)

- It is very macro and micro oriented, not giving nor one or another a deeper focus

- It is very balanced. All the top players today are random players

- The campaing is brilliantly fun

- The skirsmh battles are an endless source of chanlenge and fun offline

- No **** population caps. Wars goes from the small tactical level to full on mindblowing chaos

AND it still looks cool today

Act of War was a great series of modern RTS games! And it is the same developer that just released R.U.S.E., another solid RTS game...

Actually, Men of War: Assault Squad, which was released today, is very good. The gameplay is very deep, having tactical shooter elements, advanced tank battles, good physics, etc. The game even allows you to take control of individual units so that you can infiltrate a small squad into the battlefield. It allows you to play as 5 WW2 factions (Soviet Union, USA, Britain, Japan and Germany), with each faction's 'campaign' (they're more like separate missions) loads of hours of single player content. The game also lends itself well for co-op and multiplayer affairs.

Sins of a Solar Empire man...

You say you like large cities and games that aren't fast where everyone zergs? Depending on the game size in Sins, you can play an hour or two never even seeing another playing... And matches with with hundreds of planets can take A WEEK to finish...

It is advertised as a 4x Strategy game, but it isn't like most others... It is more RTS as everything is real time and not turn based... And as far as large cities are concerned... You can control entire star clusters...

Actually, Men of War: Assault Squad, which was released today, is very good. The gameplay is very deep, having tactical shooter elements, advanced tank battles, good physics, etc. The game even allows you to take control of individual units so that you can infiltrate a small squad into the battlefield. It allows you to play as 5 WW2 factions (Soviet Union, USA, Britain, Japan and Germany), with each faction's 'campaign' (they're more like separate missions) loads of hours of single player content. The game also lends itself well for co-op and multiplayer affairs.

DraugenCP

And it is very very very difficult.

[QUOTE="DraugenCP"]

Actually, Men of War: Assault Squad, which was released today, is very good. The gameplay is very deep, having tactical shooter elements, advanced tank battles, good physics, etc. The game even allows you to take control of individual units so that you can infiltrate a small squad into the battlefield. It allows you to play as 5 WW2 factions (Soviet Union, USA, Britain, Japan and Germany), with each faction's 'campaign' (they're more like separate missions) loads of hours of single player content. The game also lends itself well for co-op and multiplayer affairs.

xLittlekillx

And it is very very very difficult.

Hehe, yep. But playing the game on easy with auto aim for individual units at least makes it bearable. I am by no means an RTS veteran, but I'm really enjoying this title at the moment.

[QUOTE="xLittlekillx"]

[QUOTE="DraugenCP"]

Actually, Men of War: Assault Squad, which was released today, is very good. The gameplay is very deep, having tactical shooter elements, advanced tank battles, good physics, etc. The game even allows you to take control of individual units so that you can infiltrate a small squad into the battlefield. It allows you to play as 5 WW2 factions (Soviet Union, USA, Britain, Japan and Germany), with each faction's 'campaign' (they're more like separate missions) loads of hours of single player content. The game also lends itself well for co-op and multiplayer affairs.

DraugenCP

And it is very very very difficult.

Hehe, yep. But playing the game on easy with auto aim for individual units at least makes it bearable. I am by no means an RTS veteran, but I'm really enjoying this title at the moment.

From everything I've read, the trick is to adopt the "losing is fun!" attitude that games like Dwarf Fortress propagate. I just got it yesterday and I'm a total noob. If you ever want to play coop or something, my steam id is FacePoppies :)

I hate most RTS games as I don't have the patience for them, I'm a twitch player, but Starcraft 2 impressed me enough to play through the full campaign so that's the only one I can recommend.

I am looking for a new RTS game and I don't want to waste my money. Reviews don't cut it for me. I like to get as many opinions as I can. To give you an idea what I have played. - Original C&C and Red Alert Series. Bought them the day they came out. Own them up until Firestorm (C&C), Yuri's Revenge (RA), C&C Generals. - Age of Empires 1-3. - Star Wars Empire at War - Company of Heroes - Warcraft 2 - Starcraft & Brood War might be forgetting a few really good ones. I was recently playing AOE3 and that game is fantastic. It gets bashed a lot because yes... Age of Empires 2 is better. I like AOE2 more because I like the medieval era. Got boring after a while though because I remember everything. The AI is kinda clunky and I wish the battles could be a bit better. I really like building large cities and stuff. Not quick games were you just zerg each other. Oh and graphics do matter for me. I don't want an old game that looks like crap. AOE3 for the year it was created looks amazing. The water crashing on the shores, the ship battles, the gaia - such as wolves howling and rolling around near treasure, etc. I am sure there are way better looking games now. Actually I should add Company of Heroes was probably the best RTS game I have seen graphics wise. Physics engine is a must now in my opinion. It just makes things way cooler. CoH was amazing with craters and damaged areas after destroying buildings / vehicles. I have already heard of Starcraft 2 - I do not own it yet though. I heard it's not much different besides a good campaign and new units. Please be detailed I will check back here a lot. This could help others too. Also doesn't have to be huge on multiplayer. I love Skirmish. Thanks!sexygirl6t9

Since you mention you like medieval RTS games why not try Total War medieval 2. If you want the best graphics then I suggest you wait for Shogun 2 to come out in a few weeks. Personally, I liked Total War Rome the best but, the graphics may look a bit old now.

Which Total War has the best graphics? Graphics aside what would you say is best to worst?sexygirl6t9

I never really got into Total War, although most of my friends did. I felt it took too much time to play one game. But if you have time; by all means. They definitely do get better as time progresses.

Sins of a Solar Empire is another game that involves long, large-scale battles... BUT THEY'RE IN SPACE.

If you haven't checked out Age of Mythology or Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds (AKA AGE OF EMPIRES: STAR WARS), I highly recommend those two games. They're by Ensemble Studios and they're brilliant.

I also noticed Warcraft 3 wasn't on there. Campaign is definitely worth it.

If you want a strong online experience get Starcraft 2. If you want a massive-scale base building/macro/epic units RTS get Supreme Commander : Forged Alliance (it's superior to SupCom2 imo).

Try StarCraft 2 - Wings of Liberty.....;)

Im a bit late to this thread, but Total War is on sale on D2D UK for $10

http://www.direct2drive.co.uk/4/9900/product/Buy-Empire-and-Napoleon-Game-of-the-Year-Edition-Download

So regarding that sale on the UK D2D, if I'm in Australia and already have an account on D2D does that mean I can make a new account on the UK D2D and buy that product for that price no problem?

So regarding that sale on the UK D2D, if I'm in Australia and already have an account on D2D does that mean I can make a new account on the UK D2D and buy that product for that price no problem?

WorldComingDown

lol i just used my US account and I recieved the keys

if u want a historic rts with a bit less war elements n more of building n management.., then hav alook to the ANNO 1404(aka dawn of discovery).set in 15th century, it has very good graphics of natural vegetation , very indulging n perhaps alot of learning elements regarding variety resources, plant setups n varoius aspects of trade for growth of our civilization to higher levels making it an ultimate strategy game i hv come across. :)

Im a bit late to this thread, but Total War is on sale on D2D UK for $10

http://www.direct2drive.co.uk/4/9900/product/Buy-Empire-and-Napoleon-Game-of-the-Year-Edition-Download

tutt3r

I'd say from what you have played get

Dawn of War, their pretty cheap so you may aswell get the whole set and they have the most brutal RTS battles in them you'll ever come across, no game today i have seen the amount of brutal combos and finishing moves your troops will do.

Dawn of War 2 is pretty awesome aswell and makes you rely on tactics alot more and make you actually care about losing a few space marines, the story is pretty solid and even better if you played the previos games.

Also i heavily recommend the Total War series anything from Rome:Total War to Empire you will not be disapointed and if you get into them you'll never play any strategy game more.

I installed Empire Total War. It seems like it could be a fun game but I am not enjoying it right now.

I did the land tutorials and then I did just some basic land battle skirmishes. I would always lose because my guys ran away. I don't know why but a lot of the time they don't even shoot at all. The meele button doesn't seem to do anything either.

try empire total war with DarthMod, just do a search on google. It's invaluable for E:TW imo as it makes everything much more realistic...

I will check them both out.

Maybe I just don't like the turn base system that Total War is. Still seems like a great game though.