Your favourite RTS games

Skatan

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C&C > SC1 > Dune 2 are my 3 preferred ones and then it get's more harder. W2 and 3 are great games, especially 3. AoE2 is great and I've had some fun MP on that one, though haven't played the remaster. TA was great indeed but I also loved the less known KKND. C&C had more good ones coming out, I actually liked them all. Generals was a great time, Tiberian sun too. I played the RA games too, but never liked them as much as the C&C line of games. SC2 has (had?) the best league I've ever seen. I followed all tournaments for about 1 year or 2 during the pandemic.
 

BelgarathMTH

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Personally, I can't get into RTS because I don't like the time pressure that I would guess is precisely one of the main things its fans *do* like about it. I want to relax while I read tooltips and menus, and make decisions. Turn-based strategy gives me that. The thought that the computer is coming to kill me while I don't even understand the interface or what my buildings and resources do, is very stressful to me, which is the opposite of what I want from a game.

I don't mean to throw cold water on the thread or on people who want to share their enjoyment of RTS. I took your wording in the OP to invite people who don't play the genre to chime in.
 

Black Elk

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I have a very distinct memory of 'renting' Dune II from Blockbuster Video, and then not returning it for like a month lol. The Super Nintendo had just come out, I was still playing Street Fighter 2 in the arcade, but I recall that install/uninstall for sure hehe. The first Warcraft game and the original Civilization were also big deals for me. I was introduced by a random in-law, my step mom's younger brother, who was living at my dad's at the time. I think he'd come out for the summer or something to grind it out in the cater-game, but he had a PC set up with those games on it, and they kinda blew my mind. Few years later when Age of Empires first came out, I was well primed. I really enjoyed grand strategy and 4X map games, also stuff like Panzer General, A&A or the first Master of Orion for sci fi flare. I think the first game of that sort that I played was called Anacreon. It was a riff on Asimov's Foundation series, DOS style, where the ships were all abstract triangles and planchettes. Ship to ship battles being the main thing. I still get my wires crossed thinking about it, sorta like command and conquer, but with no graphics to speak of really hehe. Had to use the imaginative instincts. It was still turn based, not real time, but sorta inching towards that vibe, like somebody better be johnny five on the spot with the Ion cannons heheh.

AoE as I recall was like Sophomore Year of high school and I just loved it. Something about building walls and defensive towers, while sending villagers to forage or mine. Starcraft was freshman year of college, Total War my first apartment. That was an era for sure. My all time favorite game, Baldur's Gate, I still consider very much in the RTS lineage of games, and I loved how they stitched those concepts together for a D&D present. I had been playing a lot of Diablo right beforehand, but BG1 got a hook in that was just much much deeper, and never really dislodged. Go figure lol.

I think the last RTS I actually got down with was Age of Empires III. It was a strange era. Basically Europa Universalis III, AoE III, and Empire Total War all dropped right around the same time, and none of them really gave me what I was looking for at launch lol. I remember AoE III being just buggy as all hell and I couldn't get it to run on my rig without crashing constantly. Empire TW was similarly rough out the gate, with wonky AI and opaque systems. EU III I really enjoyed, but it felt more like a simulations showcase than a game somehow, like too open ended, choose your own objectives. They all had cool things to recommend though, and eventually I did get AoE III working. I still play it every now and again, like the same way I'd watch Last of the Mohicans and then suddenly want to play one of those games again. I really enjoyed the card system introduced in that one for sure! Age of Mythology Retold sounds like it would probably be right up my alley
 
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Antimatter

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What you're saying is very close to my own RTS "history". AoE 1 and especially AoE 2 were tremendous for me. AoE 1 was one of my first games, and AoE 2 was probably the most played game until I switched to RPGs such as Diablo II and Baldur's Gate. And similarly to you, AoE 3 was somehow "wrong". I played the game much later and even got some fun from it, but if I look at both games now, I'd pick AoE 2 without any hesitation. Age of Mythology was much better than AoE 3, and its mythological aspect (and campaigns) was nicely done, which--for me as a big fan of Ancient Greece and Nordic myths--added an extra layer.

What about turn-based strategies though, Black Elk? Have you played HoMM games? I'm a huge fan of those (we have a different thread for them, but I'm still asking here).
 

Black Elk

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I slept on the HoMM games after II. My first intro to RPGs was Might and Magic III, but that was on my friends dad's computer and I was pretty young - like elementary days. I remember we got stuck on a tombstone riddle and then lost somewhere in the Isles of Illusion, not really knowing anything mechanically. Eye of the Beholder was also on that dudes computer, but I didn't know thing one about D&D. I just remember choosing the bastard sword proficiency, cause of course I would, and then getting killed immediately upon leaving whatever Inn. Might and Magic had the more intuitive gameplay for me, with a wizards eye map and exploration skills like swimming, forestry, mountaineering and such that I vibed on. Like picking whatever off brand class/character just to get to open up more of the map when walking around. Probably mostly just chilling at the Fountain Mirrors though hehe.

Might and Magic IV I recall more clearly, as that was my first time installing a multi disc RPG onto a computer at my own house. B: Drive to late nights! For me it's probably one of the greatest games of all time. Not on the merits per se but just subjectively for personal impact. I couldn't recall much of the main plot but it had a total vibe for the side stuff, and just on a personal level that was the gateway drug, and then Might and Magic V pushed it over into classic legendary territory for me. What's weird though is that even though MM was my formative franchise, I completely slept on Might and Magic VI when it came out!

Really not sure how that happened. The only explanation I can think of is that it came out the same year as the N64, so I think the PC probably took a back seat to consoles again that year. The box cover art was iconic for sure, and I remember Heroes II, but then I got this hazy gap where I can only assume I must have been playing an ocarina or something. When I returned to the computer again it was that Fry's mission where I picked up Baldur's Gate on a lark. In the intervening couple years, I was just partying, cause I was basically a burnout in Highschool at that time. Senior year I kinda pulled my act together again, through the power of Deep Space 9 and just a bunch of excellent games that closed out the 90s, all hitting at once.

I should probably take a second look at a few of those titles I missed along the way, and the later Heroes games would probably be a good way back in. I don't know that I ever particularly cared much about the specific setting or world, like the lore was whatever, it was more about the monsters and the grinning mugs, and the little side things that still stand out somehow. Like who was Lord Xeen anyway, I don't even remember, but I can still recollect fighting random Vulture Roc Monsters and Genies in the desert, hoping for the Ninja to hit!

ps. Random aside, so in the Warcraft II and Red Alert era I thought I was pretty decent at RTS games, but then when Starcraft came out, that's when I realized that, actually, I probably wasn't very good at RTS games heheh. Just getting rocked to the floor by random peeps in the dorms! Somehow my long term commitment to defensive fortifications was being outdone by more modern Zerg wave-and-wall tactics. Like I should have taken George C Scott's advice in Patton, and seen which way the wind was blowing, but I just enjoyed building the ramparts and the cannon towers too much I guess lol.
 
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Skatan

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"Random aside, so in the Warcraft II and Red Alert era I thought I was pretty decent at RTS games, but then when Starcraft came out, that's when I realized that, actually, I probably wasn't very good at RTS games heheh"

Hah, this made me chuckle out of personal recognition. I thought I was pretty good while playing LAN games at the local LAN den until I went online and got smashed, haha. WC3 was the only game where I could play and win some, but I played mostly 2v2 or 3v3 with some friends and we developed a decent rush tactics that worked well in many vs many but wasn't very good in 1v1. One funny side note though, when playing the C&C remake some months ago I noticed how easy it was to kill the AI in a single-player DM on hardest difficulty. I remember I struggled with that as a kid, but now 20 years or more later I did it on my first try for both GDI and Nod.
 
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