Must-play RTS games

ic1male said:
Is the Star Wars Empire at War any good? That’s RTS isn’t it?
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Yes it is an RTS and it did get good reviews, but I didn't play it all that much. What I did play of it was good fun, but I had so many games in those days, it probably got shelved in favour other games with the intention of playing it later. Didn't grab as much as other RTS games at the time though, such as Dawn of War and Company of Heroes.
 
I like Empire at War but it's quite dated now. If you can pick it up cheap it will probably be worth the couple of hours you will get out of it. Men of War Assault Squad 2 is good if you want a more realistic WW2 RTS, more micro managing single soldiers though than commanding entire armies though.
 
Stellaris is a 4x RTS hybrid, it’s not turn based like a lot of other Paradox games, you can alter the pace of the game with different speed settings.

Game is constantly evolving too with a new dlc about to be released and great mod support.
 
ic1male said:
This is the one I'm starting with. Had to fiddle about to get it working though, it only ran at 24fps initially.
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Make sure you get the Blitzkreig mod, it's superb.

Yeh, unfortunately the game/engine is so old it only uses one core mainly, so it gets CPU locked.
 
SC
SC2
OpenRA - https://www.openra.net/
OpenRA is the only game I have played in 6 months! Games can be very short or very long, no unit count and sides are well balanced. The lobby is quick and easy too, plus there's no registering or installing multiple clients/programs to play the game
 
Kenshi is an unorthodox pick for an RTS. The combat is very much RTS, but the game takes place in a post apocalyptic sandbox incredibly similar to Fallout with deep RPG elements and a solid building system. It really is a sandbox to it's core as every city you see can be destroyed, every faction can be annihilated or allied with and by the endgame you practically have your own nation if you choose to, with a building kit so flexible that you can create gigantic cities identical to the ones found in the world right down to where each table is placed and to an untrained eye a player's city looks like something you'd expect to see when exploring. Exploration is where the game really shines though, with a map bigger than anything I've ever seen (there are bigger game worlds but none with the packed content Kenshi has) and incredibly unique biomes which are almost like entirely different games, down to what you fight, what gear is optimal (sabers beat spiders, katanas beat cannibals/bandits, gas masks for swamps, acid protection for acid rain etc) and how you approach them. You really get immersed too, I stumbled into a gigantic crater lake that was home to giant spiders and found a band of mercenariess I hired for 2 days to join my squad. Ended up getting swarmed and chased out of the nest with 3 of the mercs slung over our shoulders and the rest being devoured alive, took them back to their camp, healed them up and left them recovering in a coma. Actually felt quite bad, the help they provided and the way they died was surreal and made them feel like more than just a tool. Each biome and sector can paint a different story based on your experiences there and you ALWAYS feel like you're on the brink, everything and everyone including yourself can die at any moment. It also has amazing mod support that is seemless and thanks to the engine and text based dialogue can easily be made to feel like it belongs.

The performance of the game is shocking though, loads more often than any game I've played in recent memory and the framerate absolutely tanks when things load in even on an SSD which is almost all the time when travelling on 3x game speed. It's not uncommon to lag into a horde of mutant bird giraffes only to get sent back to your last save. :mad:
 
I'd definitely recommend starcraft 2 with zerg and protos campaign. Also company of heroes is a fantastic rts.
Command and conquer 3 is decent still and is very old school rts.
Warcraft 1 and 2 have not long been re-released on GOG and might be worth a look if your into older classics.

Some others worth a mention would be age of mythology enhanced edition and rise of nations enhanced edition. Lord of the rings battle for middle earth is another I'd pick.
 
Reading the replies, it just goes to show there aren't many new (read: good) RTS games out there recently. It seems this genre is overlooked nowadays, yet it's one of the main reasons I still have a PC.

Still love SupCom FA, nothing has even come close to that game, it's a damn shame. I'd love a sequel to that with an updated multi-core game engine (I don't include SupCom2 as that was dire)
 
ljt said:
Reading the replies, it just goes to show there aren't many new (read: good) RTS games out there recently. It seems this genre is overlooked nowadays, yet it's one of the main reasons I still have a PC.

Still love SupCom FA, nothing has even come close to that game, it's a damn shame. I'd love a sequel to that with an updated multi-core game engine (I don't include SupCom2 as that was dire)
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Agree with all of this. It’s sad we’re never likely to see a true SupCom FA sequel.
 
I regularly play Total Annihilation and Red Alert 2.
TA is on steam and you can get all the Command and Conquer games for a few quid on Origin.
I'm currently playing through the Starcraft remake.
 
Company of heroes
homeworld remastered Collection
Halo Wars 2 (Windows Store)
Homeworld deserts of kharak

And i know is turn based but i really love XCOM2
 
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