Best RTS Games EVER

[James27]

Dawn of War 2 is without a doubt one of my favourite RTS games, had a lot of fun with that game, and it still is has people playing it.

[Matcam89]

That game is good also but just not one that comes to mind as one of the best

[Matcam89]

Best RTS games for me is

Rise of Nations
Empire Earth - Original
Red Alert
Red Alert 2
Generals
Dune
Age of Empires 3
Company of Heroes
Dawn of War 40k series
Starcraft

[Kraneloran]

No Love for C&C Tiberium Wars?

[Murray]

Agreed on Total Annihilation. Music by Jeremy Soule is damn good. I also liked the spiritual successor, Supreme Commander.

My favourite RTS is probably StarCraft BroodWar, but I also like StarCraft 2 and its expansions. WarCraft 1-3 is really good too.

Also, the Command & Conquer and Red Alert series are damn gooed. Frank Klepacki is one of my favourite music composers.

I also like the Dawn of War series (1 and 2). Really good 40k action. Even if 2 abandons base building mechanic, I like the campaign and the character building.

Some years ago, I played the Homeworld remasters. Really good space opera RTS games. They make for excellent eye candy.

[Drimdrim]

Fair point, tho I would say a slow RTS rather than turn-based since everything happens in real time, sure you can pause etc but still things happen in real time but slowly. Not a fast paced game to be fair.

[Drimdrim]

Do any of these have an active player base online somewhere?

Dawn of War has the Ultimate Apocolyps mod which has a decent active following.. Dawn of War II is quite active I have seen. Didnt play the third installment at all so no idea there. Company of Heroes is fairly active online I think. I dont play much Multiplayer when it comes to RTS games.

[TelperionST]

I don't know if I would go so far as to call Stellaris an RTS. Sure, ships move around in systems, but beyond that the game plays very much like a turn-based strategy game.

[gbullock32]

Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 for me; game was great and the soundtrack was fantastic. Also a huge fan of Stronghold Crusader.

Of course I also liked Star Craft (1 and 2), AoE, Empire Earth, Halo Wars, Warhammer.... RTS has always been one of my favorite genres.

[ethansito]

The RTS games that I loved to play were Age of Empires 2 and Battle for Middle Earth II.

I had a lot of fun with them during my early childhood even though I couldn't fully grasp the concepts of the games. I own a copy of the remastered AOE II on steam now, and I play it with friends sometimes. But they haven't remastered/updated Battle for Middle Earth, and I lost the discs for it. I think there's an emulator for it somewhere on the internet, but I didn't feel like going to dodgy websites to download it.

[ethansito]

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[isturbo1984]

Total Annihilation and Earth 2150 and my two all-time favorites.

Also... Rise of Nations kicks Age of Empires's ass.

[SckizoBoy]

Favourite strategy games are all in the Total War series... however, not RTS's, but eh...

For RTS's, I haven't played that many, but Dawn of War I (haven't really played II and onwards), C&C (RA2 FTW) and Europa Universalis are pretty good. Trying to get into EU:Rome... and struggling if I'm honest. :/ Favourite would have to go to DoW: DC, even though it's not actually that good. -_-

[SckizoBoy]

Favourite expansion for DoW? Base game was OK, quite enjoyed the campaign, didn't much like Winter Assault and I weirdly enjoy Dark Crusade most (Soulstorm, even though it introduced my favourite faction, the Dark Eldar, was a bit of a broken mess, unfortunately...).

[Rion]

Lots of worthy contenders like the Red Alert series for its cheesiness. Total Annihilation for its massive strategic based game play. Command and Conquer: Generals for its variety.

I think the genre peaked (to the present day) with Company of Heroes. The squad dynamics allowing units to take losses retreat (with a dedicated retreat button no less) and reconstitute, differing styles of the armies being played, defensive and offensive abilities allowing for everything to have a natural counter (little rock/paper scissor) along with the tactical options made it both fun and accessible while providing a great deal of depth.

If your enemy started making tanks then you could make tank traps and equip your units with AT weaponry and create killing fields with overlapping fire. Position infantry in buildings with rockets and shoot them in vulnerable rear armour slowing them down. Or just use your own tanks.

If your enemy dug in hard with breastworks and other defenses use artillery and spotters to clear it out before the assault. Snipers and even remote controlled explosive devices.

Games could be as long or as short as you wanted with high mobility and even a way to play long drawn out siege style games. It's a damn shame COH2 wasn't able to recapture the magic fully.