What's the best RTS game for someone that hasn't enjoyed the genre?

September 27, 2011 12:49 PM

I've never liked real-time strategy games. What games should I try in an effort to break into this genre?

So, I've been playing computer games since Kareteka. I appreciate virtually every genre in the pantheon of gaming- save one. For whatever reason, I've never able to really "get into" real-time strategy games. I remember playing Command and Conquer long ago and found myself annoyed at having to click 100 times a minute to redirect the incompetent AI. However, especially since at the advanced age of 36 I find myself enjoying strategy games more than loud, action-y types I feel like I should try again with RTSes. I've played every incarnation of the Civ series, Heroes of Might and Magic, Magic the Gathering online, etc. I think I might be more inclined toward a strategic (i.e. big picture) game as well or perhaps more so than a granular tactical game.

Because Steam is so good at advertising things and I can't turn down a bargain, I actually own a fair number of critically-acclaimed RTSes:
-Company of Heroes
-Much of the Total War series (Empire, Medieval II, Napoleon, Rome)
-Supreme Commander

Is there one of these I should try first? Or are there other games I should try instead?

posted by EKStickland to Computers & Internet (33 answers total)

don't laugh, but i started to love RTS games after i played pikmin. it's like RTS-lite.
posted by nadawi at 12:54 PM on September 27, 2011

I've never really gotten into any recent RTS game, though I've tried a bunch. However, I *adored* Warcraft II. The mechanics, compared to modern games, were simple, and the pace seemed slower. If you can make Warcraft II work on a modern computer (I assume it has been updated by Blizzard), you might give it a shot. For context, I didn't really enjoy Warcraft III, and never finished it.
posted by seventyfour at 12:58 PM on September 27, 2011

StarCraft is the single best RTS game ever made. Start with the first one.
posted by amazingstill at 12:59 PM on September 27, 2011 [3 favorites]

If you like big picture and less clicky-clicky, maybe a "4X" game like Sins of a Solar Empire? You can totally ignore micromanaging units if you don't want to deal with it - just lump them into groups and send them on their way. And it's space, so it's not like the AI is going to have trouble negotiating the units through a mountain pass or something.
posted by backseatpilot at 1:02 PM on September 27, 2011

Best answer: I think Company of Heroes is my favorite out of those. However, it is much more 'tactics' based. I really like this game, but that focus is not my strong suit. I'll be focusing on a skirmish between units only to forget about my other units all the way across the field who are getting pummeled, or more likely aren't doing anything useful. If you're not ready for that, you might get frustrated.

Warhammer 2 (so far) seems like a very 'lite' RTS and might be a good starting point. You start with a certain number of units so there's not a whole lot of ecomony and building, but the units are unique and you can get a feel for handling tactics.

Also, I liked Warhammer 1, which is the precursor to company of heroes (control of area for resources, terrain cover, etc...) but since you have CoH, I wouldn't go there... CoH is more polished.

If you liked Civ, Rise of Nations might be a good place to start as well.
posted by kookywon at 1:03 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Homeworld. People have developed tactics that require micromanaging, but for single-player purposes, it's much more about making smart fleet-composition choices than hyperactive clickfesting.
posted by Tomorrowful at 1:03 PM on September 27, 2011 [3 favorites]

Sins of a Solar Empire. Oh my god oh my Jebus it's engrossing.
posted by EatTheWeek at 1:13 PM on September 27, 2011

To clarify kookywon's recommendation, that's Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War and Dawn of War 2, and they are indeed excellent choices for someone who's not that into RTS. They focus on smaller-scale unit tactics rather than just swamping your enemy with unit production.

Alternately, you may want to give AI War: Fleet Command a try. It looks low-budget, but it's incredibly rich, and the AI is incredible (because the game is designed around an asymmetric approach that gives the AI a chance to do what it does best, instead of trying to imitate a human).
posted by McCoy Pauley at 1:24 PM on September 27, 2011

I very highly recommend the Total War series.

Game is in two parts; one is a big map of the "world" where you make strategic decisions. When you get into a fight, the map is the battleground where you make tactical decisions as to the disposition of your troops.

Rome and Medieval II are excellent. Shogun II is highly polished, but I still have a soft spot for Rome.
posted by porpoise at 1:34 PM on September 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Company of Hereos has a great set of single player campaigns, if your into the whole WW2 thing. Single player isn't that click-festy, except for one notable map towards the end. You will probably want to steer clear of the multiplayer format though, it's intense.

You own all those Total War games and haven't played them? They are turn-based, not real time, but great.

Supreme Commander is essentially a real-time "tower defense" game. Basically mass amounts of units, volume/dps over tactics. The opposite of Company of Heroes (where micromanaging the movement of one critical unit is pretty important)

Starcraft was never my cup of tea, but Age of Empires II is widely considered the next best RTS game. Highly recommended.
posted by parallax7d at 1:37 PM on September 27, 2011

There's RTS games I like versus RTS games that set the bar in my opinion.

StarCraft, Red Alert 3, Command and Conquer: Generals, Armies of Exigo, and Sins of a Solar empire were gems for RTS games.
posted by DetriusXii at 1:46 PM on September 27, 2011

I liked the first Dawn of War too.
posted by DetriusXii at 1:51 PM on September 27, 2011

With the caveat that I haven't played it, maybe have a look at RUSE which sounds quite different from other RTS games.
posted by juv3nal at 1:52 PM on September 27, 2011

Oh and rereading the question, RUSE definitely seems more on the strategic versus tactical end of things.
posted by juv3nal at 1:53 PM on September 27, 2011

Seconding kookywon- Rise of Nations is a natural progression from Civ. It's also not very fiddly.
posted by mkultra at 1:54 PM on September 27, 2011

Best answer: Seconding those who have said Total War series, Rise of Nations, and Starcraft. BUT all for different reasons; depending on what you end up liking your preferences may vary. Details:

Total War series: What Porpoise said. It's a nice mix between high-level strategic with time to think, because it's turn based, but then when you fight a battle you get the joys of RTS unit combat. Also if you already own it you have nothing to lose.

Starcraft: It's awesome and basically defines the genre. A WARNING: Everyone says start with the original, and I would too, however the AI is dated and very very dumb. It was amazing when it came out but that was more than a decade ago. Game AI has come a loooong way since Starcraft. Starcraft II is much better at avoiding the suicidal charges into enemy fire that made Starcraft so annoying sometimes. If micromanaging the dumb AI is likely to annoy you, stay away.

Rise of Nations: Solves the problem endemic to RTS games of players hurling huge armies across the map and/or building big bases right next to your base and pumping units into your base using its controlled territory mechanic. Because you can only build certain things in territory you control, and because your armies perform so much better on your own turf, it slows down the rushes and forces you to consider logistics.

tl;dr: RTS games are awesome, give some a try, especially if you already own them for heaven's sake.
posted by Wretch729 at 2:29 PM on September 27, 2011

I'd nth Homeworld. It is one of my favorite games, but ignoring that bias, it's a slower paced game which is definitely not a clickfest- and it's actually sometimes fun to just watch the battles from the perspective of one of the ships and not actually manage anything.

I think Starcraft and Supreme Commander may not be what you're looking for as while they are fine examples of the genre, they wouldn't be the best introductions to it.
posted by thewumpusisdead at 2:30 PM on September 27, 2011

Best answer: Yeah, give Rome: Total War a shot. The strategy/gathering part of the game is turn-based so you don't have to worry about optimizing your production for maximum efficiency over the first 5 minutes click click click click click, and, you can pause the RTS battles so that you can think about what you're going to do. I think that applies to all the Total War games (though in multiplayer you can't pause).
posted by furiousthought at 2:57 PM on September 27, 2011

Starcraft 2.

Don't start with the original. It's a million times finickier and harder to control than the new game.

Watch Day 9 for tips.

And watch MLG games.

Or just watch random people streaming on wellplayed.
posted by empath at 3:14 PM on September 27, 2011

Well, I should say its not random -- the top streams on Wellplayed are usually pros.
posted by empath at 3:16 PM on September 27, 2011

Also, there is Reddit Starcraft (and sc2class) and Team Liquid and the Liquipedia.
posted by empath at 3:18 PM on September 27, 2011

If you can find a copy of Bungie's Myth, it was a fun RTS in that you didn't have to worry about building units- you got so many guys every level and had to just go for it.
posted by yeloson at 3:27 PM on September 27, 2011

Best answer: I really don't like RTS's either.

I love Total War, but only the turn-based part (I think its Civ building is better than any other Civ game I've played) and I'd let the AI take over the RTS battle skirmishes. I thought the battles had a really sharp learning curve, even on easy. If you can get past that, then you should play them, especially since you already own them. I recommend Medieval II out of the list you own.

I personally recommend StarCraft II. I just finished it two nights ago and bought it precisely to learn to like RTS's and it worked marvelously. The campaign has a really good story (both told through cutscenes and through the missions), you aren't stuck to a single mission at a time (there's usually 2-3 choices to move at your own pace), and every single mission is designed around a new unit - so you learn how to handle them one by one. Blizzard is great at designing tutorials, tips, help, etc. so I never felt lost. It's clicky... but if you play on easy like me you still have some time to think and opportunities to mess up. If you really don't like clicky games, though, then it's probably a bad investment considering you already own several.
posted by subject_verb_remainder at 3:37 PM on September 27, 2011

Best answer: The demo version of Starcraft 2, btw, is free permanently, and you can play all the multiplayer you want. You just need to play terran, and you can't play on the ladder to get a ranking.
posted by empath at 3:48 PM on September 27, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks for all the responses!

I think I'll try out Company of Heroes first, and if that doesn't grab me then I'll move on to either Rome or Medieval II: Total War. I'm enough of a history nerd that the historical settings are more immediately of interest than sci-fi or fantasy, even if they don't exactly hew as close to historical fact as some might like.

Empath, thanks for the heads up on the SC2 demo, I'll check that out.
posted by EKStickland at 5:36 PM on September 27, 2011

I'm just here to say - definitely do try out Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2. (DOW2)

From a technical and strategic perspective, nothing beats Starcraft 2. However, Dawn of War 2 has a very distinct advantage - it is very "fun" to play - and let me qualify -

1. From the ground up, Dawn of War 2 was designed as a 3v3 RTS game. That's right, it's not meant to be played 1v1. This means, when you get the game, one of the first things you can do is start up a 3v3 game with 5 AI in it + yourself. Even if you have absolutely no idea what you're doing, your two AI companions will help carry the game through (and you can even make them a bit stronger than the 3 opponents). I feel the team-play mechanic is important because 1v1 play can be very intimidating for new and casual players, and the 3v3 mode is so very fun once you get to playing with friends. Starcraft is absolutely not designed around team play - for the most part it's only 1v1 - so it's a lonely road to go down.

2. It's a positional based RTS game rather than an attrition based game. This is another very important factor for introducing players to the RTS genre. In Starcraft or other RTS games, every single soldier or worker you lose is a direct hit to the strength of your army, and you can lose the entire game in a blink of an eye. This generally leads to a host of unpleasant gameplay issues - in fact, this topic has been explored in game theory on board games and other genres. Attrition based games make it hard to come back from mistakes and generally frustrate the player, who feels the pain of every single casualty.

In contrast, Dawn of War 2 is a positional game. Winning the game is about how much of the map you control, not about how many casualties you inflict on the enemy or how many of their workers you slaughter (there are no workers). "Losing" a battle means that you didn't bring enough firepower to a skirmish or got caught out in a bad position, and you simply have to retreat. 90% of all "battles" occur with zero casualties. You don't "lose" troops - you lose position, which you can potentially regain, because both your army sizes remain exactly the same before and after. This is imo more entertaining than attrition based games, which sometimes feel won or lost after an initial skirmish that went awry for one player, and now suddenly one player has an army 3x the size of the other. And you have an invulnerable home base in DOW2, so it's not a simple matter of "I have a larger army, I will come and crush you now". The player with the larger army still has to work to win the game - continue making smart moves and winning "battles" and forcing more of the enemy off the map.

Basically it's unlike any RTS game out there, and probably captures the "true" spirit of strategy gaming more than any game I've seen. Plus I can unreservedly say it's the most fun RTS game I've ever played in 20 years of gaming.

.... And as a plus point, the single player mode is basically an action-rpg type game that has almost nothing to do with the multiplayer, which is like getting 2 different games for the price of one...
posted by xdvesper at 6:42 PM on September 27, 2011

Best answer: Company of Heroes is just phenomenally good. However if you're anything like me you'd love a way to slow things down when they get hectic (or just to admire the beautiful carnage).

You can use the setsimrate hack to slow down Company of Heroes, btw. First you need to create a shortcut to the exe and add a -dev to the end like this:

"C:\Games\Company of Heroes\RelicCOH.exe" -dev

This file might be in your Steam folder if you're playing it on Steam, look in steamapps/common (IIRC).

Then you need to setup an autoexec.lua file in the same location as your exe file, make a new text document with the text listed in italics below and save it as 'autoexec.lua' without the quotes. Here's mine for CoH

run = setsimrate(4)

bind("F9","setsimrate(2)")
bind("F10","setsimrate(4)")
bind("F11","setsimrate(6)")
bind("F12","setsimrate(8)")

IIRC simrate of 8 is the default setting. So my game is setup to start at half-speed and using F9-F12 to change the speeds.
posted by Sebmojo at 7:41 PM on September 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

I came back to see what this thread produced. Thanks Sebmojo for that awesome hack. Didn't know it existed and now I'm thinking about using it to go back over the levels that frustrated me (especially the hill at the end of the U.S. campaign).

I would also recommend, since you're going CoH first... read through some of the walkthroughs. There are some spoilers, but some of the tactics, such as using snipers to scout out areas and provide spotting for mortars and howitzers weren't obvious to me playing through the first time.

Also, its a bit frustrating at first because there is a lot of stuff going on. I'll admit, I died and shut the game off quite a bit in the beginning, but I came back because it really is one of the best RTS I've played.

I don't know if MeFightClub plays CoH (let me know if they do) but if you want to play multiplayer sometime, I give you some pointers. MeMail me.
posted by kookywon at 7:43 AM on September 28, 2011

In Starcraft or other RTS games, every single soldier or worker you lose is a direct hit to the strength of your army, and you can lose the entire game in a blink of an eye. This generally leads to a host of unpleasant gameplay issues - in fact, this topic has been explored in game theory on board games and other genres. Attrition based games make it hard to come back from mistakes and generally frustrate the player, who feels the pain of every single casualty.

Starcraft 2 actually has lots of ways to come from behind. For example, if you're a protoss, you can hid a Dark Shrine and build a couple of Dark Templar and wreck someone's base instantly if they don't scout you, or drop a few hellions in their mineral line as a terran, or do a speedling run-by to take out an unprotected third base as zerg. Any game that goes longer than 5 minutes is going to have a couple of twists and turns where one or another player is ahead. I've watched pro games (and been in games myself) where one player was behind the entire game in both economy and army size, but managed to pull out a victory by being smarter and more efficient with his units, while the other player threw away his advantage in misjudged attacks trying to end the game.

When you're irrecoverably behind in starcraft, you generally know it right away. If all your workers get killed, you just mass up your army and attack immediately, and if you don't win right then, you just quit. Hardly anybody drags on games forever trying to win a hopeless battle, same deal if someone gets DT's in your base and you don't have anything that can see cloaked units. Just quit and get to the next game.
posted by empath at 10:25 AM on September 28, 2011

A good and free turn-based strategy game is Battle of Wesnoth
posted by cupcake1337 at 10:50 AM on September 28, 2011

Supreme Commander is essentially a real-time "tower defense" game. Basically mass amounts of units, volume/dps over tactics.

I strongly disagree with this. I have played many, many games of Forged Alliance (the stand-alone "expansion") and I would say that SupCom emphasizes strategy over tactics and in no way is equivalent to a tower defense game. It is the least "programmatic" RTS I have ever played and has many unique features. I would not, however, ever recommend it as a first RTS. Play StarCraft first then check this one out.
posted by adamdschneider at 10:59 AM on September 28, 2011

League of Legends might be a good game to try starting with as well. It's a free download and focuses primarily on one unit instead of many. It borrows heavily from RTS games, especially the Warcraft series (feels exactly like playing a "hero" class from WC3). This game is also fun to bring a friend on board with to go head to head before getting into true online play. Since it's a simplified RTS, it might be a good primer to the more complex ones out there.
posted by samsara at 5:34 AM on September 29, 2011

Eufloria is on Steam, it's quite relaxing but for a few minor UI flaws (e.g., no group select). Good to chill out with.
posted by Tzarius at 9:04 PM on October 1, 2011