What is the best RTS now and why?

[>HaLLuCinOgeN<<]

Discuss!

I have not played a good RTS since Blitzkrieg 1.

I tried Command and Conquer Generals and it is worst piece of crap I've seen lately.
The camera is too close to the ground, units are not interesting, story is so boring, AI is weak as fuck.
Fuck this game!

then I checked out Age of Empires III. What a crap! So dumbed down that is funny! Once again the fucking camera is too fucking close to the fucking ground



Is Supreme Commander good?

 

[Mangoose]

Swords and Soldiers

 

[Trash]

Wow. The 2011 batch actually IS worse than the 2010 one.

 

[TheWesDude]

sup com 2 is good, but it went herp derp for 2, forged alliance is far more :monocle:

keep waiting for the price of starcrap 2 to hit like $10-20 and ill pick it up. the first one was utter crap, and the 2nd is supposed to be a copy of the first unit/tactic wise just updated engine/graphics.

 

[markec]

For multiplayer Company of Heroes

 

[Marobug]

Yeah, fuck that game ! In the ass !

 

[Dark Matter]

Brood War.

 

[spectre]

Is Supreme Commander good?

No it isn't.
At least that's my opinion. Total Annhilation still seems better after all these years (and looks much better on my old pc too boot). If you wish purtier graphics, I would still use Spring with a Total Annihilaiton mod.

I have to second Company of Heroes, although I find the campaigns tedious. Had more fun in skirmish/multi.
Then there's Dawn of War, which is similar but has -100% less WW2 (which is and advatnage at times) and +100% Warhammer (which may or may not be an advantage, although the audio is really good). Avoid Soulstorm like the plague, Dark Crusade is the best part, first two are good.

Then there's the Men of War Series (or actually the Soldiers Hereoes of WW2 series) - lots of micromanagement imo and at times heavy tanks feel fragile as kittens, but it's still good fun. Faces of War, Red Tide and Men of War are all ok.

I had some fun with Codename Panzers, but eventually it got repetitive. Never had the chance to play the sequels Phase 2 and Cold War.

 

[Mangoose]

Then there's Dawn of War, which is similar but has -100% less WW2 (which is and advatnage at times) and +100% Warhammer (which may or may not be an advantage, although the audio is really good). Avoid Soulstorm like the plague, Dark Crusade is the best part, first two are good.

IIRC DoW1 is more typical RTS than Company of Heroes, whereas DoW2 is very close to CoH mechanics.

 

[sser]

Sounds like you prefer singleplayer. I would try Homeworld* if that's the case.






*Best RTS ever.

 

[Ashery]

If you can manage to find the people for a decent sized team game, I'd say Kohan is still the best series out there.

The economic and military side of the game interact beautifully, and one must generally maintain a proper balance (Although one can always attempt to eco whore early on to give a stronger mid game at the risk of getting raped early, or cripple your economy to recruit a couple more supported companies to better your odds at taking an enemy's city, etc). Troops are organized into companies that can be customized (4x frontline, 2x flank, 1x support, 1x support) and require *time* to heal (while in supply range), not goods/money. Makes engagements significantly more interesting as decisively winning a battle gives you a fairly small window of opportunity to capture a city (Well, not quite true. Decisively winning a battle simply by killing most of the enemy's troops while not killing off the company completely gives you a short window. Actually killing off half of the companies (Eliminating every unit in it) will likely win you the game as companies are not cheap to replace and experience is earned/stored on a company level. Even if you don't manage to kill any companies, you can still widen your window of opportunity by interrupting city/outpost supply and prevent him from healing). There's also morale to speak of and a ton of other details that I've forgotten to throw in here.

Oh, and probably the biggest difference that draws me to the game is that there is next to no micromanagement. Companies (when in an aggressive formation) automatically engage when enemies come close, and once engaged the fight is entirely out of your hands save for giving the command to run or rout (Note that "running" can be used offensively).

Man, now I feel like playing it again. Such fond memories of some of those 4v4 games

 

[oscar]

Company of Heroes is alot of fun. I like the smaller focus (but alot greater unit detail) than most RTS's that means skillful tank flanking and correct infantry positioning comes quite into play. I have fond memories of smashing my friend's far heavier German tanks with a single Stuart by circling them and exploiting their slower turret turn rates and weak rear armour. Creative tactics are rewarded (smoke is really under-utilized but can work wonders) and things are relatively realistic (charge an MG head-on and your squad will probably get pretty chewed up, but take it from the side where they can't fire and the MG crew will get slaughtered).

Graphics and audio are also great and have lots of nice details (infantry are impressively detailed and units have lots of situation-specific audio).

Less base building focus than most RTS, and the capturing system encourages constant attacking and manoeuvring over the lame 'turtle/rush' traditional RTS mechanics.

I really, really have a blast with this over LAN. Only problem is the balance doesn't seem quite as perfect as it was in the good old pre-expansion days (a US-Wehrmacht match had a beautiful symmetry).

Starcraft 2 isn't bad either. No way near the insane skill levels players in the first one reached though and Zerg require alot more skill.

 

[Renegen]

If you can manage to find the people for a decent sized team game, I'd say Kohan is still the best series out there.

The economic and military side of the game interact beautifully, and one must generally maintain a proper balance (Although one can always attempt to eco whore early on to give a stronger mid game at the risk of getting raped early, or cripple your economy to recruit a couple more supported companies to better your odds at taking an enemy's city, etc). Troops are organized into companies that can be customized (4x frontline, 2x flank, 1x support, 1x support) and require *time* to heal (while in supply range), not goods/money. Makes engagements significantly more interesting as decisively winning a battle gives you a fairly small window of opportunity to capture a city (Well, not quite true. Decisively winning a battle simply by killing most of the enemy's troops while not killing off the company completely gives you a short window. Actually killing off half of the companies (Eliminating every unit in it) will likely win you the game as companies are not cheap to replace and experience is earned/stored on a company level. Even if you don't manage to kill any companies, you can still widen your window of opportunity by interrupting city/outpost supply and prevent him from healing). There's also morale to speak of and a ton of other details that I've forgotten to throw in here.

Oh, and probably the biggest difference that draws me to the game is that there is next to no micromanagement. Companies (when in an aggressive formation) automatically engage when enemies come close, and once engaged the fight is entirely out of your hands save for giving the command to run or rout (Note that "running" can be used offensively).

Man, now I feel like playing it again. Such fond memories of some of those 4v4 games

Funny you mention it. I bought the game over the internet (in 2001!) because I couldn't find it in stores, and while I enjoyed game, I didn't like that much the "RTS" part of it. The game requires like you says that you dynamically adjust to the enemy and that you really think about build plans and how you expand. I remember going online and getting completely crushed. It took me a couple more RTS games to realize I wasn't a big fan of the genre and preferred TBS.

I can't recommend Men of War enough. There are several series that use the same engine so it's confusing but I think they are coming out with a Vietnam game.

Besides that, it's Sins of a Solar Empire for me. It plays just like a good RTS (the same things I named in Kohan) but has enough deep 4X elements to be interesting.

 

[DemonKing]

Company pf Heroes by far - it's a game where great micro-management will pay off but is not so fast paced that you need the reflexes of a 12 year old to have a chance.

Fingers crossed CoH2 will be announced later this year by Relic (I think they've got a big announcement coming in August/September).

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Company pf Heroes by far - it's a game where great micro-management will pay off but is not so fast paced that you need the reflexes of a 12 year old to have a chance.

Fingers crossed CoH2 will be announced later this year by Relic (I think they've got a big announcement coming in August/September).

I don't think so.

Dawn of War 3 is the next thing, but they have put a new patch out after CoH:O was closed down so chances are we will see a CoH 2 at some point-

 

[Ashery]

Funny you mention it. I bought the game over the internet (in 2001!) because I couldn't find it in stores, and while I enjoyed game, I didn't like that much the "RTS" part of it. The game requires like you says that you dynamically adjust to the enemy and that you really think about build plans and how you expand. I remember going online and getting completely crushed. It took me a couple more RTS games to realize I wasn't a big fan of the genre and preferred TBS.

Getting stomped online is pretty much a guarantee for new players as the game has a bitch of a learning curve. If you fuck up your initial build, you could easily take twenty minutes to recover and be at the same economic point as your opponent was five minutes in. The typical bar for a new player entering online play is to beat one of the SAIs (custom AIs) on normal before even trying to play online. Even then, though, a new player will be in for a hell of a welcoming. Watching films also helps substantially.

The sequel (K:KoW) is also substantially more forgiving than the initial game (KAG, standalone expansion), so I'd suggest checking out K:KoW first (Even if the hivemind likes KAG more).

But, damn, once you get over that initial hump, pure RTS bliss.

 

[thursdayschild]

Sounds like you prefer singleplayer. I would try Homeworld* if that's the case.






*Best RTS ever.

Only good RTS ever, except maybe Dune.

 

[G.O.D]

I'd still go for Victoria II.
Although it's semi-RT, since you have to pause every now and then becouse of a lot of micromanaging.
And if you are into Com&Conq-like RTS, this is not for you.
But there's plenty of quality in this game.

 

[markec]

Only problem is the balance doesn't seem quite as perfect as it was in the good old pre-expansion days (a US-Wehrmacht match had a beautiful symmetry).

Few weeks ago they released a new big patch to add better balance and actually managed to make some things worse. Panzer Elite is still a joke, Brits had Kangaroos nerfed but not enough, US pios are now overpowered and Wehrmacht pios even on vet 3 are useless. In overall scale Wehr is still the most powerful faction, yanks close second, brits are pretty mediocre and can be easily countered by a good Wehr player and as said PE not even worth mentioned unless you play team games.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

It's too bad to hear that things have gotten so far out of wack. Although the original two factions really were the best crafted and balanced against each other, things weren't SOOO bad when OF came out. Sure, people cried that PE was really OP but that was just out of unfamiliarity.

I've been playing a lot of DOW since retribution came out, and while it's very similar to CoH, it's really it's own game. There's some stuff to be liked and disliked about it, but it often leaves me wanting to play CoH again. I'm just somewhat reluctant with all of this talk about it being a completely different game etc etc.

One thing that's nice about DoW 2 is that damage is completely deterministic. I'm not sure if CoH is the same these days, but I seem to recall there being rolls involving penetration.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

X-Com: Ufo Defence - I think it's possible to play it in geoscape alone with xcomutil.
The main reason is because it's not dumbed-down. The game is long, there's lots of interesting things to care for, your units aren't reduced to nondescript tanks and infantrymen, etc.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

CoH and DoW should not be considered on this list because of Relolic entertainment. They have a bad habit of releasing more expansions and DLC's than patches, and of course having atrocious balance in everything they do, and fucking it up more with each patch. Essentially their games grow tiring if you play them to the point where you start caring about balance. They are one-trick ponies, games built around gimmicks.

The best RTS out there is probably SC2.

 

[Johannes]

Brood War.

Total Annhilation still seems better after all these years (and looks much better on my old pc too boot). If you wish purtier graphics, I would still use Spring with a Total Annihilaiton mod.

to both

At least for multiplayer.

 

[Marobug]

Sounds like you prefer singleplayer. I would try Homeworld* if that's the case.






*Best RTS ever.

Only good RTS ever, except maybe Dune.

Wat.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Hearts of Iron III.