Top Real-Time Strategy Games of All Time?

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "GameSpy is running a feature looking at the editors' picks for the top real-time strategy games of all time. Included on the list are such classics as StarCraft, Command and Conquer: Red Alert, and Age of Empires. The article looks at each game's significance to the genre as a whole, as well as offering some reader feedback on the editors' choices. Why not grunt rush their server, have a look at their picks, and share some of your own RTS favorites here?"

Comments

Dune 2

[Anonymous Coward]

nuff said.

Re:Dune 2

[paradesign]

Agreed, im still playing it on my XP box how many years later. I had this on my 386-25 and will have it on every computer i own EVER! As far as im concerned i rate every RTS games against Dune II, it was that good. But then again i also compare all FPSs against Doom, so take as much salt as you need.

C&C

[mwheeler01]

I was always a big fan of the original Command and Conquer. The units had a nice variety without bogging you down with too many options and the whole concept of RTS was new and exciting to me. I don't think any C&C quite lived up to the original except Red Alert.

Re:C&C

[karnal]

My circle of friends has been playing Generals a lot lately, and all around agree the zero hour expansion pack adds a lot of depth to the different sides, if you will...

The only problem we see is that the sides don't seem all that well balanced compared to something such as Yuri's Revenge (an add on for Red Alert 2). We fired up Yuri's over this past weekend and had a blast (ipx only though....) I don't know; the two games share a lineage, but since EA has the new C&C, it just doesn't feel the same. Not that it's not good; it just feels different.

Re:C&C

[benlinkknilneb]

Generals may feel a little different from the old C&C, but I think it lived up to its lineage. I haven't played the expansions yet... but the basic game is very, very good. The only thing we seem to still be missing is a good air-to-air battle system... and I was a bit upset that they took the seafaring units out of the game. Bring them back!

Re:C&C

[dmachine]

I didn't like the original C&C that much, because I had already played Dune II and it seemed that C&C was a step backwards (a step forward in the graphics departmnet, but a step backwards in gameplay). Red Alert was fun though. Nothing like zapping something with a tesla coil =D

Total Annihilation?

[Recoil_42]

I haven't RTFA yet, but the summary has no mention of TA? Fargo rated it as his favorite of all time in an article a while back, and most RTS debates i've heard are Starcraft VS TA.... whow could they make such an obvious mistake of excluding TA?

Re:Total Annihilation?

[Decaffeinated Jedi]

Although it wasn't mentioned in the Slashdot write-up (so as not to spoil the list), the GameSpy editors did pick Total Annihilation as their top RTS game of all time. Personally, I think they hit the nail on the head. I've yet to play another RTS game that has done so many things so right as Total Annihilation. What a blast...

Re:Total Annihilation?

[mwheeler01]

good point, I liked that game a lot, especially the new units that could be introduced and the water units were nicely done but it got to the point where there were to many units for me to remember which was the best for which situation. Maybe I just didn't play it enough.

Re:Total Annihilation?

[Recoil_42]

my mistake, its #1 ... the slashdot submitter really should have mentioned it, at least...

Re:Total Annihilation?

[Decaffeinated Jedi]

As I said above, I didn't want to spoil the list when I submitted the story. Where's the fun in that? ;)

Re:Total Annihilation?

[fireduck]

I had several issues with Total Annihilation that apparently the gamespy editors overlook or praise.

Although gamespy liked the graphics, I had a big problem with them. Yes, it was 3D, which made for some beautiful maps. However, the units, IMO, were plainer than plain. They were all boxey and ultimately had very little character (as contrasted to Starcraft, where eveything was quite distinct and enjoyable to look at, and listen to).

Then you've got this comment "You don't just order an attack -- you send in a WAVE of hundreds of units, a wall of steel death that will fill the screen with awesome-looking explosions for minutes on end. You can build a nuclear missile capable of destroying a screen full of units, but it's worthless to build just one: Typically, you send them over in batches of a dozen or more. Obscene? YES. That's Total Annihilation! Every game was non-stop action, carnage, and brutality at a level never seen before or since. ". While I am sure there was lots of strategy involved in competitive TA play, this statement belies that fact. Mass and attack has very little strategy to it. Weapons that destroy an entire screen full of units, that can be mass produced, is not much in the way of strategy. Its like asking a 12 year-old and a 40 year-old their favorite movie. One is going to say "Super death explosion 12" while the other is going to say "Mystic River".

Perhaps, I'll dust off TA and give it another try. Being a Blizzard fan, I never really got into it all that much.

However, I was a little disappointed not to see mention of one of the best RTS pre-cursors, Sun Tzu's Ancient Art of War. That game had many of the elements that are in current games and did it back in the mid 80s.

Also, another game not mentioned was 7 Kingdoms or its sequel. While I could never really get into it, it did have a number of really interesting features that I would love to see in future games, such as spies that took on the enemies color and could be integrated into their force.

Re:Total Annihilation?

[Carmelia]

As I said above, I didn't want to spoil the list when I submitted the story.
Why? Gamespy pays you by the click or something?
I don't see how putting the list on ./ would spoil anything

Re:Total Annihilation?

[MarcoAtWork]

While I am sure there was lots of strategy involved in competitive TA play, this statement belies that fact. Mass and attack has very little strategy to it.

I used to play TA tournaments: a LOT of strategy was involved (especially before Cavedog started monkeying around with the balance with the units they released weekly, after Chris Taylor left IMHO things went downhill pretty fast).

Yes, when you see newbies play it's going to be pretty boring, but expert play is a completely different kettle of fish. It =can= happen even among experts that you'll have a pretty sizeable battle where you throw everything at your opponent, but obviously before you do that you have to be pretty sure you're going to win (recon, selective bombing, multiple fronts, ...). In my experience low level harassment from the start, multiple bases and territory control were much surer paths to victory.

TA's greatest strenght is its UI in my opinion, being able to queue things so easily, creating groups, pathing, guarding and so on gives a lot of flexibility to the experienced player.

Install TA, grab TA:M (TA mutation) and some of the latest AIs (that are MUCH better than the one shipped with the game) and you'll have a lot of fun, believe me.

Re:Total Annihilation?

[ParadoxicalPostulate]

Also, another game not mentioned was 7 Kingdoms or its sequel.

I bought and played Seven Kingdoms II several years ago.
Overall, I wasn't terribly impressed. It had some novel ideas (the spy and mercenary system) but overall it failed to hold the attention of gamers.
The single player campaign (although randomized) was not terribly interesting - human civilizations fighting a war against demons (the Frythans) sounded pretty cliche to me. Plus, when they went for the randomized campaigns they had to ditch something called a storyline .
Outside of the campaign, the gameplay was interesting at first, since you had the opportunity to build and conquer cities and resources (reminded me of Civilization II, much better graphics). The different civilizations had their own unique units but other than that and the city art you could hardly tell you were playing one race or another.
Control of units in battle was annoying as anything, often times pathfinding was poor and terribly slow. Still, large battles gave you a chance to sit back and enjoy listening to the grunts and sounds of battle.
Nevertheless, Seven Kingdoms II must be credited with two things in particular: heros and espionage. The two were fairly well done and added a new perspective as opposed to games of its time.

Re:Total Annihilation?

[Decaffeinated Jedi]

Curses! My under-the-table funding from GameSpy has been uncovered!

/me disappears into the shadows.

Re:Total Annihilation?

[Rallion]

About the massed units thing...I'm not a fan of that, either. In fact, smaller forces was one of the few things I preferred in Warcraft III over StarCraft. I like that if I attack an enemy with an inferior force, superior management of that force can lead to my victory. With the addition of the hero units, micromanagement became a major focus of Warcraft III, and I love it. Most of the other RTS games out these days don't focus on micro at all, and usually actually make it impractical. I like them anyway, sure, but...ah, well.

Re:Total Annihilation?

[Lord_Frodo]

"Mass and attack has very little strategy to it." It's amazing you say this and later that you're a Blizzard fan. That's all Starcraft is based on.

Re:Total Annihilation?

[Zorton]

I'm glad to see TA in the #1 slot. I can still remember clearly the battles that raged at our small computer store. We would get about 6 people together on a large map and dig in. After much probing and spying eventually someone's base would crack just enough to allow in an attacking wedge. From there your allies would scream in with air support and start knocking down base defenses. All this would be happening and then suddenly you would notice your own base just got nuked away! What happened to the anti-nukes!?!?!?! Well while your where happily wreaking havoc on your enemy's base he had invisable bots hanging around your anti-nukes in case you smashed his defenses. And then to top it all off the guy in the corner that nobody thought much about would come stomping in with a dozen game stopping Mech's and everyone would collectively piss themselves.

The game truly did bring a great amount of strategy to the gamer. You had soooo many choices about how to play it. You certainly could try and build a million of one type of unit and form a overwhelming attack force but a well constructed base would chew threw all your units easily. Or you could play the long game and try and outthink your oppenent. Imagine the only precursor to a major attack being your power suddenly shutting down for no reason. Then you look and all your fusion reactor have just been nuked and your radar shows an incoming squad of fighters. All these things and a well balanced load (until you start adding to many extra units) made it a great game indeed.

And with the internet being the place it is now there have been many great addons made over time. TA Demo recorder is one of the best for allied multiplayer IMHO. The whiteboard and signal flare features aloud you to mark areas for air strikes even if your ally couldn't see. "Hit their power!!!! Now!" Or how about the resource sharing that was built into the game? With three allies you could have one person concetrate on base defense, another on ecomony and recon, and another be the war cheif. This worked so well in fact that after awhile (10 hours or so) we had to play a free for all just to give the mind a break.

Heck I should just shut up about this game for now, go try it. Go over to planetannilation.com and see where you can still buy it, buy TA and the Core expansion and get a few friends over and try it out. Demo Recorder is higly recommended but a bit buggy sometimes.

Age of Empires II

[kneecarrot]

I am not a person prone to obsessive behaviour, but when I fired up AOEII, I would often play all night until the sun rose the next day. This is during the week and with a 9 to 5 job.

There is nothing like building an impenetrable fortress and a huge assault force and then unleashing your army on a neighbour.

I love love love that game. I love it. Love love love. Am I gushing? Sorry. :)

Re:Age of Empires II

[NanoGator]

"There is nothing like building an impenetrable fortress and a huge assault force and then unleashing your army on a neighbour."

I used to have fun setting up traps for my neighbour. Once I set up a Burger King-esuqe maze for him to walk back and forth through while towers picked away at his army. Heh. I had fun listening to him swear from the next cube.

Re:Age of Empires II

[kneecarrot]

I have only a single question for you. And here it is:

What is a Burger King-esque maze?

Re:Age of Empires II

[NanoGator]

"What is a Burger King-esque maze?"

At Burger King , they have this maze in front of the counter that you have to walk back and forth through before getting to the counter to order your meal. The place is never busy, but you still go in back and forth and back and forth. It's like "When I complete this, can I have a piece of cheese?"

Re:Age of Empires II

[kisrael]

Ah, more canonically associated with the bank teller's line... I have seen 'em at BK, but I think I've seen some BK's without one, or at least with one that only has one pass...

Re:Age of Empires II

[BigZaphod]

Never busy? Man, you need to go there during lunch sometime. The BK near me has people almost spilling out the door at noon. I, for one, and glad they have the maze--it keeps people from clogging up the access to the bathrooms... And not only that, it's way fun to have BK maze races. (Just don't do it when they have those helpful "caution, floor is wet" signs out...)

Re:Age of Empires II

[WankersRevenge]

My big gripe with AOE2 was that I would spend a devious amount of time building "The Castles of Castles(R)" and some dinky little tree would block my perspective, and all the frenchies would march through that tiny hole I never saw. I had to start wearing a football helmet 'cause everytime I played that game, I'd smash my head into my monitor.

Re:Age of Empires II

[SophtwareSlump]

Oh yes... In college, my friend and I spent many nights playing AOEII, instead of more productive things, like homework and group projects :) If we played against each other, and no one won early, it would turn into a battle of cannon towers.

I had a 'killing zone' of 15 to 20 cannon towers mixed in with 3 or 4 castles that got destroyed by 4 or 5 waves of maxed out Samumari. :)

Sometimes I hear that 'attack' noise in my head, as well as the 'trebuchet' (sp?) 'launch' noise. The sound of buildings being lost.

We've played Age of Mythologies, but it's not the same.. The 'epic' games never happens because the Heroes usually win the game for whoever gets one out first, or they just ravage the other player's economy and make things painful for the other player.

Re:Age of Empires II

[Anonymous Coward]

All you have to do to prevent that is tell your villagers to walk to the other side of the wall after they build it. Lock any gates in it first. They'll find the holes for you. They'll also walk all the way around the map if there aren't any holes and you don't stop them.

Re:Age of Empires II

[vijaya_chandra]

that is it
villies are your buddies ( and guinea pigs too )

just shows that that guy hadn't spent much time playing the game ;)

M.U.L.E.

[ip_vjl]

Not really sure if it fits the RTS genre ... but I still fire up the Atari emulator to put in a round every now and then.

Re:M.U.L.E.

[MachDelta]

Real Time Strategy? Nope, not MULE. Those kinds of games (MOO, STARS!, etc) are commonly called "4X" games (expand explore exploit exterminate). They can share some common elements with their RTS bretheren, but typically they're considered to be a seperate genre. They're definitly tons of fun though!

playing dune 2

[gl4ss]

should work quite well on dosbox.

It was just great when it came :)

too bad I never liked the rts games that came after it as much, imho most of them were lacking in atmosphere.

though, I'd count populous 1 as rts anyways :)

Re:playing dune 2

[antdude]

Dune 2 was the first RTS game I ever played in my life. It was before the first C&C game. I was still in high school when I played it on my IBM PS/2 30 286 (10 Mhz; 1 or 4 MB of RAM)?

I also bought Dune 2000 and Emperor: Battle for Dune. They were not great as the original game. Emperor was a better game than Dune 2000. Maybe EA Pacific (formerly Westwood Studios) should stop making Dune RTS games. :)

Re:playing dune 2

[BackwardEngineer]

Yes, it does work with dosbox, thank goodness. I remember going to my friend's house a long time ago and he was playing this. And i was like "Dude, what is this game? its totally awesome" So, i bought a copy and subsquently lost it. Thank goodness I made a back up copy.

Re:playing dune 2

[Deliveranc3]

*Cough* Selecting more than one unit is kinda useful though.

Another great game brought to you on the Sega Genesis.

Up until 4

[Apreche]

Up until #4 warcraft 3 every game on the list was crap. They should have inserted warcraft 2 at #4 warcraft 3 at #5 and warcraft 1 at #6. The original C&C should have come in at #7. The rest can stay the way it is.

Re:Up until 4

[Orien]

While I don't agree with your rankings, Warcraft II definitely needs to be on the list. I still play it. In fact, I use it as my cut off for old hardware. If a computer is too old to run Warcraft II at playable speed, then I don't keep it. My only beef with it is that the PC version doesn't support direct TCP/IP. I wish Blizzard would open up the code so that could be done. I have to use one of my old power macs if I want to play over the internet with someone. (and yes, I know about Battle.net, I prefer a direct TCP/IP game when playing with people I know).

yay!

[ceejayoz]

Homeworld made the list, #6!

Yay. :-)

Re:yay!

[ParadoxicalPostulate]

I actually didn't finish the single player campaign in Homeworld (I had borrowed the game and had to give it back) but I can say I was dazzled by the 3-D dimension. I mean, the did it perfectly. Once used to the system, you could send small sories on intercept routes varying at angles, and catch the enemy from three different directions, all the while maintaining an escape route.

The one thing that bothered me was the lack of sufficient variety in units. More units, different spaceships, maybe a history to the units...that would have made it much cooler when you actually saw them in action.

Its really unfortunate that none of the big names in RTS picked up on this idea, because I think it has amazing potential.

Imagine rendering hundreds of ships in a raging 3-D battle in an asteroid field just outside a binary system. Wow.

Re:yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to check out Homeworld 2. Haven't played it myself, but it may be a worthy successor.

That said, HW1 was really damned cool. However, I gave up about halfway through the single player game when I found out that the game matches your fleet's strength. I mean I think it's okay to scale somewhat. But for example I spent a lot of time and effort on capturing some of the rare, unique enemy ships.. and got penalized for it by the game. Where's the fun in a strategy game if clever play does not give you an advantage?

But yeah in terms of atmosphere... HW1 was truly amazing.

Re:yay!

[BalanceOfPower]

HW2 is not as fun as HW1 or Cataclysm.

I have done all the missions on all these games (a few times actually) and HW2 was runined by Uber Ships. Too much a battle cruiser race..

I applaud games for adapting to the skill/power of the player and keeping the game hard as conversely people who are not to good are also helped by the computer playing like a lemon.

The variety of game play is by using a few units in numerous ways... and occasiaonlly loading up a new AI once you have a "fool proof plan" to beat the existing AI.

TA is one of the FEW games where I found scouting and anti-scouting is so incredibly important.

IT would be nice for the game to give you a rating at the end so that you can see how much the computer "cheated" or "let you off" ! just so your ego will still fit in the "office" and so you can see on the player charts where you fit in so as to play people of equivialnt skill (contrate to TA Boneyards for their RANK system that achieved this to a reasonable extent.)

MMORPGs now have the well deserved reputation of being the domain of Elitist; where the uber players regualray show "how clever they are" by slaugherting tne New Players.. Hence I (and most people I know who have tried them) don't play them any more and neither do a lot of other people I know.

Let us hope they solve this problem and have co-op areas or decent missions or other "novel ideas" etc. rather than "we will write the game world and you will make the gameplay" which is a bloody awful cop-out at least; resulting in very pretty games with no gameplay/missions/plot etc. - aka Eve.

In "Normal off the shelf games" Micro$oft have gone too far so that you have a paper-stone-scissors afair where you have to have the right unit to kill their unit.

TA is still notably the Best STRATERGY game for the PC in my opinion, where the graphics are Adequate, the gameplay is absolutlely excellent and all units can do reasonable damage to other units and the variety of ways to play are map are infinite. And the average game time is about 1.5 - 2 hours with a chance to chat inthe first 30 mins (after all MP is also about meeting your friends, not just killing them!).

There is NO WONDER that the designer of TA is hankering to make TA2; as he has said that this is his goal! (after finishing off Dungeon Seige and other games).

IMHO:
Uber Game - TA2:
+ Homeworld1 soundtrack
+ Homeworld1 missions
+ Adapatable play (that reports the amount you imporved (or it had to cheat to keep up)
+ modular units (like TA)
+ modular AIs for Units
+ modualr AIs for each map (and a general one)
+ Mission Editor
+ User uploadable Maps/AI/Units for MP (then can be used in SP if you want to!)
+ SDK for the game fans to write all the above modules and AIs
+ An on-line universe like Boneyards (again TA).
+ Regualr packs of new missions from the creators ($$ costed) to keep the game alive (not that TA is'ent still alive - just look as the XTA Mod !)

This is obviously MY opinion; but then I buy-play-sell on about 30 games a year !

And STILL TA is MY most played SP and MP game !!!

Put Gordan Thingy (TA creator) with the Relic Team !!!

I would buy TA2 and the regaular extra missions !

Rise of the Nations

[Utopia]

Strategy games & adventure games are the only games I ever play.
My current favorite is Rise of the Nations.
Before that Stronghold used to take a big chunk of my time.

Re:Rise of the Nations

[ParadoxicalPostulate]

I was a beta-tester for Rise of Nations.

The poor coordination in the beta program left me with a feeling of loss. The first version they shipped out to us was horribly, horribly bugged - in terms of artwork and game playability, as well as video card driver support (I had to downgrade my drivers until I figured out how to edit the game files to make it work with higher level drivers...I don't know if the game developers fixed the problem till much later).

Still, when I finally got to playing the game I enjoyed it immensely. It looked to me like a cross between my beloved Age of Empires and Civilization - and the Conquer the World mode was pure Risk.

The variety in terms of battle was lovely, as well as the graphics. I am a great fan of building, and I got plenty of it in Rise of Nations.

Deciding whether to use Nukes or ICBMs in the interest of the environment (there was a limit to how many nukes could be fired during the game, crossing it meant defeat for all players). Using a huge fleet of bombers to decimate cities (worked much better than IRL). Waiting for the right time to capture a city and fortify it. Definitely variety.

The only regret was the oversimplification of the science and technology system. I mean, it seemed to me that I was just clicking buttons - in no way did I feel that my civilization was moving forward (until the architecture of my buildings changed). I felt that they could have made it a little more engaging than having the basic descriptions.

Seven Kindoms II

[HawkPilot]

The great thing about Seven Kingdoms II was the espionage aspect of the game. Truely unique and made for interesting diplomocy. (Which was always broken in AOE and others).

Also, the concept of character leadership and changing hitpoints was a great feature. If your General had high leadership points, his troops would get extra damage bonus.

It's only failing was lack of single player replayability, IMHO

Dominion: Storm over Gift 3

[Reducer2001]

Why didn't this make the list!!!!!???!

Re:Dominion: Storm over Gift 3

[TwistedGreen]

It's probably because I've never heard of it.

Re:Dominion: Storm over Gift 3

[PainKilleR-CE]

Dominion was one of the first Ion Storm titles released, and was almost universally panned.

Kohan

[buddy53711]

I picked up Kohan: Ahriman's Gift on a whim and can honestly say it is one of the most interesting of all the RTS's I own. It has depth of play that other RTS's really don't even approach and allows you to actually use strategy and tactics, a concept that is slowly becoming foreign to the so called RTS genre. This is a rant for another day though. If you are interested in trying out this little known wonder, I believe there is a demo out for it. I think you can find it at Timegate Studios. Its an Oldie but a Goodie.

Re:Kohan

[Lonath]

Ok, you don't want to rant, so I'll rant. Kohan and Kohan: Ahriman's Gift are now my favorite RTSes. Timegate did an amazing job turning the clickfest/mircomanagement RTS into a real strategy game. Here are some of the features I like:

• You buy units in companies and those companies have great AI and fight well together. If they've lost units in combat and can escape to near a friendly city, they will eventually regenerate all of their units.
  
  
• Cities don't consist of 50 little buildings on the screen. Cities are atomic and can be upgraded to produce new kinds of units and resources and they have automatic garrisons that can defend them.
  
  
• Mines and resources don't require dozens little peons/villagers running around collecting stuff. The resource system is such that cities and mines increase resource numbers like stone, wood, ore, and mana crystals. Each unit uses some of the resources as upkeep (constant upkeep since remember they can auto-regenerate) and if you don't have enough resource of a certain type, you lose gold and running out of gold makes causes your units to lose health and so forth.
  

It just takes a lot of the crappy horrible micromanaging clickfestish crap out of the RTS and lets you focus more on planning bigger things, and the fastest player or the fastest rusher won't necessarily be the best player. It's a lot of fun and I recommend it if you want a very different RTS.

Re:Kohan

[tedgyz]

Agreed. Kohan: Ahriman's Gift was a truly evolutionary game for me. It really made all the other RTS games seem like micromanagement clickfests. I still agree with TA being a top game - I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Re:Kohan

[warm sushi]

I got this from Loki (before they burned out :( )for my Linux box. Great game. The Kohan concept of using positioning and strategy in a quick play RTS game needs to be used more, methinks.

Re:Kohan

[daVinci1980]

*Cough* Demo is here.

But I don't work there or anything. ;)

The choice is obvious:

[TwistedGreen]

Warcraft II. It's still a fantastic game today, and it's going on what, 9 years now?

I can't say I developed much of a taste for Warcraft III, though. Adding that whole 'hero' aspect just wasn't my style.

Not a bad list...

[American AC in Paris]

...though if I'd put it together, I would have boosted Rise of Nations a bit and pulled Warcraft III back a bit.

RoN is a truly amazing game once you get the basics down. It takes a while to get to a point where you feel "in control" of what is going on--for example, there are five different resources to juggle, and your military strategy needs to change significantly as you progress through the ages. What makes it stand apart from the other games in this list is that there is so much to juggle that you've got a lot more control over how to play out the game than you do in other games. There simply isn't a recipe for "how to win a game"; once you've gone beyond a few basic opening strategies, it's wide open. What's more, there's far less unit micromanagement than in other games in the genre: you send your armies into battle and control formations, but you rarely need to do the "now you attack this here" bit. Some people like this; to me, it goes against the nature of the RTS, changing it from being a game of strategy to being a game of who can click which units the fastest and most accurately.

Warcraft III was pretty and engaging, but it eventually boiled down to the classic Rock-Paper-Scissors style combat that dominates the genre. It's more of an action game than a strategy game, IMHO--gameplay relies on developing and guiding your heroes to determine the outcome of the battle, making it more of a dungeon crawl than a strategic title.

TA deserves that first place award. It's one of the few old-school RTS games I can still play and thoroughly enjoy. I'd love to see the engine updated to take advantage of modern hardware and UI enhancements...

Thermonuclear war?

[Thakandar2]

The computer is actually hard to beat. Plus, as far as I can remember, its the earliest WARGAMES for any system. The inclusion of a time restriction was a great idea.

Total Annihilation...

[sirmikester]

How could they make that the first pick! I played the game and I have to say that I have never been so bored in my life. I think that the hallmark of a great game is that you're immersed by it from the very first click. To put that game in and not include Warcraft 1 or 2 is offensive.

Re:Total Annihilation...

[forged]

Hey I was going frenetically thorugh the list, searching for TA... Not 10tjh, not 9th, and so on. I was already thinking, "how could they NOT include TA in the top 10" until I finally clicked o nthe last link almost in desperation.... and there it was !!!!

I don't know if I would have ra,ked it 1str, because the others listed in there are serious competition. but it's cool to see my best game ever as #1 ! For once things go my way, heh :) Some of you must know the feeling..

TA and extension packs (TA:CC, TA:BT) are the last games that I bought, and I still have them installed on my current computer, 2 generations later. I'm still playing it occasionnally, although not quite as much as I was in '97/98 !

Re:Total Annihilation...

[scrytch]

"Me Too" for TA. Smooth fluid animation, dozens of units, an intuitive control system, an expandable and hackable system, and my god the awesome music... Nothing quite like seeing hundreds of twisted burnt metal wrecks amidst the scorched landscape after a fierce battle while the Mahler-esque orchestra blares bombastically. Starcraft had nothing on TA.

I'd call it a tie with Myth.

Re:Total Annihilation...

[mstorer3772]

How could they make it first pick? Because it rocked.

They're right. It was WAY ahead of it's time. Games today STILL don't give you the level of control that TA did.

Controls TA pioneered:
Order queuing: Hold down shift and you can give a unit a giant stack of orders. No limit (save memory I'd imagine). Warcraft 3 had it, 2 didn't. Starcraft didn't either.

Factory orders: You give an order queue to a factory, and every unit it produced would get those orders. This feature has yet to be duplicated (to my knowledge).

Factory groups: If you assigned a control group to a factory, every unit it produced was also in that group. I haven't seen this duplicated either.

Seperate move & shoot behavior controls: Some games give you the option of having a unit be agressive or passive or whatever, but TA seperated movement and firing options. For movement you had "hold still, tether (follow enemy a short distance and then return), and free roam". For attacking, they had "hold fire, return fire, and fire at will". In warcraft three you can order a unit to hold still, but you can't order it to hold it's fire.

Select all of *: TA had LOTS of keyboard shortcuts to let you select all of a particular group of units. Some of those groups included "all units that can attack", "air units" "ships", "construction units", "all the units on the current screen", "all units of the same type as the ones currently selected", stuff like that. Oh, and "all units".

Production Queues: You could order a factory to keep producing a given unit forever. You could order 5 fighers, then 10 bombers, then 5 more fighters, then 3 scouts, THEN keep building fighters forever.

Foritifications: You were allowed to build little barracades called "dragons teeth". They could be shot over with indirect-fire weapons, but direct fire hit them, and it took quite a bit of damage to destroy them. You could build your own walls.

Pay as you go production: Producing units drained resources over time, rather than paying for everything up front.

Unlimited resources: There was no limit on how much of a given resource was present. A "metal patch" with a miner on it would continue producing X-metal-per-second until it was destroyed. More of a gameplay descision than a control feature, but still noteworthy.

If you didn't like TA, you either :
* Need to take another look
* Don't have the same tastes as right-thinking people (me).

And it was REALLY mod-able. Quite a few total conversions floating around out there. Sadly, many were based on someone else's IP and shut down (star wars, various other RTS's duplicated in TA, stuff like that).

Incidentally, Chris Taylor did quite a bit of "new spin on old ideas" in Dungeon Siege too. Sadly, he seems to have removed some "fun" stuff, along with many of the hassles. And I pray that he goes back and does that sci-fi RTS he's threatened to do on occasion.

Re:Total Annihilation...

[Torgo's Pizza]

Age of Empires II did do many of the production queues that you mentioned, as well as the keyboard shortcuts and fortifications. TA was first however. I'm surprised that other games haven't done the unit commands as TA did.

Re:Total Annihilation...

[sirmikester]

You make some good points, however alot of the depth that you mention can only be found after playing for a while. If the game is no fun at first, then how could you find out?

Re:Total Annihilation...

[mstorer3772]

You mentioned that one of the things you didn't like was a lack of "immersion". I say "how could you NOT be drawn in with that awsome music"? And I thought that the voice acting of the single-player campaign was quite good.

There wasn't much of an in-game personality, I admit. *craft has always had a more detailed 'unit personality'... particularly when you start clicking on the same unit over and over again (FUNNY stuff in there).

But I was immediately hooked on it... the sheer scope of TA was great. And the control it gave you allowed you to manage that scope without too many headaches.

One of the great things TA allowed you to do: Order all the units of a factory out on a particular patrol route along the front line. When you've stocked up a sufficient supply of bodies, select them all (they can all be in the same control group, so this is trivial) and fling them at your enemy. Great fun. Lots of pretty explosions.

I think I'm going to have to re-install it Real Soon now. If only I could come by copies of CC and BT again.

Re:Total Annihilation...

[eddy]

TA is the obvious champion. Personally I don't understand how something as bland, boring and non-innovative as SC could make #2. I'd put it somewhere on the bottom half of the list.

I'd also say that there's no way to go back in time and try to compare these games today. It's hard to understand the incredible feeling of awe you got from watching your 3D-army marching to the strong, suddenly crecending, orchestral track, when today everything is 3D (no matter if it makes the game worse, 3D it is. (Pouts at the failure that is NWN)

Re:Total Annihilation...

[damiam]

Personally I don't understand how something as bland, boring and non-innovative as SC could make #2.

Starcraft may not have been as ahead of its time as TA, but it's still an awesome game. Blizzard have never been great innovaters - their strength is refining and polishing. And Starcraft is one of the most refined, polished, well-balanced games I've ever played. That's what makes it great.

Re:Total Annihilation...

[DeadScreenSky]

The designers at Big Huge Games obviously played a lot of TA, as many of its innovations can be found in Rise of Nations. The inexhaustible resources, along with a pretty intelligent infinite queuing system, and lots of useful shortcut keys (not as many as TA, but to be honest, the game is also a little more elegantly designed, so it doesn't need them). A really fun game - it also features some great innovations that would be appreciated in a TA-style game (you fight over cities, for example, but can't destroy them).

The one problem I always had with TA was (besides the too many unit types... really, half would have been more than enough - it just makes the game too hard to get into) is that it really should have given a higher macro level of control with building. Most RTSs would benefit from this, really. I would have loved to have saved standard defense configs based around walls and turrets, and then just tell a worked to build one of those configs there and there and here, etc. The base building micromanagement just got a little too heavy at times, largely because of the destructiveness of certain weapons (though TA did make micro easier than most).

Great game, though. I need to give it another spin one of these days.

Warcraft 1 was not THAT great

[MMaestro]

Warcraft 2 should've been on the list but Warcraft 1? I'm thinking you have jaded memories.

Warcraft 1 lacked ease of use compared to Warcraft 2. Most notable point : No ability to right click movement. Thats right, everytime you wanted a group, which was limited to FOUR, you had to click 'M', and left click. Not only that you couldn't group units using the now standard Ctrl-# method, so juggling troops in the middle of a battle was a near impossibility. There was no "attack movement" either so strategies generally degraded into throwing armies at your opponent and then spending time telling each unit to engage the enemy over and over. Warcraft 1 was the equal of Warcraft 2 in an Alpha stage, a shoddy piece of crap which kept people playing because of the art and graphics. It didn't help that the only differences were their spells either, or the fact that all your building had to be connected to your town hall by ROADS... which had to be built (read : waste of money) INDIVIDUALLY (read : the computer will unfairly bum rush you).

To say every game before Warcraft 3 on the list is crap is ignorant. Dune 2 crap? Yeah, ignorant.

Re:Warcraft 1 was not THAT great

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, I'll say it. Dune 2 is crap. Most RTS games are crap actually. A few shine through that are extremely good. But the genre as a whole is very fickle. If the design isn't executed perfectly the game will be flawed and stupid. That's why Total Annihilation is still king. It was so expertly executed that no game since has been able to even come close.

Re:Warcraft 1 was not THAT great

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, it's also well-known that most of the Total Annihilation fanboys think everything that isn't TA is crap.

Re:Warcraft 1 was not THAT great

[TwistedGreen]

Well, to be fair, Warcraft I was a very different game, and the interface merely reflected that.

It was paced much slower than its successors, and I think that you could see elements from a more turn-based conception peeking out beneath the real-time gameplay. For example, you could effectively move only one unit or small groups of units at a time, and none of the interface improvements which allowed for quicker gameplay as in Warcraft II were there. Also, the idea of roads are akin to Dune II's concrete slabs: it was one method of limiting expansion that was tried and eventually phased out.

Overall, it was a more rigid game, but I don't think that makes it bad per se. It was a step in the evolution of RTS games which remains quite playable today.

Re:Warcraft 1 was not THAT great

[Paolomania]

Um, lets consider the context shall we? If Warcraft 1 pre-dated context-sensitive right-clicking, selecting larger groups of units, grouping units by hotkey, etc then BY DEFINITION it would not have those things. The ultimate godly RTS does not come fullborn into the world with all the features we have today. There are incremental improvements - Herzog Zvei, Dune 2, Warcraft, C & C, each adds onto the improvements that came in the last. To say that Warcraft 1 retroactively sucks because Warcraft III has tons of new features and shiny graphics is like saying that Doom retroactively sucks because Quake III is true-3D and has shiny new graphics. However, it is clear that at the time Doom was the pinnacle of the FPS, just as at the time Warcraft I was the pinnacle of RTS. You cannot ignore the historical signifigance that each played with respect to the vaulting of their genre and the inspiration of subsequent me-too-but-better titles.

Re:Warcraft 1 was not THAT great

[Ceyan]

Ummmm no. Warcraft I sucked for it's time too. Warcraft II was the game that put Blizzard on the map. Most people didn't even know there was a Warcraft I until II appeared.

Re:Warcraft 1 was not THAT great

[mstorer3772]

And we're right. ;)

Re:Warcraft 1 was not THAT great

[MMaestro]

just as at the time Warcraft I was the pinnacle of RTS

Um, not really. The only reason I picked up Warcraft I was because a friend gave me his copy. Warcraft I was a step BACKWARD compared to Dune 2 (which was developed by Westwood, Blizzard's rival during Warcraft II) all things considered.

At the time Dune 2 was FRIKIN AMAZING. THREE (relatively) distinctive sides, a constant threat which could f*** up your entire game (sandworm attacks were NOT alerted to the player, so you could lose an entire fleet of harvesters and not realize it) and unfair challenges kept players on their toes (on some of the harder levels it was common for the enemy to attack you so quickly you had to build troops and towers before building a refinery).

Now looking at Warcraft I, the game would often times give you starting units removing the initial game tension of the fear of being bumrushed (it still exists in RTS games these days, but most RTS games don't force you to fight off tanks/knights with infantry units). The problem was they didn't really improve the AI. It was fairly common to level half an enemy base with just 2 or 3 catapults and a dozen archers/spearmen since units weren't smart enough to defend buildings that were being attacked. To top it all off, the AI outside of the campaign was even worse. Normally you expect AI in skrimish games to "cheat" by removing whatever limitations the developers put on them during the campaign in exchange for their overly large bases. Instead, it was possible to go spend 20 minutes in a skrimish without attacking the enemy and be attacked only once or twice.

Try downloading Dune 2 (cracked copies of the game are fairly easy to find, finding a computer slow enough to run it is another thing) and then try Warcraft I. See which game is the superior one without considering their sequels (strange how it ended up though, Dune 2 sequels sucked while Warcraft I sequels rocked).

Re:Warcraft 1 was not THAT great

[DeadScreenSky]

Dune 2 sequels sucked
I agree with what you wrote otherwise (Warcraft I was a huge step backwards from Dune2, overall), but I thought Emperor was a fun game. Some really nice, interesting unit design in that game. The atmosphere was perfect, too.

No Myth?

[Xzzy]

I know the game was always sort of a "sleeper" that never broke it big like heavy hitters such as Starcraft did, but Myth was still incredibly well done, and I've never come across a person who flat out didn't like it.

It's strongest quality was mostly the fact that it cut out all the annoying resource gathering and just let you work on the strategy part of killing your enemies.

I was hoping the ideas it brought to the genre would catch on (I think maybe Sacrifice is the only game I've played since that comes close) but it never caught on.

Doesn't change that it was an awesome game though.. I would have replaced that stinker 'Age of Empires' with Myth on that list any day. ;)

Re:No Myth?

[Reapy]

Yes! Myth and Myth II were so much fun. I always loved the "big" maps like creep on the borderlands and desert between your ears. What a great game. It's unfortunate no one has attempted to copy them and improve on the formula (myth 3 felt too much the same by the time it came around).

Re:No Myth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you need the term real-time explained to you?

Re:No Myth?

[FortKnox]

Myth was never really fully accepted as a 'real time strategy'. They considered it more a 'real time tactical', because you worked mostly at the tactics of battle, not resource consumption and building, etc...

Re:No Myth?

[PainKilleR-CE]

Do you need the term real-time explained to you?

Apparently the AC that posted this comment does, because Myth was very much a real-time title. The major difference is that Myth wasn't a resource-gathering/unit-building title, but instead involved tactical and strategy elements as the most important part of the game, probably making it more of an RTS than most of the titles normally given that genre label.

Re:No Myth?

[Bander]

Myth is more of a real time tactical game. Strategy technically includes resource management and so forth. On the other hand, game makers lump tactics into the "strategy" label, so I think we can do the same.

Myth is clearly the best real-time strategy game ever. Personally, I believe it's one of the best games ever, in any genre.

King of the Hill in Myth had some intense multiplayer action... Rushing the defenders with 10 seconds left on the clock, holding the flag in neutral until your wight gets there, huge poisonous explosion, and your last surviving thrall is still close enough to the flag to clinch the win!

Good times... good times.

-- Bander

Re:No Myth?

[kommakazi]

I agree, Myth is one of my favorite games of all time, especially the first one. I loved the map with the big pit in the center...I can't remember it's name...but that was the most fun map to play capture the flag on...just cuz the flag was in the center in the bottom of a big pit...go for it too early and get toasted by everyone else waiting around the perimiter for time to get low...the last minute everyone rushes in and usually the round is won in overtime....god that shit was fun...

Re:No Myth?

[kmcrober]

I always thought Ground Control did a great job of focusing on the tactical game without involving too much in the way of resource management. Incorporated a lot of ideas from Myth, too, including persistant veteran units.

To me, what made Myth so great was the presentation of the story - even above the story itself. The voiceover work was maybe the finest I've ever heard. The narrator's voice is etched in my mind, now; the story borrows a *lot* from Glen Cook's Black Company books, and the narrator is the perfect voice for the narrator of the books, Croaker.

I really recommend the books, by the way. From the relatively detached military perspective to the squabbling villainous lieutenants (and don't forget the wonderful names), it's a great literary companion to the games.

So that's my recommendation. Ground Control and The Black Company.

Re:No Myth?

[Hrungnir]

Hell yea...
Myth is the only RTS i could stand to play for more than a month. Every other RTS revolves around how fast you can build and gather resources. That gets old once you find the fastest build order and it just comes down to a clickfest to mass produce the most units the fastest. Myth did away with all that filler and let you focus on the fun part, the battles. The 3d terrain and camera allowed for plenty of strat and tactics in place of the building strats.

The myth community was awesome too. There was a nice sized mapmaking community. They even reverse engineered their own servers so they could play on after bungie's servers went offline.

Re:No Myth?

[mstorer3772]

You must be thinking of MYST... two very different games.

Re:No Myth?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first time I fired up Myth I was impressed as hell..but sadly I gave it up quickly, because I just will NOT play a game where you have to Manage the viewing angles of the camera, over your world...it defeats the purpose forcing users to manage the 'interface' to the game.

Re:No Myth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen!

Myth: The Fallen Lords takes my vote for best rts ever.

1. incredible atmosphere - it used a darker fantasy setting that still feels different than Warcraft, LotR, etc. Cel-animated cutscenes, excellent voiceover, creepy enemies (remember the first time you face the wights? still scares the crap out of me) Great sense of Doom in the plot.

2. first 3d terrain - TA did *not* have 3d terrain. Not true 3d anyways - it was more like in Starcraft where different hieghts changed vehicle animations and where you could and could not go, but Myth featured hills that you *needed* to take - grenades and body parts would roll downhill, and archers on top of hills had a definite advantage.

3. Easy and usable formations- the formation system was remarkable for its time and really allowed for some advanced strategies on the fly

4. damn fine multiplayer -bungie.net rocked- each game lasts 10-20 minutes instead of 45+, team games were incredible! Each team had a "captain" that could control all that team's units and divy them amongest the other team-mates. You could set strategy planning time for a team to discuss strategy, and you could draw on the mini map! Team multiplayer was a blast, especially as a newbie, because a veteran player could be your team captain and lead you to victory while you could focus on a smaller part of the battle. TONS of different game modes too!

5. Great modding community- everything from Asian-inspired to WWII mods, and its still going!

6. Drunken dwarves with molotov cocktails. 'Nuff said.

I'm really disappointed in GameSpy for leaving out Myth. Shame, shame. Oh - did we mention that it was published by Bungie, the creators of Marathon and (maybe you've heard of it) Halo?

Well, they're damn right!

[Lord_Frodo]

#1 on the list... hell yeah. I still have over a gigabyte of TA stuff, and I play it more than any other strategy game out there to this day. Finally they get something correct :D

C&C: RA2

[gmhowell]

I always liked C&C: RA2. With the wonderful actresses.

Battlezone, Battlezone, Battlezone

[GregWebb]

Honestly, just play it - superb atmosphere, superb gameplay but never really took off - seems people weren't so hot on first person perspective for these things. Personally, I think it just makes it wonderfully immersive.

Also, I tend to get annoyed with the number of RTS games where you're winning wherever you go, mopping up every last unit of resistance and levelling the battlefield. Battlezone isn't like that - you're constantly battling to get out of the level alive and achieve the objectives before you get overpowered. That crucial difference leads to a very different mindset that I find more enjoyable in the long-term because you don't tend to end up with levels where you're hanging around for ages desperately trying to build up the army for the last final push, knowing you'll make it eventually just by storming the base and killing them all. You have to get it right just to live, and that's a victory in itself.

Superb game - if you can track it down, do.

Re:Battlezone, Battlezone, Battlezone

[darkmayo]

Battlezone was more of a hybrid than a pure RTS.. it definately had some great elements of an RTS but the combat was very FPS/Simulator than RTS combat.

Reminds me of Command and Conqueor Renegade. cept a hell of alot better.

Re:Battlezone, Battlezone, Battlezone

[GregWebb]

I know what you mean but I (personally) find it difficult to think of something where you're:

* Gathering resources
* Building bases
* Commanding units
* Attacking enemies

and all in a mission-based structure, in real-time, as anything other than a descendent of Dune 2.

Stuff genres, though - I don't care whether something fits or not and it's very, very good.

Re:Battlezone, Battlezone, Battlezone

[Telastyn]

I would, but the game refuses to run on my [or anyone's] machine. I hear it's great, but unless you've [still] got win98 installed, stay away...

Re:Battlezone, Battlezone, Battlezone

[GregWebb]

Runs on 2k, it's just some of the videos complain. As I recall, dump the AVIs and it's fine.

Europa Universalis 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Europa Universalis 2 is a very good strategy game that has occupied 100s of hours of my time in the last couple of years. It was developped by a swedish company called Paradox:

http://www.paradoxplaza.com/

The game is real time but pausable and the speed is variable. It gives it almost the same feeling of "one more turn" you had with Civilization. There is a multiplayer option but I've never used it so I can't comment on it.

However, it's somewhat of a niche game and has a very steep learning curve. Reading the developper's forums is far mor useful than the manual to learn the game mechanics.

Another of its strength is the amount of modding available since a lot of the game mechanics can be changed through text file editing.

By the same developper, there's also a WW2 game called Hearts of Iron and a new game called Victoria. That last one is pretty good but it needs an extra balancing patch before it matures fully. It also has an ever steeper learning curve than previous games by Paradox.

Re:Starcraft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the fact that Starcraft was not the first game to feature more than two unique sides...

One glaring omission

[dogbowl]

Where is Advance Wars for the gameboy?

Sure, I've played tons of hours on PC based RTS games and I did my time with the original C&C and Starcraft, but these guys didn't even give a nod to the million+ selling Advance Wars series (which by the way started well before the Herzog Zwei on the Genesis).

Sure its not as 3D pretty as PC based ones, but its portable and majorly addicting. I've killed more flights with that game .. actually that game has caused more stewardesses to ask me to "please turn off your electronic device" more so than anyu other game. Compared to the PC based RTS, its very simple .. but its wonderfully balanced and terrable addicting.

Maybe I'm expecting a little too much out of Gamespot, but if they claim to produce a list of top RTS games "of all time!!!" then I would hope they would look a little beyond recent PC based games. What about Utopia on the Intellivision?

Followup game by the AoE guy

[devphil]

After doing the AoE expansion pack and some other stuff, he did Empire Earth. Similar idea, but this time "done right".

Re:Followup game by the AoE guy

[fireduck]

does Empire Earth fix the biggest problem I had with the whole Age series, namely the lack of an "attack move"? AOE2 is a great looking game, but coming from the blizzard RTS school, I just found it frustrating that I would have to move my units in short increments if I wanted to be sure they would attack stuff on the way to their destinations. Incredibly annoying. 2 armies could just walk through each other, unless 1 player explicitly gave his men the stop command.

But then again, AOE2 introduced the "find idle unit" command which was pure heaven.

Re:Followup game by the AoE guy

[Torgo's Pizza]

No, Rick left right after Age came out. He didn't have anything to do with the Expansion pack. That was all Sandy Peterson.

Re:Followup game by the AoE guy

[devphil]

Oh. I didn't know that. Clearly there was some cross-pollination of ideas, then, since some of the expansion pack ideas made their way into EE. (Or vice versa? Dunno.)

Re:Followup game by the AoE guy

[devphil]

EE has an attack-move command. It has find-idle-worker and find-idle-fighter commands. The only command it lacks which I find myself missing occasionally is a "unit B, escort this other unit A" command. As it is, I can tell unit A to unconditionally move to point X, and unit B to attack-move to point X, but B will not match A's pace, and if they get separated, A becomes open to ambush.

In practice, it just means I need to split A in half and send a vanguard and a rear guard, with B between them.

Re:Followup game by the AoE guy

[Torgo's Pizza]

Rick may have taken some ideas, but the germination of the expansion happened after we (yeah, I was there) decided that we needed to delay the production of Age of Empires II for another year. The expansion pack Rise of Rome was inserted as a way to fill the gap. Most of the ideas were new, but some ideas were ones that were cut from the original game.

At that point, most RTS developers were thinking along the same lines and heading in the same direction in terms of featues and GUI.

Re:Followup game by the AoE guy

[Inf0phreak]

Age of Kings didn't have attack-move, but it did have patrol (which works just like attack-move until the units reach the destination). The hotkey i "Z", iirc.

Advance Wars? Um...

[OgdEnigmaX]

Perhaps it wasn't included because it's not an RTS?

The List

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Total Annihilation
2. StarCraft w/ Brood War
3. C&C Red Alert
4. WarCraft 3
5. Age of Empires
6. Homeworld
7. Close Combat 2
8. Rise of Nations
9. Medieval: Total War
10. Empire Earth
Honorable Mention: Dune 2

Re:The List

[Anonymous Coward]

Really this list is missing Myth, Kohan, and Battlezone.

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms

[tedgyz]

Although I can see why TA: Kingdoms didn't make the list, I never understood why it was so badly received by the gamer community. Of all the RTS games I ever played, this one ranks top on my list. It was incredibly fun. There were many interface improvements over TA (which says a lot) and I found the fantasy theme to give us much more interesting and distinguishable units. One thing I disliked about TA was how hard it was to visually identify specific units.

As I recall, the biggest complaint was that most people's computers could not cope with the steep requirements of the game. Most of this was resolved within the same year of the game's release.

Re:Advance Wars? Um...

[PainKilleR-CE]

Don't you love it when people don't understand what the RT in RTS stands for?

In case the original poster didn't get the hint, Advance Wars is turn-based, RTS games are (R)eal (T)ime.

While I enjoy Advance Wars and a number of S/TRPGs, they don't belong in a list of RTS games, unless, at the very least, they're actually real time rather than turn based games.

Re:Starcraft?

[GreyWolf3000]

I totally disagree. Once you got good at Starcraft, you could defend any rush, and folks that tried it got screwed in the end because of their overdedication to early units. Rushing only worked on newbies.

The missions were pointless. That's what Battle.net was for. That's where the strategy was.

Starcraft balanced recourse gathering, unit and building production, expansion, technological progression, and battle tactics in a clear and elegant way.

In my opinion the only problem with Starcraft was people's tendency to play games with lots of resources (think Big Game Hunters) and sit behind defenses and build carriers. It made it hard to find a game with decent players :)

Re:C&C (original -- Tiberian Dawn)

[antdude]

Yes, I loved the original Command & Conquer. It was titled Tiberian Dawn. I bought it from Egghead in 1995 with my college friends. I was a sophomore back and had a 486 DX2/66 then. Boy, did we get addicted! Modem play so often and we never did any studying. :)

Whatever happened to C&C:Twilight or something like that?

Total Annihalation

[king-manic]

TA is grossly over rated. It was a game full of neat toys to build. but the AI sucked very badly. It had much less depth then Startcraft/Warcraft2/Warcraft 3/Age of Empires (all of them). IT was a game about massing and super defense. You mad eyour fortress and then waited to accumulate a large force then attack. Even at high skill levels that was the idea. A early game rush was suicide because of the commanders. The interface was alright but not the be all and end all. It was also lacking in production quality. The units were bland uninspired and mostly identical between the two sides. The developement of each side was identical. It was a game specifically for the low skill "mass rush" crowd. The same crowd that loves C&C. Command and conquer had the same problems. the ammount of tank rushed in that game was stupid. There are few other effective strategies.

Re:Total Annihalation

[Zeriel]

Did you ever play against a human opponent? Preferably one who liked the game and knew what s/he was doing?

I ask because I'm a viciously good TA player and I don't think I've EVER seen a successful "mass rush" without thought behind it--as in scouting, diversionary attacks, and multiple fronts.

Sure the AI sucked. But for pure strategy/tactics, it's much better.

And as for Starcraft/Warcraft, I have yet to see a successful player who doesn't use a pre-memorized (And usually researched online) build order for the first five-ten minutes of the game at least. There is no strategy there, just speed.

Personally, I like TA and AoEII for the same reason--the early rush is hard but doable, there's no "build order" that's going to get you units fast enough to make a difference, and you actually have to think about your attacks.

I like TA better because it rewards truly long-term planning. In Warcraft/Starcraft, you knew you had to keep your units at the unit limit, or you were going to get just plain outnumbered--but if you hit the limit, you couldn't (by definition!) be outnumbered.
In addition, you had to balance your resource collection units against your combat units, which is really artificially limiting with the small unit counts you were allowed.
AoEII has this problem to a lesser extent, since a 200-unit (max) barrier is harder to hit than a 75-90 unit max.

But TA has a 500-unit max. And if you're playing a skilled opponent, you never had time to reach it, and you never knew exactly how your numbers compared to the enemies without scouting, feinting, and being very careful. THAT'S the depth I like.

Your mileage may vary, but TA was a great game in terms of raw strategy and helping take the mundane details off the hands of the player (allowing for actual sweeping strategies instead of incessant tactical clickfests).

Re:Total Annihalation

[king-manic]

Just a note: All RTS are tactical games. There are few strategic elements to them.

TA had build orders too. It just wasn't popular enough for them to become common. any game like this, when faced with high levels of competition eventually optimize their strategies. TA does have less variety fo units. The only varibales for th euntis are range, damage, speed, and hitpoints. If it had the 20,000 players daily that Starcraft or Warcraft has it too would start having commonly used strategies. Pre-canned build orders still won't help much if you can;t get the timing down or have the manual dexserity to manage you units. TA made it very hard to micro manage because of the latency and the slow response from units.

Even at it's height, TA didn't have many "skilled" player because it didn't have that many players. Notice: cave dog went out of business. The sales were poor. It's well though of becaus eit has that "blow shit up" Quality a lot of us nerds enjoy.

Re:Total Annihalation

[Lord_Frodo]

Every game of Starcraft I've ever seen has been nothing but a single type of unit thrown across the map as fast as they can be built. Please don't try to say it has more depth than TA. Further, when people are complaining about the AI (which was bad, yes) I notice those same people never seem to know about the hundreds of AI patches for the game. There are some DEVILISHLY hard AIs out there.

Re:Total Annihalation

[king-manic]

From your comment on strategy I take it you never played more than 2 or 3 games. Mostly with new players. Advanced players use more advanced and varied tactics. That statement would be mostly true for C&C, and their tanks.

Honestly download some of the pro-league games to see what depth Starcraft has. And TA has a bad single player AI and also bad pathing and bad unit AI. Starcraft has suprisingly good AI in all those catagories.

Re:Total Annihalation

[Zeriel]

I disagree totally. I play in a group of serious gamers, and we play WC3 and TA every damn time we get together (once a month or so). There is not, and has never been, the single optimal strategy for TA like there is for WC3--and we use our own build orders for that, and so do many folks on battle.net, last I played there. =) I maintain WC3 is about speedy mouse clicks than tactics, and TA is more about tactics than speedy mouse clicks--I view Blizzard RTS games as more action than anything else, and that has its place, certainly, but TA is more of a "serious" wargame for us, in that it has far more depth, especially on the larger maps with eight players or so.

I'm concerned that you had problems micro-managing TA--I find it easier than warcraft/starcraft, personally, due to the larger permitted groups, auto-group-joining, and orders-on-build (although WC3 has many of those features already, thank god)
I've never had a latency problem either. Maybe it was just your machine?

There are far more variables than that to consider--rapidity of fire, armor, weapon type. TA plays more like "real" combat--the differences between units are more subtle, but they exist to be exploited by a sound tactician.

You sound like you played TA single-player maybe five times and got sick of it, and you're a Blizzard junkie. I've played warcraft, starcraft, and TA for hundreds of hours each, and I'd like to think that makes me more qualified to give an opinion on TA--did you play it much at all?

As for strategic elements vs. tactical elements...I view strategy = handling logistics and unit production, tactics = handling unit engagements, when and where and how to fight.

Re:Total Annihalation

[king-manic]

lol, I played TA with my friends often. But thats was before Starcraft. Our strategies ussually involved Commander poping using obstacles to survive it. It became like starcraft rushing, it could lead to victory or screw you beyond belief if you over commit. We would make some power plants then rush to the other spawn spots. Try to disintegrate the other commander and then pop behind a hill or other obstacle. it's was about 50/50 that you would remove them and survive. The other tactic was a basic unit rush of about 100-200 kbots. Depending on how the other player was with their commander, it may or may not suceed. I've played plenty of TA.

I am a decent Ta player. But I'm a good Starcraft/Warcraft player. The tactics are there too. My micro isn't the best, so with equal units in a fight, I would get my ass handed to me by most of my friends. But I'm a tactician. I expand often, Macromanage to crank out larger armies and ensure that any attempt they make to expand is met with resitance. I target their supplylines (their workers) and go for a win through suppurior resources. I use a rush to put them into a defensive mode, use drops to ensure they suitable firghtened of me, then inch into their base using key units liek Defilers/Seige Tanks/Reavers.

The reason why they limit you to 9/12 units selections in Starcraft/Warcraft is because Mass tactics are har to defend except with more mass tactics. See C&C. They know this so they make it harder to mass. It also means their units are more interesting. They know whats makes gamers come back for more. It's not the explosions factor. It's the perception of skill. In TA, can a build order and scout and there's little difference between a good player and a great player. In Starcraft A great player can take out a good player though better micromanagement. this is the difference, and this is why Starcraft is still played, and is Almost Korea's national sport, While TA's studio went out of business and TA is a fondly remembered relic.

For strategy, yoru definition is wrong-
Strategy:(dictionary.com)
a-The science and art of using all the forces of a nation to execute approved plans as effectively as possible during peace or war.
b-The science and art of military command as applied to the overall planning and conduct of large-scale combat operations.

Tactics-(idctionary.com)
a- The military science that deals with securing objectives set by strategy, especially the technique of deploying and directing troops, ships, and aircraft in effective maneuvers against an enemy: Tactics is a required course at all military academies.
b- Maneuvers used against an enemy: Guerrilla tactics were employed during most of the war.

In which case, All RTS are mostly tactical. Because the strategy is pre-assigned : kill the other side.

On micromanagement- Thats not large scale unti management, it's the optimization of single unit movements. Thats directing your commander on your army to better use their abilities. In starcraft/Warcraft 3 thats what the game was made for. With good micro, a group of dragoons/archers can take downa supurior number of other troops. With TA, it's more difficult because the untis are less responsive, both latency wise (older network code, try ta gamespy game-the only place you'll find a pubbie Ta game) and reaction wise (more unweildy units).

As for depth, larger games, means less strategy, more mass attacks. A 4v4 in any game means it's down to the rush. First rush wins. Because a single player cannot fend off the attack. He needs his team to help. On big TA maps this is pretty hard to do, moving their takes a lot of time. Smaller games 4 player FFa/ 1v1/ 2v2 involve more strategy.

As for TA beign more serious and real. In real warfare a things like a sniper/Air supuriority/stealth and flanking are much mroe important than in either of those games. TA doesn't have any concept resembling the pure oppresive power of a sniper. While Stracraft has invisible units. The Lurker/Dark Templar/Wraith a

Re:Total Annihalation

[Zeriel]

With regard to big TA maps and rushes: Knowledgable use of the commander enables one to hold off 99% of first-five-minute rushes, regardless of how coordinated, unless another team is also using their commander.

With regard to stealth/sniping--I take it you've never seen the expansions with cloakable/radar jamming units.

As for missile kbots, snore. Easy strategy to defeat--and I play a strong air superiority style mosts of the time--it's just all about strategic use of nukes, diversions, and ground attacks to cover for the final strikes, rather than the one-decisive-battle that I see often in WC3/SC.

As for mass tactics being hard to defend except with mass tactics, I sumbit (re, your kbot missile approach) that I need use NO tactics to defend if I recon properly, just sit the damn kbots where I want defended and leave them alone. Freeing me up to do other things since your mass attack leaves you wide open somewhere else if I have mobility to exploit it.

Which is what I really dislike about WC3/SC--there are very few powerful, fast units available for any price, which makes mobile warfare nigh impossible.

I think the reason why SC/WC3 are more popular than TA stems largely from two things:
1. bigger developer--that means more popular from the outset, more strategy guides online, and mundane players are more competitive from the outset.
2. complexity--TA takes more time to learn the intricacies than WC3/SC. There is no "unit hierarchy", for one example: You can safely not use basic units in SC/WC3 once you get better ones, but you ignore the level1 units in TA at your peril, even when you're playing the expansion and have tier three units available.

As for there being no difference between a good player and a great player in TA, I hope (with apropo humility) that I never get the opportunity to play you at TA, for your sake. Neither of your desciribed tactics (mass kbot rush or early commander rush) would get you very far with me. =)

Re:Total Annihalation

[Inf0phreak]

I'd like to pick one of your points apart: "You can safely not use basic units in SC/WC3 once you get better ones, but you ignore the level1 units in TA at your peril, even when you're playing the expansion and have tier three units available."

IMO the high point of Starcraft (and in particular Brood Wars) is that no unit ever becomes obsolete*. A few examples:

1) Medics and marines never get useless against Zerg unless they go with massive amounts of ultralisks in which case you ought to be smart enough to get some tanks**.

2) You almost always keep making zealots throughout the game***. They are cheap compared to the rest of what you have, very durable, and the best unit to counter Zerg hydralisks, which they will usually build in large amounts.

3) Zerglings and hydralisks are the backbone of any Zerg army. Zerglings can dish out damage like no tomorrow with the hive level upgrade, but they can't take it - thus making them perfect for hit and runs on undefended expansions, while hydralisks are good all-round warriors that deal somewhat lower damage for a higher cost and have many more hitpoints.

Basically the only one-unit army that you see used with any success is the Protoss carrier flood****, which usually spells death for the victim because they are so hard to kill and those interceptors really screw up the AI of your units. It's like a smoke screen that does damage. The obvious "trick" to counter it is of course to not let him get it in the first place. Such a thing takes time and a lot of gas to get.

It is true, that you will often see that players produce some specific /unit{ combination}?/ to counter what the enemy does, rather than just build whatever***** they know is capable of beating it.

Other than that, the one thing that I really think makes SC truly a better game than any other RTS is the balance of the races that is so incredibly close to perfection. In fact I think that it would be impossible to make the balance much better without giving the game support for damage and armor measured as floats rather than ints.

*: The notable exception is with Terran against Protoss where marines and firebats are just torn apart by templars, reavers and carriers. Heavy mech (all tanks, vultures, goliath) is the only way to go in a TvP.

**: Well... technically you should have killed him before he reached late game tech. Late game Zerg owns everything terran has - assuming some level of skill of course.

***: Unless, of course, that you are playing on an islands map, in which case melee units are not very useful.

****: As popularized by all the newbies and lamers playing on BGH and other $$$-maps - along with the "20 cannon choke!!!11!! OMFG u 5uXX0r!!1". It has also given rise to such amazing utterings such as: "Executing the 18 carrier rush takes l337 skillz" or something to that effect.

*****: Compared with the candy store of units that TA is******.

****** Feel free to correct me on this as I have never actually played it, but am I entirely wrong if I say that you had an absurdly high number of different units to choose from in TA?

PS: WOW! That turned out to be a pretty long post just for a relatively small comment in a somewhat old thread...

Re:Total Annihalation

[king-manic]

It's difficult to speak with any authority. Either you or me. Because I'm a mediocre Ta player but a high level SC player. and your a high level (or so I woudl assume) TA player and a newbie SC (it's obvious).

From you points it's obvious you haven't played those games beyond a newbie level. SC/WC3 do have quick units. The air units, Vultures, soem of the heroes. And mobile warfare is the name of the game. Hi and run is possible too. A transport and a few "surprise units" and you can annihalate their supply and cripple their efforts.

I haven't played TA at any sorta of high level. Just dicking around with friends. and mass units do work. you just have the find the correct balance of Cost/speed versus range damage. With range being as important as damage. thats why Tank rushes own in C& C because long range and high damage own, even if it's expensive. Having not played Ta since the late 90's (98) I dont' remember what would be a good rush. Back it up with soem artilery and send the whole sloging army. and do it quick.

As for the expansions, I got them and any unit I could get. The new units were different but still not as well implemented as the whole system that Sc/WC3 have.

If you like, I'll dust off Ta and have a few agems. and you dust off War 3 and have me a few games. I'll shwo you depth.

Re:Total Annihalation

[Zeriel]

I'm admittedly not very great a SC, but I like to think I'm pretty good at WC3 (although I stopped playing online about a year ago when I got fed up with memorized build orders and a half-second mis-click costing the game if the other guy hero-rushes.)

I also admit to liking SC much better than WC3 for the mobile warfare, but as a primarily protoss player I was completely unimpressed by their utter lack of any decent fast-attack units (where my standard for "fast" is fighters and gunships in TA)

Re:Total Annihalation

[Zeriel]

Admittedly, I was speaking more of WC3 than anything else--StarCraft didn't really have "Tiers" of units like WC3 does...which is why it (starcraft) is my favorite of the blizzard games, but no one in my LAN group plays it, and I spit upon random internet games, so it's mostly WC3 and TA for me. =P

As for TA's unit types count, yeah, it's really really high. *thinks* Counting sea units, I think there's something like 40-50 unit types per side. Some more differentiated than others--but it's the subtle differences that'll make or break battles, after all.

Re:Total Annihalation

[king-manic]

A fully upgraded Zealot moves fast enough to quilify. And For Wc, your problbly playing the wrong games. Try some 3v3. You'll have more fun and you can experiment. 1v1 you have to have 1 optimised strat or you will lose. Theres nothign saying you can't improvise other strategies, except your opponent has a optimised strat so if you don't you die. Same with TA. Two pro's will both have optimised strats. It's the finite nature of video games, that there is always a best way. The systems work out that way. However, the best ways at the highest levels have incredible imagination. I once saw a league SC game where one side never had more than 5 units (excluding workers) at a time, he won the game, the game was 45 min in length. Canned build orders are indeed for newbs. It's predictabel and counterable. But optimised building isn't nessacarily canned orders.

Re:Total Annihalation

[king-manic]

BTW, Warcraft isn't very tiered either. Ghould/Archers/Grunts/Footman can be usefull the entire game. Only late late game when the Heavy melee units come into play do they become sorta obsolete but thats only the grunts and footman. The ghouls are the backbone of the Undead and Archers provide more punch for the dollar than any other NE unit. Even grunts aren't bad late game, fully upgraded and footman are still useful as anti-range melee.

As for TA. The diversity of Units was a "selling" point but few of the untis are very interesting. They all have roles which is good but like many poeple have said, with that many untis play balance hasn't been achived. If it wasn't for the fatc that both sides are nearly identical, the game would be very veyr imbalanaced.

Re:Total Annihalation

[Zeriel]

Actually, most of my WC3 experience is 2v2 (my roommate and I bought it for each other for christmas back in college. =P) Even in 2v2, we found that you either had a perfectly optimized first five minutes or you were dead, esp. against certain enemy combinations (2 humans both archmage rushing, for example, is frickin' HARD to beat even with NE/Orc as we played).

This discussion is getting out of hand--perhaps we'd best chalk it up to "personal preference" and find other things to do with our time? =)

Re:Total Annihalation

[king-manic]

If their rushing with footmen and water elems, then use the wisps to take out the water elems. 2 wisps will both drain the mages and kill the elems. And the rushes are common but often don't work. You have to make sur eyou have soem sort of counter but nto nessacarily another rush.

For rush prevention with NE, start building Hunts/archer asap. For orcs just get 2 burrows and your normal troop compliment of trolls or grunts. Make sure you have a good hero that fits yrou style. When they come have your Dh tank with imolliation and have you FS chain lightning. You can really mash their footmen with this. Predictability leads to death at anothing more than newbie lv l1-6 games. I haven't been successfully rushed since the second month I had war 3.

Re:Total Annihalation

[Zeriel]

*I* don't get successfully rushed--but my roomie has some serious problems holding off mage+mage+footmen rushes with orcs. Granted, I generally counterattack immediately (I was a PoM person for the archer/hunts bonus aura myself, but with latest balance patches I dunno if she's a viable first hero anymore) but by then the damage is usually done, regardless if I tp to his base to help (which tends to set the game back by five-ten minutes) or attack the enemy base (which takes time).

Re:Total Annihalation

[king-manic]

lol, orcs are on of the best defensive races around. I think he need sot build with betetr structure. I build so that if they attack my workers they must commit themselves because leaving my base takes time. Also if I arrive to defend my base, they cannot leave. My buildings get in their way. In this way I turn aside soem rushes physchologically because they have to commit and literally because the attack cost them. Also bases are easy to defend 1 tower plus my units and a little micro gives me the edge. So 2 or 3 burrows full of peans will make short work f invaders. I think your friend needs to elarn how to build. Put everythign next to each other and do a semi-circle surounding yoru mine. Go for ths instead of the structured and organized way a lot of people try to build.I did this in Sc too. I can hold of 3 players rushign with zealots (4 each, 12 in total) with 1 sunken and my workers. If their new I can decimate their army with 1 sunken and my workers. Even moderate players an find me a pain in the ass. I try as hard as possibly to be the target of the rush in 3v3 game sbecause I can defend them ... althoguh terrans give me trouble...

IT's all about how you build and about manipulating the AI in yru favor.

Re:Total Annihalation

[Zeriel]

He does what he can, of course, but the thing he usually falls to is one mage+we and one mage+blizzard, so half his peons get killed trying to get to the burrows. Then the mages just stay out of range and pound the base from the outside in, while the footmen and we keep the burrows+tower occupied.

Re:Total Annihalation

[king-manic]

Teh burrows should be supported by yours and his armies coming to help. Their a delay tactic. You must go to defend you allie. That kind of rush is pretty weak. The defence is basically, stick the peons int he burrows to delay them form killing anythign, then get yoru amry in to drive them away for to kill them all outright. You also have to remember that the average skill level on Bnet is much greater than the avrage skill level with your friends or on gamespy 100%. The reason why you must optimize in Sc/War3 is because your opponents are better. Against new players, any strat can work as long as you have micro. But fr advanced players you have to be both suprising and efficient.

Was this a typo?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...Warcraft III also managed to present players with five very distinct races..."

As far as I can remember, there were only four races.. Human, Night Elf, Undead, and Orc....

Re:Was this a typo?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess they considered the work gone into the Burning Legion as a fifth race.

Or maybe the Naga in the expansion?

I noticed that as well, but I figured I'd let it slide.

Re:C&C (original -- Tiberian Dawn)

[PainKilleR-CE]

Tiberian Sun was the sequel to Tiberian Dawn, but, imo, wasn't a very good game. You can probably pick it up for next to nothing now, and iirc they're selling it in a 4-pack with RA2 and the expansions.

If they had decided to do a Tiberian Twilight, it probably got shelved for Generals, and may be something they'll work on in a few years. Last I heard, they're working on a LotR RTS with the movie license and a massively upgraded Generals engine.

Of course, there's also a possibility that we'll see a 3rd Red Alert before we see Tiberian Twilight, given that RA2 and the expansion seemed to do better than Tiberian Sun and that expansion.

Dune 2

[DJayC]

Dune 2... 'nough said. This was the first RTS game I got into, and by far my favorite. I remember playing it for hours upon hours. Perhaps my worst memory is inviting my best friend over (with his computer), and playing the game all night on different computers... pretty sad!

Re:Starcraft?

[FortKnox]

The only game to have 3 completely different types of armies, buildings are done completely different, and everything is balanced across the boards? I think you are quite mistaken.

Rushes kinda killed the game, cause its a way for a decent player to discourage those that learn. Experts playing never even rush, cause if your opponent knows how to defend it, you are toast.

What's with the honorable mention crap?

[lake2112]

Dune II only getting a honorable mention?? Without Dune II where would the RTS genre be? I remember playing this game and being in complete awe over its originality. It only left me wanting more. This game belongs in the top ten with its fellow RTS games. Screw honorable mentions give it the respect it deserves as one of the top ten RTS of all time.

Warlords Battlecry anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Warlords Battlecry, and the very similar but still improved WB2 is a hugely underrated game in my opinion. Standard RTS mostly, but with the inclusion of a RPG hero. Made things much more interesting. You could develop as a warrior, mage, cleric or thief, improve skills and spells, as well as other things. Its fairly cheap at the moment... ive seen it gonig for about 5 in the local shops. Its an excellent game, and if my flatmate never had the origonal, i never would have heard of it.

Do yourself a favour, get the demo from here

(look for demo under downloads)

My list

[Deliveranc3]

Dune 2 Warcraft 2 Homeworld Stronghold Lord of the Realm 2 Total Annihilation Starcraft WarZone 2100 Shogun:Total War(Need to try medieval) Speed Chess (Give the old boys their due)

Re:C&C (original -- Tiberian Dawn)

[antdude]

Yeah, Tiberian Sun was my least favorite game. I bought every C&C games (excluding the expansion except Zero Hours for C&C:G).

Thanks for replying. :)

Warcraft II

[BigZaphod]

Warcraft II was basically the benchmark for all RTS games that followed. It was the first RTS game I ever liked and its still one of my all time favorite games.

Does SimCity count?

[Murdock037]

I know it's labeled a "simulation," but that's just an easy label to give based on its name. (What is the definition of an RTS anyways? You could take the term several ways, and the article doesn't really define it...)

If it counts, it'd be the only game on the table that's not about battle in one way or another.

SimCity was great. SimCity 2000 was better, because its gameplay was considerably deeper. (SC 3000 went a bit too far, I thought, into micromanagement; and so the first sequel in the series reigns to this day.)

You can debate whether or not it's a good thing that the games never really end. I've probably devoted more hours on individual cities than I have on any other single RTS game. I usually only give up when the map is completely urban and completely developed.

It's the sort of game you want to give to kids, because it's not zero-sum and it's not violent.

The graphics are really blocky on a large monitor these days, but the gameplay is as fun as it ever was. (Best of all, you can find it really cheap anywhere that sells old jewel case-only software titles.)

Re:Does SimCity count?

[Pluvius]

I believe that the definition of "RTS" that would be the closest to the truth is this:

A game wherein two or more sides, each of which has a base on a single battle map, build facilities and units in order to destroy the opposing base(s) while defending its own in real time.

This definition excludes games where you don't build units or facilities on the battle map (e.g. the Total War games) or at all (e.g. Myth). Both of those examples would be real-time tactics (within a turn-based strategic shell, in the case of the former). As for games like Europa Universalis, one could consider the world map upon which you play to be a battle map.

Oh, and SimCity doesn't involve battle, therefore you can't really consider it "strategic." (The term implies a military aspect.) "Simulation" would indeed be the best label to give it, as it simulates the real-world process of city-building (though perhaps not very realistically).

Rob

Whew

[lehyeong]

I was getting worried that Total Annihilation wouldn't make the list but there it is at the top of the heap.

I loved that game. The tweakability, AI, unit balance, use of terrain etc really were ahead of it's time. Just that fact that the air units were actually bound by the laws of flight rather than being ground units that floated was revolutionary

My favorite strategy was building a base and stocking it with an assload of Big Bertha cannons and missile defenses, setting both to automatically fire at anything that moved. I'd send scout planes (backed up by construction planes on repair duty) to roam the map. As the planes exposed enemy postions and units, the Big Bertha's would automatically target and pound them into oblivion.

Then I'd leave the computer on for a couple hours and come back to see a complete wasteland with nothing standing except for my base.

Re:Whew

[Anonymous Coward]

that's a really bad strategy.
also childish.

about the MASSIVE thing, i agree... we used to call it TOTAL CONSTRUCTION.
I ever wondered playing with only 35-50 units, but nobody else wanted such a waste...
anyone at gbl wanna try this? (www.gamingbattleleague.com)

Re:Starcraft?

[Rallion]

Actually, in Brood Wars, I loved playing against people who went straight for Carriers or Battlecruisers. With some good scouting (easy to do against said players) it's obvious what they're doing. And an army of Dark Archons prepped for Mind Control is all it takes to win the game. And, sometimes (this is the part I love) making the other guy cry.

I did this against one player four times in a row.

Re:warcraft3

[lpp]

Yep, a critical patch was released not too long ago. Called the Comprehensive Realtime Accessory Companion Kit (or CRACK), once you install it, you gain access to a new race, the Narcolumbians.

Re:Starcraft?

[ParadoxicalPostulate]

I think Blizzard's AI was absolutely amazing.

Arguably the best AI I've ever played against.

Empire Earth made the list?

[freidog]

Dear god.
They put out a half finished game and made you wait 6 months before it was playable.
The AI was laughable. It was so poor at resource management it cheated on every difficulty level, evey easy. It was totaly incapable of building an army, it would simply spam buildings and vills with the occasional military unit thrown it.
Nealry every age was hopelessly unbalanced, for a game that stressed how important counter units were, Persian cavarly would dominte everything on the battle field for 3 or 4 ages only to finaly be replaced by another unstoppable army.

Maybe they fixed it in 2.0 patch/Expansion pack but i never stuck around to find out. There were far better games out there, like ones that a person could stand to play.

To put EE on there and snub good games like Warcraft II or Stronghold Crusader or even Cossaks, is inexplicable.

Re:Empire Earth made the list?

[Anonymous Coward]

re: and snub games like Warcraft II

Are you retarded? They said right on the front page that only one game from a series of games would be on the list. Read before you post.

Only two contenders...

[Ceyan]

Rise of Nations and Homeworld.

Any other RTS I've ever played I've been able to consistently use overwhelming numbers to beat the other players, be it online or off. Problem is that, yes, there is some strategy involved, and in an evenly matched battle the one who can effectively micromanage special abilities or troops will win. But in all the games I've played (sans the two mentioned, and I've played just about every game called an RTS out there, and some that weren't but still qualified) if you have at least 1.5 times more troops than your enemy, nothing will save you. (I'm talking equally skilled players here, an idiot will lose no matter how many troops he gathers)

Rise of Nations really took the idea of borders to the next level, which made it incredibly hard to effectively attack enemy territory because you could never affect the economy directly (before an assault) of any player with decent skill.

Homeworld because the concept of specific units being effective against other specific units actually mattered. Yes in other games it's been done, and using that to your advantage could mean a win, but it wasn't a critical factor. In Homeworld even basic fighters never really lost their effectiveness against more advanced ships (Fighters ate Ion Frigates for lunch), and combine that with future releases like the Beast infection beam or the cannon you could add to the mining ship, you really had to stop and consider how to make an attack.

I'll throw in two honorable mentions:

#1: Total Annihlation. Although not revolutionary in terms of the engine, the modability and the diverse units (Land, Sea, and Air in a Sci-fi setting) really made this game shine.

#2: Dune 2 and Warcraft 2. These I only mention because they were the games that sparked the RTS industry. Yes others came before them, but these two became so popular that they made the difference. (Just like Half-Life/Couter Strike for FPS, Diablo for dungeon crawls, Falcon series for Flight Combat Sims, etc...)

Re:Only two contenders...

[Anonymous Coward]

re: #1: Total Annihlation. Although not revolutionary in terms of the engine...

Total Annihilation was the first true-3D real-time strategy game, with 3D terrain and 3D rendered units walking, flying, sailing, or even roaming underwater. Hundreds of units could be seen on the screen at once, a remarkable feat for its day. As computers grew faster, TA was able to scale with them, allowing players to crank up their resolution and crank up the unit limits with virtually no top end. Years after its release, the game was still cutting edge.

Yeah, nothing revolutionary there.

Re:Only two contenders...

[Ceyan]

3D graphics and engines were present before TA. TA simply used them in an RTS enviroment, nothing special about that. Furthermore at the time of release there was a problem with jacking up unit limits and resolutions, but it didn't take long for processors and graphics cards to fly past that problem.

When I said "engine" I was refering to the gameplay, not the graphics.

Quick correction...

[Ceyan]

Forgot to throw in another comment. I'd include the Total War series, but they aren't exactly a pure RTS. And you could win them with massed forces (unless you were fighting across a river or over a castle), the application of strategy wasn't nessecary but it sure in the hell made more difference in the amount of troops you had left than any other game I've played.

Re:warcraft3

[Rallion]

Yeah, I guess they forgot to play the game. Whoops. In case anybody was wondering, the source of the mistake is that the demons were going to constitute a 'race' at one point. As it is, they ended up just being a small handful of unbuildable units.

Cytron Masters

[ReyTFox]

It had the basics of any modern RTS: unit production, real-time movement, multiplayer(only two though).

Herzog Zwei!

[Shrubber]

How about at least a mention of the original RTS, from the Sega Genesis. Created back in 1989 a little game called Herzog Zwei was created, and it single-handedly implemented most of the things that are a staple of RTS games today. Different units, buying upgrades, getting more resources through capturing bases, and most importantly destroying your opponent. It had air, land and sea units, and was incredibly fun. It was really THE game that created the genre.

classicgaming.com

Re:Herzog Zwei!

[stoolpigeon]

They do mention it.

I never played it but I do still play Dune on my genesis all the time. In fact the first time I saw starcraft was in a class. The guy sitting next to me was playing it on his laptop. It looked cool so I watched a while and once I had an idea of how it worked I told him- "Hey, that's just like Dune on my Sega"

Outpost Anyone?

[stuffduff]

Sierra's Outpost was a blast! I must have landed on that mars like planet and launched dozens of colonies. Tweak a little of this or a little of that kind of things. Then talk about the red light districts and Chia-Pet factories! Dig dig dig, build build build, then finally the science and technology to make another rocket and blast off to the stars.

Never did like the sequal, though. Always hoped to see a combined game in which you had to build your bases and stuff like a realtime, but then had the option of flying various ships from the front seat, sort of like Privateer or Tachyon Fringe.

After reading the article

[Pluvius]

I just noticed that they put Medieval: Total War on the list. I'm not sure why; even they admitted that it wasn't all that strategic in the real-time component. This also brings up the question, "Why not include Myth?" Myth is just as worthy of being on an RTS list as Total War is.

Rob (Note that I didn't use the word "begs," grammarians)

See TA experts in action

[ThePyro]

For those that would like to see some great TA games - more than just newbie vs. newbie on an all metal map - you might want to check out the excellent fan-created Demo Recorder. Then, you'll probably want to download some TA game recordings.

Pikmin!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pikmin is an absolutely fantastic, stunningly original RTS. I can't wait for Pikmin 2 to come out later this year.

Re:Starcraft?

[GreyWolf3000]

Yes, such tactics are easy to stop. REALLY easy. I mean, when you see someone put up a pylon near your minerals after 2 minutes has passed, along with a forge, you know you're not in for much of a fight. BUT, I really prefer playing more skilled opponents. Alas, if I still had my Brood War CD...

As someone who doesn't play many RTSs....

[metroid composite]

Got the Warcraft II box set several years back (it includes WC, WC2, and WC2:expansion). Honestly, I thought it was okay but hadn't really had the urge to play more RTS after that. The fact that they didn't make it...well maybe the RTS genre is worth more credit than I gave it.

TA -- Yes, they made the right choice.

[eddy]

TA reigns supreme!

I can honestly say that I don't understand how StarCraft could come in at #2. I'd been playing and hacking around on TA for a year when StarCraft came and did nothing better than TA. I gave up the SC campaign on the third of fourth map and never went back.

TA I played again a couple of weeks ago and had a good time. Works very well on newer faster machines, though it's a little hard to play over the internet due to the way network play is implemented and the problems with NAT.

Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim

[meara]

Personally, I'm addicted to Majesty. It's like Warcraft, but your units have free will and act according to their own internal AI. So you really have to pay attention to dynamics (e.g. rangers and wizards like to team up with barbarians and go out in large, deadly hunting parties).

I'm not a micro-manager, so this is a lot more fun than watching my units stand still in WC. I just get everything set up, place a few rewards on things I really want to happen, and can trust my heroes to do intelligent things while I work on building my economy. There are a dozen different types of heroes and each type has its own special talents and vices (Elves make you more money, but encourage sloth and prostitution, rangers like to explore the whole board, but often stir up trouble, etc.)

Best of all, there's a Linux version!

Does this not count as a RTS, or what?

[FlipmodePlaya]

Is Opera's find dialogue broken, because I didn't see anyone say 'Sim City'. I suppose that it might qualify better as a simulation, but it's an RTS as far as I'm concerned. All the SCs have been great, but the excellent balance of simplicity and complexity of SC3K makes it a true classic. The original may be easier to pick up and play, and SC4 is certainly a more powerful city builder, but SC4 is amazingly addictive for it's mix of both qualities. Not having the free time I used to, I've practically buried the disc. I know that if I were to run it just once, I'd be hopelessly hooked for months. Any game with that ability, like Poke'mon or Tetris, is deserved of a 'Top 10' list.

Age of Empires II

[vijaya_chandra]

Microsoft! Wait till I gather riches to sue you for all the time lost at school playing your game

Dark Reign

[rolofft]

Are there any other Dark Reign fans out there? Dark Reign doesn't look quite as good as Star Craft, but I like the gameplay and units better, and it definitely has a better soundtrack. DR has so many cool features: units that can morph into terrain or disguise themselves as the enemy and slip into the enemy base to steal technology, saboteurs that can dynamite buildings, decoy buildings and units, the water contaminator. What a fun game!

Palito

[BinLadenMyHero]

Some guys are trying to make an open-source game inspired on TotalA.
Check their homepage: http://palito.9hells.org
They even have a nice feature comparision table
It looked promising, but unfortunatly the project seems stalled for some months.. volunteers?

nobody here mentions Warzone 2100

[CrackedButter]

It was the first game to have a spiiny rotatay view, you could build hundreds of units, make your own units and the research tech was near infinite along with unlimited units, ranks, ion cannons and real world physics. Plus when it was released it was bug free, the only game i know of today that was and sadly a sleeper hit.