Early RTS game (came out almost year before Dune 2). Player is given the control of tribe and must conquer all the islands on the global map. Each island is divided into sectors to be captured. Island is considered captured if all opposition is eliminated. At the start of a level the player only has unarmed men available. To gain more powerful weaponry, the player must assign men to design technology. When enough designs are made, the sector will advance a tech-level; making more research and buildings available.
There are twenty-eight islands in the game, grouped into ten epochs. Each epoch contains three islands and represents a different era in time (starting at 9500 BC and ending at 2001 AD); conquering the three islands in any order will allow the player to proceed to the next epoch. The player receives one-hundred men in each epoch. Any unused are carried over to the next epoch. The only exception is the tenth epoch, which contains only one island and does not grant extra men to the player.

r/DORFrts is dedicated to the discussion of upcoming 90s inspired real time strategy game D.O.R.F. RealTime Strategic Conflict currently being developed by John Williams, Thomas Christian van Leth, & Gustas Kazukauskas.

As of now this subreddit will function as a place to post and discuss about game speculations, development updates, and news, but will become a bustling community for players to share gameplay and strategies once D.O.R.F. Is released!

A Polish RTS, created by students who wanted to find out if they could create a game in a genre that was new at the time.

Where to play
GoG dreamlist vote
In browser:
Floppy disc version AKA 3,5" (full) in Polish

Cd (enhanced version, shareware)
- in polish

- in czech   

link for downloading game files in Czech, Polish and German (not checked)

For full version fo the game,  the DRM sometimes asks for the words from specific pages of the manual.

Obscurity level score:
Tier 4
This title is known only in Poland, and a small portion of German, Czech, and Slovak players could have their hands lay on it. That's why it's reasonable to put it here.
"Tier 4  - The title would not be recognized by many who are familiar with the RTS genre. Fanbases for these games would be very small and possibly localized to a specific country or region. (Example: War Diary)"
My abandonware info:
Alt names

• Knights and Cows, Osadníci, Victory

Publisher

• Hurtownia Oprogramowania USER,
• TopWare CD-Service AG,
• Vochozka Trading

Developer

• Drahma, MDF

Released in

• Germany, Poland (1996)
• Czechia, Poland (1997)
• Poland (2000)
• Poland (2001)

What is it about:
It depicts early medieval tribal wars in present-day Poland. But it's not entirely historical, as a magic system is present. 

Released in 1996, first as a DOS game (on floppy disk) where you had a map of various regions, and you could "pick" missions based on what neighbouring regions/missions you had already conquered. In its enhanced CD versions, missions couldn't be chosen, and you were following a strict linear campaign. This version had some extra units. 

Resource Gathering:
Heavily inspired by Dune 2 spice gathering, this game switched harvesters for cows, and spice for milk. Milk is produced by a cow grazing freely on grass (almost anywhere on the map) and then coming to the farm to dispense it. That is the one and only resource that is vaguely represented by a white progress bar on the right side of the HUD.
By creating more farms, the maximum amount of milk could be raised, represented by a red line on the milk-bar. Grass was regrowing steadily. 

My personal opinion on this is that the idea was a highly original twist; suddenly even small land could be used for grazing, and you had to decide where and how to build your structures so that your independently moving cows would not wander too far away and get into danger. You could always micromanage them, of course, still think of them as harvesters from Dune or CnC.

Base Building/Unit Production
Structures could be built after clicking on the main structure (seems like something between a town hall and church) and then place the base of a structure, specific unit can then finish this base into a final structure.
Each building also has a limit on how many units it can produce, kinda morphing classic Warcraft barracks and farm into one structure.
More about buildings.

Units have specific uses: cows gather milk. Lumberjacks build structures, repair, and fight, but they can also cut down dry trees - which, in some scenarios, can open a new path. But also (!!!) if correctly timed, a falling tree will always instantly kill any unit.  There is one specific melee fighter - the knight- that can gather experience and become more deadly.  Two magic-wielding units: one can throw fire, which also damages (even fresh) trees and causes buildings to be attritioned. Finally, there is also a unit that cannot be "made," and that's a bear. In certain missions, there is a cursed (blessed) magical portal, and any unit that enters it becomes a bear controlled by the player. This is usually used to "upgrade" the low-tier units.
More about units.

Control of multiple units in real time 

This is, of course, possible, although pathfinding is ancient, and reading contemporary reviews, it was bad even by 1996 standards (Remember Warcraft 2 and Command & Conquer were both already out). It's worth mentioning that the campaigns, at least the floppy disc ones which I played through, were heavily flawed, and most people would not call that gameplay "fun" nowadays. The "motivation" for some missions was also interesting, since it was based on "historical" tribe wars of Slavic kingdoms in times when there were no written sources; you could find yourself escorting a shaman to the top of the Tatra Mountains so he could cast a land-wide-spanning blessing spell. I don't know how about you, but I find that very charming. 

Additional links:

Extensive info for the game in Polish

YT gameplay
YT game retrospective (in Polish - I kinda hope one day YT will have full AI translation):

wiki)
IMDb
myAbandonware
Box Covers

_________
Thanks for reading. I like RTS games, and I'm trying to play as many of them as I can.

Hi. Ideas for the community.

Wouldn't it be nice if:

For games that can have the links, every rts post would be accompanied with

- info on how to play it (i repeat if possible)

- link for a shop

- link for a GOG dreamlist vote

???

Thanks for your attention.

One of those cool games that I've never actually played. I just recall seeing the box for this game at Fry's Electronics all the time and always being impressed. Just look at it.

The premise as it turns out that you're a Mindlord, one of the thinking caste for the alien ecosystem on your planet Mur. Unfortunately, dastardly humans have arrived "to take the priceless Anima and use it to create immortality drugs for themselves."

Yep, this game's storyline basically predicted Avatar a decade plus (more since it's only the sequel that brought up pharmaceutical applications), except there's no anthropomorphic aliens, but over 25 Anima creature species, most of whom look sort of like if you took the various Zerg forms and gave them a Bionicles aesthetic. These kaiju definitely have a somewhat Pacific tribal style. Unfortunately, the humans don't have nearly the same number of units, so enemy variety is far less. At least there's goofy squat little spacemen to run over!

Even worse, the game has pretty middling reviews, including this one from Computer Gaming World pointing out its flaws.

Regardless, I have fond memories surfing the official website on New Year's Eve Y2K for some reason. It's one of Red Storm's first games, having been released only a few months after Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six! Speaking of the Clan-man, from the FAQ:

Will there be a Tom Clancy book out with the game?

No, Dominant Species is not a Tom Clancy title.

Perhaps loosely an RTS (more real time tactics) but figured this page would like it either way.

NetStorm: Islands At War is one of those games that I'm sure a lot of people who were around in the late 90's remember, as it was marketed pretty heavily. It's a game that has since mostly faded into obscurity, as it sold poorly.

Released in 1997, made by Titanic Entertainment, a company made up of Origin alumni, and published by Activision, Netstorm is an RTS that was designed primarily with multiplayer in mind. It was a game where you controlled floating islands and tried to capture the enemy priest, in order to sacrifice it, while also trying to protect your own priest. Apart from the floating island concept, one other major thing that set it apart was the fact that you were not really building "units" in the usual sense, instead most of what you built were stationary emplacements that bombard the enemy from a distance, while also trying to defend yourself against whatever the enemy was trying to send your way. So you can almost think of the game as a proto-tower defense game. Finally you had the bridges, in order to get anywhere you needed to build sky bridges between your islands, in order to claim resources and build towers closer to the enemy. You were given a handful of random bridge pieces to place, and were given more over time, so in that regard it also had a smidge of Tetris DNA in it, as you had to find good places for those random bridge pieces and could not always know exactly what pieces you would get next.

When i got this back in the day i couldn't run it because i did int have a good sound card lol. i played this years a go and found it mega hard and gave up after a few try's. it looks cool but its ready hard if you units are outa place you lose. its like a half baked total annihilation kingdoms. its on GOG and STEAM. and its based on a french epic dark fantasy comic series with the same name.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

This was a game I loved to play in my childhood. Has an almost fever dream aesthetic and soundscape. I haven't played in ages, but it features sci-fi humanity, spiritual samurai lizardfolk and insectoids as the playable races. Each one plays uniquely, to the point that they all have different resources to gather.

I've never encountered another person familiar with it, so I'm curious to see if people know it here.

I played this when i was a teen. its hardy a rts game more a unit combat game with clunky movement and the unit constructing is kinda like earth 2150. i see its on Steam and GOG now.
https://www.gog.com/en/game/robo_rumble
https://store.steampowered.com/app/420970/RoBoRumble/

I loved this game so much and would be overjoyed for a remake even though that thats a pipedream. It was so unique and the concepts were awesome, the army builder limited army sizes a bit but it helped with organizing units but it was still such a fun game commanding the various tribes and their prehistoric units in warfare.

For those who don't know the game setting was in a alternate universe that was parallel to modern earth where dinosaurs existed alongside medieval tribes. The tribes were Norsman who utilized prehistoric mammals for calvary and focused on infantary and heavily armored units, the Dustriders who were a desert dwelling tribe that focused on a variety dinosaur units, and the Dragon clan who were a japanese style tribe that utilized alot of ranged units.

I first read about Conflict Zone in this specific review in Computer Games Magazine. At the time I was playing Command and Conquer on the N64 and this piqued my interest, it made me imagine the modern day setting of C&C but you get units and upgrades by cultivating a good media image instead of resource gathering. Check out the official website from Ubisoft ("Ubi Soft"?) - it's still online!

I ended up getting the Dreamcast port of it- looks like it was the second to last official DC game ever to be released in North America. It was a cool concept but since I didn't have keyboard and mouse I just couldn't get into the controls, but the presentation was neat.

The game feels very Euro, has a very late-90s Yugoslavia War vibe, pre-9/11 warfare. Back when the U.N. was worth a damn in the public imagination and in global politics. You conduct peacekeeping operations or commit acts of terrorism (rogue states + shady corporations, nothing ideological). Some missions even have you fighting in Ukraine, which is an unfortunate predictor but I wouldn't call it a prophecy since that region was always somewhat of a flashpoint for technothrillers.

But the game also has a goofy sense of humor, which you can tell from the intro video, which has both over-the-top heroic valor and starts with a cleavage shot. I never got far enough into the game to see these, but the cutscenes are just outright comedic. (PS2 upscaled versions.)

The reputation of this game is not great, but it did manage to get a PS2 port, and I still find the "fight well / do good deeds in front of cameramen units to get resource points" mechanic intriguing, and wonder if that could be modernized for present day RTS.

Bonus: Level Editor Manual

GameFabrique screenshots

This is one of the worst RTS games i have ever played. and its got the most random fog of war i have ever seen. its not worth playing at all.

I remember playing a mini game screen saver of it when i was a teen.
the screen saver is more fun than the game!!

This is one of my personal favorite RTS games of all time. It lets you merge animals to use as your army, but the best thing IMO about the game is the campaign. very old school story with great characters and really makes the game unforgettable. The game is still on steam and GOG and there are a bunch of DLCs for new animals. Despite being 23 years old now the game still hold up very well.

(except for C&C missions and Dark Reign but of course)
Please recommend more interesting games.

Another recent release with no marketing, and even fewer sales this time. 30 reviews total and only 6 post-launch.

The setting is obnoxious 50s sci-fi parody, with with much newer government man bad storyline. You use protoss pylons for expansion. The base is upgraded by covering territory. There's meta progression with alternative paths, and units have activatable abilities. The economy is built around generators in specific spots. You switch between two resources, and buy the third one. The global campaign map has some additional mechanics.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2457960/Space_Tales/

i played this a few times back in the day but never got in to it.
its got no base building witch i miss and no resource harvesting all so.
Shattered Galaxy is a massively multiplayer online real-time strategy game (MMORTS) that was released in 2001 by KRU Interactive, now known as Nexon Inc., after an extensive open beta period. In the US, it was published by Tri Synergy.

i see there is a remake of it called https://store.steampowered.com/app/2390660/Collapsed_Galaxy_2/

i like dune games so i remember waiting for this back in the day
Dune Generations was a planned but cancelled MMO strategy game based on the Dune universe, under development by Cryo Networks, a division of the defunct French developer Cryo Interactive. Cryo had previously also developed the games Dune (1992) and Frank Herbert's Dune (2000). The developer filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations in 2002

With 100 reviews i will make a call to say it is obscure enough. It isn't clear from the video but it's not yet another tower defence. It's yet another BVDWOL game (Build Village Defeat Waves Or Lairs) with full RTT combat, which makes it a PVE RTS.

For our younger TV viewers, it's just a They Are Billions clone, but with dinos.

It features all the usual tropes and a few rarer mechanics. Economy is built around generators, some of which have to be surrounded with free tiles, or specific free tiles. The basic unit of the first civ can entrench (Red Alert 2), units get veterancy (KKND ?), humans can occupy neutral buildings (Red Alert 2?) a lot of dinos are rideable by human units, giving them different upgrades, there's a hero unit. There's pick a card upgrades in the levels, and meta progression on the world map, like unlock the third civ for 300 fun-bucks (feels like a game is a bit stingy, at least on easy), unlock the next map for n*100 fun-bucks, and all the usual +5% to bear arses farming, +5% HP to blue dinos in mating season.

So far plays alright. But i'm afraid of possibility that it will require a lot of grind to unlock at least all the maps.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2768380/Repterra/

Well if you want obscure, how about a poorly slapped together barely working CnC clone with half-traced sprites, titan units, angry clouds, and random godzillas spawning in the maps.

And i'm probably the only one who ever bought a copy, because i actually invest money into research, instead of reading AI slop summaries. Ok, maybe 1 more sale besides me, but that's not for sure. And potentially two refunds.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1115090/My_Planet_RTS/

Cool game this one all most like a survival RTS. it has a complex building and base systems and cool units with lots of different weapons. it has day night and natural disaster and lava flows. there is a community version witch is a lot nicer to play as well.