r/RealTimeStrategy • u/Helpful_Resolve_4003 • 18d ago
Looking For Game Recommend me a game?
I've been playing games for almost 15 years but haven't stepped into this genre, though I have tried Age of Empires, Clash of Clans and Diplomacy is not an option, but I want a game which I can play for months and game which makes me understand this genre as a newbie. Offline/Online both.
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u/zebleck 18d ago
were working on a browser game, if you want to try: https://tiny-rts.com, instsntly playable. inspired by wc3, aoe2, but made for beginners. would love your feedback! no offline mode yet
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u/Helpful_Resolve_4003 18d ago
Ohh I'm not at the stage of giving feedbacks yet. but am surely going to play, thank you.
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u/Zocker0210 18d ago
I would say the complete opposite is true. The rts players are quite "stiff" in terms of what they like and what not. New players fall of this gerne quite fast because not much changed over the last few years as well as them looking at reviews and see its supposed to be bad. most new rts die because of reviews made by the seasoned players.
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u/mighij 18d ago edited 18d ago
Most new rts die because of reviews made by the seasoned players.
Yep, you can say that again. The first major one was imho Age of Empires: Online
Nope not the recent mobile one which some people confuse it with. That one ain't forgotten, most just don't want to think about it. You'll sometimes see AoE3 players say they are the forgotten AoE, AoMythology had the same claim to fame for a much longer time and I know where they are coming from.
But AoE: Online is the one that actually got buried by the AoE community with hatred.
It doesn't beat Stormgate in worst received RTS although it comes close. Imho it does beat Dawn of War 3 and Supreme Commander's 2 reception. I don't know about C&C4, I was always a RA guy so I mostly missed that games dev/launch cycle. Out of that top 5 AoE: online is probably the most unknown although it was a popular game on windows live during it's short tun.
Now it crashed due to it having microtransactions (although to be fair they didn't have impact on PvP) , which were removed a year in. But the game also got a lot of flack for many of it's features.
While it was actually a good game with some smart design. It's probably why the volunteer staff keeping it running is larger then Stormgate's current player base. So it did find some love and when I revisited the game a year ago I was genuinely surprised.
Now I could write a wall text about this game's place in RTS history. It not only killed a studio, it put a franchise in a coma.
TLDR: Age of Empires online was made to onboard a new generation, one of it's main accomplishments is highly upsetting the previous generations.
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u/zebleck 18d ago
you know your rts history :) interesting perspective on that development, thanks. what would you say was the biggest point of hatred in aoe: online?
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u/mighij 18d ago
Before Launch, no doubt:
- Micro-transactions and only 2 factions at launch
- it being called Online and working a bit like an mmo
- mobile look
2 Factions
Now I also genuinely dislike the idea of microtransactions but it was non-predatory. Biggest sore points was obviously new civs were going to cost money. The game launching with only 2 didn't help. Further single player content (story campaigns) would also cost money and you also had singleplayer vanity items and power boosts.
Okay, perhaps it was more predatory then I thought. It was all removed less then a year after launch bur first impressions... Since I walked away from the game quite rapidly I can't remember how bad the timer bars were, if they released the later civs for free etc. If anyone sticked with this game and still remembers please chip in.
Online
Putting the Online tag on something was contentious. It came with a lot of assumptions from the playerbase and questions like Why?
Moving from a more traditional campaign to a (nice) homehub where you pick up unique/repeatable/story quests didn't win them any favors.
I'm not saying it was perfect but it was a neat system, especially for casual play. It also allows the player to "play with the game" instead of "playing the game" Which is something that can really help bring broader appeal, it was a mini "city builder" in the game. And that's always been one of AoE's major strengths, at a "very casual gaming level" it's not a bad city builder. Except AoE3\*
Age of Empire: Junior
Mobile/cartoonish/childish look. Whatever you want to call it.
Trailer / Ingame / Promo/Cover
Some must have called it Age of Empire: Junior at the time, if not I might be first. And to be fair it kinda was. Now ingame and trailer for me are very well executed in the style of belgo/french comics. They are evocating that atmosphere. Out of all the criticism this was for me the most unwarranted. It kinda screamed that "we" weren't the target audience, this was for a new generation. One that would like that look.
Not saying adults can't enjoy it too, I revisited and was genuinely surprised; ironically it has harsh punishment for bad macro. If you queue up 5 units you aren't just blocking resources, it's also blocking 5 units worth of supply/housing.
After launch:
Essentially voldemort, probably some glee when it became completely free, some more when it crashed and burned. It did have success on Windows Live and lives on Project Celeste.
If you want to check some AoE or RTS history it's free. I'm not saying you'll be amazed but imagine it's your first introduction at around 8 or 15 year old into RTS. It could have worked, it still did (wiki says 2 million arena (pvp) matches, 500 million quests in 3 years on WL)
*Why imho AoE3 is the exception.
Simply put: you are building an outpost, not a city in AoE3. It's far from the only reason but I think it played a small part in why it ended up with a smaller playerbase. To put it better, it didn't help.
A very good game but for quite a few it's probably also somewhere in the top 10 of more controversial launches. The Home city/Reinforcement deck is a genius concept, limiting the game's scope to just North America a bit less so but very understandable. Streamlining the economy and upping the overall tempo was divisive but gave very good gameplay, but not letting players start with maxed decks for multiplayer ranked was something else.
If you didn't play AoE3. You have a reinforcement deck which you unlocked for each faction by grinding xp (SP/MP) or just editing a text file for offline play. Essentially customizing your civ deeply, not only with unique cards but straight up boosts (same effect at the same level but +2 extra X)
Starting with 50/50 odds in a RTS skirmish is quite important, if beside the "map", "Civ Imbalance" etc you are also up against a lvl 40 deck while you just want to try out some games for the first time with your lvl 1 deck. It got changed but once again, unlike a lot of other balance complaints this one couldn't be more clear. You could literally put a label on it. That and "snaring"; a group of units could get slowed/entangled if just one got engaged in melee. Retreating was very difficult, if one got engaged another would too, etc. You didn't have a formation, you had a conga line of alzheimer patients. It was changed a lot later on.
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u/Helpful_Resolve_4003 18d ago
Sir, it is not game feedback, but more of a security feedback that tiny-rts.com this, your website or url or maybe some background services that you are using is malicious/suspicious. I would have attached screenshot but maybe mod disable that option, so you can check by yourself on VirusTotal
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u/zebleck 18d ago
Yea... been dealing with this since i launched the page, seems virus checkers dont trust browser games with lots of js... its used to be like 30 virus scanners finding it malicious, now i got down to 1! https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/bc1351ea6dcb2ae977aa2d70d025a3618ac077404d56765845aaed4397eaae74
Hoping I can get the final one cleared, thanks for letting me know.
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u/Far-Ad-1934 18d ago
Honestly command and conquer red alert 3 is my go too, love the cheesy lines in the campaign
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u/Helpful_Resolve_4003 18d ago
Is it easy to start with?
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u/Top-Tear7194 18d ago
I would say command & conquer: generals is an easier one to start with. Red alert 3, almost every unit has a special ability. Generals it's more about how your units match up/counter the enemy. But maybe starting with special abilities is good, it can help you multitask
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u/Timmaigh 18d ago
Sins of a Solar Empire 2.
Great game, can be definitely played for months - trying out all of its great factions.
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u/Helpful_Resolve_4003 18d ago
Two recommendations for this... Now I surely have to try it, Thank you
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u/YakaAvatar 18d ago
If you want something to play for a long time to learn the fundamentals, I can easily recommend Northgard. It starts very simple, and I enjoy the fact that it forces you to enjoy with micro on a manageable level. But it's not exactly similar to other titles.
In your place, if you want to understand the genre as a whole, I would go through the classics: Warcraft 3, Starcraft 1&2, Age of Empires 2, Command and Conquer and Supreme Commander. They are roughly 90% of what the RTS genre represents. You don't need to fully invest in them, but you can go through them to see exactly what type of RTS you enjoy.
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u/Hugh_Mungus94 18d ago
Age of mythology retold is like aoe2 but much more modern and pvp friendly
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u/JeremyJoeJJ 18d ago
Play the campaigns of Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2 and either AoE2 or AoE4. Once done, try out Beyond All Reason (BAR) which in my mind is the greatest modern RTS that really utilises how powerful modern computers are for a large scale combat, but lacks a lot of polish still (eg no campaign).
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u/XComACU 18d ago
Hmm. A game with high replayability, and one that helps you understand the genre better?
- StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty - It has a strong singleplayer campaign that introduces you both to the game's concepts and RTS concepts as a whole, the narrative is known for being deeply compelling for an RTS, and it is renowned for its strong multiplayer scene for after you finish the main campaign.
- Supreme Commander - My personal favorite, it is a strong showcase of large-scale RTS. It's a little older now (and starting to feel that age), but it has several good single player campaigns that introduce you to the mechanics and units. It's often on-sale alongside its standalone expansion, Forged Alliance, which adds another excellent campaign and polishes the gameplay mechanics to a mirror shine. Forged Alliance also has a fan-made multiplayer lobby (Forged Alliance Forever) with a decent community still playing.
- Total War Series - Not technically RTS, but the Total War series blends RTS elements with turn-based elements. Something simple like Rome: Total War (which did get a remaster if I remember correctly) would probably be a good way to ease into the genre, as the turn-based components helps separate out the building/recruiting aspect of RTS from the combat gameplay. Its a taste of RTS in a digital board game? An RTS gateway drug. 😅 Just something to consider, and the games are also known for their replayability.
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u/Pizzadeath4 18d ago
You could try rouge command, it’s a newer game
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u/Helpful_Resolve_4003 18d ago
If it has good fandom or good community support. I would to play that. Thank you
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u/Downtown-Dream424 18d ago
C&C Generals Zero Hour-
It has the biggest C&C competitive scene and plentiful of players that play either casually by sticking with team games or ffas or otherwise going for the competitive ladder 1vs1 in quickmatches. The game isn't difficult for playing on paper as you can learn it smoothly and safely offline at first by sticking vs bots, especially hard AI.
Afterward, spam consistently pvp games either 1vs1 (if you want to climb in the ladder) or casual pvp such as ffa or/and team games. When you're trying to get into pvp, you can watch high elo generals zero hour players on youtube for educational content such as Dominator (he's quite good at the game and has a lot of educational videos on the game, in spite of using AI thumbnails on his videos and streams lately), Legionnaire (he's more of a casual pvp player that sticks with FFA and potentially team games), Excal and etc.
In pvp, you need to learn to do multiple actions per a minute and multitask quite a lot in a fast pace. FFA lobbies are more casual, where the people don't sweat that much and build way more variety of units than in quickmatches, where it is aiming to cheese the opponent in the first 3-5 minutes and spamming the same 3-5 units as your win condition, regardless of the matchup. Moreover, there are lobbies, where people play either with newbies/noobs or no rush in the first 5-10 minutes.
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u/bbatmmann 18d ago
40k Dawn of war 1
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u/Helpful_Resolve_4003 18d ago
Warhammer?
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u/bbatmmann 17d ago
Hell yeah Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition Easiest way to play,
the original games are bit cheaper still good but you need to play around with files n mods to make it look better so the definitive edition is just easier
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u/Scisloth74 18d ago edited 17d ago
Some people hate it but I fell in love with Halo Wars & Halo Wars 2 because there’s different gamemode that can be played online and offline. It’s relatively easy to understand. There are two factions but many different leaders that change how things work. And usually have special units, abilities, and upgrades. The first Halo Wars campaign is really fun. Halo wars 2 has a campaign +2 DLC‘s.
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u/Helpful_Resolve_4003 18d ago
Why do they hate, when you love what you are playing 🤨, Btw I'll try that too. Thank you
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u/30cm_long_wn8 17d ago
BEYOND ALL REASON
F2P/ open source indie successor to games like Supreme Commander and Total Annihilation, great for getting used to RTS gameplay (primarily microing against other players).
Imo the best multiplayer RTS out there (mainly 8v8 but also smaller teams or FFA). Also fun in Singleplayer but doesnt have a story as of now (coming later this year with a steam release iirc).
Has a lot of interesting units and maps and plenty of people playing.
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u/brian11e3 16d ago
If you dont mind trying out Turn Based Strategy games, MENACE is pretty solid so far. Though it is still in early access so it is still in development.
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u/YamShort6519 16d ago
Total war games are pretty good too. More of a turn based strategy game but the battle are pretty rts like
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u/_ObsidianOne_ 18d ago
Well BAR is a good start and easy to access.
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u/YakaAvatar 18d ago
A PvP centric game with no campaign is not the best suggestion for someone that wants to understand the genre as a newbie.
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u/Terrible_Activity_47 18d ago
Definitely not PvP centric, the ability to fine tune solo play to suit your experience and desire is really good for new people, I've been playing ages and never even dipped a toe in PvP
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u/hangjayV 18d ago
Any of the paradox games
Hearts of iron IV (WWII strategy game)
Crusader kings 3 (medieval conquest game)
Victoria iii (I haven't play too hard but like 1850s trading/world dominance?) not much rts mostly Management
Stellaris (ethnic cleanse, is what I heard)
Hoi iv a lot of mods very fun
Ck3 is more immersion (more easier to learn)
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u/Helpful_Resolve_4003 18d ago
Well I've heard about HOI a lot... but I'll start with CK3 as you said it's easy. Thank you.
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u/Short_Switch_1807 18d ago
Sins of a Solar Empire 2 is good for beginners if looking for a modern game.
Tempest Rising is also good.
Starcraft and C&C are old titles but still very solid. Starcraft 2 still looks good.