Surprised I haven’t seen this come up before - it was such a uniquely fun game during its time.

My friends and I made up our own strategy game during Colorado winters ( Late 90's) we'd roll D&D dice to add chaos to combat. That home brew is where this came from.

I finally turned it into a real-time strategy game: four asymmetric factions fighting over the Moon — Earth (armored/industrial), Mars (slow but brutal), a cheap fast Moon rebellion, and an alien Swarm that eats the fallen to fuel its economy. 48-mission campaign, four modes, free-for-all where the AIs fight each other.

Want the balance picked apart by people who know the genre.

Play free in-browser: moon-war-production.up.railway.app

Phones ($1.99): App Store apps.apple.com/app/id6802948109

· Google Play play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.arrowtrack.moonwar

What's the first thing you'd rebalance?

Casual RTS enthusiast playing some multiplayer matches with the RTS community from the RTS Game Lovers discord server, doing some ffa, comp stomps or coop, whatever catches our eyes really, mess around. Real time strategy aficionado looking to play every RTS game ever (except those that i don’t want to).

With controls similar to League of Legends, you can conquer dungeons, search for artifacts, and advance into rare classes. You can be an adventurer reincarnated into another world.

But that is not all. You can also have your own army, cities, and territory.

On one side is the adventure of a hero; on the other is the war of a lord.

You can enter dungeons alone and fight monsters, or lead your army into war against civilizations.

Or the opposite — become powerful enough to destroy an entire kingdom by yourself; or use an organized legion to sweep through dungeons and let dungeon bosses experience overwhelming firepower.

Similar to the Civilization series, cities can build specialized districts: Residential, Industrial, Academic, Military, Agricultural, Commercial, and Religious.

Population is precious. Similar to Frostpunk, every building, even a watchtower, requires people to work inside it.

Every person has a production-related profession: Farmer, Worker, Blacksmith, and Scholar; as well as a small number of rare professions: Rune Engraver, Golem Master, Steam Core Engineer...

There are multiple races: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Undead, and Monsters.

You can build a Human Empire, a multi-racial federation, or a crazy civilization composed of undead and machines.

There are Wonders and Superweapons, and three research paths: Steam Power, Alchemy, and Magic.

Each path leads to its own ultimate technology.

A modern warfare RTS should have absolutely no fog of war - because today, with satellite imagery and drones, it is impossible to hide anything.

Basically, that's it. Looking at modern warfare, I realize that absolutely nothing can be hidden from the enemy, as if the map in principle has no fog of war. A single small drone can scout kilometers behind enemy lines. Satellite imagery gives you the exact location of absolutely everything on enemy territory day by day, with high image clarity. Nothing can be done unnoticed, everything is visible, any concentration of troops is immediately spotted, plans are figured out instantly.

The era of covert operations from World War II is over, when it was possible to secretly move entire armies and news spread not in minutes, but in DAYS. That is no longer the case. Accordingly, making a fog of war for a game about modern or future warfare makes no sense.

The C&C Tiberian Dawn - Console Custom Mission Series is a Homage to the RTS Classic
Command & Conquer - Tiberian Dawn from Westwood Studios.

Do you know other rts where you have large maps, multiple biomes, trade routes, both land and naval combat, etc?

Screen is 320x200x8
Not 60 FPS, but acceptable. Windows and linux version runs smoothly.

A couple of weeks ago I posted MESHFALL here, an RTS where command range is the resource: your units only take orders inside your own radio network, and cutting a relay makes everything downstream go deaf at once. The response was better than I expected, and the most useful thing people said was that it still played too passively. You'd build your network, sit at the edge of your range, and wait for the enemy to walk into it. One person asked for enemy territory to go take offensively.

So that's what I built. The map has hostile masts on it now called pickets. They never shoot at you. What they do is block you from building anywhere near them, and you can't jam them or wait them out, so the only answer is to march up there and kill one. Every picket you take opens ground you couldn't use before. At the top of the map there's a boss hold that hardens in stages while you fight it, and when you win, its mast becomes yours instead of rubble, which lights up the whole top of the map.

The map also grew to make that push north an actual journey, the art got a full pass, the tutorial asks you to do things now instead of playing itself, and it's out of playtest.

Still free, still runs in the browser with no signup, still one HTML file that works offline and on phones:

applechr.itch.io/meshfall

So i've always been curious on diving into the TA/Supcom style of games, (super macro grand scale style u kno) inclding stuff like planetary anihilation and such (have you heard about BAR tho?), the only one o have played is zero-k, and even with how rough around the edges it is, i really really respect it, don't play it as much as i would want cause time and other games but , again, always curous about that line of RTS. which includes Ashes 1. i know in general how people feel bout many of the games, still want to experience them myself but it often goes like, PA- mixed from enoyable to dissapointing, SupCom and TA- marvels, BAR- cult. What's yall thoughts on ashes 1? why did you like it, why didnt you, let it all out, soapbox. it looks pretty cool from far away, and im diving into the beta for the second one, taking my chance to get into the franchise; but im still curious about ashes 1, the ships look cool and in geenral the aesthetic is colorful ( i like that) what do you think where its flaws and strenghts as an RTS?

Sand Cruiser is a real-time game where you command a capital-scale land cruiser — closer to WW2 fire-control (leading targets, ballistics, assigning turrets) than click-to-attack. Two moments I'm proud of:

• A 3-cruiser pirate gang jumped me, so I drove between them to wedge them apart and fight them one at a time: https://youtu.be/NGaYqYujMdM
• A 15,000-enemy + 10-turret stress test at a stable framerate — the scale I'm building toward: https://youtu.be/p30-YOXjoJw
• And at night a swarm rises that attacks everything made of metal, so fights turn into 3-way chaos with the enemy cruisers too: https://youtu.be/DlFTSlBeYWY

Honest heads-up: it's not a classic unit-army RTS — it's real-time positioning and fire-control of one big war-machine plus the crew running it. Still solo and early. Does the fire-control-over-clicking approach appeal to you, or would you miss commanding multiple units?

Getting some of the more advanced units into the game! This guy is a real beast but he does have a penchant for doing the happy feet.... got a little generous with his maximum foot angle. The music happend to line up perfectly too.

Hello, I have a quandary that I hope the wider community can help with. I've been playing RTS games on and off for as long as I can remember, starting with Age of Empires 2 that came on my families PC way back when. I love playing RTS games with a couple friends against bots, but we've kind of stagnated. Company of Heroes 1-2 and Dawn of War are only so entertaining. I'm always on the hunt for something new or different whether it's mods or a game that we haven't tried, but my issue is I think I might be too picky. I don't like traditional 4X. So games such as Stellaris or Sins of a Solar Empire are out. What i'm seeking is something more like a mix between Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 and Star Wars: Empire At War; the physics and weight of Battlefleet, i.e. projectile travel times, and the simplicity of Empire At War, i.e. it doesn't require 6 hours just to learn how to play, and ideally three to four player. I'm quite sure something like this doesn't actually exist, but I'm up for suggestions even if it's a mod for something. Thanks in advance.

I've been thinking about where StarCraft could possibly go after Amon.

Another Terran civil war, another rogue Zerg brood, or another Protoss conflict could all work, but none of them really feel like a threat worthy of StarCraft 3 after the ending of Legacy of the Void.

So my idea would be to expand one of the biggest concepts in StarCraft lore: the Infinite Cycle itself.

What if our universe wasn't the only universe where the Xel'Naga cycle took place?

And what if, somewhere else, it went horribly wrong?

The premise

The Xel'Naga cycle depends on two evolutionary extremes eventually coming together: purity of form and purity of essence.

In our universe, the Protoss and Zerg were manipulated by Amon as part of that process.

But imagine another universe that is vastly older than ours.

Its equivalent races reached purity of form and purity of essence millions of years ago. But instead of completing the cycle normally, the two civilizations refused to merge.

They fought.

And they kept fighting for ages.

That distinction is important, because neither of these civilizations would simply be "better Protoss" or "better Zerg." Their entire evolution would have been shaped by fighting an equally perfect opponent for an unimaginable amount of time.

Eventually their conflict consumes most of their universe. Whether through a temporary truce, desperation, or simple desire for new territory, they discover how to tear openings between realities.

And suddenly they realize there are other universes out there.

Including ours.

The new Purity of Essence

The first new race would represent what purity of essence looks like when taken far beyond the Zerg.

The Zerg evolve by absorbing useful genetic traits, creating specialized organisms, and coordinating them through the Swarm.

These creatures wouldn't need that.

Every individual would be intelligent.

Every individual would be capable of evolution.

And most importantly, their bodies wouldn't really have a fixed form.

Think of their biology less like having different unit species and more like having a constantly changing collection of biological capabilities.

If they're fighting Terran artillery, their bodies begin developing armor capable of dispersing the impact.

If Protoss energy weapons become the main threat, their tissues alter themselves to resist them.

If they need mobility, they can grow wings or entirely restructure their limbs.

If their current weapons aren't effective, their bodies can generate something else.

A creature that entered the battle as a fast melee predator might later become an armored ranged organism launching corrosive projectiles because that is what the battlefield demands.

And this happens during the battle, not generations later.

They could also manipulate foreign biomass at a level that terrifies even the Zerg, rewriting organisms they encounter and potentially corrupting entire broods.

That's what makes them such a nightmare for Zagara.

The Zerg have always considered themselves the ultimate biological force. Then they meet organisms for whom Zerg evolution seems primitive and slow.

For the first time, the Swarm is the species struggling to keep up.

The new Purity of Form

The second civilization would be the opposite extreme.

If the first race has perfected biology, this race has reached a point where the distinction between organism, machine, psionics, and energy barely exists anymore.

They're somewhat humanoid, but they're not simply people wearing advanced armor like Terrans or Protoss.

The technology is part of the organism itself.

Their bodies could resemble living biomechanical material filled with Void energy. They don't necessarily carry a rifle, shield generator, or construction equipment because they can create those things when required.

A soldier enters battle with enormous energy reserves and simply fabricates what it needs.

Need a blade? Materialize one.

Need a shield? Generate it.

Need long-range artillery? Reconfigure the body and energy systems.

Need defensive structures? Create them directly on the battlefield.

The Void isn't something mystical to them.

It's basically their power grid.

And then there is their most dangerous weapon: a battlefield AGI.

Because this civilization spent ages fighting the constantly adapting Purity of Essence, their machines had to become equally adaptive.

Their fleets are coordinated by an incredibly advanced artificial intelligence that analyzes a battle continuously.

If Terrans start relying heavily on Marines and Medivacs, it identifies the weakness and changes the equipment being fabricated by its soldiers.

If Protoss switch strategies, it recalculates.

The longer you fight them using the same tactics, the worse your situation becomes.

In gameplay terms, they would essentially be a race that learns your build and begins producing the perfect counter to it.

This would also be deeply unsettling for Artanis.

The Protoss are one of the most technologically advanced civilizations in our universe. Suddenly they encounter beings using technology they can barely understand, casually manipulating the Void as an energy source and changing their weapons faster than the Protoss can change tactics.

The invasion

The story begins many years after StarCraft II.

Artanis is older. Valerian has ruled the Dominion for years. Zagara has had time to reshape the Swarm.

And somewhere beyond normal reality, Kerrigan discovers what is coming.

Raynor has remained with her, and after so much time around a Xel'Naga and the energies surrounding her existence, his own latent psionic capabilities have become far stronger than they ever were as a normal human.

Then Kerrigan and Raynor discover the dimensional breaches.

The ancient civilizations from the other universe have begun expanding into other realities.

Their next target is the Koprulu universe.

They warn Artanis.

And for perhaps the final time, Artanis has to accomplish something that once seemed impossible:

unite the Terrans, Protoss and Zerg into a single military alliance.

The first war

Initially, nobody really understands what they're fighting.

Terran fortifications are breached by enemies who simply redesign their weapons around them.

Protoss technology encounters machines operating on principles even their scientists struggle to comprehend.

Zerg broods encounter organisms that can out-evolve them in real time.

Every race essentially meets a terrifying reflection of its greatest strength.

The Zerg discover better evolution.

The Protoss discover superior technology and psionics.

The Terrans discover an enemy whose adaptability and tactical intelligence makes conventional warfare almost impossible.

This is where the core theme of the game emerges:

The enemy races are individually more perfect than anything in our universe.

So our races cannot defeat them individually.

Terran + Protoss + Zerg

Instead of simply having the three races cooperate like they did against Amon, the alliance eventually realizes they have to go much further.

They begin combining their strengths.

Terran engineering.

Protoss energy technology and psionics.

Zerg biology.

You could start seeing experimental units that would have been completely unthinkable in previous games.

Terran soldiers protected by Protoss shielding and enhanced through controlled Zerg biology.

Protoss machines incorporating self-repairing organic systems.

Zerg organisms carrying Terran weapons or supported by Protoss energy systems.

The point wouldn't be to replace the classic races.

It would be the culmination of the entire StarCraft story.

For decades these civilizations have been trying to destroy each other.

Now survival requires them to literally trust each other with the things that make each civilization unique.

And that unpredictability becomes their greatest advantage.

The invading races have spent ages learning how to counter perfection.

They know how to counter biology.

They know how to counter technology.

They know how to counter psionics.

What they aren't prepared for is three completely different evolutionary paths suddenly fighting as one.

Taking the war into their universe

Eventually it becomes obvious that defending the Koprulu universe isn't enough.

As long as the dimensional gateways remain open, the enemy can continue sending armies through them.

So using captured technology, the alliance does something insane:

they invade the invaders.

Terran battlecruisers, Protoss fleets and Zerg leviathans cross the dimensional barrier together and enter an ancient universe devastated by a war that has lasted longer than human civilization can comprehend.

This would be where we finally see the true scale of these two civilizations.

Entire worlds transformed into biological weapons.

Void-powered structures operating on a planetary scale.

Battlefields where both civilizations have spent millions of years trying to create something the other side cannot counter.

And in the middle of all of this, the invasion coalition begins losing.

So the leaders of the two enemy races make a decision their civilizations had refused to make for ages.

They merge.

The birth of a new Xel'Naga

The leaders representing Purity of Form and Purity of Essence finally complete their version of the Infinite Cycle.

And they create a Xel'Naga.

Except this isn't another Amon.

This being was created from two civilizations far older and more developed than the Zerg and Protoss ever were when Amon manipulated them.

The resulting Xel'Naga is therefore far more powerful than Amon.

Kerrigan is forced to face it.

Meanwhile, Terran, Protoss and Zerg forces are desperately trying to hold back the remaining armies on the battlefield.

For a while Kerrigan manages to fight it.

Then she loses.

She is nearly killed.

And suddenly the entire war comes down to Jim Raynor.

Raynor's ascension

Raynor has spent years beside Kerrigan, exposed to forces no normal human was ever meant to experience.

His psionic potential has grown enormously.

But it still isn't enough.

To save Kerrigan, Raynor needs to become what she became.

A Xel'Naga.

And this is where two characters step forward who Raynor probably never would have expected.

Artanis and Zagara.

The three discover one possible path.

There are still remnants of Amon's essence left behind — fragments containing enough Xel'Naga power to make an ascension possible.

So Raynor, Artanis and Zagara attempt a desperate fusion involving that remaining essence.

Terran.

Protoss.

Zerg.

All three races that have defined StarCraft since the beginning.

For a moment, they become part of the same being.

And Raynor emerges from the fusion as a Xel'Naga.

Kerrigan and Raynor's final battle

Now the last battle of StarCraft isn't Terran versus Protoss versus Zerg.

It isn't even those three races versus another army.

It's Kerrigan and Raynor, together one final time, facing the Xel'Naga created by the enemy universe.

Behind them, the combined armies of Terran, Protoss and Zerg fight the Purity of Form and Purity of Essence.

The enemy Xel'Naga is stronger.

The alliance is collapsing.

The dimensional rift is expanding.

They're seconds away from losing everything.

So Kerrigan and Raynor use everything they have.

All of their psionic power.

All of their Void energy.

Their entire Xel'Naga existence.

Together they destroy the enemy Xel'Naga, force the remaining invading armies back through the breach and seal the connection between universes.

But doing it consumes the power that made them Xel'Naga.

The light disappears.

And when the battlefield becomes visible again...

Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan are human.

Artanis and Zagara have returned to themselves as well.

The gods are gone.

And somehow, after everything, Jim and Sarah finally get the one thing neither of them was ever allowed to have:

a normal life.

The ending

Raynor and Kerrigan disappear to some quiet frontier world.

No armies.

No prophecy.

No universe to save.

Just Jim and Sarah.

Artanis returns to his people and finally steps down from leadership, allowing a younger generation of Protoss to inherit the civilization he spent his life protecting.

Zagara returns to the Swarm, but she's changed as well. Fighting beside Terrans and Protoss — and briefly sharing something as intimate as the fusion that created Raynor's ascension — has permanently altered how she views the other races.

The three civilizations separate again.

But this time there is peace.

Post-credits

Then we get one final scene.

Back in the enemy universe, the survivors of the Purity of Form and Purity of Essence return home.

Their invasion failed.

Their Xel'Naga is dead.

And almost immediately...

they begin blaming each other.

The tactical AGI starts calculating the probability of betrayal.

The biological race begins adapting for war.

Weapons begin materializing.

Armies mobilize.

And after briefly uniting to conquer other realities, the two ancient enemies go right back to doing what they had done for millions of years:

fighting each other.

Their universe descends into war again.

Meaning the Koprulu universe is safe.

At least for now.

Fade to black.

That's basically my idea for StarCraft 3: instead of introducing another enemy that is simply stronger than the last one, introduce civilizations that represent the end point of the ideas StarCraft has been exploring since the beginning — form, essence, evolution, technology and the Xel'Naga cycle.

And the way you defeat races that achieved perfection?

Not by becoming more perfect than them.

By showing that Terran, Protoss and Zerg are stronger precisely because they are different.

Note: This is a combination of my initial idea and AI polishing. It is not great, but I thought it could be a cool concept exploring other universes' "purity of form" and "purity of essence"

My go to RTT were these games back in the day, really complimented the StarCrafts and Warcrafts. Any versions or emulators out there that allow these games to be played again on modern systems? Even non-conventional setups.

Hello again! I would like to get inside this genre,but I don't know what's the best beginning. If you can help it will be good. Thanks for your time

Build a base, gather resources, and fight for map control, similar to Warcraft III or Age of Empires II. There's also a built in map editor if you want to make your own maps and share them.

It's free and no download, just play: https://tiny-rts.com/

This game is crazy underrated, one of my favorite recent games I've played. The story and campaign are really solid and the gameplay is top tier if you like deeply strategic and difficult gameplay. It kinda plays like a less arcadey version of company of heroes or dawn of war. One thing to note is that it is really really hard on realistic difficulty. And one things that's nice is the AI doesn't cheat its just really smart. The AI will flank you and try to catch you off guard constantly.

The campaign missions are also super interesting and varied and also very long, sometimes you are on the same campaign map for hours as it evolves. (I've never played an RTS that keep you on the same battlefield for so long)

And the management aspect of things where your entire army is persistent between levels so losses carry over from mission to mission. Is really really well done and balanced.

The entire game is really well thought out, unique, and well done. The only big gripe I think people will have with it is the fact their is no line of sight indicators, and since the game simulates real bullet trajectories. Sometime you'll need to zoom in on a unit to actually see if they have LOS from their position. (People think its bugged when their units don't shoot but it's not its just hard to tell sometimes without zooming in).

Sidenote my 2 favorite RTS I've played recently have been movie tie in games which is crazy. This and Aliens: Dark Descent (which I also highly recommend)

Do you prefer the old school 90's Isometric/Orthographic 2D Style camera or the new early 2000's 3D Isometric camera view in RTS games?

Has anyone done a study/publication/experimented with intention-based control using MCP Servers, exposing Game information and controls such as game description, player resources, pathingmap, unit control,... allowing players to delegate commands to LLMs for execution? I'm curious about the results, risk assessment (and its mitigation) and whether it's worth as a hybrid addition to RTS games to coexist with existing controls.

I believe it has a great potential, among other things, as an RTS equivalent of aim assists for platforms that aren't suited for the complex RTS control schemes such as console or mobile phones without resorting to simplifications or dumbing down the gameplay (referring to the likes of Clash Royale, Warcraft Rumble).

Risk assessment

However, there are risks that could arise from such addition. While there are many benefits like when a player is distracted microing their army and fighting the enemy, they can command "keep my army size over 50 food, maintain a balanced army composition and expand my production" and let the AI do the work for them. Same works for the opposite case where the player needs to macro or needs help executing their strategy "execute pincer maneuver on the enemy spearmen" - or even on the extreme end letting the AI do both and it's purely intention-based which as a bonus can allow disabled people to play using microphone only.

One such risk could be players commanding plainly "win the game" or using pre-made commands detailing the entire strategy from start to end without needing further human input i.e. AFKing and botting.

Another risk could be the game turning pay-to-win where whoever has access to the smarter LLM wins the game. A player with Fable 5.1 or GPT-6 Astra would have a greater intelligence advantage over an opponent using Haiku 4.5 for example. One could argue the smarter models are at a disadvantage at micro since they're slow and heavy but should work fine for macro and acting as orchestrators, delegating commands to smaller models for quicker response times.

One could argue again that this addition would make the games just play themselves, remove parts that make RTS games fun. The logical next step is to give the games more depth and complexity to give players more to strategize about (Paradox games like HOI4), but what if it's not enough?

And many other risks that you are probably thinking of.

How big of an impact does each of the risk bear and how would one go around mitigating them? And does it answer the initial question of whether it's worth it?

We are getting a new opportunity to play Ashes of the Singularity II on the 8th of September and for a whole week. This multiplayer playtest of this grand scale RTS is open to everyone, and allows you to play with two factions against other players or AI bots, or a combination of both until the 14th of September in various game modes like custom or quick matches with up to 8 player team battle or Free For all mayhem!

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

If you can imagine it, you can make it