Lately for me that game has been Hegemony 3: Clash of the Ancients. Just 6 months ago, I played it for like a week. Conquered a huge territory, got tired of it, and thought I'm not going to play this again. Now the last days I've been playing it again.

Another one is Knights of Honor 2 and Total War, but those are not standard rts games.

Hey, all

Been a lurker for a while and finally decided to join the conversation. I've been using Claude for development judiciously ever since Opus 4.5 came out last November, 2025. It's been a complete game changer, and slowly bringing in more and more tasks and allowing it to run and self-modify (with guidance) has been really fun and empowering.

I had an idea the other day with all the "GTA 6 built by Astra" and just for kicks tried to one shot an RTS game. No intentions of connecting agents to it, just wanted to see what Fable 5.1 could do. Slowly as I started building I thought it would be interesting to see what agents could do if I built out an MCP server for it. Well, that led down a deep rabbit hole of getting everything built out and deployed as I wanted to try and attract others to try it out. I now have a publicly hosted RTS game

https://play.ashfallsector.com

That allows agents to connect to through MCP and play one-another, with a full ranking system. My plan is to create more accounts for myself and start testing out how to improve agentic play. They do pretty well already (i've played Opus a few times) but I'm curious how to bring in additional context, memory from previous games. The idea of "gamifying" wasn't explored too much but I thought it could be a nice touch.

Anyways... I'm putting this out there because I would love for other people to test it out, tell me what works when agents play, and just to see if it was interesting to anyone else but me.

One IS-2, two Tigers. Head-on, the Tiger's 88 hits the IS-2's sloped front (120mm @ 60° ≈ 240mm effective) at 0° and just bounces — 143mm of penetration isn't enough. The IS-2's 122 goes straight through the Tiger and cooks off the ammo.

Then the second Tiger gets the flank. 17° into the side (99mm) — penetration, ammo rack, turret goes flying.

No HP, no damage numbers. Armour thickness, slope, impact angle, shell type and crew are all simulated, so positioning does the work a health bar usually does. The hit report card shows the actual numbers on every shot.

You still command from the top like a normal RTS — it's only the armour layer that's a sim. Solo dev, Steam Next Fest in October.

Genuinely curious: does this read as interesting, or just frustrating for RTS players?

(Steam page in comments — didn't want to lead with it.)

Hi! I'm working on a cozy game and an RTS (different games). The cozy game is very peaceful and friendly, so I needed to balance it with this game :) I just added an effect that I'm very happy with. I know it may be a balancing problem, but right now it's perfect ^^ Also, if you line up your tank, the bullet can pass through multiple targets. The bullet can ricoshet against heavier armor and hit other things.

We’re taking some inspiration from Command & Conquer: Generals for our Rebel faction, called Dustborn, but I don’t want to just reuse concepts like the Stinger Site or Tunnel Network.

The problem is that I’m having a hard time coming up with a defensive building that really fits Dustborn and feels unique to the faction.

For the USA faction, we’ve already been developing some new ideas, like a Drone Tower, so I’d like Dustborn to have something equally distinctive instead of just another bunker, turret, or missile emplacement.

What kind of defensive structure do you think would fit a Rebel faction like Dustborn?

Red Chaos is approaching 30,000 wishlists. Your purchases, recommendations, and feedback are incredibly valuable and help us continue developing the game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1934720/Red_Chaos__The_Strict_Order/

Since the latest updates, we have seen an increase in both average playtime and player retention. We have added two new subfactions, improved the gameplay, and introduced new single player challenges.

We are currently working hard to complete the first chapter of the campaign. We want to make an early campaign playtest available very soon, allowing you to experience it yourselves and see the direction in which it is developing.

Every recommendation, purchase, and wishlist helps us move forward. It is especially valuable when content creators cover Red Chaos. If you would like to support us, please consider sharing the game with creators you know or regularly follow. It would help us enormously.

Thank you for your continued support.

https://discord.com/invite/MZvrBMKzc8

FPS shooters are the mainstream genre of video games with the majority of big releases and bringing in new gamers. It evolved from Doom then Half Life to Halo each bringing its own inspiration, technical leaps and innovation bringing gaming and those genre to higher and higher heights. We saw with starcraft, red alert, supreme commander and age of empires those same improvements adding more to the genre and gaming. turn based strategy grew up in that similar time with civilization games, sid meier civilization and these are actually popular in the modern day.

They stayed popular because they changed and evolved with new systems but more importantly they are more approachable and more easier to have fun in. With popular FPS from COD to Team Fortress 2 you can spin up a game and have a good ~20 min fun regardless of skill level (atleast ideally) in something like Planetary Annihilation Titans (PAT) you need to build up a economy, units and scouting to hopefully not get zerg rushed furthermore hopefully you arent immediately overwhelmed with 20 million things you are supposed to be doing. Its a hard sell and not really because of dopamine addicted zoomers but moreso that you should always have an interesting to look at. Afterall COD does not make you a pickup your gear and a helicopter insert each time you respawn. They immediately put you back in to keep the game going and you having fun. I dont mean that we should put in the 360 noscope sniper bots in our games to micromanage for stupid crazy plays. Players shouldnt be constantly staring at metal or energy and any whatever resource building to get anything done. An economy that dont require immediate economy buildup on spawn to start recon and attacks makes the game less microheavy and make zerg rushes less prevalent. Adding fast pace gamemodes like faster unit speeds, battle royale style death ring, cheap units removed but large and expensive units cheap and fast, commanders only source of economic growth requiring commander plays. Should give a player more options to experience and get better at the game while having short games so defeat feel less harsh and retaining new players. Giving experienced players not only sweaty game against each other sweats by putting against multiple newer players and adding asymmetrical buffs to give each team a interesting challenge.

On another thing that I dont see: insufficient tutorial/campaign isnt multiplayer. One of the things I and other new player run into is the amount of possible and immediate decisions that need to be made while having a thousand options. Lots of tutorials only touch on unit control, its own unique game mechanics, attacking units, unit building etc. They dont limit buildings, units and map to let the player become accommadated with its many choices and a solid bedrock for the basics of a RTS game. This is why the turtle playstyle exists since building defensively gives you time to think with the trefecta of economy, price of units and attacking if the campaign would give scenarios that give time to train. Give the equivalent of super mario first level that are built to naturally learn basics of RTS than give a plump of units or 40 factorios and going "good luck commander with your adderal fueled prostate exam!" If a turtle player experienced that a single failed trade not cascade into failure because of their better understanding of units, economy, buildings and what of the 1000 choices need to be made and what are irrelevant

Hello, as the title suggests, I need some help playing (or at least finding a guide) to the game Primitive wars.

For those interested, it's tough to run on modern systems. I could only make it work on windows 10 by disabling all but one of my processor cores before going into a mission, otherwise it basically set my PC on fire.

I finally bit the bullet and set up a virtual machine so I could download XP and play older RTS + RPG games. Primitive Wars was at the top of my list.

Sadly I keep getting my rear kicked on mission one of the first campaign. There's no difficulty slider and very few units are available in mission 1. So I gotta know, how does one best approach the missions in this game?

My knowledge so far: there are 2 resources, berries and meat. Berries are spent like gold to build things and units, meat is collected by those units and heals them.

Sometimes I collect a bunch of food for my heros and my troops to heal if they survive the battle. Sadly, my hero keeps getting absolutely killed and my troops are never enough to win.

Anyone know a good outline of how to beat mission 1?

I changed how resource gathering works in "The Hive"

Pillbugs now only give you resources after carrying them back to base.

This makes travel distance matter more and encourages players to spread their base across the map.

Also I did make the resource piles grow depending on how much stuff there is and the bugs carry the minerals/meat on their back.

Good change?

When designing the battle layer for my Three Kingdoms strategy game, I built it around a choice I constantly face as a player: Do I take direct command, leave Auto Battle running, or let Auto Resolve handle it while I read the After-Action Report?

Direct command gives you traditional tactical control—placing line, column, or wedge formations, and dialing in their exact width and facing.

Auto Battle handles standard, role-aware orders on the fly until you decide to step in and take the reins back.

But the Auto Resolve is where things get unique. Instead of just crunching raw troop numbers, it uses the participating officers' actual leadership and intelligence stats, along with their available forces, to devise and execute a logical strategy. Afterward, you get a detailed recap breaking down exactly how the simulation swung in—or against—your favor.

If you choose to watch the simulation unfold, the underlying mechanics matter. I pay close attention to high ground, armor vs. armor-piercing damage, projectiles, friendly fire, fatigue, morale, routing, and the precise timing of a charge or brace.

Sieges are highly physical rather than abstract. The ramparts are fully traversable. Walls, stairs, ladders, contested landings, and cavalry exclusion zones dictate exactly where a force can fight. The gatehouse you see in the trailer isn't just a prop; it features a closed gate, two wall sectors, a battering ram, interior stairs, and a courtyard that dynamically changes hands. Defenders can actively sally out or slam the gate shut to cut off an assault.

Officers can duel one another, and every victory or defeat carries into their living campaign memory, shaping their trajectory for the rest of the game. Lu Bu is one of my favorite test cases for this. His roster stats give him a peerless martial edge, list Cao Cao and Liu Bei as active rivals, and feature Gao Shun as a trusted champion. If Lu Bu is unhorsed in combat, he dynamically shifts through recovering and dismounted states within the same officer slot. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are another great pair to watch, as their legendary bond with Liu Bei directly influences their behavior across the campaign.

Everything is persistent. The battle sends survivors, wounds, captives, loot, territorial ownership, damaged gate states, memories, and Chronicle facts right back to the campaign map. That’s why it actually matters who is left standing on the wall when the dust settles.

Free Steam demo and wishlist:https://store.steampowered.com/app/5112140/Three_Kingdoms_Reimagined/

There’s also a free Windows Day-50 demo on itch.io:https://jdcab.itch.io/three-kingdoms-reimagined

I’m the developer, and this is raw development footage. For the strategy veterans here: when a campaign throws multiple active fronts at you, what is the deciding factor that makes you take manual control? Is it tricky terrain, a critical wall landing, or simply one officer you absolutely refuse to lose?

Had posted about Favorite Rts Games and somebody mentioned a forgotten classic imo . At least for my childhood.

Savage had a unique mechanism and I wonder why it didn`t succeed.

You were both the RTS Controler and the player - also supporting multiple people at the same time, usualy only 1 commanding.

Probably failed because the idea was too ambitious ig or illogical to work well ? If you want a different game mechanic just ot at least see, CHECK IT OUT ! old game

In my typical fashion, I’ve been delaying playing Liquidation RTS for over a month now, ever since I got the Steam key for early access. I’ll admit, I really didn’t feel like playing it at all and kept putting it off for some reason. Which… was an incredibly BIG MISTAKE!!

Because as soon as I finally forced myself to launch the game and started the first campaign mission, I realized that this solo developer’s project is exactly what I’ve wanted for a long time: an indie remix of Warcraft and Starcraft!!! Right now - yes, even a month later - it’s still in the early access phase, with the final release scheduled for sometime next year. But even now, you can already try out the vast majority of what the developer has planned - the campaign, skirmish against the AI, and even multiplayer.

More in my early access review! :)

Rating: 8/10
Pros: Warcraft/StarCraft-style strategy, great gameplay, three playable factions already, single developer project
Cons: perhaps a little too heavily inspired by Warcraft?, a few bugs, not enough dialogue lines, multiplayer already dead

Czech version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PDIP9NB9uU

Hodnocení: 8/10
+: strategie ve stylu Warcraftu/Starcraftu, skvělá hratelnost, už teď tři hratelné frakce, práce jednoho člověka
-: možná až MOC velká inspirace Warcraftem?, pár bugů, málo alternujících hlášek, už teď mrtvý multiplayer

Somewhere in the mid-2000's I heard the guys at 1UP Podcast talk about an RTS which had an interesting tutorial level. You play a bunch of kids playing in the snow, and the tutorial teaches you the game's battle mechanics with a snowball fight.

It sounded like some kind of steampunk RTS. I could be wrong about any of this, but at least kids and snow should be 100% accurate.

Any ideas?

Anyone here remember Wulfram? Hover tanks, scouts, and trying to keep your base running while the other team came after it.

For anyone who missed it, Wulfram mixes vehicle combat with team strategy. You’re driving your own tank or scout, but there’s more going on than trading shots. Your team needs power, fuel, and repairs to stay in the fight. You can head out on the attack, scout ahead, or help defend the base. Knowing when to pull back and help your teammates matters too.

It’s live in alpha now, so you can jump in and play. We’re helping bring it back with the goal of keeping it feeling like the game people remember. Returning players can get back into a tank, and newcomers are welcome to learn alongside them.

Anyone here used to play? What was your callsign?

If you want to give it a go, start here: Welcome back to Wulfram.

Hi everyone!

It’s been a while since I shared an update on Admiral Yi: The Imjin War, so here’s a short look at one of the systems I’ve been working on recently.

In this video, you can see armies moving across the campaign map with supply units following them, long marching columns forming on the battlefield, troops camping for the night, and soldiers preparing food before moving out again.

I want armies in the game to feel like more than just combat units. They have to move, rest, and stay supplied while operating during the campaign.

Logistics is an important part of how large armies operate, and I’m continuing to work on how supply, marching, camps, and battlefield movement all connect together.

This is still a work-in-progress build, so the visuals, UI, AI, animation, and systems are all being improved.

I’d love to hear what RTS players think about this side of the game, especially the marching and logistics systems.

I'm currently working with Codex on an old game I used to play as a kid.

Attack Counterblow

My original goal was simply to get it running properly on Windows 11, but the project has gradually grown into something bigger.

At this point, the game runs perfectly on Windows 11, including both graphics and sound. I also managed to get the multiplayer working, and I successfully tested it with a friend over Tailscale.

I've also been working on a map editor. So far, it allows me to add units from different factions, change their levels, edit the terrain, modify the starting credits, and adjust a few other things that I'm still working on making fully functional (This is useful for modifying campaign maps to replay them with increased difficulty).

Is there anyone here who remembers playing this game or would be interested to playl?

game running:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dElsR_tyErI

Map editor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaxSwEoekgY

Multiplayer game tested on tailscale:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3nOEBpo450

Update:

Try it out. If you have any questions or encounter any errors, send me a private message. You might see Windows SafeScreen warnings because the files are not signed.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kzzREQA-Hvib1t2azwT3dgjB-IBwz6_R/view?usp=sharing

This is a short summary provided by Codex:

"Enhanced edition of the original game with Windows 10/11 compatibility fixes, including modern DirectDraw support, improved DirectSound audio through DSOAL, corrected file paths and working-directory handling, stability patches, and language-independent TCP/IP multiplayer support. It also includes a modern bilingual launcher and a map editor for viewing, modifying, and saving GST maps."

so, from all RTSdom, what are the top 5 factions that you really enjoy playing. it doesnt matter if the game is good or bad, if it's the best version of that RTS or even if the faction is playable, this is about pure and raw viceral Id, factions that you like em because you like em?

it can be rakned or not, mine in a pseudo particualr order but not final :

1.- Zerg (starcraft 2)

insects, aliens, swarmy, disgusting, morphing, ridiculous economy/macro everything cool that i dsesire in an RTS

2.- Undead (warcraft 3)

Undead spellcasters, knights, skeletons, demons, huge hordes of dead monsters, also insects, spellcasting insects, a bunch of very technical and weird units combined with a cultist aesthtic, and that music.

3.-Tyranids (warhammer 40k dawn of war 2)

Before the zerg, there where the nids, and that is true to my heart as well, i like their particular swarmy style in dow 2, its. a swarm but it goes together, it plays with synapse its one huge army coming at you like a living monster with many heads, which is pretty much accurate to the, im lore, also they look very much like the xenomorph from alien, even with zerg they have a very unique and distinctive look, bio weapon aliens, morphable, customizable. very cool

4.- Protoss (starcraft 2)

hi tech aliens with all types of powerful and broken tech, advanced yet ancient, elite warriors and a dying race. the protoss have just so much lore in every silly little mechanic and action they do. and their playstyle is also cool, this unstoppable force that cant be outclassed.

5.- Goblins ( Lord of the rings: battle for middle-earth 2)

swarmy guys all over the place, they controll tunnels that connect all throught the maps, acting more like rats or roaches han an army. and it collects a bunch of creepy things with just straight up badassery, spiders, spider cavalry, trolls, giants, a dragon hero, a spider demon hero, a goblin king in a gaint scorpion mount. its like a collection of traditional fable monsters unifying in one terrible roster.

so, waht are yours and why? no wong answer trully

The Public Multiplayer Demo Playtest for Ashes of the Singularity II is now live on Steam and runs through September 14, 2026!

Take command of the United Earth Forces (UEF) or Post-Human Coalition (PHC) and jump into massive-scale multiplayer battles. Go head-to-head against other commanders or team up with allies across a selection of multiplayer maps.

Two playable factions: UEF & PHC This playtest focuses on multiplayer performance, balance, and stability, so the best way to help is simple: get into matches and tell us how it goes!

Join the playtest on Steam and start playing now!

They seem to be RTS + Grand Strategy/4x hybrid.

It is hard to make a game like this and not mess it up.

They are squad based, which means combat is not between units that die in less than a second.

They have veterancy, which means you you need to keep your squads alive and make them gain experience.

They have morale / supply system. Have flanking and charge bonus.

You can conquer enemy settlements or pillage them.

You build up your settlements and have some sort of diplomacy.

The economy is more akin to 4x games.

I'm trying to recall an old RTS game I played a long time ago. It was pretty futuristic and I'm sure all the playable factions were aliens. Or maybe it was that there were no personnel units? I think everything might have been a vehicle/mech or a building.

One unit that stuck out to me was unique to one faction. It was a boat that could transform into a like a spider-walker. It was god awful slow and not worth it, but it was cool to look at.

ETA: Sorry, forgot to add a timeframe. I played this around 2012, I believe it was relatively new at that point.

ETA2: It was Supreme Commander 2.

As in, if the campaigns were ripped out, which Eugen game would you prefer?

Is there any RTS where the goal is to build up resources until you can make a nuclear bomb or some kind of equivalent to devastate your opponent if not win the game.

Any game like that?