It’s pretty cool to see a few more Dune 2 aficionados here. I bought the game, not because of reviews, but because I loved the Dune universe. But when I loaded up the game to play I was blown away at how brilliant the atmosphere was. From the voice-work, to the music, the design of the factions, and worm-sign in the desert sands. They hit it out of the park. Rarely have I ever been so excited to play a game as I was playing that.
- None right now
- Majesty
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Age of Empires II: DE - The amount of love and support this game gets is crazy, and the HD remake is just about as good as it could be. So many great decisions were made with this version.
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StarCraft - I think I sunk more hours into the original StarCraft (and the Brood Wars expansion) than many whole genres I’ve played. The campaign was just the right mix of cheesy space opera and difficulty, and the multiplayer was terrific. Add a million user-made maps and scenarios, and it was endless.
Nice call back to outstanding games.
- Spellforce 3
- Dark Reign; Future War
Vs my wife:
Seven Kingdoms (1998) by Trevor Chan
My wife and I had been playing a ton of Age of Empires by this point and Seven Kingdoms added some fantastic new features like spies and mercs. While I don’t recall all the differences between this game and other RTS games at the tim, I remember this game giving us quite a unique experience.
Age of Empires
This game dominated the playtime my wife and I had our first year together. Every minute of the game was fun for us, and we played it completely wrong, with 1v1 matches sometimes lasting 45 minutes simply because we enjoyed maxing everything out before attacking, and doing hit and run attacks just to annoy eachother. I intercepted and stole so many sheep from her.
Solo:
Battlezone (1998)
I just loved this game to death. I bought a remaster a couple years ago, but the controls are simply too antiquated to enjoy now days. I would buy a third entry in the series in a heartbeat.
I loved cruising along on different planets, I loved the first person shooter aspects, and the base building. One of my favorite games of all time.
Ooo nice choice with Battlezone! My friends and I created some maps for it back then, Insomniax map pack, which was pretty popular. Too bad the game didn’t get more popularity.
- Typically Age of Empires II, with the Definitive Edition of course, if you wanted a choice based on the year to date. However, temporarily Age of Empires III currently with the recent release of the Definitive Edition due to the new Civilizations and content.
- A two-way toss up between Relic Entertainment’s Company of Heroes and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. On the whole though I would probably give it to Dawn of War, brilliant game that also got me into modding. Still rue the disappointing failure that was Dawn of War III since it has left a massive vacant spot where once there was vibrant 40k RTS during the heydays of the first and second games.
Honourable mention for Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim as well for the second answer, twas mighty tempting to select that as my answer but that game works best as its own unique thing rather than trying to cater strictly to RTS conventions and tastes.
A lot has changed in 14 years, and interestingly, not changed as well.
I had the physical discs, big boxes, manuals, and all the jazz. I have long since sold it all away. 2006? Yeah, I was still holding on to physical media and opening PC disc trays.
Dawn of War
Command & Conquer, maybe Red Alert played online using a modem
- Now? I don’t play it very often because I’m not that good at it, but Offworld Trading Company, I guess
- I have incredibly fond memories of LAN parties with Shogun: Total War (the first one). My friend group all fell on it hard. It was so cool setting up five or six armies to face off on a simulated stormy night, hearing thunder echo through the room as it rumbled through all of our speakers in turn.
Runner up would be Total Annihilation. The story wasn’t much. Though I read that early in development the two sides were facing off in galactic conflict over which was better: the graduated cylinder or the Erlenmeyer flask. Terrific soundtrack and variety of units, though.
- Played Company of Heroes (1) in 2013 - that’s my most recent one.
- StarCraft 1 because of the campaigns. Tried to get through WarCraft 3 a few times, and part of the human campaign in StarCraft 2, but they’re just not the same.
Never liked these games as multiplayer games, as find the requirements to play well just stress we out (constantly acting, maintaining situational awareness over large areas that can’t be in view at the same time and ensuring you’re where you need to be at all times, PPM, etc.) The more story-driven campaign of StarCraft 1, and even WarCraft 2, were more appealing.
I did like Dark Reign back in the day, and even wrote a strategy guide that was several hundred pages which has since vanished.
Warcraft 3 probably had the one of the best campaigns, i think, just because of the cinematic cheese that had that ability to pull it off that later Blizzard games lost, being too anime and childish. The actual campaigns themselves weren’t that great, but there was a lot of fun moments that i still remember, which is more than basically any RTS campaign in memory.
Hell yeah!
I just played Fallen God this morning for the first time, my first Spellforce game since the original, and REALLLLLY enjoyed it!
The new Fallen God? I’m wrapping up Soul Harvest myself. How are the Trolls?
Amazingly well-written and compelling. I got choked up a few times this morning. Seriously.
I saw someone play the first mission. Soul Harvest isn’t as emotional (so far) but you do get to play with 3 of the nations in the campaign.
I really like how heroes develop in the campaign, and the ability to get mercs. Also, I like the RPG lite elements.
By the way, why Conquest: Frontier Wars? I loved the game, but there probably have to be as many people that put it in the top ten as people put Dark Reign into it.
Something about its mix of sensible logistics with multi-system maps and hero characters really worked for me. Oh, and the soundtrack.
I can’t argue with that. Those are excellent features.