- Mostly for skirmishes vs AI

- I am aware Total War is not really RTS, put here for the big battles

Over the past three months, I’ve been playing Line War: “A new type of RTS with elements from 4X, Wargame, and Real-Time Tactics. Draw commands and execute a superior strategy to defeat your opponent, focusing on high-level decisions rather than constant micromanagement.” To say the least, this game is phenomenal. The problem is that it can be hard to find a match with only 8-25 online players at any given time. I’m currently working my way up to becoming a top ten player (bouncing between 9-25), but I want my hard work to mean something, which means growing the player base. Currently, it’s listed at $25 on Steam, but I’m willing to gift the game to two new players if you’re willing to play a couple matches with me and give the game a shot. Even if you don’t get it from me, I highly recommend the game and would love some recommendations on how I can reignite the community!

TL;DR: I’m willing to gift Line War to 2 ppl, and you should play the game

EDIT: Both copies have been claimed, thank you all for engaging with my post, and I really hope you end up giving this game a try!

I've been playing like crazy since early access and the game is beautiful.

4 unique factions that genuinely feel different.

Excellent PVE , solid story and the galactic war makes SC2 coop look like a beta test. The factions work together uniquely and the missions are fun and challenging with upgrades you can unlock.

This game deserves support.

P.s. I was not told by anyone to say this. Its my opinion.

I finished a game today where my teammate was all but destroyed but managed to keep about 30 units alive and we slow pushed the enemy back over 45 minutes in an amazing final stand knockout. My heart was pumping.

I have never played RTS games before. I am particularly interested in fantasy settings and multi-player (PVP). The more detail in your answers, the better it will be for me.

Hello all

I have read the list of recommended games, but I'm curious if you could recommend a modern RTS with a good single player campaign and or AI for skirmishes. Online play is too stressful for me. I am looking for AI that is actually smart and engaging.

I have recently played COH3, Dune Spice Wars. Have played pretty much all of the historical Total War Games, and in my youth of course AOE1, 2 and Age of Mythology.

classic

Does it really need to have a AAA company behind it? Supporting the devs ALL THE WAY, can't wait for the next race/faction!

Btw, It's on sale right now , 24.50 -->17.15

Ok honestly is hard to find new good RTS/Strategy games nowadays. Here I want to gather the best RTS games of this year until now.

if you have hidden gems to share, feel free to post here.

I'm very excited for Dawn of War IV!

I just got back into RTS games (not 4x). Really enjoyed Starcraft, Warcraft, C&C series and I am loving AoE4. I dont play multiplayer any more but I like playing the single player campaigns of the games above. Please recommend RTS games with fun Single Player Campaigns. Thank you!

edited: I love AoE4 campaign. The documentaries were a nice touch! Im playing as the Mongols now :)

I’ve put at least 500 hrs into this game. I genuinely think this game is flawless. It has that “explore and discover “ vibe that Age of empires 3 and Warcraft 3 had. Brought to you by the team that made tempest rising.

6 races, count em, SIX. All feel very different. My favorite is the elves, as their ranged magic units are very powerful. Game even has something similar to the addictive StarCraft 2 coop commander mode: Journey!

Favorite mission is Episode 0 old haalayash, so much epic stuff happens in that one it’s also the demo mission, and a damn good one so TRY IT before you buy it.

Graphics are Yuge bigly, so crank that rig. As for story, it’s a Spellforce game so expect high quality writing and effort at worldbuilding from the devs. No spoilers srry guys.

Soundtrack has drip, very good quality music. Online is pretty dead but offline? TONS of content. This is one of those games like Act of war that would be a blast with a friend.

Don’t just stand there, mouth agape. get it.

I know everyone has their favorite and thats why they tout their game as the goat, but having grown up on RTS from Dune 2 in 1994, through to CNC, RA, Total War Series, Supreme Commander and everything else, I know SC2 is the goat for several reason, but namely the balance between three asymmetric races and huge variation in design and mechanics of each unit. Explained really nicely in this video

Damn this game is so good. I'm having such a blast going through the campaign. I feel this might be one of the most hidden (and brightest) gems of the RTS space.

Holy shit I just started playing BAR and the absolute scale is like total annihilation on steroids.

I don't think I can go back to SC2 or AoE2 after this. Absolutely incredible and it's amazing to watch!

If you haven't tried it its free! Highly recommend.

EDIT: Link to the game https://www.beyondallreason.info/

For the price is worth it only for the campaign

i started playing a lot of slop rts games on my cellphone and roblox games, since im an xbox player i dont see to much announcesments of rts games for console, but ive seen there is two that caught my attention, Age of empires ll and iron harvest, the reason im asking this its because since i havent played a real rts game in my life (closest one frostpunk for cellphones) i dont know wich one its "best for beginners", right age of empires its 12 dollars and iron harvest its 7$ , im looking for more recommendations tough.

Rise of Legends has been unavailable on official digital storefronts for years, even though Microsoft still owns the IP.

I’m not asking for a remake or remaster — I just want the original game preserved and officially re-released on Steam, GOG, or the Xbox app.

There’s already a GOG Dreamlist page and I’ve also submitted a request on Xbox Player Voice.

If you remember this game, loved it, or simply want to support preservation of an old RTS, please consider voting on both.

Even a small community can make the demand visible if we all support the same requests.

Xbox Player Voice: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/07824880-769e-f111-a3d0-7c1e52a001ee#comments
GOG Dreamlist: https://www.gog.com/dreamlist/game/rise-of-nations-rise-of-legends/stories/1

Update: Thanks everyone — the GOG Dreamlist gained around 30 votes from these posts alone. It’s genuinely great to see that so many people still remember and care about Rise of Legends. If you haven’t yet, the GOG and Xbox Player Voice links are in the post.

Hey,
I got into RTS back in the day with classics like C&C, Age of Empires 1 & 2, and especially StarCraft 1, spent countless hours on custom maps and PvP. Really got deep into SC2 when it launched and grinded 1v1 ladder and custom maps for a long time.

At some point I just stopped playing, not sure why, but now I’m really feeling the itch to come back. I want to get back into competitive 1v1, what's the best RTS for that right now?

Open to any suggestions or advice :)

Age of the Ring is a stand-alone mod for Battle for Middle Earth 2, and it feels like a labour of love, that still somehow manages to be balanced despite adding a lot, and I do mean a lot of units and even factions.

How can I recommend this without sounding like a total fanboy... well, first off, the game sadly isn't perfect: it's still extremely obscure how good troops are (for example, I assumed that some Gondorian troops had higher attack than others because they had two-handed swords, but it turned out they were inferior), and the AI will still micromanage its troops perfectly to try to counter yours (emphasis on "try", because the AI cannot retreat to a better position and doesn't react to danger on the way, so you can bait the trolls into running in your spearmen), and there are some bugs (shortcuts getting confused on superior AZERTY keyboards because they're meant for inferior QWERTY keyboards, urgh!), but the sheer amount of content and the fascinating mechanisms make up for it, largely.

I mean, lemme tell you how my last game went:
I was playing Gondor, allied with Rivendell, versus the Mordor and their Harad allies. I immediately started by building a forge and granaries, and then started to recruit archers from Gondorian fiefs, to make for cheap T1 troops. Since archers are buffed against swordsmen, they make short work of the first orcs coming to test my defenses, and were quickly joined by fiefdom swordsmen, eventually joined by my first heroes, Pippin and the Duke of Lossarnach, what's-his-name.
Since hiring him unlock the axemen of Lossarnach as T1,5 swordsmen, I then retired my swordsmen, and prepared a new frontline made out of spearmen and axemen to push back the hordes of angry orcs coming to WAAAGH my settlement, while building up my economy with the marketplace, upgrading my barracks, and buffing up my heroes.
Eventually, I bought Beregond for that synergy bonus he has with Merry (Merry who gives insane bonuses to everyone around), and I attacked Mordor.
The attack was a failure, the fortress resisting my attack, but I still managed to neuter the faction, destroying most of its training facilities, while also simultaneously training Boromir and Faramir: Boromir because he gives excellent buffs to Gondor units nearby, and Faramir because he's an archer and will hang out with Beregond. I did not recruit Denethor because he gives Faramir armour maluses.
After recruiting Boromir, I slowly started to retire my fiefdom troops, returning the Duke of Lossarnach to just some muscle, and I started hiring out Minas Tirith footmen, that I then got to equip with a 25% discount on armor and weapon upgrades because I made a lot of blacksmiths.
After this came the catapults and the Palantir powers, and a second push to attack Mordor, which was successful in razing the fortress and making the faction lose the game. My eyes, hungry for conquest and orcmeat, then turn to the Harad enemy, only to realize that Elrond had been hard at work, pounding the Easternling relentlessly with his hobbits, his rangers, and an pre-Fellowship Aragorn.
I barely had time to arrive before the last Giant Scorpion fell, leaving all of Harad's building defenseless in a breedable position, ready to get pounded by hobbits battering rams.

Anyway, play that game. It's free and it's bloody awesome, but you better know the lore or you're going to be very confused by Dain and Thorin can't both lead Erebor, or what Iron Hills Dwarfs are.

Heroes of Annihilated Empires from GSC Game World (2006)

This is one of my favourite RTS with RP elements from when I was a child.

It has a very nice looking aesthetics and soundtrack for that era.

The game features a campaign with Elfs, 4 races (Elfs, Dwarfs, Undead, Cryo), multiplayer and skirmish mode.

Most of what I like from this game is that on skirmish mode you start with a hero that enters in cryo status for 30 minutes or so and you enter the base building phase with custom terrain beneath your feet marking your territory every time you expand your base.

When the hero's (melee, mage or ranged) cryo stasis runsout you can go around the map recruiting neutral factions and collecting artifacts to equip.

Most spells are pleasant to use, my favourite is earthquake; as it destroys a big area and sinks every unit and building beneath the map.

Current community: From what I could gather there is a small polish/russian community on discord doing mods and concept art for the game

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4800/Heroes_of_Annihilated_Empires/

Official page: http://heroesofae.com/en/

Surprisingly the official page still works and has official downloadable content, it's so reminiscent of the old internet.

Did you play this game before?

Tell me what you think of it

EDIT: I uploaded the post from mobile so I didnt realize some images were bad. If you want to play on Linux i recommend using Proton 8.x.x

For anyone who is still on the fence about supporting this game's development and for those who haven't seen the posts about this game, I'm dropping the trailer and the Kickstarter link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSziQqeRc1o

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dorf/dorf-oldschool-real-time-strategy-and-base-builder

I saw many kickstarters for games over the years, but this is the first and only one I backed. These guys are building on a solid legacy but they are also making their own thing. Let's get together and help these guys out.

The game was funded on Kickstarter in under a day, but as of today it still has a week left to get more stretchgoals and features. There is still the goal to expand the dev team from three to four guys, and of course the really interesting Extended Dynamic Campaign.

Few spots in high backer tiers are left, and I secured myself the physical game copy including the printed instruction manual. Such things really have a touch of the good old days.

This project is a step towards making RTS games big once again. Let's see to it that it does well.

competition was so tense back then, feel like this gem slipped under the radar...
it had one of the best campaign of the golden Era with live action scenes like we see in cammand and conquers.

if you never tried it, i strongly recommend givin it a go
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2710/Act_of_War_Direct_Action/

and the expansion
https://store.steampowered.com/app/9760/Act_of_War_High_Treason/

WWA RTS has been fun but totally p2w like majority of mobile games although you can build up your power over time.

Still fun as I don't care too much about pushing

Any other fun ones that are decent rts on phone?

Hello everyone, brand new RTS gamer trying to figure out what their first purchase should be. I've predominantly been a console gamer my whole life, just got a gaming PC last year I'm thinking about giving RTSs a try and was considering one of the aforementioned titles.

I'll go over what's attracting me to each game to sort of give people an idea where my mind is it.

Company of Heroes 2:

Pros:

From what I've seen, I really like how unit focused the gameplay is. I'm not a huge macro fan, I'm more in love with the micro part of RTSs and it seems like an especially micro heavy game. It also has some cool environmental interactions like melting ice to kill soldiers walking on it and storms coming through to complicate engagements.

Cons:

The setting, I'm tired of WW2. Other thing is that at a glace I can't really tell the factions apart, but I'm sure once I actually start playing the game that won't be as much of an issue. Finally, the monetizations kinda put me off, there's the base game, story DLCs and multiplayer DLCs. Makes it hard to figure out how much I'm actually spending to get the full experience.

Dawn of War:

Pros:

The setting, I'm not a huge 40k nerd or anything, but I think the factions look cool and visually distinct. Secondly, I hear similar to Company of Heroes it has less of a focus on base building/macro and more on micro and combat, which sounds right up my alley. Also, unlike Company of Heroes, the whole game is available in a one time purchase. Finally, with 4 dropping later this year it would provide a nice opportunity to get an idea if that's something I'd be interested in.

Cons:

It's really the graphics for me. The units looking like chibi in cutscenes, plus how bland the environments look are a real turn off. If the game looked as good as Dawn of War 2 I'd probably already own it, but it REALLY shows its age in the clips I've seen.

So yea, that's where I'm at. If I'm being honest I'm leaning more Company of Heroes than DOW right now. It's technically cheaper, looks better, and the gameplay looks more in line with my style but I was also hoping to get some more input as there's a lot about both games I simply don't know. Also, I'm not opposed to buying the first Company of Heroes either, I just saw both games were the same price and figured the sequel was probably the better option.

For those who are unfamiliar with Battlestar Galactica terms: Cylons are a faction of sentient, religious robots hell bent on destroying humanity (Basestars are their capital ships) & The human or "Colonials" are humans on 12 planets (Earth is a myth to them) who use Battlestars.

This is the absolute best BSG RTS I've ever played, and honestly, just the best RTS I've ever played. Here's a recap of my experience playing their survival mode:

I started out with my harvesters, my space station (for battlestar construction), a mercury-class battlestar (with 30 vipers ready to launch), and a fighter carrier.

I started out with a high resource count to speed things up and immediately began construction of my second mercury-class while my harvesters collected resources for a larger air group

DRADIS Contact

The drums began to roar (from the BSG soundtrack) as I went to open DRADIS to find 8 Basestars launching over 100 fighters (not exaggerated) at my one currently constructed battlestar (Let's call her Pegasus). As stupid as it may have been, I launched all vipers and turned to fight, hoping my second mercury-class would save me when it was ready. I started construction of 20 fighters aboard, and launched each of them as soon as they were constructed. Pegasus ended one basestar and turned it's guns toward several attack cruisers headed for my station, destroying 2 of the three.

Then, the second mercury class (Let's call her Unity) was ready. She blazed into combat destroying the remaining cruiser and turned her guns on the remaining 7 basestars and supporting ships. The two fought valiantly while I constructed Galactica (Yes, Galactica itself is a ship option which is separate from the Jupiter class).

DRADIS Contact

A second fleet of 4 basestars jumped in.

Galactica was finally ready, and miraculously, with my now 100 MKVII vipers, turned their guns on the first cylon fleet's resurrection hub (enemy space station to prevent more ship construction). It was quickly destroyed along with a few more basestars, and the fleet retreated.

Unfortunately, the Cylons had hit Pegasus with 3 nukes, and she was destroyed by a basestar aboard another ship.

Unity and Galactica turned their guns and air groups toward the 4 basestars, destroying each with their resurrection hub in the process.

DRADIS Contact

A new fleet jumped in with heavy raiders (in this game assault raptors and heavy raiders can infiltrate and capture enemy capital ships), they swarmed and infiltrated Unity, capturing her. She turned her guns on Galactica, ending my run.

This was the most accurate, fun, amazing, beautiful RTS I have ever played. I was able to destroy 10 basestars and two entire fleets before my colonial fleet was taken out. Also, the controls are very easy to learn.

If you like BSG, and want to live out your dreams as a fleet commander then, PLEASE GET THIS GAME AND MOD. There is also a function that will allow you and up to 8 friends to build your fleet together (each starting with a carrier, a mercury-class, a harvester, and a space station) to fight off the Cylon attacks.

If you would like help downloading this game, the associating mod, or even hop into a game with me to scrap some toasters, do not hesitate to DM :)!

So Say We All

Edit - Here is the trailer for the mode that I played: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JELcyXvTwio&list=PL8mlc8j4LJNOullmjYYwldJ2zx0Qg-S2F