Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Oi, RTS Players: What Do You Play?

By Jim Rossignol on March 23rd, 2011 at 8:09 pm.


I’ve been playing a lot of RTS games of late. Men Of War: Assault Squad, obviously, but also Dawn Of War 2: Retribution and Shogun 2. It’s a lot of RTS. In fact, I’m rather rediscovering my love for ordering tiny people to their doom. What I am currently interested in and intrigued by, though, is the games that RPS reader play on a regular basis. Are you guys playing Starcraft 2 nightly? Or weekendly? Is anyone lamented the end of Company Of Heroes Online?

What I want is comments: tell me what strategy games you are play, and how often you play them. Do you play multiplayer? Or lonesome-player? Also, I really want to know if you play as part of a team or clan. Expose your habits!

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333 Comments »

  1. 23/03/2011 at 20:15 Grot_Punter says:

    Well, I’m quite fond of the squish my Imps make in Retribution (both in normal multiplayer and Last Stand), and whenever I am bothered to fire it up, I regularly enjoy some of the custom maps in SC 2. Oh, and Sins. I sure do love me some Sins.

    • 24/03/2011 at 08:33 Mirqy says:

      Yep, lots of Sins. Although I have only just got round to buying the expansions and my brain is still trying to figure them all out, so I’ve gone back to invading Poland in Empires.

    • 24/03/2011 at 10:56 itchyeyes says:

      Sins has become sort of my Civizilation of RTS games. I don’t play it religiously, or really with any sort of regularity. But it’s a game that I come back to every couple months or so, when I’m between other games. Very few games have that sort of longevity for me.

  2. 23/03/2011 at 20:15 Kefren says:

    Earth 2150. Teeny bit of Defcon. All else is turn-based (HOMM2, HOMM3, Desktop Dungeons, Rune War, Laser Squad on the Amiga, UFO, Lords of Chaos).

    • 23/03/2011 at 20:21 Jim Rossignol says:

      Earth 2150! Really? After all this time?

    • 23/03/2011 at 20:54 Krixodus says:

      What else are you supposed to do considering that 2150 is far superior to 2160.

    • 23/03/2011 at 20:55 Kefren says:

      Yes. About half of the games I play are old ones (part of the reason why I hate DRM and online activation http://karldrinkwater.blogspot.com/2011/03/drm-will-kill-us-all.html – if the current systems were in place 10-15 years ago most of my games would be unplayable).

      My nephew liked Earth 2150 when he used to visit. I used to have a boxed version but I don’t know where it went so recently I re-bought it on GOG. It came with some expansion packs which were a grind to play through, so I’ll just stick to the main game in future. We can’t get it running perfectly on my laptop so don’t play LAN often but the music is great, and the three races feel very different but balanced. There is something really compelling about the main game, and when you track down a huge undefended resource field and manage to hold it against all comers it feels somehow real.

    • 23/03/2011 at 20:56 Teddy Leach says:

      2160′s not THAT bad. I remember the wealth of crazy crap that it came with. Seems like they put a hell of a lot of effort into the packaging. Either that, or I picked up an unmarked collector’s edition. I dunno, I’ve got a soft spot for it.

    • 23/03/2011 at 21:12 Dreamhacker says:

      Earth 2150 is probably one of the most underrated RTS’s of the 00′s. The atmosphere in that game is incredible! And that ED soundtrack is fit to be played in a concert hall!
      As for other games:
      Shogun 2 – around 4 hours a day the last week.
      Dawn of War I – At LAN parties.
      Supreme Commander I
      Civilization IV-V
      Sword of the Stars

      Oh, and Master of Orion 2. There still is not a fully worthy successor.

    • 23/03/2011 at 21:30 FalseMyrmidon says:

      Earth 2150 was pretty rad.

    • 24/03/2011 at 06:48 nukeofwf says:

      I would like to add that i also play Warzone2100 every now and again too. As every few months rolls past i google the internets to check if there are anything similar to wz2100 or earth 2150… researching developing and putting together chassis are so fun and require more strategy than most are willing to invest… oh also ED for the win, nothing like a direct-fire shield-bypassing main STARTING weapon to really even it all out for those cheapass LC players that overshield EVERYTHING!

    • 26/03/2011 at 14:35 Kefren says:

      The annoying thing about the ED is that I always wanted to use their heavy lasers that make the enemy explode, but enemy shields made the weapon almost useless. UCS plasma could rip shields apart though.

  3. 23/03/2011 at 20:16 ShowMeTheMonkey says:

    Did play a lot of CoHO…. Had a nice team going too…

    I wish I could play Shogun 2 at the moment but it’s so damn expensive everywhere! I’ll have to pass that one by for awhile.

    So Napoleon it is!

    • 24/03/2011 at 02:27 Zakski says:

      Coho was a lot more fun than vcoh imho, in some ways it added a lot of new strategic options, at the expense of balance

  4. 23/03/2011 at 20:16 Cornstar says:

    MoW Assault Squad in co-op skirmish mode with a mate. Before that mostly Company of Heroes co-op when it comes to RTS. More games need co-op, I’m too old for competitive multiplayer!

  5. 23/03/2011 at 20:18 x25killa says:

    I tend to only play Retribution’s Last Stand and campaign quite regularly, never going to touch the multiplayer.

  6. 23/03/2011 at 20:19 Dzamir says:

    Napoleon: Total War with a friend. Sometimes i do some drop-in battles or multiplayer match, but the grand campaign with my friend and the random battles are really fun and epic.

  7. 23/03/2011 at 20:19 Rotekian says:

    Starcraft 2 multiplayer. About 1 game a day of 1v1 on the ladder. Far too many games of Starbattle (sc2 mod) after the inevitable loss.

    • 24/03/2011 at 15:30 Darckense says:

      Starcraft 2 about 2ladder matches per week, some sc2-mod games too…
      Well… a lot! of sc2-mod games, mostly starbattle
      no other RTS now i got SC2
      some Turnbased stratagy though, mostly civ-5

  8. 23/03/2011 at 20:21 Outsider says:

    I haven’t yet played Retribution Multiplayer, but I’ve been crawling through the Imperial Guard Campaign in co-op and really enjoying it so far. I have already completed the Marines campaign co-op and enjoyed that as well. I find co-op a really nice way to play as you can focus on your two leaders or honor guard much more intently and effectively that way. Four gets a little hard at time to manage.

    I’ve played some RUSE here and there with friends, but that about ends my RTS-ing as of late. Despite playing (and enjoying) almost all the last Total War titles, Shogun has failed spectacularly in getting me interested in it, even after trying the demo. I don’t know what’s missing, maybe I just don’t like the re-narrowing of scope it took to go back to the first game in the series. I might eventually warm to it.

    Generally speaking, I tend to avoid multiplayer RTS-ing because I usually end up playing people who drop turrets in your base in the 43rd second of the match, wiping you out in under a minute or something equally as annoying and pointless. I tend to gravitate towards FPS for my competitive multiplayer needs.

  9. 23/03/2011 at 20:21 Kaira- says:

    Medieval: Total War is still the best Total War in my books, and is my favourite RTS of all time.
    Apart from that, Stronghold, Company of Heroes and Warcraft 3 are my other favourites. And of course WH40K:DoW, but it just doesn’t match CoH.

    But to be honest though, I prefer TBS over RTS.

    Edit: How could I forget Age of Empires 2, Caesar 3 and Empire Earth? Shame on me.

    • 23/03/2011 at 20:36 field_studies says:

      Kaira,
      I’m a big fan of the stronghold franchise too, but finally downloaded the (incredibly-cheap-on-sale) Medieval 2 TW game last week. I tried the first few campaigns and then put it aside (for now). I found the movement around the field a little difficult, perhaps because I’m so used to the far-view offered by most RTS’s, and the field also limiting. For example, the second training mission, taking London, where you can see this whole large city in front of you, but are funnelled towards the main gates, and then straight into the square, with the enemy coming from (and later running to) the farther walls and farther city streets, but rarely in view. That felt awfully constricting, and broke some degree of realism for me.

      Although I know it’s really apples to oranges, I can’t help comparing this to Stonghold, where sizing up a castle for its week point, perhaps a difficult approach from the back, say, was a key to success and to the fun of the game.

      So what am I missing? What’s the charm for you in this TW: Medieval games?

    • 23/03/2011 at 20:44 Kaira- says:

      I haven’t played Medieval 2 that much, so I can’t really comment about that. Medieval 1 just hits the sweet spot in me, because I just can’t help but to love games that are set in the Middle Ages. The camera in Medieval 1 is not free-roam like in most RTS-games (I believe this is the case in Medieval 2 too?), but it is a minor inconvenience. I just love the strategy the combat offers, with so many variables (moral of troops, quality of armor and weapons, general that is leading them, formations and everything). But even more than the combat, I love the campaign map.

      Yeah, they are apples to oranges, and Stronghold is, without doubt, the best castle management/assaulting game. I like them both and I can see why you may not find Medieval so great, but you should give the campaign a try.

    • 23/03/2011 at 21:19 Rich says:

      If Medieval is your favourite, you should definitely try Medieval 2. Much, much better sieges.
      You might not take to the new campaign map straight away, but stick with it. Your armies will be blocking mountain passes and setting ambushes in forests before you know it.

    • 23/03/2011 at 21:42 field_studies says:

      “Your armies will be blocking mountain passes and setting ambushes in forests before you know it.”

      Ah, I think I can start to see the appeal. Based on the trailers I mistakenly thought the map was a sort of adjunct part of the game–a skeleton of strategy over which the Total War (!!!) was draped. But if the battles become less obvious, less well-matched and sort of pre-scripted, I could better see how their nuances would be rewarding in the context of the larger strategy.

      Will have to give this another try, after my admittedly unfair quick stab at it.

    • 23/03/2011 at 22:10 Rich says:

      Well put it this way, if you attack across a ferry crossing, you start at a beachhead. If you attack at a bridge, you’ll fight around a bridge. If your fort in the mountains is attacked, that’s where the action is going to be.
      I don’t think the terrain is quite as varied as in Empire Total War, but there definitely is a relationship between what goes on at the campaign level, and what battles you have to fight.

      Also, I can’t emphasize enough the improvement in the sieges. No more unscalable walls that shoot arrows constantly. Say hello to walls you can assault with ladders and siege towers, and that only shoot arrows if you actually have archers defending them.

    • 23/03/2011 at 23:30 Bhazor says:

      Total War is definitely better than the sum of its parts. Mediocre grand stratedgy (compared to dedicated games like say Victoria) and slightly shonky battles (mainly pathfinding and AI) combine to create something wholly compelling. It says something that the biggest critics of the game will often talk about putting in forty hours or more.

      Really I wish Total War would become a genre of its own and other developers would dive in with their own takes. Would love to see what Relic could do with a full blown Total War game not just a half assed skirmish mode like Dark Crusade.

    • 23/03/2011 at 23:40 Beardface says:

      While the sieges in Medieval 2 ARE better than the first game they’re still horrible, just as they have been in every Total War game, up to and including Shogun 2.

  10. 23/03/2011 at 20:24 zergrush says:

    Currently playing the Retribution campaign, will probably stop playing SC2 as soon as I start to explore the MP, about four or five starcraft 2 matches a week to make sure I still remember how to play and keep the hands fast, and some Myth 2 or Total Annihilation with a coworker during lunch breaks. Sometimes Rome: Total War is played during the monthly lan with friends too.

    Also an avid watcher of commented SC2 matches.

    The RPS best games list made me re-buy Sacrifice on GoG, still need to find some time to play it.

    And the only reason I haven’t got Shogun 2 is that I have a strong dislike for samurais. If it’s possible to beat samurais without using them I might get it, though.

  11. 23/03/2011 at 20:24 Sobric says:

    I’ve played the IG campaign of Retribution, haven’t gone back to it since. I’ll probably try it’s multi-player soon.

    I’m currently absorbed in Shogun; for all it’s flaws it’s still Total War. Oh and I hadn’t realised that they bought the music from the original back (Yohoho Yoho. Yohoho Yoho. You know what I mean).

    Also, still play SupCom 2 with friends (vs. AI mainly).

  12. 23/03/2011 at 20:25 MrWolf says:

    All of the titles listed above, but I still fire up “Sacrifice” every once in a blue moon.

  13. 23/03/2011 at 20:25 Starky says:

    Excluding classics that I break out from time to time, but including older games which I still play more than once a month. Or have played heavily in the last 6 months.

    Single Player – in hours played

    Starcraft 2: 200+ hours single player + AI battles/custom
    Command and Conquer 3 + Expansions 200+ hours (completed 3-4 times each campaign)
    C&C red alert 3 + expands: 50 or so hours.
    King Arthur roleplaying wargame: 25 hours played.
    Rome total war – 500+ hours played (mainly thanks to mods), a very conservative estimate.
    Medieval 2 Total war – probably as much as rome, so 500+ hours.
    Men of War – 9 hours played (sorry RPS, I liked the gameplay it but WW2 bores me silly)
    Supreme Commander 2 – 50 hours played (20 on steam + 30 retail)
    Dawn of War 1 + expansions 200+ hours played.
    Dawn of war 2 33 hours played
    Dawn of war 2 chaos rising 77 hours played

    Online – in number of games played:

    Dawn of war 2 (very lightly) 50-100 games played .
    Command and Conquer 3 – a bit more 200-300 games
    Starcraft 2 – Probably around 1500 games played, I can’t give an exact figure now that Bnet has taken away my “losses” statistic.
    230 wins 1v1, 299 wins 2v2 and 78 wins 3v3 with about a 1:1 W/L ratio.

    No clans or anything like that – though I am lightly involved with the SC2 community on various websites and such (teamliquid mainly).

    • 23/03/2011 at 20:32 zergrush says:

      I sadly got tired pretty fast of Men of War, too. The gameplay is nice, but the WW2 setting is just too unstimulating. If there were lasers or trolls or space-people I’d probably put some more time into it.

    • 23/03/2011 at 20:36 mrjackspade says:

      oooo Rome Total War. The months in game time I’ve sunk into that game…Roma Surrectum in particular is a most excellent mod.

    • 23/03/2011 at 20:44 Jim Rossignol says:

      Yeah, Men of War needs a space war variant. There was a Stalker mod of it for a while, I guess that never happened.

    • 23/03/2011 at 22:04 Starky says:

      The problem with WW2 games is they tend to be so dull and dry narratively – which is a problem I think men of war had too. too many games of the period tried to be all historical and serious faced – just left me bored. Like watching a slow (if well made and accurate) documentary on channel 2 rather than romping around in a classic war movie.

      Now a farcical WW2 game I could see… or perhaps a pulp WW2 game setting. Hell or even a good old war movie style game.

      Actually some honest to goodness pulp would be quite a breath of fresh air or pulp sci-fi set in that period.
      Damnit I want to play a hero based RTS (DAW2 style) where I get to use a death ray on some Nazi’s, fight in a black mask and have a sidekick, spouting cheesy lines and retorts. Or a game where the allied and axis had to stop their fighting and ally, to combat the space alien invasion (saucers and all).

      There are loads of great historical wars that would be great for that engine and game play, hell I think it would make an AMAZING cyberpunk/Syndicate style game.

      It need not be a space war setting though I’d not complain. RTS games tend to just work better in the far past (pre-industrial), future (sci-fi) than recent history, or fantasy (or a mix). If only because they can add a bit of comedy, or other interesting twists and don’t have to be so god damn dry and brown.

      I do intend to go back to Men of war one day though.

    • 24/03/2011 at 08:24 Squirrelfanatic says:

      Sometimes I wonder why I do not like WW2 games, irrespective of what kind of genre it is. After getting excited about MoW: Assault Squad by the articles here on RPS, I watched some commented matches on Youtube. The minute I saw the layout and units, especially the German, I felt uneasy. This is somehow funny, since I don’t mind playing other RTSes or games involving violence in general. I figured it has something to do with me being German myself and knowing – also from stories of my grandparents – how terrible these events were that I don’t find joy in this setting.

      Strangely, I did like Commandos 2 though.

    • 24/03/2011 at 10:23 tranquilitea says:

      mmmmm… C&C 3 is the perfect mix of nostalgia for the first one, and a more modern RTS. Gotta love the acting in the cutscenes too!

  14. 23/03/2011 at 20:26 Cheese says:

    I’ve been playing the 4X RTS Distant Worlds. No multiplayer, so playing single-player I guess. Probably racked up 100+ hours or so, it may be one of the best games and RTSs I’ve ever played.

  15. 23/03/2011 at 20:26 s77wab says:

    Last Few;
    Red Faction: Guerrilla
    Mass Effect 2
    Splinter Cell: Conviction
    World in Conflict
    L4D 2
    Dawn of War 2
    Company of heroes
    - 90% of all I play is single player.

    • 23/03/2011 at 22:12 Rich says:

      I think you may have misunderstood Jim’s question.

    • 23/03/2011 at 22:38 Jad says:

      What are you talking about, L4D 2 is a great strategy game! Totally improved on the first, with lots of strategic possibilities opened up by all the new zombie units. Mass Effect 2 reduced the number of units available from the first game, which annoyed lots of the old fans, but the story sequences were helped by the focus on “heroes” units and the graphics were great. Too bad about the Ubi DRM on Splinter Cell — that was an interesting reboot of a legendary turn-based strategy series. And I love when my “Hammer” tanks blow up an enemy base in Red Faction: Guerrilla — strategic destruction indeed!

      That was fun.

    • 23/03/2011 at 23:16 Mechorpheus says:

      If you didn’t catch the BAFTAs they for some reason lumped Fallout New Vegas in with Strategy, so go figure…

  16. 23/03/2011 at 20:27 Bilbo says:

    I’m playing a lot of Atom Zombie Smasher at the moment. It’s got that casual feel while still being bitterly unforgiving and possessing of a decent enough level of strategy.

  17. 23/03/2011 at 20:27 SilentBunny says:

    4 minutes and 33 seconds of uniqueness, everyday to reassure myself.

  18. 23/03/2011 at 20:28 PureUncut says:

    I play Supcom 2 a fair bit with some friends. Us vs cheating AI on the big chokepoint type maps like Seton’s. Great fun watching monkeylords stomp around and messing about with friends.

    I really can’t enjoy hyper competitive games like Starcraft, they don’t interest me in the slightest.

    • 23/03/2011 at 20:44 Jim Rossignol says:

      SupCom 2 over Supcom?

    • 23/03/2011 at 20:54 westyfield says:

      Heresy!

    • 23/03/2011 at 20:55 Bilbo says:

      Swapping the tier grind for a more streamlined experience. It’s apples and oranges, really

    • 23/03/2011 at 21:01 MrCraigL says:

      We play a load of SupCom2 – always team games or FFA though – never against AI. It’s pretty great, extended thoughts here: http://www.gamingdaily.co.uk/2010/goty-2010-%E2%80%93-craig/

    • 23/03/2011 at 21:29 subedii says:

      I was pretty big into SupCom 2 when it launhced. Personal opinion prefers it over SupCom 1 as well, I feel most of the design changes they made with the game were for the right reasons (changed tech system with a research tree, no more economy crash, stuff like that).

      These days though I mainly play DoW2. It’s not that I don’t like SupCom 2 anymore, but DoW2 just drew me away from it.

      I think the biggest reason why was simply because of the matchmaking. In SupCom 2 I had the most fun playing 4v4 matchups. The problem was, it took ages to get a decent 4v4 actually going. A lot of the 4v4 matchups people made tended to go with custom rules like no air / no arty, or land wars only, or 10 minute rush timer. Wasn’t really my thing, I prefered the vanilla game, without all those limits.

      So basically it got to the point where it was taking ages to get them going.

      Contrast with DoW2. Completely different style of RTS, but the important thing (especially with the changes to matchmaking in Retribution) is that I can get a game going much faster. And that alone is a pretty big draw.

      I still like SupCom 2 for things like comp-stomps though, because it really is one of the few RTS’s with AI that’s not only good, but that’s also fun to fight against. I can’t really think of another RTS where I find comp stomps fun.

    • 23/03/2011 at 21:49 jonfitt says:

      I need help with SupCom 1&2.

      I don’t know if I’m doing it right but I always end up playing at maximum zoom out. I don’t see any micro required (no cover systems or activation powers like Relic games). I try to play zoomed in, but you lose strategic awareness and (especially in SupCom2) most of the regular units look nigh identical and I can’t see the point.
      The problem is, pushing little icons around gets boring and I stop playing. I’d much rather be playing DoW2

      Am I doing it wrong, or do most people play them zoomed out?

    • 23/03/2011 at 22:33 Will Tomas says:

      SupCom2 I picked up in the recent Steam sale, never played SupCom1 so have been really enjoying it. I gather it needed a lot of tweaks and patches at launch, but it feels like it’s had them now. I tend to skirmish rather than campaign though.

      Aside from that, Empire. I’ll buy Shogun 2 on cheapies, but the strategy games I loved above all other were Shogun 1 and Medieval 1 back in the day.

    • 23/03/2011 at 22:52 westyfield says:

      @jonfitt
      SupCom 1 has little or no micromanagement, whereas SupCom 2 has a teeny bit more.
      I mostly play at a medium zoom, far in enough to see the units instead of icons, but not so far that I lose awareness. The optional minimap can be useful, or you can do what I do and zoom right out and back in on a new location instead of just panning the screen – it’s almost as quick and allows you to see what’s going on at a glance.

    • 23/03/2011 at 22:54 Bilbo says:

      @jonfitt I wouldn’t say you’re doing it wrong. The appeal comes from the scale rather than micromanaging ability cooldowns – we’ve got dawn of war for that, as you rightly say. At least in the original game you can use picture-in-picture, so you can have half your screen – or a second monitor – zoomed out and the other half of the screen/first monitor at a closer viewpoint.

    • 23/03/2011 at 23:21 PureUncut says:

      Original Supcom was excellent but as Bilbo said the streamlined 30-40 minute games are a much more managable length for our preferred meatgrinds.

      It also helps that the group we play with all have Supcom 2, always more fun playing with friends.

    • 24/03/2011 at 02:34 Zakski says:

      I prefer supcom + fa with mates, mostly against ai, haven’t touched supcom2 but i heard it has a much smaller scale, I hate the names of the new aeon units. only good thing about it is they appaerently patched the economy back to sorta the way it worked in the original

    • 24/03/2011 at 12:36 MajorManiac says:

      @ Zakski :

      If you’re not keep on the scale of Supcom 2 I find this mod is perfect:
      Scale Mod + FA Economy –> http://www.moddb.com/mods/scale-mod-fa-economy

      I think Sumcom 2 is best play with friends against the AI. My friends and I tend to play it over the first game as it runs more smoothly over the internet.

      I personally would love the first game in the 2nd games engine, and this mod is the closest thing to it.

  19. 23/03/2011 at 20:28 field_studies says:

    Love the genre too, though haven’t played many in a while, save for Grand Ages: Rome, and the latest Anno instalment, both of which I thought were quite good. And when I need quick RTS fix? I have to admit, I’m back to the much-maligned Stronghold 2. Something about building castles, I dunno.

  20. 23/03/2011 at 20:28 Mike says:

    I used to play Company of Heroes nightly with friends. They dragged me up, I’m not that great a player, and that was probably the best RTS experience I’ve had.

    Now I kind of dabble. Bought Napoleon (at their behest) and have started fiddling with it, I’m not the best tactician though. I also recently got into Supreme Commander 2.

    Strategy games only really satisfy in multiplayer, for me. And then there’s this issue of how long it takes the community to build up its baseline skill level past the point where I can micro and keep up. For Men of War, this was almost instantaneous. If MoW allowed me to play as a single soldier, or single squad, and let my teammates do the top-scale strategy stuff, I could get into it. But that kind of asymmetrical gameplay isn’t really found in strategy. Or any other genre, I guess.

    • 24/03/2011 at 09:56 JonWood says:

      If I remember correctly you could in fact do something similar in the early Age of Empires games, which allowed any number of players in multiplayer to control one side in the game, with full control over everything.

      Sometimes it would turn into a row with one of the other players because they just spent all the cash you were saving for something on useless units, but it could be very fun if everyone knew what they were meant to be doing.

  21. 23/03/2011 at 20:30 Donk says:

    I watch a lot of StarCraft and work up the nerve to ladder every now and then. Coincidentally I played some Haegemonia last night. Want to try a space RTS.

    • 23/03/2011 at 21:38 Urael says:

      Haegemonia is one of my all time favourite games. Great atmosphere, lovely graphics, stunning music…the Earth-bound opening is a bit weak but power through that and it opens up to a great little romp across the galaxy. :)

    • 24/03/2011 at 00:54 DigitalSignalX says:

      I play about 4 hours of star craft online a week, but mostly just watch the eSports casts for it by TB and Day9. I want to like Men of War, but it needs a damn tutorial – I can’t even complete the first mission. The manual isn’t very helpful, and your faced with this daunting GUI that doesn’t make much sense to me. I’m thinking I will try and return it for the new Shogun.

      My fave RTS of all time though is still Homeworld 1 and 2, some of the mods and maps for multiplayer would make an epic space engagement last all night long. Tis a shame that Sins of a Solar Empire never really stepped up into that niche.

    • 24/03/2011 at 09:30 Schmitzkater says:

      I wanted to fire up Haegemonia again a while ago but it would seem the game has a strong dislike for Win7.

      It’s been staring at me from my shelf ever since.

  22. 23/03/2011 at 20:30 Lost says:

    Playing SC2, must say i am the suck.

  23. 23/03/2011 at 20:31 Aluschaaf says:

    The original Company of Heroes is great fun for multiplayer, and we still play it regularily.

  24. 23/03/2011 at 20:31 Serenegoose says:

    I tend to play one of the total wars (unsurprisingly, Shogun 2 at the moment, but most often I play the stainless steel mod for medieval 2), and every once in a while I’ll play through a campaign of Company of Heroes. I tried the Men of War campaign but I just bounced off it, many goes on the second Soviet mission on easy mode and only getting to like 70% before being wiped out entirely convinced me I just don’t know how to play it. At all. I often play EU3 as well, though I’m trying to learn Crusader Kings because CK2 looks great fun.

    I don’t play multiplayer RTS but I love watching replays, of Starcraft, Company of Heroes, and Dawn of War 2. Generally my favourite RTS games are infantry oriented, but the sort of forgiving Company of Heroes style infantry where they take quite a few shots to die and can be reinforced. I like the hiding in houses and moving past bombed out tanks, and it always bugs me when I get my own tanks and they proceed to ram through a ton of perfectly good cover just because it pleases them, the sods.

  25. 23/03/2011 at 20:31 Giftmacher says:

    In the past year, mainly Company of Heroes, Napoleon (: Total War), and Dawn of War: Soulstorm.

    I very highly recommend all three of those, but you’ve probably already played them.

  26. 23/03/2011 at 20:32 Feste says:

    Currently: Lots of single-player Shogun 2. I’m tempted to give the multi-player a try, but the whole Starcraft scene has pretty much scared me off multiplayer RTS. Also I’m rubbish.

    I really like Shogun 2. Medieval 2 was good fun, but not very polished and Empire was a widening of scope too far, but Shogun is a Game rather than an undertaking.

    Company of Heroes rears it head from time to time. It has proper explosions. That said it quickly gets really complicated.

    Supreme Commander 2 skirmishes from time to time. Walking Spiders of death are also awesome. Thanks to your reviews, I picked of Men of War but I’ve just found myself sliding off it after too having too much micro.

    So yeah, low impact, slow games where I can think and plan (or mess up) strategies of doom (generally my own) on my own. Sad billy-no-mates that I am.

  27. 23/03/2011 at 20:32 INinja132 says:

    About 13 hours of Retribution, as Imperials, Chaos and Eldar.
    Got Shogun 2, but also went back to Empire to see if that was still my favourite. It is (bloody Prussians).
    Still playing Civ 5 as well and a bunch of Assault Squad with a friend.

  28. 23/03/2011 at 20:33 jtspring says:

    Played Single player Starcraft 2, never touched it again.
    DOW Retribution has been played more thoroughly. Made it through the Space Marine single player. Working through IG.
    My copy of Dungeon Keeper is coming back to me, and I may play that again soon.
    I guess no one is going to make a game like that ever again. Wistful sigh. I would love another well implemented DK like game. Or maybe a Dk Minecraft Mod.

  29. 23/03/2011 at 20:34 Joseph-Sulphur says:

    StarcraftIIStarcraftIIStarcraftIIStarcraftIIStarcraftIIStarcraftIIStarcraftII

  30. 23/03/2011 at 20:34 Cinek says:

    MechWarrior: Living Legends, Hearts of Iron 3, Gratuitous Space Battles.

    Though soon I plan to hop into Crysis 2 for a moment and than…. long-awaited Shift 2 :)

  31. 23/03/2011 at 20:34 Jajusha says:

    Gary Grigsby War in the east. Amazingly easy to get into for a wargame.

  32. 23/03/2011 at 20:34 mrjackspade says:

    Jim Rossignol, why haven’t you joined the RPS DOW2 group? Maybe you have joined it but are masquerading under a secret alter-ego.

    • 24/03/2011 at 01:58 Grot_Punter says:

      Say what now? Admittedly I do not browse the forums much (I am mostly ignorant of any good times happenings amongst the hive mind) and as such did not know of this! I’ll have to look into this……

  33. 23/03/2011 at 20:35 climax says:

    Starcraft 2
    Defcon
    Dawn of War 2: Retribution

  34. 23/03/2011 at 20:36 Rowsdower says:

    I played a good bit of Starcraft 2 early on, got to the top of the platinum ladder in 1v1 but it was just a little to serious for me. Maybe I will come back and get my ass kicked when the expansions come out.
    I wasn’t going to initially but I bought Shogun 2 on a whim and it exceeded my expectations in every way (at least in single player). Then I jumped on line and quickly won five out of six games, despite this my stats show that I had not completed any battles (as if I rage quit them all) and so I’ll be sitting out until that’s fixed.

  35. 23/03/2011 at 20:36 JWill says:

    Starcraft 2 ladder nightly for the last six months. And that’s about it. Not much room for any other RTS if you’re into such a competitive game.

  36. 23/03/2011 at 20:36 Kandon Arc says:

    I’ve been playing a lot of Shogun multiplayer recently, furthering the cause of the great RPS clan; I’m just starting to get back into Retribution multiplayer, and I’m intending to dabble in MOWAS at some point in the near future. To be honest though most of my time’s been going into Crusader Kings recently which technically is an RTS.

  37. 23/03/2011 at 20:36 HeavyStorm says:

    Since I don’t have much time to play, I have to keep myself restricted to a few titles. So, right now, I’m playing Starcraft 2. Recently I was finally enduring the campaign, but I love to play it online. The problem is, of course, I suck and don’t play even nearly enough to stop from sucking. I mean, the other day I _won_ two matches against a guy who had a record of 1000 plays and 50% victories. And I don’t have even 50 matches. And I suck almost as bad as the guy I just mentioned…

  38. 23/03/2011 at 20:37 ran93r says:

    Not really my bag but have the original CoH and expansions that I picked up in a Steam firesale that I tinker with, plus the original DoW bocks set.

  39. 23/03/2011 at 20:37 7rigger says:

    I’ve been playing a load of Retribution, single player and last stand mode with friends.

    Shogun 2 as well, but I’m not going near the MP on that. The way everyone calls total war AI ‘easy’ makes me think of just how badly I’d do. It’s always been rock solid to me, and I’m usually pretty good at RTS.

    Other than that, after playing Civ V to death I’ve returned yet again to Alpha Centauri

    • 24/03/2011 at 09:16 The Sombrero Kid says:

      I’m basically in the same position as you, i had to play the campaign on easy, except i played Shogun 2 multiplayer to see what it was all about & won every game of 5, i joined the RPS clan & the multiplayer meta game is really fun

    • 24/03/2011 at 11:18 7rigger says:

      Well thats good news, as I’m playing the campaign on normal and I have failed to get any of the victory conditions at all in the time limit. I like the challenge though :)

      I may have a look at the MP tonight, as I like the sound of the custom Avatar. Hopefully I won’t be beaten to submission like Dawn of War 2

  40. 23/03/2011 at 20:37 Xocrates says:

    Currently installed RTSs:

    Starcraft
    Starcraft 2
    Dawn of War: Soulstorm
    Dawn of War 2: Retribution
    Defcon
    Multiwinia
    Command and Conquer 3

    Starcraft 2 and Retribution are likely my more common reliance for tiny men stomping, though recently my only activity is playing the Retribution Tyranid campaign co-op in very hard (Tyranid’s campaign is really really broken however), having already played through the IG and Ork campaign alone.
    Since I don’t usually play Multiplayer my RTS gaming usually happens in spurts.

    I still need to finish the C&C 3 campaign though.

  41. 23/03/2011 at 20:37 Ace Jon says:

    Age of Empires II running an HD mod just to upscale to 1920×1080. Once you’ve played the best, you don’t need the rest.

  42. 23/03/2011 at 20:38 wiper says:

    Offline only, as has always been my way. One day I’ll dabble online (the TWs have been tempting me for a while with their options for multiplayer-battles in single-player campaign battles), but I still feel awkward playing people I don’t know online.

    Despite years of having played FPSs online back in the day (‘the day’ being 2002, the games being Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. Good times). No, I don’t understand either.

    Anyway, what games? Um:

    Total War: Shogun 2 (just started this week, and has stopped me playing Napoleon – not sure if I’ll end up playing both simultaneously once the shiny newness wear off)

    Men of War (occasionally)

    And I might try Dawn of War 2: Retribution at some point in the near future; don’t know if that’ll suit the term RTS better than its Diablo-meets-Cannon-Fodder brethren, though.

    I’d also be playing Homeworld, if it still worked on my PC. Such a beautiful game.

  43. 23/03/2011 at 20:39 pepper says:

    Normal Company of Heroes with the Eastern front mod, playing it on a regular basis with the same group of people. we mostly play against the bots.

    Men of War, nowadays not as much anymore but racked up a lot of time, again with that same group. Although then mostly against eachother in the GSM mod.

  44. 23/03/2011 at 20:40 wiper says:

    As my post disappeared (and will surely end up posting belatedly and turn this into a double-post…):

    Offline only, as has always been my way. One day I’ll dabble online (the TWs have been tempting me for a while with their options for multiplayer-battles in single-player campaign battles), but I still feel awkward playing people I don’t know online.

    Despite years of having played FPSs online back in the day (‘the day’ being 2002, the games being Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. Good times). No, I don’t understand either.

    Anyway, what games? Um:

    Total War: Shogun 2 (just started this week, and has stopped me playing Napoleon – not sure if I’ll end up playing both simultaneously once the shiny newness wear off)

    Men of War (occasionally)

    And I might try Dawn of War 2: Retribution at some point in the near future; don’t know if that’ll suit the term RTS better than its Diablo-meets-Cannon-Fodder brethren, though.

    I’d also be playing Homeworld, if it still worked on my PC. Such a beautiful game.

  45. 23/03/2011 at 20:40 AdamK117 says:

    DoW / CoH with my cousin before sc2, then I went mental with a bunch of irl mates on that. I think RTSes are a genre I usually play with people I know, its hard to play it versus/with internet randoms.

  46. 23/03/2011 at 20:41 Lars Westergren says:

    Edit: Bah, I read it as “RPS fans, what are you playing?”. As RTS goes, I’m currently playing: Downloading Shogun 2 in the background on a slow connection.

  47. 23/03/2011 at 20:41 ado says:

    I’m not a big fan of RTS, the last “straight” RTS I played was Company of Heroes probably. I do love games like the Total War and Civ series, which I wouldn’t even dare to call RTS. I’m something of a megalomaniac I guess.

    Behold, my Empire! It is vast indeed. Created by the sweat of my worker, conquered by the blood of my warrior and ruled by my hand, it’s emperor.

    Shogun 2 is actually downloading as I type this. Can’t wait to take the plunge…

  48. 23/03/2011 at 20:41 Jimmy says:

    Medieval 2: Total War still gets some time from me but after the second campaign it all gets too formulaic and simple. I may take a look at Shogun at some point.

    (changed as my post was off topic)

  49. 23/03/2011 at 20:42 pkt-zer0 says:

    Playing Starcraft 2 somewhat regularly, though I’ve not had that much time for it recently. I have a friend who’s quite into 2v2, so I end up playing a lot of that, despite that it’s rather silly. 1v1 is a pretty good approximation of what I’d like to see out of a competitive multiplayer game, so yay for that, at least. I needed a replacement for TF2 and SF4 anyway.

    I also have Rise of Legends installed at all times, but haven’t played that for a year or so now.

    Also, let me ramble a bit and outdo that “some dude”: I was disappointed in Dawn of War 2, expecting a real-time tactics game, and instead getting a real-time strategy without a whole lot of strategy. A great setting and impressive presentation gone to waste. Maybe it’s just unreasonable expectations on my part. Still, could we not have some more games like Dark Omen and Ground Control?

  50. 23/03/2011 at 20:45 Some_Guy says:

    Not at all a leading question here, i mean if someone who you adree is to answer the question the only potential answer is RTSs

  51. 23/03/2011 at 20:45 N says:

    Having some phun with Universe At War right now.

  52. 23/03/2011 at 20:46 Stranglove says:

    Well, actually some of us on the RPS steamchat regularly get together for games of MOWAS, most nights. Anyone is welcome to join, we use the unofficial mumble server for communicating: http://rockpapershotgun.com/rpsforum/topic.php?id=4093

  53. 23/03/2011 at 20:46 Ultra Superior says:

    DOW2 Retribution every day. (Nightly.) Count me as 3 people because I play only team multiplayer (3v3) with my 2 friends and sometimes with one who stays in reserve. :D

    Might I add – this situation remains unchanged since vanilla DOW2 – then DOW2 Chaos Rising – and finally Retribution which is now.

    In the previous years it was the same case with C&C Generals Zero Hour which I played nightly 3 consecutive years minimum.

    I always try new RTSes – but I rarely find one that is satisfactory and to my liking as much as to dethrone the one controlling my life at the particular era.

    My Steam statistics show 1044 hours spent in DOW2 (including Retribution)

  54. 23/03/2011 at 20:47 Gap Gen says:

    Scourge of War, which has recently been patched, and is ace if you like formation battles.

  55. 23/03/2011 at 20:47 Maldomel says:

    King Arthur the role playing wargame, I love it even though I’m still beginning. The mix of magic, role play, and rts makes me drool.

  56. 23/03/2011 at 20:47 InterstellaUK says:

    Due to the ageing nature of my PC, coupled with a lack of time/funds, most of my games are pretty ancient. However, I still play Age of Empires 2 + 3 (mostly 2, it must be said), Homeworld 2, Medieval Total War, Dawn of War 1 + Winter Assault and Dark Crusade and occasionally C&C and Red Alert. I REALLY need to upgrade my machine when I’ve got some money!
    Always play singleplayer – multiplayer has never really had any appeal for me, not sure why.

  57. 23/03/2011 at 20:48 Alethron says:

    I was playing a bunch of Starcraft 2 and Company of Heroes Online. However, since Men of War: Assault Squad was released that’s taken up most of my gaming time. A bunch of us RPSers play together most evenings, it’s great fun as a group. I’ve also been playing a bit of Mount & Blade: Warband (I’m late to the party). Such great emergent stories come out of these games. Shogun 2 should arrive tomorrow, looking forward to playing that with RPSers.

  58. 23/03/2011 at 20:48 WMain00 says:

    Currently playing Shogun 2 (does that count?) and enjoying it immensely. Review should be up soonish.

    Other than that DoW2 is probably my second choice of RTS, because Warhammer 40,000 is awesome.

    Final choice would be Homeworld 2, which I love dearly, and i’m always impressed by the fact that it hasn’t aged one bit graphically. It still looks beautiful even today.

  59. 23/03/2011 at 20:49 iconeo says:

    League of legends

  60. 23/03/2011 at 20:49 SinineSiil says:

    I play Command & Conquer Generals.

  61. 23/03/2011 at 20:51 Oneironaut says:

    I like the Total War games, mostly Rome, but apart from that, I’m not a fan of the RTS genre. The micro managing that you need in ones like Starcraft and Supreme Commander usually is enough to drive me away, and the Dawn of War, Men of War, and Company of Heroes games just never grabbed my interest. I usually prefer TBS where I can think about each move before I make it.

    Any time I play games, it’s very rare that I do anything multi-player. I’m probably in single-player games about 99% of my playing time.

  62. 23/03/2011 at 20:53 Metonymy says:

    Dawn of War 1, just for the voice acting and the over-the-top crazy. Dawn of War 2 for the same reason, but it’s less satisfying somehow.

    I can macro like a boss in SC2, but I’m worthless for micro. I’m lucky if my screen is pointed at the battle.

    Bottom line about SC2, is that Blizzard seems to be the only company that understands how critically important a crystal-clear interface is. But, they totally failed to innovate with SC2. If you look at War3, at least they bothered to completely ripoff the HoMM series, and make it into a good RTS. They did nothing with SC2, and it really shows.

    And what’s worse, is the ‘casual appeal’ is simply not there. Casual appeal is the ability to make you believe you can do well, or have fun, even without knowing what the hell you’re doing, or even winning. WoW got this right, at least part of the time.

    ATM I’m looking forward to no RTS, unless you consider the new DOTAs.

  63. 23/03/2011 at 20:55 Vague-rant says:

    Haven’t played one for a month now, but I went through King Arthur a while ago. The whole knights of the round table thing made me empathize with my generals a lot more, and combined with the smaller maps made it seem a lot more personal than any of the Total Wars I’ve tried (but then I’ve not tried either Shogun).

  64. 23/03/2011 at 20:55 Ultra Superior says:

    Um… my steam statistics:

    ::::DOW2 ::::::::::::::::::::::: 890 hours played ::::
    ::::Retribution ::::::::::::::: 54 hours played ::::::

    So there you go.

    I like WH40K what else can I say ?

  65. 23/03/2011 at 20:56 Kevin says:

    We’ve taken the liberty of founding our own Dawn of War 2 RPS group to get people together to competitive, The Last Stand, and co-op. One of the dreams is to get new players in our community into a lobby so they can observe some of the veterans duke it out so they can learn the games. Can you give us a shout-out Jim?

    http://steamcommunity.com/groups/rpsdow

  66. 23/03/2011 at 20:58 Coins says:

    The few RTS’s that I do play are Starcraft 2 and DoW:Ret, but then mostly single-player, since I’m so horrible at them and I don’t like people shouting at me for not knowing the right orders or whatever. :(

  67. 23/03/2011 at 20:59 Hodag says:

    I still play Earth 2140, 2150, and 2160. Company of Heroes (usually with the Afrika Korps or Western Front mods), Total Annihilation, SupCom2, and DoW 1 and 2. Also Battlezone 98 which is kind of an RTS and Majesty 2 which is just odd.

  68. 23/03/2011 at 20:59 Man Raised by Puffins says:

    Back in the day I enjoyed ordering tiny pixel men to their invariably squishy end in C&C and I dabbled a bit in Dawn of War, the Necron suiting my slovenly RTS ways, but the fact of the matter is that I’m a terrible squeaky office chair general (and hence don’t venture online). The Total War games have proven to be a bit of an exception however, in large part because I can pause and reposition to my hearts content, and sate my tiny man ordering needs during infrequent binges. Not picked up Shogun though, I haven’t quite fully explored Napoleon yet (and in the game).

  69. 23/03/2011 at 20:59 Eclipse says:

    I’m playing Z right now.

    You know, that Z: http://www.mobygames.com/game/z

    • 23/03/2011 at 21:06 Gap Gen says:

      I played Z not that long ago and was surprised by how good it was; the AI is pretty strong and the game itself seems quite fresh even today. I guess it was one of the dead-ends that got trampled by C&C clones.

    • 23/03/2011 at 21:26 Eclipse says:

      Z is great, another retro strategy game I’m playing is Battle Isle 2, I took the bundle on GOG.com, I had it on CD but it never worked on my old 486, so I’m playing it now :) The next one will be Battle Isle: Incubation

  70. 23/03/2011 at 21:00 Daniel Klein says:

    Oldschool RTS player reporting in. I used to play nothing but RTSes for a long time. These days I mostly play League of Legends, which comes with the job–I’m the German community manager for the game, so yeah.

    I am a HUGE Blizzard fan (and my 3 player War3 team did enter the top 100 on Northrend once ;P), but I could not finish the Starcraft 2 single player campaign. On normal, all the missions are trivially easy to the point where I’m bored to death and on hard they all seem to make me do things that run against best practices in multiplayer or make me focus on mechanics I really hate (the Terran mission where you are tasked with stopping Kerrigan and you start on an island? Holy SHIT has that made me hate Medivac micro. I toyed with the idea of switch to Terran for a while, but that mission convinced me I do not want to do that).

    I played a ton of SC2 multiplayer when it came out, but for one reason or another, I stopped. It’s possibly the number one game I want to get into again, though. I’ll do that as soon as people stop bugging me to play LoL with them ;)

    Observation on my own psychology: it’s interesting how very team based teams (like LoL) and 1v1 games (like SC2) can be stressful in entirely different ways. After a string of losses in LoL (which is a 5v5 game), I usually become fed up with the inscrutable decisions that led my teammates to do weird things–unless I have a full five player premade I don’t usually play more than 3-4 games in a row, and then I wished I could play a game where my performance and my performance only decided the outcome. Back when I played a lot of SC2, it was pretty much the opposite: when I lost a lot of games where clearly it was my own fault and no one else’s, I got stressed out to the point where I could not bring myself to play another game. I think going back and forth between the two may be the healthiest thing to do for me.

    I’ve also played some DoW2 but I never could get into that. The campaign was fun enough but not thrilling, and the multiplayer is horrible–it’s the definition of messy, inexact controls married to nontransparent optimization (the game hides ALL kinds of essential stats from you, making you guess what will be useful against what to which degree etc). In a word, it is everything that SC2 is not, and I just cannot understand how anyone would play DoW2 MP over SC2.

  71. 23/03/2011 at 21:01 liceham says:

    Starcraft 2 Ladder (Diamond :) and custom games. Some people only play custom games – there are tons and tons of good ones, or at least tons of ways to kill time. I like the Star Battle variant Flag Ship Battle.

    I play with other people I’ve found, and I do the Day9 Funday Monday challenges because I don’t take laddering that seriously.

  72. 23/03/2011 at 21:01 Om says:

    RTS? Pffft
    Just finished a game of EUIII Divine Wind (SP) and currently wiping the floor with two friends in a MP league in Football Manager 2010. I also have Revolution Under Siege installed but can’t find the time needed to get into the game

  73. 23/03/2011 at 21:03 Riztro says:

    Supcom 2 for any skirmishing against AI. Brilliant AI in this game.

    Dawnibution 40k for when I want a quick game of something versus humans. I love the move away from basebuilding and lightweight maneuvers.

    Mow: Ass for when I want to lose. Massively. “Let me just grab that MG off of that bike. Where did my left flank go?”

    Endwar for really lazy games. I love ordering imaginary men around with my voice. And in the game.

    AI war for games I never ever finish. Not one. Really.

  74. 23/03/2011 at 21:03 Shakermaker says:

    Starcraft 2 was the last rts I regularly played. Before that Company of Heroes. I’ll shed a tear of joy when a sequel for that game is announced (although I will also love Relic when they make a third Homeworld game). I might get the new Total War but I am a bit tired of the formula tbh.

  75. 23/03/2011 at 21:04 Perfi says:

    I play Starcraft II 1v1 pretty much daily. Single player doesn’t satisfy me anymore in the slightest, I’d rather face a (decent) thinking opponent than an AI. It’s incredibly fun, challenging and satisfying.

    I am indeed a member of a clan, though I’m not exactly active in it – I do play with my friends whenever possible though.

    @N: Oh yeah, UaW was a great game, sucks that Microsoft and Sega pretty much killed it off. It’s pretty awesome online, but the community is more or less dead.

  76. 23/03/2011 at 21:04 Unaco says:

    A little AI War, and recently picked up Napoleon: Total War for £5 on Steam.

  77. 23/03/2011 at 21:07 Snidesworth says:

    I’ve been playing Dawn of War 2 and Shogun 2 recently. RTS games are almost exclusively single player experiences for me.

  78. 23/03/2011 at 21:07 wiper says:

    Third and final attempt to actually comment in the thread (hey, maybe a half hour gap will help, somehow!)

    Offline only, as has always been my way. One day I’ll dabble online (the TWs have been tempting me for a while with their options for multiplayer-battles in single-player campaign battles), but I still feel awkward playing people I don’t know online.

    Despite years of having played FPSs online back in the day (‘the day’ being 2002, the games being Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. Good times). No, I don’t understand either.

    Anyway, what games? Um:

    Total War: Shogun 2 (just started this week, and has stopped me playing Napoleon – not sure if I’ll end up playing both simultaneously once the shiny newness wear off)

    Men of War (occasionally)

    And I might try Dawn of War 2: Retribution at some point in the near future; don’t know if that’ll suit the term RTS better than its Diablo-meets-Cannon-Fodder brethren, though.

    I’d also be playing Homeworld, if it still worked on my PC. Such a beautiful game.

  79. 23/03/2011 at 21:08 westyfield says:

    World in Conflict is where it’s at.
    ‘It’ being a good competitive multiplayer real-time strategy/tactics scene.

    • 23/03/2011 at 21:35 coffeetable says:

      Snap. WiC plays like a RTS but ‘feels’ like an FPS in terms of teamwork and action-to-waiting ratio.

    • 23/03/2011 at 21:38 Jim Rossignol says:

      Yeah, that is a cracking MP game.

    • 23/03/2011 at 22:43 Stranglove says:

      Alex Bakke was contemplating getting some of the RTS regulars on RPS (Dartt, Sponge, myself, heliosicle, Adelicatebalance and SvDvorak to name but a few) onto WiC. It’s definitely one of my favorite RTS games, and I’d like to play some MP on it at some point.

    • 23/03/2011 at 22:59 westyfield says:

      @Stranglove MP is great when a few people get organised – an Air commander working with an Infantry commander to ferry units quickly is excellent fun.

      Plus, the explosions are ace.

  80. 23/03/2011 at 21:08 Moth Bones says:

    I really can’t imagine playing an RTS multiplayer, I’m simply too slow. As a rule I get plenty enough trouble from the AI.

    This has been the year I finally got into Paradox games, courtesy of Crusader Kings. EU3 has also been on the menu and I just picked up Mount&Blade Warband, which I am terrible at.

  81. 23/03/2011 at 21:08 MonkeyMonster says:

    Blight of the immortals daily and CoH or DOW2 with friends on the odd day. Bit of the occasional SupComm2 sp.

  82. 23/03/2011 at 21:10 Lamb Chop says:

    Edit: apparently it didn’t eat this one. Erasing pseudo-double-post.

  83. 23/03/2011 at 21:12 pingualot says:

    Men Of War: Assault Squad

  84. 23/03/2011 at 21:12 Greg Wild says:

    Various members of the RPS steam chat and its nefarious shadow groups have been playing a lot of Sup Com 2 lately. Good times.

  85. 23/03/2011 at 21:13 Synchrony says:

    I’ve been playing a lot of DOW2 – Retri in co-op and multi, Company of Heroes and DEFCON recently. I also play a fair bit of turn based strategy. I haven’t got anywhere near the number of hours logged some of you guys have, as I keep getting distracted by MMO betas (WOT, APB reloaded)

  86. 23/03/2011 at 21:14 Carra says:

    Been wanting to get out Age of Kings again. One of these days…

  87. 23/03/2011 at 21:15 strange headache says:

    Age of Empires II all the way baby!

  88. 23/03/2011 at 21:15 Aero says:

    Castles 2: Siege and Conquest:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castles_II:_Siege_and_Conquest
    The Seven Cities of Gold:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Cities_of_Gold_(video_game)
    Actually, I’m playing Men of War Assault squad nearly every night. But if modern variants of the games above were made, my life would be ruined.

  89. 23/03/2011 at 21:17 Marcin says:

    I stopped playing RTS a long time ago when I realized I just didn’t get it. The base building and lassoing and figuring out what counters what … meh.

    But recently I discovered Company of Heroes and Men of War (the latter one thanks to RPS). Both are cheap now and I figured I’d give it a shot, and I am currently enjoying CoH quite a bit. The whole “use what’s available on the field” thing is rather entertaining, and all the units have a lot of personality.

    Also playing Atom Zombie Smasher, if that counts. The puzzle aspect appeals more, though. Plus, zombies. Plus, surf guitar. Win/win/win, there.

  90. 23/03/2011 at 21:18 Lamb Chop says:

    Ate my first comment apparently. I play 10+ hours of Starcraft 2 a week and spend my hour lunch breaks watching Day9 or MrBitter. I take it pretty seriously as a competitive sport and am trying to make the final push to break into master league (nearly there!) but I don’t have enough time to play it as anything more than a fun extracurricular (extrajobular?).

  91. 23/03/2011 at 21:18 laikapants says:

    For me, 2011 has been the year of repeated jabbings at RTS multiplayer. I’ve mostly failed, mind you, but there is the occasional win and usually bits of fun.

    Tore through DoW II: Ret in the Tyranid campaign and thoroughly enjoyed it. Went back and started messing with the other campaigns, remembered how terrible I am at DoW II combat (except for the Swarm’s devour everything method) and need some time to work up the willpower to get through the Baneblade mission again. Still play Last Stand on occasion.

    Bought MoW:AS due to its inherit shiny-ness and your (Jim, that is) wordsmithery about it. I had almost 5 hours of gameplay and I’d only just finished the first two (including the required intro mission) US missions on Easy and solo. Almost at the end of the Caen map, but those damn rockets somehow escape my bombing runs and quickly return to their expert job of blowing my Rangers to bits. Will probably poke at Multiplayer someday, but it won’t be until I can remember my Gamespy password. I poke it when I’m not in the mood for Shogun II, but I still want to fail at safely moving pixelmen around the battlefield.

    And finally (probably for the year, unless MoW: Vietnam really does come out this year), Shogun II is the beast I thought/hoped/knew it would be. Especially in terms of demanding/consuming my game time. Almost halfway through my second campaign and will likely pursue a third before setting the singleplayer down for awhile. Then again, maybe I won’t set it down. When I got Medieval II back in 2009, I only played that for the next 5-6 months, often till 2 or 3 AM most nights. I’ve poked at the multiplayer (the Avatar campaign), joined the RPS Clan (possibly to their chagrin) and mostly enjoy it. I’ll probably play the multiplayer at least once a weekend for the next few months. I keep getting thrown in 1v1 battles against people two or three stars above me (thus, laden with actual Veteran units) and that doesn’t end well for me. Have had two excellent river crossing battles thus far, both being my most recent wins.

  92. 23/03/2011 at 21:19 MinisterofDOOM says:

    C&C has always been “home” for me in the RTS world. RA2 and Kane’s Wrath get lots of playtime. Kane’s Wrath’s Global Domination mode hits a sweet spot for me, combining Risk with Flame Tanks and…well…global domination. Plus you’ve got Kane in a plastic robohat. I already have a weakness for all of those things individually; their combined might is something I simply cannot resist.

    I enjoy playing SCII cooperatively with friends but I’ve never been a very competitive gamer, so SCII’s online side isn’t very appealing to me. Also I miss Goliaths. Why’d they have to take my Goliaths away?
    Bizarrely, despite being a fairly anti-achievement sort of guy, I really enjoy experimenting with SCII’s achievements.

    I played lots of TA back in the day, too. No idea where my disc went, sadly.

    And every once in a while I reinstall Counterstrike (no, not that one) and remind myself how terrible I am at it by replaying the Ant Missions.

  93. 23/03/2011 at 21:20 Hanban says:

    I’ve always loved RTS games. Ever since I got that Shgoun Total War demo cd with PC Gamer I’ve been playing the TW games. I haven’t really played any TW multiplayer until Shogun 2, which I am quite enjoying despite some nusiances.

    I really don’t like Starcraft II as a multiplayer game. It was fun for the SP campaign but the multiplayer is too hectic for me. That’s why I enjoy the Shogun multiplayer methinks. It’s slower so I can keep my head on straight and try to keep that winning strategy.

    My favourite strategy game of all time though is: Homeworld. I absolutely adore Homeworld 1 & 2. They are perhaps my favoruite games of all time. And they were quite awesome for multiplayer too!

    In general I play most RTS games. They’re fun as hell. I wish I was part of some community. It seems like there’s a lot to learn from being with a lot of players and having a chance to discuss what just happened so you have a repertoire of “tactical knowledge” to apply to any given situation you face. I love yoooouuuu also!

  94. 23/03/2011 at 21:23 randomnine says:

    Starcraft II!

    I play daily with some friends from my old workplace during their lunchbreak. Usually 2v2 or 3v3 games. I’d like to get back into ladder 1v1s but can’t seem to find the time.

  95. 23/03/2011 at 21:24 coldvvvave says:

    I play DoW 2 Retribution, because I love Orks.

    And especially Kommando Nob – he is so clumsy and adorable.

    I don’t care about other RTS’s, because there is no other game with Knob.

  96. 23/03/2011 at 21:28 jrod says:

    Men Of War: Assault Squad is eating up many an evening for me (co-op only for right now… the vs games i just get my arse kicked). I just love the “feel” of that game. Destroying the map as you slowly and methodically creep forward is just amazing.

    I am also a recovering R.U.S.E. multiplayer addict (though a relapse is certain in the near future). Something about that game just really tickles the right spots for me. I love how winning isn’t really a factor of APM, but of just good strategy and deceiving your opponent.

    Other than that Dwarf Fortress is one of my favorite games of all time. Not sure it qualifies as RTS, but either way its very, very “Fun”.

    Historically I have spent about a zillion hours in all of the total war games, but not sure if i am going to get shogun 2 or not – those games should be renamed to “Total Timesuck”.

    I played SC2 for awhile, but I didn’t like the campaign and online multiplayer was just too demanding for me (I started to get OK at it, but I just don’t have the time to dedicate to it in order to actually be competitive).

  97. 23/03/2011 at 21:28 DarkFenix says:

    RTS games I’ve been playing lately? DoW2: Retribution, Starcraft 2, Shogun 2 Total War, DoW1: Dark Crusade, MoW Assault Squad. Other RTS games I periodically seem to reinstall to play for a while are SupCom 1, C&C Generals + Zero Hour and CoH:OF.

    Generally speaking I don’t like playing competitively, I’m not very good at micro-management or macro-management so I tend to find the whole process rather stressful against another person. Playing cooperatively against an AI is more my speed, so RTS games I appreciate most are ones that have a strong and scalable AI, one I can effortlessly beat at lowest difficulty and ideally can beat me at top difficulty.

    My other big factor for how much I like an RTS game is overkill. In other words, does the game have it? Any game in which I can win a match with a ludicrously over the top army gets massive kudos from me. So strict pop-caps are a turnoff, low hardcaps on powerful units the same, a lack of strong units even more so. That’s basically why C&C Generals and SupCom keep me going back, one has no popcap, the other essentially has none and both have ludicrously powerful units. If I want to take the time to build a hundred nukes or a thousand super-deathmobiles, I want the game to let me.

  98. 23/03/2011 at 21:30 BurningPet says:

    My favourite which i still play is Rise of Nations.

    and if Dwarf Fortress and Goblin Camp count, then i play them occasionally aswell.

  99. 23/03/2011 at 21:32 jrod says:

    [edit] the comment i was replying to seems to have vanished!

  100. 23/03/2011 at 21:32 egg says:

    I have been playing Starcraft 2 about 3 times a week.

    And I just bought Total War: Shogun 2. Which I haven’t played that much actually. I think I played 3 hours, tops. Not that it is bad. I just think that TW games can’t be played for less than 2 straight hours.

    Oh and I went back to Minecraft. Which is not an RTS, but I just wanted to say it!

  101. 23/03/2011 at 21:34 Javier-de-Ass says:

    Only Europa Universalis 3 recently. But I’ve been meaning to get back to Men of War through Assault Squad, and been thinking about getting back into Dawn of War 2 for a long long time. I haven’t actually touched Dawn of War 2 since it came out, and I really want to play it more.

    ..It’s just that I get an aneurysm each time I boot up steam, just everything about that program and system makes me want to pull my hair out and shit down Gabe Newell’s neck. Owning Dawn of War 2 at all is one of those accidents where I didn’t even know the game required steam at the time and bought the retail copy. Shitty ass games that require steam even on the retail copy should be forced to have to print GAME SUBSCRIPTION on the box. What a piece of shit system. Fuck you Valve.

    • 23/03/2011 at 21:42 jrod says:

      I played the demo for Dawn of War 2 and it really didn’t hook me… is the game really that awesome and I just didn’t give it a chance?

    • 23/03/2011 at 23:03 bleeters says:

      Incidentally, DoW2, chaos rising and retribution retail copies all say “Internet connection required for activation” on the front, and “you must activate this product via the internet by registering for a Steam account” on the back.

      But yeh, fucking Valve, am I right?

  102. 23/03/2011 at 21:38 DJ Phantoon says:

    I think Starfleet Command 2 is technically strategy in real time, so that.

    A lot of that.

    So much of that, in the past few weeks.

  103. 23/03/2011 at 21:38 Navagon says:

    Recently I’ve been playing:
    Napoleon / Empire Total Wars (don’t have Shogun 2 yet)
    Men of War (original. I have Red Tide too though)
    RUSE (just started on this one. I got SpEd for my beautiful mouse)
    King Arthur + Saxons (Steam version, so I can MP)
    Dawn of War 2 + Chaos Rising
    Supreme Commander 2
    Warrior Kings + Battles (Fresh from GG sale. Still a n00b at this)
    Total Annihilation

    Other RTS I enjoy but haven’t played in a while:
    Company of Heroes
    Supreme Commander
    Dawn of War Gold + DC
    Sins of a Solar Empire
    Paraworld
    Hostile Waters

    Plus a whole lot more I got in the Paradox complete pack that I haven’t played enough of to form an opinion on yet.

  104. 23/03/2011 at 21:40 Oak says:

    Why, here’s my installed list on Steam!

    http://i.imgur.com/OnkOn.png

    I’ve been playing a lot of Napoleon lately, but have yet to go online. A lot of EU3 as well, if that counts.

    On a related note, some dudes from the forum got a game of Age of Empires 2 going a while back, and it would be neat if it became a regular thing. The thread, if you’re interested: http://rockpapershotgun.com/rpsforum/topic.php?id=4172

  105. 23/03/2011 at 21:40 Frank says:

    I play single-player and can’t stand fiddly stuff (casting “spells” with units, or learning a new, poorly-designed UI), so there hasn’t been much for me since Rise of Nations. I played Starcraft II (a huge disappointment, mainly because of its awful storytelling, but entertaining as a spectator sport) and have been meaning to go through CoH’s campaign.

    Maybe once Valve develops an RTS, I’ll be interested in multiplayer (counterstrike and team fortress converted me to multiplayer FPS). Oh wait, I already play Galcon!

    • 23/03/2011 at 22:21 Squirm says:

      did you really, REALLY expect the follow-up to the most successful multi player RTS game to be a dramatic well crafted single player experience? :O

      I played sc1/bw a few times, and bought sc2 at release knowing exactly that its a multi player game with a single player tacked on, and i cant really imagine any other viewpoint on this matter, like how did you come to think that way? plz explain ^^

      It’s like being disappointed when you go to a Michelin star restaurant because they dont serve your favourite cheap thrills big mac burger

    • 23/03/2011 at 23:21 Rhin says:

      The SP campaign had a lot of work put into it, even if the plot was pretty thin. Just about every level had a unique mechanic. giant lasers? train-chasing? A stupid ally you have to cover (okay, this one is pretty common)? Minecra^H^H^H^H^H^H^H hide-from-zombies-at-night?

  106. 23/03/2011 at 21:41 Snuffy the Evil says:

    I don’t play a lot of RTS games, but I’ll boot up Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance every once in a blue moon and go a round against the AI.

  107. 23/03/2011 at 21:42 smokingkipper says:

    Never played an RTS in anger until Starcraft 2 came about…Since release I spent about 10 minutes in the single player before more or less devoting 100% of my gaming time to the multiplayer.

    The game has brought out this insane competitive streak in me. I find myself wrapped up in either playing, watching tournaments, analysing my replays etc.

    I dont quite understand as I have never been compulsive with any other game.

  108. 23/03/2011 at 21:44 KingKrapp says:

    I’ve burned quite a few hours on Rise of Nations Gold with a friend, and Dawn of War: Dark Crusade solo.

  109. 23/03/2011 at 21:45 CMaster says:

    Lots of automatch Company of Heroes, mostly 2vs2at with a friend).

    (Hint automatch is the best way to play – the matchmaker normally gets it about right excepting 2vs2 random. You get a balanced game type with a suitable player level and much less cheating than you get in custom games (also, most custom game players rig the settings to favour them)).

    Been playing Majesty 2 sp a fair bit, also Atom Zombie Smasher. Last singleplayer RTS I really enjoyed was World in Conflict, before that Homeworld. It’s a genre with a lot of potential, but normally pretty weak SP play.

  110. 23/03/2011 at 21:51 Phinor says:

    Company of Heroes still remains the RTS of choice among me and my friends. Not CoHO, the original (though with expansion packs). We have couple of hundred custom maps just to get that extra bit of variety. Sins of a Solar Empire is another one though we have to prepare 6-8 hours of time for even the smallest matches. The third favourite is Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. I’m trying to add Men of War: Assault Squad to our game rotation but it’s proving hard because CoH is so brilliant.

    For solo-gaming I currently have Shogun 2 and DoW 2: Retribution.

  111. 23/03/2011 at 21:53 El_MUERkO says:

    I play games with a small group of like-minded retards known as The Halibut’s (Yes, TotalWankBiscuit was a member of the Halibut’s but he left on a mission from Raptor Jesus and we changed all the locks).

    We play a lot of RTS’s but 99.999999% of the time we play Supreme Commander 2, though occasionally we dust off Dawn of War 2, a few play A.I. War, I play Men at War but the rest of them are too pussy to play that and one of us plays Warzone 1991.

    Supreme Commander 2 however is our crack of choice and we mainline the fuck out of it because nothing, NOTHING in the whole cornucopia of RTS units is more cool than the Monkey Lord and ‘FUCK YOU!’ if you think different!

  112. 23/03/2011 at 21:54 Sabin says:

    Dawn of War II retribution. Been playing Last Stand or multiplayer games just about any evening or weekend I have time for gaming.

  113. 23/03/2011 at 21:55 Znea says:

    I play Total Annihilation anytime I’m on a plane (netbooks are wonderful things) and I seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time playing C&C 3 mod Mideast Crisis 2 considering I pretty much only ever play lonesome-player. It’s just so well put together.

    Also play Starcraft 2 and Supreme Commander every once in a while.

  114. 23/03/2011 at 21:56 El_MUERkO says:

    deleted due to weird buggy triple post

  115. 23/03/2011 at 21:57 Jhesam says:

    This week, I am mostly playin’:

    Shogun 2
    Atom Zombie Smasher
    Napoleon Total War
    Evil Genius

    This week, I am mostly hopin’ for a sequel too:

    World in Conflict

  116. 23/03/2011 at 21:58 El_MUERkO says:

    deleted due to weird buggy triple post

  117. 23/03/2011 at 21:58 somedude says:

    Total Annihilation with the Units Compilation Pack, which I would contend is the greatest RTS of all time. I’ve also played its spiritual successors SupCom/SupCom2 (the first was brilliant but way too slow, the second was pretty fun as well).

    Beyond that, my favorite is probably Dawn of War: Dark Crusade (good battles, fun strategic campaign). Tried DoWII, but found it a bit… not really RTS-like, although Retribution sounds promising and I may pick that up at some point. Act of War was another interesting one, although I never really felt the motivation to return after the first playthrough.

    Tried CoH and MoW, never really got into them.

    Also, have been getting into Hostile Waters lately – really interesting mix between RTS and third-person vehicle combat, graphics look a bit dated but the gameplay is surprisingly agile and quite fun.

  118. 23/03/2011 at 21:58 El_MUERkO says:

    Derp, where do all my comments go?

    Are you lads moderating comments now?

    Ewwwwweeeeee!!!!

    /retreats

  119. 23/03/2011 at 21:59 quijote3000 says:

    I just finished the incredible campaign in Medieval: total war. Loved it. finished Dark crusade not so long ago.
    Planning on replaying C&C 1 and 2, because I recently bought the 3rd part :)

  120. 23/03/2011 at 21:59 Dimsey says:

    I don’t play a lot of RTS games, but I’m expecting my copy of Shogun 2: Total War to rock up soon.
    And I did buy Starcraft 2 when it came out, but didn’t play a lot of it. Bit too fast paced for my tastes.
    Only really play alone, any attempts to play an RTS online have resulted in me getting totally crushed.

  121. 23/03/2011 at 21:59 eightbitrobot says:

    Love playing Company of Heroes against friends, it’s easy to get in to and you get straight in to the action as well.. it’s a good primer if you want people to start playing RTS with (against?) you.

    Also picked up Shogun 2 recently.. really good stuff! I hadn’t played any Total War game since Medieval (1) but I really like the feudal Japan / samurai setting so I decided to get back in to it.

  122. 23/03/2011 at 22:00 Prodromus says:

    I have a group of friends I play with- we play SC2 multiplayer a couple nights a week. When the new Company of Heroes patch comes out we will switch back to playing that some as well. We used to play CoH almost exclusively and loved it but have been sucked away by Starcraft 2 as we were all big fans of the first one.

  123. 23/03/2011 at 22:05 kulik says:

    Combat mission: Shock Force. …some fictional present Libya scenarios popped out.

  124. 23/03/2011 at 22:10 Megadyptes says:

    Been playing some Shogun 2. Also Europa Universalis III. What? It’s a strategy game and it’s real time. Deal with it.

    I play almost exclusively single player as my anti-social, misanthropic ways extend into the cyber world.

  125. 23/03/2011 at 22:15 Squirm says:

    Play starcraft 2 every day, masters league used to be in the top200 but dont ladder much now, just practice games instead, much better way to learn ^^

  126. 23/03/2011 at 22:17 HexagonalBolts says:

    I play starcraft two nightly, anyone care to join? :D

  127. 23/03/2011 at 22:19 rocketman71 says:

    Anything but SC2

  128. 23/03/2011 at 22:20 Flameberge says:

    Ermmmm. Not a big RTS player, but sometimes the hankering gets me, especially the last few weeks.

    For explodey robot death, SupCom 2. With the DLC and patches, adding the Monkeylord and other experimentals back it, alogn with a ranger of bigger maps, I can finally have the massive battles I’ve always wanted, but in SupCom 1, were tooo much for my maths-repulsed brain to manage an economy for.

    Also been playing DoW2: Retribution. Still just as much of an Action Tactical RPG as an RTS, especially the space marine and chaos campaigns. Found it pretty fun, found all the campaigns a bit too similar, and the stories stop working the further you get from the Imperial perspective, Blood Racen-centric as it is. I’m not quite sure how the justification is going to work for getting the Tyranid campaign to culminate with killing the big baddy at the end. The Ork justification was stupid, but in a way that kind of works for Orks, so they got away with it. I find DoW difficult to evaluate – I came to DoW1 and its expansions as a gamer, but then I picked up 40k and Warhammer Fantasy as a hobby less than two years ago, so I’m now less than objective when it comes to the 40k universe.

  129. 23/03/2011 at 22:22 Stylosa says:

    I’ve been playing a ton of Retribution co-op with my old chum Kirioth. We’ve been recording the Imperial Guard campaign with the intention of plastering it all over our YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/unitlosttube. The clips are full of spoilers (duh :P) so beware!

    I’m kinda disappointed with the play style of the guard, but then again they are all about smashing countless numbers of troops into the enemies face. The only problem with this from a gameplay point of view is it almost negates the need for tactics lol.
    Other than that, I do play a fair bit of StarCraft 2 when I get the chance.

  130. 23/03/2011 at 22:25 Deccan says:

    A lot of SupCom 1 being played at my house lately, in high rotation with Total Annihilation (7-player free-for-all on Lava Run or Pincushion, whee!).

    I’ve got a copy of Homeworld too that I keep meaning to reinstall.

  131. 23/03/2011 at 22:27 Casimir Effect says:

    Haven’t been able to get in to playing much RTS recently; hard to find the time to sit down for the several hours straight that the genre requires.

    I do have King Arthur staring at me from my Steam account though, and will be getting round to playing it soon. Otherwise Rome: Total War probably holds the most hours of my strategy life.

    I did play Spellforce 2 + Dragon Storm last year and thoroughly enjoyed both of them. Always seems an underappreciated series to me. Yeah there are some glaring faults such as the pathfinding and AI, but there is so much to love about the games and both campaigns hold quite a few “Damn, that was cool!” moments.

  132. 23/03/2011 at 22:27 The Army of None says:

    Starcraft II, Stronghold (the first!), and a wee bit of the classic Age of Kings once every few months

  133. 23/03/2011 at 22:27 Makariel says:

    Currently only Starcraft 2. Last RTS before that was Dawn of War 2, which I did not finish because it was too action-RPGish for me and the story just didn’t interest me at all.

  134. 23/03/2011 at 22:28 hanneswall says:

    First and foremost DoW 2. Also some Ufo: Enemy Unknown

  135. 23/03/2011 at 22:29 TopShelfCookieJar says:

    AI War. Took a few attempts over the last 12 months but it finally ‘clicked’ for me. I think the most recent updates to the tutorials helped (v4.0 maybe?).

    • 24/03/2011 at 14:52 jrod says:

      Same problem: I have owned AI War since it was released and I know its the type of game I will love, but just haven’t been able to get into it yet.

  136. 23/03/2011 at 22:31 Anonymous Coward says:

    The only strategy game i really play and enjoy is suppreme commander, forged alliance and also supcom 2. I never got used to all that micro management other rts feature

  137. 23/03/2011 at 22:31 TddddK says:

    Recently: Rome Total War, Starcraft 2, and the old Starship Troopers RTS. Which is not that good, but I played it years ago and so it gets sentimentality points.

  138. 23/03/2011 at 22:32 beedee says:

    OpenRA. It’s an open-source crossplatform reimagining of Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Pretty awesome, even if I do say so myself.

  139. 23/03/2011 at 22:35 dartt says:

    I’ve been playing a load of RTS games with assorted RPS folks lately:

    Supreme Commander 2
    Assault Squad
    Shogun 2

    Before MOW came along I used to play a lot of COH and before that Warcraft 3 > Red Alert 2 > Metal Fatigue > Ground Control > Age of Empires 2 > Total Annihilation > Red Alert > Z

  140. 23/03/2011 at 22:38 Maykael says:

    The real time strategies I play are:

    Total War: Shogun 2 (in the RPS clan from the Steam group, though I’m focusing on the single player right now). I’m planning to get back to Empire.

    StarCraft 2 – very rarerly. I’d like to do more of this though in multiplayer.

    Dawn of War: Dark Crusade – fantastic single player. I plan to buy Retribution at some point or another and engage in that multiplayer regularly.

    I’ve never played RTS in a clan in what you could call a hardcore manner. I wish I would, even with the steep learning curve.

    • 23/03/2011 at 22:58 danimalkingdom says:

      I bought Empire when it first came out and it made me cry from the rainforest’s-worth of bugs in it, but I want to reinstall and try one of the big megamods that people have made. the Darthmod sounds cool. I know there’s a good game in there somewhere, even it takes the users to make it.

  141. 23/03/2011 at 22:44 Hoaxfish says:

    I haven’t really played any RTS in ages, but generally I prefer less base-building… my list of fav RTSes:

    Myth series
    Homeworld series
    Dawn of War (at least 1, not played 2 though… and I even tried PvP)
    Ground Control 1 (2 seemed worse)
    Battle Realms was neat
    Populous, if that counts
    Total Annihilation (don’t have a system that can run Supreme Commander, but I’d like to try it)

    There are a couple of what I’d term “Flash RTSes”, which cut out a lot of functionality in order to fit into the limitations of the Flash plugin (i.e. no right-click): e.g. Tentacle Wars. The Purple Menace

  142. 23/03/2011 at 22:47 rkb53 says:

    I play a bit of Ruse and europa universalis 3 (not sure if that would be classed as RTS).
    But my main rts game is empiresmod, fps and rts combined. Yes its fun to send virtual people to their deaths, but what is better than sending real people to their deaths in machines of doom that you research. :)

  143. 23/03/2011 at 22:48 Iskariot says:

    I play Supreme Commander Forged Alliance skirmish several times a week because of its epic huge battles on awesome huge battlefields and the coolest base building of any RTS ever.
    There is no RTS that can compete with SupComFA, certainly not Supreme Commander 2.

    I also still play Dawn of War (the first one with the 9 races, cool basebuilding, large squads etc).

    And I just bought the StarCraft 2 Collectors Edition for less than 40 bucks :D.
    A very nice game with the best SP campaign I have ever seen in an RTS, although the maps all appear to be somewhat claustrophobic lookalikes.

  144. 23/03/2011 at 22:52 malkav11 says:

    I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever even touch competitive multiplayer or skirmish mode. I play them for the singleplayer campaign or the very occasional one that supports coop. Recently, that’s been Dawn of War II: Retribution, which is a hell of a lot of fun in coop. We started with the Ork campaign and proceeded to beat that and the Space Marine campaign, while getting over halfway through the Tyranid campaign and then shelving it for the time being because there’s only the one hero, the Hive Lord, and it was level 9 and everything was super easy with the upgrades that make every tyranid in range immune to suppression and all tyranid attacks heal every tyranid.

  145. 23/03/2011 at 22:53 Iskariot says:

    I forgot to add Homeworld 2.
    The beautiful spaceships and special fx in this space RTS very often make me forget to play, and I end up admiring and enjoying the beautiful destruction of my fleet.

  146. 23/03/2011 at 22:54 omicron1 says:

    My favored RTS, as always, is Age of Empires. Not 2, not 3, but 1. I just enjoy the atmosphere and feel of the game, even if it had wonky pathfinding and a too-simple tech tree. Heck, I even went to good lengths to acquire an original boxed copy, just for nostalgia’s sake (and for that silky-smooth manual/tech tree)

    The other one I’ve been trying to get into is Hegemony Gold. I heard it fixed some of the problems with grind in the late game, but I have yet to even run the game! Life keeps getting in the way…

    And finally, a perennial favorite of mine is Celtic Kings: Rage of War (and its two sequels, the latter of which has yet to show up anywhere I can buy it…)

  147. 23/03/2011 at 22:55 danimalkingdom says:

    I’ve just crtl-f’d this entire post and no-one, not a single person has mentioned Scourge of War: Gettysburg. It’s a super duper RTS which pretty much tramples on the recent Total War games.
    Please go here and do yourself a favour and try the demo http://www.scourgeofwar.com
    It’s a real-time American Civil War combat sim, in which you control a bunch of regiments TW-style, but instead of just 20 units of 100 dudes each, you can command entire armies of tens of thousands of men, organised into divisions, brigades and regiments.
    The genius is how you have to change the way you play at different levels; if you’re a major-general, you can’t afford to get niggly with units, and instead you need to order whole divisions around, but if you’re a lowly colonel, you may only have a few hundred men with which to hold a vital position, and exact positioning and timing is more important.
    There are a host of options to change realism and difficulty, including restricting the camera to 3rd person view so that you can only see the units directly in front of your general (you actually play a character in the battle, and if he dies it’s game over), forcing you to ride like mad across miles of battleground to see what’s going on.
    But the genius for me is the multiplayer, where (and I love that someone thought of this) instead of teamspeak or IM mid-battle, you have to send a courier with the message to the other players on your team, and he has to ride off on his horse and he can be killed by a stray shot if he ventures too close to the fighting! It’s full of nice little touches, but it is a behemoth, and perhaps intimidating for the casual player.

  148. 23/03/2011 at 23:00 Insidious Rex says:

    I has mostly been playing Retribution, completed the campaign with Chaos, Tyranid and Eldar and working through the Orks.

    Apart from that I played a bit of C&C3 after the Steam sale a few weeks back, reinstalled CoH the other month to replay the campaign and tried (and failed) to play some Starcraft 2 MP.

    Then there’s the perennials, Sins, Total War series and Supreme Commander.

    I’ve just realised that I’ve played more RTSs than other genres in the past year or so, guess I like RTSs.

  149. 23/03/2011 at 23:01 moltobenny says:

    StarCraft: The Sequel

  150. 23/03/2011 at 23:13 Surreallemming says:

    About once a month or so a few friends of mine [and myself] get together and we play Supreme Commander FA with 20 minute no rush and no tech 3 units, but Experimentals okay.

    It takes a [Very] beefy PC but the fights you get out of it are spectacular. It’s also great for those OMG moments such as planes went in to take out a ufo and collided with a bunch of anti tac missiles from some defence so the tac missiles hit and let the melee units move in only to get destroyed by the aforementioned UFO.

    Recently been loving the Shogun 2 MP Campaign, been waiting for that for ages but really wanting a 4 or 8 player version.

    Also, nothing beats some old school TA/C&C fun, sand bagging an enemy to death can be quite satisfying

  151. 23/03/2011 at 23:14 Stevostin says:

    Just completed STALKER ; now going back to the steam sales reserve. Played Dead Space, fount it dull and cliche (and 3rd person view is awful, of course), uninstalled it. Now playing Crysis. Pretty nice so far. Still one of the best looking game available and a quite interesting gameplay.

  152. 23/03/2011 at 23:23 Bahumat says:

    Total Annihalation. (Okay, okay, Supreme Commander, because it runs on my system and TA doesn’t; but I keep playing SupCom *wishing* in my heart of hearts it was Supreme Commander, okay?)

    But mostly I stick to turn-based strategies. MOO2, GalCiv2, etc.

  153. 23/03/2011 at 23:27 Barman1942 says:

    I’m a big Man War/Total War guy, and on occasion will play Dawn of War or Homeworld 2(I *still* think it is the best looking RTS ever made) with a friend. Never been a huge fan of RTS’s in the vein of Starcraft though.

  154. 23/03/2011 at 23:28 rawgr says:

    Im trying to get better at retribution, do the occasional ranked match 3v3 with complete strangers, just not to get owned all on my own, but half the time I either get stomped, or the other 2 dudes win for me and I help out a bit. I do more and more feel like I’m making an impact or that I’m playing more tactical than the matches before, but then it puts me against harder dudes so it’s a constant stress test, meaning I do the things that I allways do, and in the event I get ****’d by hard counters, I don’t know what to do and start to drag the whole team down.
    Weirdly enough, I wanted to finally get into ‘casual sc2′ meaning I have yet to play 40 placement matches, and I’d love to just chill-play through them, but DOW2 and sc2 seems like the worst experiences to jump between so I think I’ll just try and keep up with the DOW2 stuff for now for as long as its still fairly new, and will then evaluate properly.

    I DID LOVE vanilla COH, never got good at at it, the custom matches scared me off with the constant smurf account betrayal and lobbykicking….and you kind of don’t want to learn a rts proper by just jumping into auto matches when you know you’re three years late (steam cheapo sale). Really loved it tho for the fireworks and the cute art style, especially the voice acting, the germans being the sort of ‘black magic’ nazis, the americans as naive alpha males, brits as slow intel types…..good times.
    RPS COH would be cool actually. chat me up on steam if you fancy some sort of l2p match with someone who logged 200+ hours but never managed to excell at the game… steam name = rps poster name…

  155. 23/03/2011 at 23:33 exurban says:

    Company of Heroes, Sins of a Solar Empire Entrenchment, Risk: Factions, Close Combat: Last Stand Arnhem.

    I never play vs. people. Like with Company I like to get my armor out and slug it out, but vs. matches are all about running Jeeps around. I just don’t care about developing the micro and the patented strategies to beat people. I do like playing on teams vs. AI opponents though.

    Played RUSE, but didn’t get into any co-op with it. Sitting on 3 of the Theatre of War titles, will get around to those someday.

  156. 23/03/2011 at 23:35 heretic says:

    eufloria.

  157. 23/03/2011 at 23:36 rawgr says:

    omg my big post got eaten by the spam god. test to see if my name upsets it…do ignore it, good sirs.

  158. 23/03/2011 at 23:36 Highforge says:

    Civ5. Elemental, Mass Effect 2.

    Have a job and a life so had to give up all MMOs and most games that need dedicated online friends and organized times.

    Finally retired from Subspace this year…just not enough players left….it will always be like that one girlfriend that I knew I’d never marry but always wish I was back in the sack with. It was the best skill-based multiplayer game ever made, no question. Subsace/Continuum was to online gaming as chess is to board games. Will someone rich please develop it for Steam? Pretty please.

  159. 23/03/2011 at 23:37 Vandelay says:

    I seem to be playing a lot of RTSs recently. Strangely seems to have developed a bit of a resurgence over the past few years.

    Right at the moment I am playing Shogun 2: Total War, if you can really call it a RTS. Also constantly dipping in and out of Starcraft 2, which I pretty much only play multiplayer. I play this quite a bit with a couple of friends in our 3v3 team, with the odd friendly free for all game. Still play 1 on 1s on the occassion, which is where Starcraft 2 really shines, but playing it infrequently really makes my skill level suffer, which makes it less fun.

    I was hoping to similar get into Dawn of War 2 MP with Retribution, but haven’t really played much at all, probably because I just came from finishing off the original Dawn of War 2 Single player.

    I’ve also been dipping in and out of Command and Conquer 3, which was bought along with the expansion, Red Alert 3 + expo and Command and Conquer 4 in the recent Steam sale. Actually quite enjoying it, but have really become to accustomed to the Starcraft 2 style of play and end up being really crap at it. I have to remember that microing your units just doesn’t work and it really is just a race up the tech tree. Not interested in playing this one online though.

    Very keen to get hold of RUSE at some point and also have Supreme Commander 2 to play, which I played for a little while after buying it during another one of those Steam sales and quite enjoyed.

    • 24/03/2011 at 15:15 jrod says:

      RUSE is one of the worst single player games I have ever played, but at the same time is easily one of the BEST competitive multiplayer games I have ever played. Do not buy unless you are willing to explore online play. It’s not a twitch, actions per minute monster like SC2 – just pure strategy, planning, and deception.

  160. 23/03/2011 at 23:38 JimK. says:

    I mostly play RTS games for the campaigns because online-RTS is too hasty and chaotic for my taste. I have played the recent big ones like Starcraft 2 and CoH but stopped playing them for obvious reasons.

    Currently, i am addicted to Shogun 2. I just finished the Singleplayer Campaign and started doing the co-op campaign with a friend. I must say it all works quite well, except for the fact that you have to be a little patient with your co-player. And Gosh darnit what a great game it is. It’s not as large and complicated as Empire was and that made me a little bit disappointed at first. But now i am starting to like it more and more. what can i say I? I love Nippon and i love Total War. Great game.

  161. 23/03/2011 at 23:38 Vurten says:

    I miss the turn based ones. Played Jagged Alliance 2 Gold as late as a week ago. Made me want the 3DS for that Ghost Recon /xcom remake.

    Shogun 2 pretty much at the moment, feels its taken Medieval 2′s throne.
    Having trouble with the wow factor in Dawn of War 2… Just seems to old and tried. Apparently I need the build/economics factor.

  162. 23/03/2011 at 23:38 timmyvos says:

    At the moment I’m playing Total War: Shogun 2, Men of War: Assault Squad and DOW 2: Retribution. From time to time I start up my old, modded Supreme Commander Forged Alliance and Company of Heroes. If I have a lazy weekend I start up HOI 3 and see if I can come out on top this time. If I’m terribly bored I play Empire at War, most underestimated RTS of the decade, destroying the Rebel Alliance planet by planet for the win!

  163. 23/03/2011 at 23:40 TenjouUtena says:

    RTS-like games that I would still consider clicking the ‘go’ button on:

    Starcraft 2
    AI War
    Shogun 2
    Settlers 7

    I would play Sup Com 2 if someone wanted to play teams, but it’s not really my favorite. Assault Squid never really gripped me, and Dawn of War always seem to take a back seat to other games. But then again, I tend more to the base-building and ‘macro’ side of RTS, so…

    • 24/03/2011 at 15:18 jrod says:

      I played a couple hours of the campaign of settlers 7 and just couldn’t get into it… do I need to give it another shot? It just seemed so damn cheesy and slow. I know its supposed to be this wonderfully complex beast of a game, but I just didn’t see it.

  164. 23/03/2011 at 23:45 FriendlyFire says:

    Haven’t had much time to game lately (well, other than that Minecraft addiction…), but I usually go for a bit of Dawn of War 2, Company of Heroes or Sins of a Solar Empire if I have the mind for it.

    I almost always come back to Homeworld 2 every once in a while. A real marvel.

  165. 23/03/2011 at 23:50 Aldehyde says:

    Starcraft 2 multiplayer every day. Playing the 1v1 ladder and custom games with practice partners.

  166. 23/03/2011 at 23:54 Lacunaa says:

    Starcraft II almost exclusively. I see many people here say that they find multiplayer starcraft too hectic and too serious. I have the opposite feeling about many of the other rtses. I played both supcom 1 and company of heroes and while I can understand why people like them, I found them to be really boring compared to the blizzard RTSs.
    The unit control in starcraft is so sublime, it really gives a feeling of control over your troops. I hated supcom so much when you gave a move command and it took your units a few seconds to just turn around and start moving in the right direction.

  168. 24/03/2011 at 00:05 patricij says:

    Rome: Total War – The Barbarian Invansion – playing as Goths – I assembled the horde and headed to the Apennine Peninsula as the continent is a bit too packed for my liking and settled nearby by capturing a couple of Western Roman Empire’s settlements (and sacking some Roman rebel settlements on the way making me the richest faction) and now I’m deciding whether honour the agreetment of ceasefire between me and the Western RE (and find me some other settlements to capture) or just go ahead and capture the rest of the Western RE settlements by the sea….decisions

  169. 24/03/2011 at 00:08 Davie says:

    Well, I do mostly singleplayer, because I cannot invest the time to train like a madman to become competent against other people who have done just that. However, I love me some Medieval II Total War (I would have bought Shogun 2 but merely typing this sentence is giving my computer a stress-induced seizure) and CnC3. I also own nearly every Relic game, and I play the hell out of Chaos Rising and Opposing Fronts.

    Oh! And Rise of Legends! Rise of Legends is an absolutely wonderful forgotten gem, and more people need to play it before it becomes older than last-gen. Seriously, you guys. Play Rise of Legends and watch with joy as clockwork robots pull apart glass golems and djinn shoot fireballs at Space Aztecs. It is magnificent.

  170. 24/03/2011 at 00:09 princec says:

    Revenge of the fucking Titans, and I can’t wait to see the back of it forever!

  171. 24/03/2011 at 00:13 propjoe says:

    I played a lot of the original Men or War for a while, and a pretty good amount of Civ 3. Also some Gratuitous Space Battles (does that count?), and I just picked up Rome: Total War in the Steam sale, so I’ll be getting on that soon. I’ll usually play for an hour or two a day for two or three weeks until I’m satisfied that my experience is complete. I almost never play online.

  172. 24/03/2011 at 00:13 Amon99 says:

    I am completely and utterly perplexed at how no-one ( that i have noticed ) has mentioned Empire Earth! The first Empire Earth was possibly my favourite RTS ever, it had every age the world has been through and several in the future too. My favourite part of the game was in multiplayer with 8 players starting on their own individual planet. Then it was a race to the space age to be able to travel to their planets and kill them! There was something very satisfying about crushing a civilization still in the renaissance with my spaceships and laz0rz.
    The sequels weren’t up to much unfortunately but i live in hope for a remake of the original :D

    Edit: The original Settlers games also deserve a mentioned, 1 and 2. Loved those games!
    The more recent installments in the series however, i didn’t enjoy nearly as much.

  173. 24/03/2011 at 00:18 Sarlix says:

    Wow, so many comments. I didn’t realize so many rpsers liked man clickers.

    I tend to binge play RTS games. Nothing for months the suddenly I have five on the go. At the moment trying to finish SC2 – doing about a mission a week. MoW, CoH, AI War and I have SINS installed pending enthusiasm.

  175. 24/03/2011 at 00:32 oneloafleft says:

    Currently revisiting the 2D tacticalness of Close Combat: Last Stand Arnhem (the recently rejigged version of Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far)

    It’s a joy.

    Edit: Almost entirely singleplayer, by the way. I don’t like people.

  176. 24/03/2011 at 00:35 bascule42 says:

    Assuming that Jim means at the moment, (being in the last few months), as opposed to every RTS title I’ve ever played. We would be talking Dawn of War II, (in all of it’s iterations) & Dawn of War Soulstorm, Men of War, Civ V, can we count Blood Bowl LE?, and Command and Conquer 4….ha ha ha ha ha…no, not really Command and Conquer 4 – that was a jape.

    But Ive been playing Evechron Mercenary for the last week an half…there. Thanks for asking. :)

  177. 24/03/2011 at 00:36 Arathain says:

    I’ve been recently surprised by how much I’ve come to enjoy certain RTSs playing actual multiplayer against actual real people. I first noticed something when I tried out the RUSE beta, and found myself winning more often than not, which came as something of a shock.

    This year I started playing some Company of Heroes Online, and it’s been shockingly good fun. If anyone’s thinking of trying out multiplayer that’s a good one. There are never too many units to worry about at once, fights play out in a reasonable time frame so you don’t need a million actions per second to influence things, and good tactical thinking is as helpful as being able to micro well.

    Single player, I’m toying with C&C3, AI War, King Arthur, Men of War, but none of those are holding on to me.

    I’m giving not buying games for Lent a go, but DOW2: Retribution is calling to me…

  178. 24/03/2011 at 00:48 dysphemism says:

    I play Starcraft 2, but only with my buddies. We were in high school when Brood War came out, and it turned out to be a lunch-period unifier. Now that we’re creaky old twenty-somethings, and cast to the four corners of the U.S., it’s proven to once again be a unifying force. We make the time to don headsets, pick up 6-packs of hip beer, and ignore the acid stares of our fiancés as we take the piss outta one another and bitch about cannon rushers.

    It’s competitive, but it’s the kind of competition that only familiarity can breed.

  179. 24/03/2011 at 01:01 Blackberries says:

    I occasionally play Dawn of War 2 online. Still less frequently I play the original Dawn of War in a co-op comp stomp with friends.

    I play Age of Empires II LANs when I can.

    I intend to get into Shogun 2′s multiplayer.

    I watch professional Starcraft 2 (GSL), but don’t play it myself.

  180. 24/03/2011 at 01:12 appropriate touching says:

    Got Railroads! at xmas and spent basically all January playing just that, then reinstalled SupCom and that took up my February. Didn’t like SupCom at all when it came out, but my PC can properly handle it now and it’s really clicked. No current obsessions.
    Solo comp stomp all the way.

  181. 24/03/2011 at 01:22 Retribution says:

    My go-to game is currently DoWII: Retribution, since I am, admittedly, the biggest DoW fan evar. Other than that I occasionally hop on SCII with friends

  182. 24/03/2011 at 01:23 Blackberries says:

    Odd, the site seems to have taken my comment and eaten it. Good thing too, as I misunderstood the question to be asking about what we play in multiplayer, rather than just generally.

    I overwhelmingly enjoy my RTSs in Singleplayer. At the moment my tickles are Shogun 2 (only part RTS, but hey), and Dawn of War 2, which I seem to end up playing at least once a week (increasingly multiplayer for DoW2, to go back on what I said at the start of the paragraph).

    I’ve been trying to get into Supreme Commander 2 lately as well.

    I’ll still fire up Age of Empires 2 every now and again for a whirl. God I love that game. Rome: Total War and Empire: Total War get regular attention too.

    I watch professional Starcraft 2 but don’t play it.

  183. 24/03/2011 at 01:34 Delusibeta says:

    I really should get stuck into my copy of AI War: Fleet Command + first two expansions.

  184. 24/03/2011 at 01:37 Nilokey says:

    Company of Heroes.
    Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance (phantom mod)
    Supreme Commande 2
    Starcraft
    Warcraft 3 (DotA mostly)
    I dunno if League of Legend counts, i mean its from a RTS viewpoint with point and click commands… if so a fucktonne of that.

  185. 24/03/2011 at 01:41 Zaphid says:

    Starcraft 2 master’s league, though I’m not playing at all lately due to school. I wish I could say it’s the best RTS, but I wasn’t playing anything else:)

  186. 24/03/2011 at 01:42 Mr_Hands says:

    With 4 pages of comments, I’d be astonished if I have anything worthwhile to add, but:

    I like watching Starcraft 2. I can’t deal with the adrenaline that game releases in my system when I play multiplayer, so I usually don’t.

    I miss DoW I’s Necrons, so sometimes I boot up Dark Crusade and fiddle around with them, lonesome-player styles.

    I am a gigantic fan of DoW II, of course. Retribution has been my bread and butter. Yes, Shogun 2 as well. I play both those online because I’m not fumbling to build my build order before my opponent out builds me with their build order.

    I, for some reason, actually really like Napoleon: Total War, so I don’t get all the hate people heap at its feet. So I play that too. Single-player styles.

    I have SupCom II that I keep meaning to play more of, but, yeah. Time and all that. I also have the first Men of War that I need to give some time, though, I imagine Assault Squad will see a steam deal that will cause me to pick it up sooner than anticipated. Oooh! Sins of a Solar Empire! That too!

    Finally, I play AI War. Eventually, I will get good at that game.

  187. 24/03/2011 at 01:45 BubbaNZ says:

    Still reeling from the fun-ness of the Lordy Ringy total conversion mod Third Age: Total War for Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms. We thinks RPS put usss onto that. We thankes you, RPS.

    Lurking to see how the Shogun 2 Chick Parabola plays out before going Japanese.

    Fiddling around half-heartedly with DoW2:Retribution single player campaign. But it feels too linear and the orcs are too camp after TATW.

  188. 24/03/2011 at 01:49 MrtheP says:

    Revenge of the Titans will keep me entertained for a while, and I still make maps for and play AoW2.

  189. 24/03/2011 at 01:59 Orvidos says:

    I’m probably one of the, dunno, 100, 200 people still playing Age of Mythology (w/ The Titans, naturally) online on a regular basis. I will never stop loving that game.

    • 24/03/2011 at 02:02 Temple to Tei says:

      Lol, sure make me an immediate liar. Played AoM and liked -came to it from the board game. Still did not finish it though.

      And then some of the LoR Mods interest me. DoW 2 will be a purchase someday soon as well.

  190. 24/03/2011 at 01:59 Temple to Tei says:

    My 6 pence worth.
    None.
    I stopped playing RTS a while back, and when I saw the video of Starcraft 2 done in Lego I realised why. The repetition and fog of war, turtling etc. It made me realise I did not really like them. Though I did play a strange flash game tonight which was a rip-off of Populous 2 and fun despite losing badly (yeah not really a RTS).

    Never finished the original campaign of Starcraft or any Command and Conquers.

    So I liked Warcraft 2 despite the disappointment of the final units (did not like WC3 though), Populous 2 and one of the later Command and Conquers was amusing, but after that I think I want the games to be turn-based, like the units and research of Supreme Commander but somehow squeezed into a turn based game. Hey, look! Its Civ 4 :)

    Feck, I’m going to have to read the whole thread now so many ideas are popping up from people (and making me a bigger and bigger liar -soon I’ll be a politician)

    So yeah, Ruse is the latest RTS I have played and enjoyed and still play. Maybe the slower feel to it makes it bearable?

    [Hmmm, FF4 is checking my spelling for me, isn't that nice and wants me to spell American]

  191. 24/03/2011 at 02:19 squareking says:

    Starcraft 2, although not regularly because I’m not great.
    DoW2′s Last Stand mode, fairly regularly.
    SupCom on the back burner.
    World of Tanks…kinda sorta RTS? Eating my life at the moment.

  192. 24/03/2011 at 02:27 HiredGun187 says:

    I have been spending alot of time playing single and multiplayer RUSE

  193. 24/03/2011 at 02:36 LintMan says:

    I pretty much exclusively play the single player campaign (or campaign-equivalent for long-scale games like Sins or AI War) for RTS’s. I have no interest whatsoever in multiplayer online, and only very rarely bother with single player skirmish.

    Sadly, even though I love RTS campaign games, they are a poor value for me since single player content is generally an afterthought more most RTS developers.

    Few RTS’s stay on my system beyond however long the campaign takes to play through once. Rare exceptions were games like Total Annihilation (which had a steady stream of free new units released for it), Dawn of War (I) (which had a series of great expansions plus the later campaign maps) and more recently AI WAR (which is regularly updated and overhauled).

  194. 24/03/2011 at 02:53 Juicetin says:

    For 13 years and counting it’s been Starcraft and now Starcraft II. I play few games every couple of days. Other than that, my RTS life has pretty much died a horrid death, which is a real shame, because it was once a mainstay of my gaming life. Total Annihilation, Civ, Ground Control, Earth 2150, Homeworld i & ii , Sacrifice, the list goes on. I pick up one of these once every couple of months and play a campaign, though the games I’ve most consistently gone back to are the Homeworld series, not necessarily because they possess the most exciting game dynamic, but because the campaigns are endlessly absorbing. Rock on Karan S’jet!

    But SCII is, of course, king of the hill for the moment. I’ve never been able to access other players so easily. Endless 1v1s and 2v2s with anonymous internet opponents gets on my tits after too long, but luckily, this is the first strategy game I’ve played where people I know actually own it too. I know Blizzard are far from perfect, but they deserve some serious props for quite successfully popularizing a genre that I’ve usually found difficult to get others to play.

  195. 24/03/2011 at 03:02 Zakski says:

    It decided to post this twice so i’ll mention that i also like dow pre dark crusade. I could go on about total war and company of heroes but i think i have said too much below already.

  196. 24/03/2011 at 03:02 Zakski says:

    Sins of a Solar Empire with Entrenchment and Diplomacy – play it in cracking game, the vasari rock, but i find the pace a tad slow

    Ages of Empires 2 with Conquerors – finished singleplayer long ago, tis mainly comp stomps and battles against friends on lan. arguably one of the best rtses ever made. the addition of gates make it 1001% better than the original (i played that too).

    Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds – hilarious Aoe2 clone in star wars land. mainly play comp stomp on island and forest maps against hardest ai. took us 2 hours to grab a beachhead once because of air cruisers – fun times.

    Darwinia, Defcon and Multiwinia – all fantastic indie rts games, not really played them online though

    I guess technically Frozen Synapse counts as an rts, just one that pauses every so often – very addictive

    Supcom1 + Fa – again compstomps after completing the singleplayer campaigns

    Command and Conquer:First decade – brilliant box set, love C&C generals the most – owned it before this came out – it has the best unit noises ever.

    Emperor:: Battle For Dune – only played this in singleplayer, the superworm mission is too hard. otherwise great crack on red alert 2 engine i think

    World in Conflict and Ground Control 2 – I like the premise of these so much, they kinda stand out as the way you get units is pretty unique.

    Homeworld 2 – the variable difficulty system of single player kinda burned me and i never got into multiplayer.

    Hearts of Iron series -It scares me, but i must win wwII as the uk without us intervention.

    Mechcommander 2 – perhaps one of the coolest rtses, who doesn’t like stompy mech destruction?

  197. 24/03/2011 at 03:28 luckystriker says:

    Currently playing:
    1) Starcraft 2 multiplayer on a nightly basis (1v1 1500 games, 2v2 300 games, 3v3 and 4v4 negligible amounts)
    2) DoW 2 retribution mostly coop with a little multiplayer thrown in (+ the occasional last stand game)
    3) Shogun 2 singleplayer only (I don’t do multiplayer battles for this; I like pausing for the fights)

    I play with friends or random, no team or clan involvement. RTS is my favorite genre of games.

  198. 24/03/2011 at 03:41 wazups2x says:

    Dawn of War 2: Retribution is my first DoW game and I must say I’m loving the multiplayer. I was really only a Starcraft player but now I’m actually starting to prefer the gameplay of DoW more.

  199. 24/03/2011 at 03:58 Ateius says:

    For my RTS goodness, I tend towards the grand-scope games: Europa Universalis 3 (technically real-time!) is a longtime favourite, and I also enjoy the Total War games (they’re real-time! In the battles!).

    I used to play the Age of X games, Command & Conquer, Starcraft and Warcraft, but tend to shy away from those small-scale traditional RTSs these days. I’m just tired of them, I guess. I do enjoy the occasional bout of Company of Heroes, Men of War, and Dawn of War II, but they aren’t regulars.

    … you know, I really need to load up Homeworld again. It’s been too long. Thanks for reminding me, Rossignol.

  200. 24/03/2011 at 04:03 cpugeek13 says:

    I’m glad supcom2 is getting some good lovin in this comment thread. As a self-professed midcore gamer, I think supcom2 is perfect for me. I used to play a lot of DoW2, but the micro in that game was just too intense for me. Supcom2 provides such a streamlined, accessible entry into the genre; its great for people who don’t play rts games regularly but still want some bot-smashing action.

    I used to play a lot of RoN, but also recently bought Rise of Legends and have played a few games of that. I think RoL doesn’t get enough respect, personally. It was really ambitious (steampunk, arabian nights, and incan-inspired races!) and had some really cool concepts (like adding disctricts to you city instead of the traditional base-building). Really wish they’d make a sequel to this game, maybe even more than RoN.

    Right now I’m waiting for SC2 to go into beta here in China. Its going to be 20 yuan (about $3 USD) a month when its released, so it will be very affordable for me. I wasn’t a huge fan of SC1 (too much micro, out-dated interface), but I’ll give this a go.

  201. 24/03/2011 at 04:04 drewski says:

    A lot of the original Dawn of War, but right now I have a hankering for some Battle Realms, so maybe I’ll give that a spin this weekend.

  202. 24/03/2011 at 04:13 Kron says:

    Achron! <3

    Love the game, love the community.

  203. 24/03/2011 at 04:14 Corrupt_Tiki says:

    Currently getting back into Minecraft, after a fairly decent hiatus.
    But also; CSS-Mainly ‘surfing maps’, CoDMW2 – Although have not played in sometime, Tropico 3, ArmA 2 – OA, Serioius Sam HD, CoH.
    I have many many more, but those are the most common atm, I will install Batman Arkham Asylum once I get a 360 Controller adapter thing for my PC, Will play through the witcher sometime (during holidays I think) and may reinstall Crysis to see how pretty it looks on my now not so shit :3

    EDIT: Oh, re-read, RTS, not RPS, you sneaky bugger you, but yeah, for the record my RTS’ go in the order of most played to least; Warcraft 3 TFT, Red Alert 2, CoH, Dawn of war 1 (all expansions, except soulstorm), and Starcraft 2, I have DoW 2 but Games For Windows Live is enough to stop me from reinstalling it. (I finished the campaign, and yeah GFWL did the rest =/ )

  204. 24/03/2011 at 05:00 Gabbo says:

    I recently finished a play though of AoE3 and I have to admit I miss the days of resource collecting (and will have to look into getting my hands on SC2 at some point). It hasn’t reignited my old flame for RTS’ (started coincidentally by AoE), but DoW1 and Impossible Creatures will probably be getting some more love in the near future.

  205. 24/03/2011 at 05:18 sigma83 says:

    League of Legends, and lots of it. With my brother, best friend and girlfriend mainly.

  206. 24/03/2011 at 05:19 Srekel says:

    Mainly SC2. I ladder with all team sizes, but I prefer 1v1 and 2v2. (I’m about gold level) I also watch a lot of commentaries. Don’t really play many mods (I like the regular game too much) but it happens. I’ve also tried to get a lot of achievements. I don’t have them all yet, and I haven’t even finished the last mission in the campaign on Hard difficulty yet. I really really like the achievements in SC2, whereas I generally don’t care about them in other games.

    Also played a lot of RTS games in the past, C&C, RA, Dune, Megalomaniac <3, Generals, etc. But SC2 has my heart now.

  207. 24/03/2011 at 05:22 pizzapicante27 says:

    Galactic Civilizations 2, Empire: Total War, Civ 5, Age of Empires 2, Sins of a Solar Empire

  208. 24/03/2011 at 05:57 TsunamiWombat says:

    SupCom 1, the only Sup Com that actually exists WHAT SEQUEL NO IT DIDN’T HAPPEN LALALALAAL

    Also DoW Retribution. Love last stand.

    I play alot of League of Legends. Does that count?

  209. 24/03/2011 at 06:00 SwiftRanger says:

    DoW 2: Retribution, singleplayer and Last Stand for now, until a proper balance patch for multiplayer comes out.
    SupCom 2 and SupCom: FA : the best skirmish RTS games ever made, period.
    Age of Empires Online: NDA and all that, decent stuff though.

    Firing up SCII to get a patch and very seldom to play one of those Blizzard mods. Main game and multiplayer don’t interest me anymore.

    • 24/03/2011 at 08:34 Squirrelfanatic says:

      What is wrong with the balance in Retribution MP? I watched some DoW2 live matches and apart from a bug or two I haven’t seen anything brokenly unbalanced.

  210. 24/03/2011 at 06:49 Tom Camfield says:

    I only got into RTSs last year, so I play the two games whose themes appeal the most: DOW1 and Rome. Company of Heroes was good, but it’s WW2 and Homeworld 2 was too difficult but I’d like to play the original. Men of War needed the F-buttons and I don’t have them on this laptop :-/ Total Annihilation.. I will go back to at some point..

    I don’t play multiplayer, I’d imagine I’d die quickly.

  211. 24/03/2011 at 07:11 ScribeD says:

    I play Starcraft 2 daily, Civ 5, and Warcraft 3.

  212. 24/03/2011 at 07:21 Fashigady says:

    I mainly play DoW2, as infuriating as it can be at times – I find it’s just more interesting to micromanage squads of units than the economy and base managing style of SC2

  213. 24/03/2011 at 07:21 Valvarexart says:

    Dunno, I really never play RTS’s as I never got into it. Civ5 was neat, I guess.

  214. 24/03/2011 at 07:36 JB says:

    Well I mainly play turn-based when it comes to strategy. But when I do play an RTS it’s one of these (in order of use): Total War (Rome or Empire, it’s 50% an RTS, right?), SupCom2, Men of War (original), Hegemony: Philip of Macedon, Imperium Romanum, King Arthur (also 50% an RTS, right?), Theatre of War.

  215. 24/03/2011 at 08:06 Player1 says:

    Nowadays i don’t find much time for RTS games, but when i do, i love to play Warzone 2100 and Act of War: Direct Action, which i find quite satisfying. Also, i would love to see Molyneux’ Multiplayer Populous sequel done.

  216. 24/03/2011 at 08:17 Haywire says:

    Just picked daily SC2 back up for a LAN tourney in a few weeks.
    I generally watch A Lot of GSL (gomtv.net) matches for kicks and tricks, but mainly kicks.
    Dozens of hours sunk into actually playing , dozens (maybe hundreds?) more to come.

    I played the first two parts of Dawn of War 2 single player recentlyish, but haven’t grabbed the latest expansion and probably won’t for a wee while yet. Roughly 30 hours including a short stab at multiplayer.

    I also dabble in the occasional Civ IV-V with friends though thats basically died for me until they do something about the combat A.I. in Civ V. Hundreds of hours played but not playing regularly at this time.

    Lastly, as part of working through my unplayed steam purchases I ran across Gratuitous Space Battles and am mildly interested in expansions to that if I get bored with my current games. Probably only sunk about 5 hours total though.

    hope the bold tag works

  217. 24/03/2011 at 08:17 Verb4tim says:

    Sins of a Solar Empire, if you liked Homeworld you’ll definitely digg this.

  218. 24/03/2011 at 08:30 luckystriker says:

    RTS games I’m currenly playing

    1- Starcraft 2 multiplayer only (Play daily, 1v1 1500+ games, 2v2 300 games, 3v3 and 4v4 not much. SC2 takes up a lot of my free time)
    2- DOW 2 Retribution mostly coop and some last stand
    3- Shogun 2 singleplayer only (I don’t really consider this an RTS, but it seems like mostly do, so I’ll go with the flow)

    RTS is my favorite gaming category by far.

  219. 24/03/2011 at 08:40 Cross says:

    I regularly play RA3 for some co-op and AI-stomping. Nothing beats the Kirov!

  220. 24/03/2011 at 08:47 Mister_Inveigler says:

    Wow, this is a list…okay let’s see:

    All the DoW games, as well as the Total Wars, on and off. The newest ones get more screen time simply cause they’ve just been released and I need to explore the hell out of them.

    Civilisation, Startopia, Evil Genius Zeus, Caeser III (I like my city building okay?), old C&C games (never bought the last one), Galactic Civilisations, Sins of the Solar Empire + expansions, CoH, Warcraft III, Homeworld over and over again, it’s such a beautiful game. Ground Control on occasion, it has a certain appeal to it.

    These are the games I’m always revisiting.
    And always solo, as I don’t really have any friends who are into video games :)

  221. 24/03/2011 at 08:49 jon_hill987 says:

    I love SoaSE, but am rubbish at it, I love SupCom: Forged Alliance, but my economy crashes.

    Demigod is the main other RTS (of sorts) I play, mainly because it is far superior to LoL (not sure why everyone else can’t see this).

  222. 24/03/2011 at 09:11 -Spooky- says:

    In non timeline order ..
    Ground Control 2
    World in Conflict
    Homeworld
    C&C Series
    DoW Series (Coop / TLS)
    Soldiers of WW2 / Faces of War / Men of War (Coop)
    Shogun 2 (we break coop after the huge amount of desync prob)
    TA & SupCom 2
    AI War: Fleet Command
    Hearts of Iron
    and so on .. You name it, we play it. ;)

  223. 24/03/2011 at 09:28 Sunjammer says:

    Retribution, Sins and Starcraft. Good times!

  224. 24/03/2011 at 09:31 GeForceFX says:

    starcraft 2 bro.

  225. 24/03/2011 at 09:42 Butler says:

    Played C&C3 competitively (team, LAN) and SC2 semi-competitively (online solo ladder).

    Right now I find myself only playing LoL (being a free HoN and appealing to my competitive side) and some casual SC2 tower defense custom maps.

    Favourite of all time: Total Annihilation & Warcraft 3.

  226. 24/03/2011 at 09:49 F4T C4T says:

    I’m a Total War fiend. I always seem to come back to the Total War series. Currently in lieu of funds for Shogun 2 (and the feeling that I haven’t got everything out of the previous games) I’ve downloaded the Roma Surrectum I mod for Rome: TW and I’m loving it. I’ve tried a bit of DoWII and while I enjoyed the single player, the multi-player being in the more traditional RTS style put me off. Generally I dislike base building and resource collecting RTS’s so I gravitate towards the more tactical based ones. I’m intrigued by Men of War: Assault Squad as I played Soldiers many years ago and somehow missed out on all of the Faces/Men titles in between. Soldiers was amazing though and Jim’s WIT on Men of War: A.S. has brought it back into my mind.

    Usually playing on my lonesome because my gaming friends prefer console toys and generally aren’t up for those kind of games and I have some kind of phobia of unknown human opponents.

  227. 24/03/2011 at 09:54 worbat says:

    At the moment, a lot of COH 2v2 ranked matches. Good good fun!

  228. 24/03/2011 at 10:04 Dontdrop says:

    SC 2, nightly or so. I’ll probably start playing Shogun 2 MP once I get my copy.

  229. 24/03/2011 at 10:14 Hunam says:

    SC2 every now and then. When I play MP I enjoy it, the practice league and the appropriate matchmaking and ranking system work very well. It means that I will be given a fair chance instead of being shoved with some crazed lunatic who will squish my squishy face.

    I tried to play DoW2 a few times, 1v1 is horrid to be honest, not fun at all, team stuff just gets too complicated when people aren’t helping each other out.

  230. 24/03/2011 at 10:50 grimskin says:

    DoWII:Retribution’s Last Stand and multiplayer, next one will be TW:Shogun2.
    No clans/teams tho.

  231. 24/03/2011 at 11:06 Malibu Stacey says:

    AI War mostly. I’ve been doing the Raising Hell expansion of Overlord recently if that counts so I can get it off my “to finish” list & start on King Arthur: The Role Playing Wargame. Otherwise it’s some occasional Sword of the Stars or Galactic Civilizations II when I feel the need for some non-AI War space 4X. One day I’ll get around to trying out Sins of a Solar Empire & Star Ruler but for now they remain unplayed.

    If they didn’t cost around £30 each I’d play DoW2: Retribution (since it’s not infected with GFWL) & Shogun 2 but I’ll wait for a Steam sale & get them when they’re more reasonably priced.

  232. 24/03/2011 at 11:11 Hmm-Hmm. says:

    I have played a number of RTSs. My favourite one still has to be Dawn of War (plus expansions). But I rarely play more than single player campaigns. With Dawn of War, I actually started trying to improve my gameplay through skirmish (vs comp matches) but even so I have been and still am reluctant to take the fight online.

    The exception being The Last Stand in DoW2, but that’s co-op.

    At the moment I’m not playing any RTSs.. I plan to get Retribution some day but I’m in no hurry.

  233. 24/03/2011 at 12:38 jakonovski says:

    Retribution has been the only RTS for me lately, mp and sp equally. I get regular urges to replay SC2′s campaign, but the trauma of trying to learn its competitive multiplayer is still too fresh for me to even launch the game.

    I tend to buy most RTSs eventually, but few retain my interest. I have two recurring games that I really want to like: King Arthur and Universe at War. Both have amazing (single player) concepts, but don’t play quite as well as I’d hope. Still, I will finish both one day. I promise.

    Finally, since monsieur Rossignol phrased his question as just strategy games, I have to mention two of my favourite game series: Steel Panthers and Combat Mission (WW2 only). I have probably spent upwards of a thousand hours on those games. Alas, I did burn out eventually so I haven’t touched either in years.

  234. 24/03/2011 at 12:42 Duke of Chutney says:

    Currently
    Defcon
    Emperor Battle for Dune (best westwood game imo)
    Star Ruler

    in the recent past
    Supercom
    Total war (i oft play all up to med2)
    Homeworlds 1 &2+cataclysm

  235. 24/03/2011 at 12:55 mrpier says:

    DOWII: Retribution, ShogunII both singleplayer only and then BloodBowl where I play singleplayer and online.

  236. 24/03/2011 at 13:25 MadMatty says:

    Playing Supreme Commander 1 bi-regularly, and have been since release. It´s still the best RTS out there- if you havent got it, pick up the stand alone expansion Forged Alliance- its got all 4 races, and all youre missing out on is the standard single player campaign, and the singleplayer campaigns aren´t that fun.
    Other than that, ive tried a lot of stuff that came out recently, but Supcom 1 just outshines them badly.
    The standard AI is a bit naff, but i´ve been using an AI patch (third party Mod) called “Sorian” which has improved the cleverness of the computer a bit.
    “AI War: Fleet Command” is worth a mention tho, since its got excellent co-op vs the AI, and is even a blast in singleplayer.
    Most of the UI has been nicked from SupCom, including the strategic zoom, and then, expanded upon. Lots of automation options so you dont have to micro-manage so much :)
    Star Ruler is definetly worth a mention, and its in a much better state now, than it was at launch. Its got more of a 3D/space feel to it than Sins of a Solar (toy cars in space) with a full 3d interface and newtonian physics.

  237. 24/03/2011 at 13:48 Rane2k says:

    Until about a month ago, I had a strong RTS phase.

    Started out with the C&C Tiberian Dawn and Tiberian Sun, then I got Dawn Of War and Winter Assault.
    After that I immediately bought Dawn Of War 2 and Chaos Rising, which I both played through in 2 or 3 days each.

    Then from November i played StarCraft 2 exclusively, fought my way up from Bronze to Gold in 1v1.
    Played a lot of 2v2s with a friend, but only for fun, in bronze league. :-)

    Now I´m kinda finished with RTS´s for a while, back to platformers and shooters. I will probably get DoW: Retribution in a steam sale some time, and obviously the Starcraft 2 expansions, when they eventually come out…

    • 24/03/2011 at 14:37 Rane2k says:

      Oh, and just to clarify, I played all of those in Single Player, except Starcraft 2, where I played single and multi.

      Found the SC2 campaign very engaging, so much that I played through it 3 times (almost, couldn´t finish the 3 long defense missions on brutal difficulty)

  238. 24/03/2011 at 13:51 Anominity says:

    I play MoW: AS in Skirmish coop with two of my friends occaisionally. I bought DoW2: Retribution but unfortunately got bored of it in 2 hours, even though I loved DoW2 and Chaos Rising.

  239. 24/03/2011 at 14:10 Fumarole says:

    All I’ve been playing strategy-wise these days is Majesty 2 thanks to the recent Steam insano-deal. I play alone, because Mrs. Fumarole requires my time and I need to be able to pause at the drop of an F-bomb. Shogun 2 will dominate all aspects of my life once I can afford it, much to her chagrin. That will likely have a sprinkling of multiplayer added.

  240. 24/03/2011 at 16:08 Commisar says:

    lets see, Dawn of War 2 + retribution, Civ 5, Swors of the Stars Complete, a little SC2, some tropico3 Absolute power, Fate of the World. Thats about it

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  242. 25/03/2011 at 17:25 theSAiNT says:

    Starcraft II.

    Because we need more minearls.

  243. 25/03/2011 at 18:36 Real Horrorshow says:

    Seriously addicted to DoW2 Retribution right now. I can hear the Space Marine/Chaos bolter sound effect when I sleep. I think I’m seriously going insane.

  244. 26/03/2011 at 17:44 P3RF3CT D3ATH says:

    It’s all about Company of Heroes, R.U.S.E., and World in Conflict.

  245. 28/03/2011 at 19:57 Hatsworth says:

    Used to play WC3 competitively until recently. Was on a sponsored team, qualified for and attended WCG if that means anything to anyone here. As for the team aspect, I only played 2on2 when forced to, but there was still a lot of team spirit and lots of clanwars with mostly 1on1 matches.
    Played some SC2 during the beta and soon after release. I’ve been taking a prolonged break and become more of a spectator, but I’ll play again. Perhaps soon, and perhaps somewhat seriously. When I last played a handfull of ladder games it promoted me to master league even though I lost most of them, probably an artefact of my matchmaking rating when I quit(before master league was implemented).

  246. 30/03/2011 at 12:20 wererogue says:

    DoW2, SoaSE :)

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