Best strategy (RTS)

So yeah,
I want to find the most strategic RTS game out there.
Company of Heroes is pretty advanced. Is there anything else out there?

Cheers,

Heya,

+1 to Starcraft.

Cheers,

Starcraft, or Warcraft 3 if you prefer dragons.

Starcraft, C&C RA or TS (I loved both), or Homeworld Cataclysm. If I had to choose one, it'd be SC.

Hands down Starcraft I played that game heavly for 5 years strait and i still ply it occasionly
AOE2 is another good one
The Command and Conquer series is okay but noothing comapred to starcraft
They haven't really come out with anything to beat starcraft, which is sad its been ten years, but maybe starcraft 2 will beat it if they stop delaying it(I look every other day to see if they changed anything)

I haven't played it, but I hear Sins of a Solar Empire is pretty good.
Also, have you looked at Supreme Commander? I'm not sure if it's tactical enough.
If you're after depth, try the Total War series.
I also second the Homeworld suggestion mentioned above.

C&C 1 was my first computer computer game for my pentium 1 133 so I do have a bias to it being you couldn't pull me away from the computer with that game when I was young.

Supreme commander and the expansion pack. 1000 unit battles ftw!

40K is the best newish strategy game, I'd say... But nothing holds a candle to Starcraft still... And this is coming from someone who prefers medieval high fantasy any day of the week over sci-fi.

The problem, I believe, is that game companies are trying too hard to make complex war games, and the complexity just ruins the balance and the ability to actually just enjoy the game. I think, other than 40k, the last game that didn't try to overcomplicate things was Battle Realms.

Starcraft and Warcraft were and are still the best because they're challenging, but intuitive. There's not a ton of micromanaging going on, and you don't have to juggle 10 different resources like in games like AoE and the insanely complex space games.

From the new ones I'd choose only these three:

Ground Control II
- multiplayer is fun

UFO: Extraterrestrials
- great recent remake of the original XCom: UFO (turn-based combat)

Navy Field
- not really RTS, but a MMO real-time tactical simulation game

If you want the BEST in RTS gaming get either Medieval: Total War, Rome: Total War or Medieval 2: Total War, honestly nothing else comes even close to Total War games in terms of tactical warfare, positioning, geography and weather all make a huge difference to the outcome of a battle just like it does in real life.

I had a look on Play.com (the biggest UK online retailer for video games) and the up and coming Empire: Total War is taking more pre orders then ‘Starcraft’ which IMO is little more then a Sci-Fi C&C clone. I’m sure it’s better then C&C but lets face it Starcraft hardly pushes the boundaries of RTS games like Total War does.

Of course Empire: Total War is taking more pre-orders, it actually HAS a release date, March 2009. Starcraft 2 is slated to be released in 2009, but we all know how much Blizzard fine tunes gameplay balance. I'm sure SC2 will go gold shortly after a release date is given.

Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, and The Total War series are probably the most strategic RTS games I have played (the total war games are turn based on a large map but with real time tactical battles).

I really like the C&C games and warcraft and Starcraft but I don't find them as strategic, as simple swarm tactics are often the most effective strategy, and they don't reward you for using cover and ambushes or flanking attacks like CoH and the total war games do, that said Starcraft and the C&C games are still classics with a timless quality to them and I still enjoy playing them today. And as previously stated by several people Starcraft has some of the best balanced units in any game I've played, and I would recomend it to anyone who likes RTS games and has not yet played it.

I knew my comments wouldn't go down well with some of you but I stand by what I said, the real time battles in Total War are just in a different league to what games like Starcraft can offer. When I first started playing RTS games I always thought developers of these types of games were always aiming to get the genre to the level of intricate detail that Total War offers.

Oh and I guess we should, in "memory" of Rob Wright, mention Company of Heroes, because it definitely was a good strategy game. I think on numerous occasions he mentioned that game in ST and here on the forums because he loved it so much. I'm more of a "collect resources, build base, build army, destroy enemy" guy than I am a tactics guy, but that game was still a lot of fun.

IMO, if you want RTS StarCraft is the only game worth playing. If you want more strategy you should try a turn based game like civilization.

RTS: Starcraft, Age of Empires 1

Turn Based: Railrood Tycoon 1, Master of Orion 2, Galatic Civilizations 2, Civilization 4 CTP (requiring Warlords expansion), Civilization: Call to Power 1 (yes, the Activision ripoff...I liked it)

(Been too long for play time, but good memories playing): Imperium Galatica
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I've been playing games too long I believe... I have the opinion that "the older games were much better."

Civ 4, Total Annihilation, Starcraft or Warcraft...

My personal favorite RTS remains StarCraft. Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War is pretty nice as well, as is Age of Empires 2, but I still feel that neither came out as well as StarCraft did. I guess I've not played all that much Supreme Commander, so I'll withhold my opinion on that, though I'll admit I wasn't exactly impressed by its spiritual predecessor, Total Annihilation, so I guess my opinion might be a tad tainted. Sins of a Solar Empire, though... I kinda liked the idea on paper, but IMO, it's far too slow and tedious for an RTS. If I wanted 4X scale, I'd play a 4X game. (and yes, I play a lot of 4X titles; I'm a long-time fan of both the original Master of Orion and Master of Magic)

Two problems here:

• StarCraft is as much a Command & Conquer clone as C&C is a Dune clone. Also, WarCraft: Humans & Orcs, pre-dated the entire Command & Conquer series.
• The Total War games are NOT RTS titles. They are Real-Time TACTICS titles. There is no actual strategy involved in the real-time portions; in the TW games, you have the turn-based parts outside of battle, which are strategic in scale, while the real-time battles are the tactical portion. I will agree it does this very well, but again, it's a different type of strategy/warfare game, really as distinct as 4X games are.

-Total Annihilation is abrilliant game, very old but very good gameplay (with the right expansion packs). Don't go for Supreme Commander instead, it's crap.

-AoE II was good too (AoE III was not so good).

-StarCraft has earned it's place in the list too.

-Dawn of War can be fun but not massively stratigic.

-Soldiers: Heroes of WWII is fun too, especially in cooperative multiplayer with 3-4 players.

Nobody else has mentioned it, but I used to love Rise of Nations, and still play it from time to time.

Hands down: StarCraft.

Rise of Nations was also pretty fun. It's similar to Age of Empires but better.

Company of Heroes is by far the best RTS released since starcraft.

Theres nothing wrong with Starcraft either, however it doesn't hold a candle to CoH anymore - CoH just has a great deal more depth.

I bet Starcraft 2 and Dawn of War 2 are really going to raise the bar.