Hey everyone.

Growing up playing RTS games like Age of Empires and Empire Earth has made me see these as the classic type of RTS. What I mean is the advancing ages and the hoarding of resources like Stone, Gold, and food using civilians and then using those resources to build your empire and armies.

I want to play some more games like this so I was wondering if anyone here had any suggestions for classic RTS games? I know there are fantastic strategy games like Shogun 2 out right now but I've never really liked that huge focus on war and armies. I loved how in the older RTS games you could put hundreds of NPC's to work and it was amazing to see it all flow and your empire build.

I don't mind trying out older games but I would prefer games that weren't pre-2001. Empire Earth graphics are fine and even Age of Empires. But anything lower I don't think would look good on my screen.

Many thanks

Try Dawn of War (look for the complete collection, or at least up to the Dark Crusade expansion). Pretty large scale battles complete with artillery, tanks, all sorts of awesome stuff.

I've seen Dawn of War around for many years but I'm yet to give the series a try. I'll take a look today while I'm at the mall.

No no no no no.

Just. No.

Dawn of War has practically no resource collection or civilization building to speak of. I can't imagine someone who is looking for an Age of Empires type game would like it.

As for Simazzmarmerone, I can reccommend Age of Empires clones like Starwars: Galactic Battlegrounds, and there is Starcraft 2.

And while I cannot abide by Dawn of War, Company of Heroes is a vastly superior game made by the same people.

The sad thing is they don't really make games like that anymore. Resource collection, the kind you're talking about and the kind that makes Age of Empires so fun, has kind of gone the way of the dodo in the face of mainstreaming RTS games. There are very few now that feature, well, an economy.

It's the obvious answer and one you've most likely already played, but it wasn't mentioned, so I may as well throw Age of Mythology out there just in case.

If you like war themes try Company Of Heroes. Get ready for patches. There are alot of them.

On the Command & Conquer side, Red Alert 2 with Yuri's Revenge (2001) is probably the peak of sheer fun for that franchise. Generals + Zero Hour is also really solid. The later games C&C3 and Red Alert 3 aren't bad at all, though generally aren't regarded as highly as the former. C&C4 strays into the "new school" territory which isn't what you're looking for. The good thing about older C&C games is that you can customize the resolution as much as you like in the main .ini, the interface will scale properly for widescreen and such.

Emperor: Battle for Dune from 2001 also fits your criteria.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. I do own some of these but others I haven't tried out yet.

I'd like to try out Rise of Nations. Has anyone here played it?

Oh! I just remembered one! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cossacks:_European_Wars

It looks pretty good. Made by the same guys who did STALKER, too.

Rise of Nations was okay, for me was a blast for a while then got old quick. I would recommend the first Starcraft if you haven't played that. The old C&Cs were awesome too.

That game has an epically awesome soundtrack.

I bought C&C Generals along with the expansions a few years ago when they were on sale in a strategy pack. I still haven't played it to this day.. I guess I missed out lol. I should give it a try.

Rise of Nations is BOSS!!!!!!! Make sure you get Gold Edition.

I will make sure

I now regret saying this as you may not like it, and having you hate me is not a goood thing.

I liked Cossacks II better than the original. I don't even think the original works on Windows 7.

Interesting use of sprites in that game - from a technical point of view the game was very dated but by god the sprites were amazing.

Try out starcraft 2

the scale of the game, the number of nationalities to play - I would play the Dutch -natch B), the formations, which worked very well btw, resource management was nicely balanced..

yup, good game

Two of my favorites are Total Annihilation and Total Annihilation: Kingdoms.

I forgot Earth 2150 :goodjob:


Moonies! :hugs:

Ok so I'm back from the mall. There weren't as many old RTS games as I thought. I picked up Age of Mythology and also the expansion The Titans. Is these good? I might give them a try this afternoon.

Rise of Nations. It's like an advanced Age of Empires, came out around 2000 I think. I like it almost as much as AoE2..very fun to play.

I also love LOTR: The Battle for Middle-Earth 2.. but if you aren't into LOTR, you won't like it that much.

These are indeed very excellent RTS games, even after all this time (TA came out in 1997, as I recall, but still plays well.) If that's too old for Simazzarome (and if he's still looking for an RTS) there's always the spiritual successor Supreme Commander, although it's quite a demanding game in terms of hardware (multicore highly recommended) or there's also the freely-available http://springrts.com/wiki/Games, fan remakes in a new 3D engine (Spring) with features somewhere between the original TA and SupCom. All would be great choices to try, imo.

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Alpha Centauri

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