RTS fans: what is your favorite one?!
<div class="IPBDescription">so much choice lately! </div>ive pretty much got all the big name rtss out atm: supcomm, c&c3, coh, dow and the expansions, the rome games and medieval 2. But one thing i cant decide is which one is my favourite!?
I spose it comes down to what i feel like. if i want a huge scaled battle and an apocalyptic exchange of nukes then its supcomm obviously. if i dont feel like base building and just want to focus on the fighting then its rome or medi2. If im feeling espeacially tactical then its coh for sure. if i just wanna win then its dow (my friends refuse to play me now lol). then again if i wanna lose ill play dota lol (i just DONT GET that game lol) if im feeling old school i may play generals... but thats another game where i find it too easy too win.. havnt played for ages though so who knows.
Which brings me to C&C3. Now there is *&#(ing good game! Perhaps they stuck to the ra2 formula a bit too closely (no notable innovations), but its nice to look at and very fun. imho its just ra2 with awesome graphics and new units. Not that theres nething wrong with that i found ra2 very fun. Only a few complaints that may not be issues for other people
1) im not impressed that overpowered superweapons are back. Sure they look cool... but i generally dont find arms races fun... tactical decisions should be more sophisticated than "im gonna save for a sw and instantly end the game".
2) GAH! control areas! make being sneaky a lot harder.... im thinking of gla tunnels lol
3) where the hell are the naval units?!
neway back to the point of this thread... i dont have a favourite rts... but id love to hear if ne of u do and why <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
I spose it comes down to what i feel like. if i want a huge scaled battle and an apocalyptic exchange of nukes then its supcomm obviously. if i dont feel like base building and just want to focus on the fighting then its rome or medi2. If im feeling espeacially tactical then its coh for sure. if i just wanna win then its dow (my friends refuse to play me now lol). then again if i wanna lose ill play dota lol (i just DONT GET that game lol) if im feeling old school i may play generals... but thats another game where i find it too easy too win.. havnt played for ages though so who knows.
Which brings me to C&C3. Now there is *&#(ing good game! Perhaps they stuck to the ra2 formula a bit too closely (no notable innovations), but its nice to look at and very fun. imho its just ra2 with awesome graphics and new units. Not that theres nething wrong with that i found ra2 very fun. Only a few complaints that may not be issues for other people
1) im not impressed that overpowered superweapons are back. Sure they look cool... but i generally dont find arms races fun... tactical decisions should be more sophisticated than "im gonna save for a sw and instantly end the game".
2) GAH! control areas! make being sneaky a lot harder.... im thinking of gla tunnels lol
3) where the hell are the naval units?!
neway back to the point of this thread... i dont have a favourite rts... but id love to hear if ne of u do and why <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
Comments
Edit: though if I had to choose, I'd have to go with DoW, I love the universe, and, while it's not as advanced as CoH or SupCom, then I find it's pretty solid. I'd probably love CoH more if it didn't take ages to load, and perform badly for almost no reason at all. SupCom I've yet to really try in multiplayer (I only had one game), but I'm afraid I might not like it due to it probably being sort of a slippery slope gameplay - in that, if you lose the initial battles you just have to wait it out until the other guy has enough force to kill you. meaning that, while the game is decided somewhat quickly, you have to wait it out (which NS also suffered from occasionally).
DotA isn't really RTS <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> Though, it's probably my multiplayer game of choice atm, not because it's good (it's rarely good, often decent, but mostly.. crap really), but because I don't really have anything better to play <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
I was pretty damn disappointed with C&C3, it's just tank spam and whatnot, little to no strategy involved, and no innovations in the genre - I know this is what "real fans" want, but it "scares" me away. I did like RA2 and whatnot back then, but.. that was.. back then.. RTS games have kinda evolved sincethen. And judging on how it is, and it having little to no innovations, I don't see myself paying full price for it. When it has some severe price-cuts I'll probably buy it.
SC is gewd stuff too, sadly I don't have it. Hopefully they will make SC2 :S
And I've never been too much into the whole "Total War" genre. Also, isn't that partly just TBS? I mean, afaik the war itself is being handled by moving in turns on a province-split up map akin to Risk, and each battle is then handled in Real-time.
I've been playing through C&C3 quite a bit, and have to agree somewhat with DHP. Most of the missions I've been through are 'find the solution to XYZ, then mass tanks'. Solve any immediate threat to your base, complete any bonus objectives, then walk around the map with a metric buttload of the heaviest unit you've got. If possible, trained up to Hero status.
Apparently on Hard difficulty there's quite a bit more micromanagement that needs to be done to keep your people (and base) alive, but the basic premise is the same... the classic Starcraft Zerg Rush.
Though I do like the superweapons quite a lot. It's incredibly fun to reach out and poke an enemy base, especially when they're trying to do the exact same, in multiplayer. Single player it's a bit lame, yes.
but apart from that, even though the graphics are aging a little, the game looks and feels excellent. theres a grittyness about the settings, music and nature of the armies that makes the game really immersive. BTW im not actually a fan of 40k, but i do like sci-fi as a genre, so my enthusiasm for the game is in no way biased by me being a 40k fan.
Also Dow replaces the concept of superweapon with something a lot more fun... "superunits". nothing is more satisfying than trampling an army with a squiggoth, dicing it with a bloodthirster or avatar, or blowing it away with a baneblade or monolith.
<brag> At some point i ended the game by doing a memorable assault on a friend's base, who was turtling for quite some time. He simply couldnt react for something like 120 seconds; his screen was 100% white with all the suicide atomic chain-bombings. When he was able to see something again, the walls were breached by my naval units and i had unloaded tons of transport boats, full of tanks, mobile AA's and siege units, wich were soon assisted by my planes.
He actually managed to kill that wave of tanks like in my previous (failed) assaults, but just when he was gloating about it (it was close, he only had like 12 badly damaged tanks left, and no planes), my transports were back, dropping another gigantic wave of tanks i kept producing and loading in my transports during the fight. At that point he screamed "noooo!" like darth vader in swep3 and simply gave up. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
I've never seen so much struggle for ressource control in any other RTS, that battle was truly epic. Got him by attrition. With his island & ressources under my control, i annihilated the remaining opponents (wich admittedly were somewhat beginners) and won. </brag>
So yeah, Empire Earth 1 all the way for me. After that game we talked about who-did-what, errors we made etc, for another couple hours. Oh and we didnt like the second opus that much for some reason.
All who love life, fear the Reaper.
Best rock-paper-scissors implementation.
Good balance of economy v. military.
Good balance of macro v. micro management.
(online play is where it shines, the single player storyline campaigns are mostly pretty crap and do not do the game justice)
I'm one of the few starcraft fans that preferred WC3.
Ground Control is, to me, the best of them all. The sequel was poor though.
we need more nukes.
Rock beats scissors, paper beats rock, scissors beat paper.
However Hammer and Scythe beats all three.
In terms of style, I'd have to say Dawn of War wins. The battle chatter, the units, the abilities, the lore, all combine to form an awesome game. The utterly pure devotion to The Emperor, the wild battle-######, the desperate fight for balance, the wild and sinister force for chaos... So much coolness.
--Scythe--
I was hooked on it from the moment I saw the introduction. As should anyone be.
It's really close, but Warcraft 3 beats Starcraft and Warcraft 2.
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Please. Warcraft 3 was a massing game. At least Starcraft, while it was partially a massing game too, had some units that could trump others.
I like Rise of Nations and Dawn of War. Those are my favorites.
DoW is the newest RTS that is most fun to play.
Supcom is the best in functionality.
CoH keeps me excited with incredible effects but more serious game then DoW.
By the way: <a href="http://pc.ign.com/articles/779/779920p1.html" target="_blank">STARCRAFT 2 BETA RUMORED END OF 2007</a>
Please. Warcraft 3 was a massing game. At least Starcraft, while it was partially a massing game too, had some units that could trump others.
I like Rise of Nations and Dawn of War. Those are my favorites.
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Oh, come on. Have you ever seen a pro play Warcraft 3? That's not massing. That's crazy micro.
Even when the pros play Starcraft, it eventually devolves into building as many units as you can.
It's really close, but Warcraft 3 beats Starcraft and Warcraft 2.
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I never liked WC3 as much as SC because of its slower pace+heros. The stuff in WC3 had too much HP.
(admitingly, I didn't play it as much as SC. Is there anything in WC3 that can do as much damage as- a bunch of siege tanks hitting some units, defiler plague+mutalisks or lurkers, reavers shooting something, or uh..pretty much every unit in the game with numbers)
As a complete package, WC3 is better than SC. The WC3 map editor is much more powerful and allows for near limitless custom maps. But as a game, SC.
The latest RTS'es are just a graphics improvement in my (perhaps narrowed) vision.
SupComm is tons of fun though, it does everything I wished an RTS would do.
the good
-every unit remains useful for the whole game
-the ability of infantry to use cover effectively
-the resource system
-how if you lose the battle but hold onto the battlefield, you can make cheap infantry to man the MGs, AT-guns, mortars, 105mm or 88mm batteries before the next big battle
-being able to garrison buildings (cnc3 did the building garrison sooo, so badly)
-the player's ability to reform the battlefield with barb wire, sandbags and tank traps
-the effectiveness of artillery at breaking up enemy defensive positions (turtling is harder to accomplish)
-the thunderously pwnin sound of a 105mm barrage on a line of enemy tanks
the bad
-infantry cant get up steep hills or move through ruined structures (bs i say)
-the effectiveness of flame throwers on infantry (omg it is such #$%^ that 3 elite engineer squads can flank my 5 squads of bad ###### and kill half of them and still be able to retreat)
i played cnc3 and it was cool looking but i didn't like how useless the lower tech units got once you got mammoth tanks/carrier ships. its like the AI was great in how customizable it is but the only units i have to build are harvesters and mammoth tanks no matter what the comp is doing.
I have spent to many hours on this game.
A group of dragoons + arbiters = ZING!
Protoss <3
--Scythe--
Yea rumors are at large right now again about SC:2.
I think blizzard is actually up to something this time.
I'm pretty sure if SC:2 comes, it will single handedly beat WoW in terms of sales (since nothing else can). I wouldn't be surprised if it sells at least 30 million copies. I know I'll be one of those people to get it. Will you?
My favorite of those that have come out recently would have to be CoH. I love DoW just because of WH40k, but I feel like CoH has more tactical depth and isn't as limited by the setting.
I'm waiting for the next RTS that successfully takes on a decent number of civilizations like AoE2 did. I'm also excited about the possibility of a new Blizzard RTS, but I have a feeling we'll be waiting some time before it comes out.
<a href="http://pc.ign.com/articles/779/779920p1.html" target="_blank">STARCRAFT 2 BETA RUMORED END OF 2007</a>
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That rumor is incredibly fake. Shutting down the SC servers would cause riots in Korea, not to mention there has been at least one Starcraft 2 rumor every year since the release of Starcraft. It'll come, and probably by the end of 2008(as said in an interview), but this rumor is pretty badly made.
As for favorite RTS, Starcraft. It's just so satisfying watching your enemies die in massive pixelated explosions of blood, instead of the modern ragrolls, not to mention how many strategies there are available to crush your opponents.
For a more modern RTS... I haven't played many due to my lack of a videocard(well... non integrated) which makes my computer mediocre. That last ones I've played were Supreme Commander and Age of Empires 3. I found SupComm fun, but my computer barely runs it, so I had to pass on buying. AoE3 was fun, until I got tired of the stupid elitist community and less flexible games.
WC3... Humans use archmage, undead use death knight, elf uses panda, beastmaster or demon hunter, orc uses blade master or far seer. Same cookie cuts to me.
I consider macro to be the strategy part about these games, but that's becoming neglected. Choosing which units to build, which upgrades to get, whether to expand or not... these choices represent strategic options.
The actual battle revolves on micro, which is more or less a fancy version of twitch gaming in the likes of CS, DDR, etc.
I'd put my strategy games on a place where you don't need to worry about how much time you have left, how fast your arm is, whether lag will kill you...
I like chess. And I always like a game of preconstructed theme deck MAGIC. No race against the clock and every game is rather different.