For the record: Warhammer 40,000 Dawn Of War has an excellent campaign. Especially compared to other RTS's.

[shortylickens]

But the skirmish mode is kinda limited with only 4 factions, 3 of which that feel very similar.

Supreme Commander has a very nice campaign with an excellent story but the missions are LONG and pretty difficult.

Age of Mythology has a great campaign, good story, and enjoyably different factions.

StarCraft 2 ended up being underwhelming and overhyped.



That is all.

 

[Fenixgoon]

SC2 LotV was easily the best of the 3.

Haven't played DoW1 campaign in a long time but I remember enjoying it quite a bit. I've been tempted to reinstall Dark Crusade.

All of the DoW2 campaigns were a lot of fun, and I've beaten them all multiple times.

DoW3 took the worst aspects of 1 and 2 ☹️. Really a shame as it's a graphically beautiful game with some really cool units.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I wish there would be a proper Supreme Commander sequel. The last one doesn’t count.
I want even bigger maps, smarter AI and even more units

 

[simas]

But the skirmish mode is kinda limited with only 4 factions, 3 of which that feel very similar.

Supreme Commander has a very nice campaign with an excellent story but the missions are LONG and pretty difficult.

Age of Mythology has a great campaign, good story, and enjoyably different factions.

StarCraft 2 ended up being underwhelming and overhyped.


That is all.

Get DoW Dark Crusade - this has excellent and repayable campaign which is still fun a decade later. Soulstorm I did not like as much even if they added new factions to it.
DoW2 was too micromanagement heavy for me.
DoW3 have not yet tried, what I think I read was it is even worse in micro management aspect.

I want 'strategy games' there strategy matters more than APM as i get older..

 

[biostud]

Company of heroes 1+2

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Company of heroes 1+2

I saw something somewhere that COH 2 has been upgraded to run at 64 bits and the extra memory has allowed really big steam workshop maps (mods). I’m thinking about loading it up again.
Fun game but still not Sup Com big and epic game.

 

[shortylickens]

Get DoW Dark Crusade - this has excellent and repayable campaign which is still fun a decade later. Soulstorm I did not like as much even if they added new factions to it.
DoW2 was too micromanagement heavy for me.
DoW3 have not yet tried, what I think I read was it is even worse in micro management aspect.

I want 'strategy games' there strategy matters more than APM as i get older..

Have a blast.

 

[Borealis7]

RTSs? what are those? do they have loot boxes and microtransactions?

kidding aside, i did also love DoW 1&2 way back when.

 

[simas]

Have a blast.

Ha! I played every total war since Shogun (and have the most fun ever with Warhammer 2 total war, check out modes for SFO:Grimhammer and Radiuos ). Yes, a lot of fun.
However to me Down of War is a lot more tactical and a lot less grand strategy.

 

[biostud]

I saw something somewhere that COH 2 has been upgraded to run at 64 bits and the extra memory has allowed really big steam workshop maps (mods). I’m thinking about loading it up again.
Fun game but still not Sup Com big and epic game.

I never got into sup. Commander, but I still play CoH 2, and the 64 bit update helps tremendously with high pop mods.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Get DoW Dark Crusade - this has excellent and repayable campaign which is still fun a decade later. Soulstorm I did not like as much even if they added new factions to it.
DoW2 was too micromanagement heavy for me.
DoW3 have not yet tried, what I think I read was it is even worse in micro management aspect.

I want 'strategy games' there strategy matters more than APM as i get older..

I agree Dark Crusade is the best of DoW1...damn maybe I will bust out my install discs tonight.

The DoW3 campaign, from what I remember, focuses too much on heroes and not enough on actual RTS-ing.
And skirmishing the CPU just doesn't feel good. The base building is very much superficial. It's much closer to DoW2 than DoW1. And DoW2 is actually fine because it's all about tactics and small groups. DoW3 borrows from 1 and 2 but ends up with the least satisfying aspects of both.

I really want to like DoW3, but it unfortunately just doesn't feel good.

 

[simas]

I agree Dark Crusade is the best of DoW1...damn maybe I will bust out my install discs tonight.

The DoW3 campaign, from what I remember, focuses too much on heroes and not enough on actual RTS-ing.
And skirmishing the CPU just doesn't feel good. The base building is very much superficial. It's much closer to DoW2 than DoW1. And DoW2 is actually fine because it's all about tactics and small groups. DoW3 borrows from 1 and 2 but ends up with the least satisfying aspects of both.

I really want to like DoW3, but it unfortunately just doesn't feel good.

Sounds not sound very encouraging for me for DoW3... I really liked Dark Crusade and by DoW2 thought it was too much about micro - firing the right abilities at the right time, no base building, no 'economy' , etc.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Dark Crusade was my friend group's LAN party jam for a good long while. I don't recall it's campaign being anything special though, one of those generic stories applicable to all races (find the relic type things) across a risk style map.

DOW 2 really changed the focus a lot, but was also an excellent game regardless. Solid single player campaign, that was really built upon with the Chaos Rising expansion. Never got it, but my understanding is that the Witchhunters expansion went back to the one size fits all campaign of Dark Crusade.

Have yet to attempt DOW3 outside of some basic LAN games, wasn't terribly excited by it and it really felt more like a MOBA than an RTS game given how OP the hero units were.

 

[Zenoth]

Disclaimer: I'm approximately 788% biased towards the WH40K universe, particularly the 'originals' as I refer to them (the RTS games, that is).

Dawn of War, the original, was amazing from the start. Superb music (Jemery Soule), great voice acting ("SPAAACE MAAAAAWHREEEEEN!!!", fantastic VA for Gabriel Angelos by Alec Newman). Plus, that original CGI intro they made for that game is a classic one (but I have to say I really, REALLY liked the CGI intro for Dawn of War 2 as well).

Winter Assault, as well, was about just as good, and featured the Imperial Guards; what's not to like? Also, for that one, the OST was composed by none other than Inon Zur. It was also a good foreshadowing for the arrival of the Necrons that would then be featured in the following expansion. It also had a solid, well done campaign.

And then the ultimate happened, called Dark Crusade. Now here's the thing, I am a HUGE mega Necrons (and Craftworld Eldar) fan. They're in my top 3 factions of the whole 40K universe. So yes, I screamed like a little schoolgirl when I first heard of the news about that expansion. Little did I know that it would end up being the absolute best overall of the original 4 RTS games (DoW, WA, DC and SS). I could go on and on about why it's so good, but I think it's better explained by simply stating that it is FUCKING good.

Now, when it comes to skirmishes and just pure number of factions to choose from for diversity's sake, then I'd have to go with Soulstorm on that one. Not for the campaign, but merely for doing skirmishes. There's a community unofficial patch mod that helps fix a good number of issues that were never addressed by the devs at the time (Soulstorm was rushed, was rather unpolished when it came to factions balancing and had some bugs that shouldn't have passed any internal testing). For a good Soulstorm experience, I recommend, nay; I HIGHLY recommend to download 3 things: 1) The Soulstorm Bugfix Mod, which I believe is at around version 1.56 or something along the lines (I haven't chekced in a while if it was updated further), 2) The Dawn of Skirmish A.I. Soulstorm Mod (which... may actually have been included in the Soulstorm Bugfix Mod package, that too I haven't checked in a while; I always just downloaded both separately by habit), 3) The Dawn of War Map Packs, four of them I believe, all working with Soulstorm (even though last time I checked even if the maps do work in the game and load properly, are missing some map preview icons / thumbnails in the list of maps when setting up a skirmish).

The pinnacle RTS Dawn of War game though, with a proper campaign and the whole overall package of quality is, without a doubt, Dark Crusade for me. But I do go with Soulstorm for skirmishes.

Oh and, yes, I almost forgot to mention this but I do consider the original DOW RTS series (all four of them, overall) to be my #1 favorite RTS series of all time (with an extremely close 2nd going to Command & Conquer, and 3rd to the original StarCraft + Brood War, and I'd definitely give honorable mentions to Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, Age of Empires 2, Rise of Nations and Warzone 2100).

 

[shortylickens]

I've been playing lots of Soulstorm because it has the most maps and factions. But its got some AI issues. TAU in particular is stupid on Easy and strangely brutal on Normal. I don't know why. The AI in the first game is the best. Easy is easy but not brain dead. Normal is good. Hard is genuinely challenging.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I've been playing lots of Soulstorm because it has the most maps and factions. But its got some AI issues. TAU in particular is stupid on Easy and strangely brutal on Normal. I don't know why. The AI in the first game is the best. Easy is easy but not brain dead. Normal is good. Hard is genuinely challenging.

Mods, my friend. Mods will fix everything wrong with Soulstorm and given the fact that Relic was shut down while SS was still in production, there's a LOT wrong with the game. Just adding the fan-made patch and persistent bases mod drastically change the feel of the game. I still regard Dark Crusade as the best Warhammer 40K RTS (mods also improve this as well), but Soulstorm is up there too but only if it's been heavily modded.

At least once or twice a year I'll go back and run through the DC campaign on hard with all races. The only thing I dislike about the DC campaign is how (even on hard), the defense battles become the same rinse and repeat motions and the late-game missions became so easy since you could rush the enemy base with just your honor guard and prevent them from building while you built an impenetrable defense. It was pretty amusing playing as Necron since you could just build a Monolith at the outskirts of one of the enemy bases and at the beginning of the defense, just spawn the Monolith and let that obliterate the entire base by itself.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

I gotta give a serious nod to Age of Mythology too. Probably one on the best RTS campaigns, with good pacing, good difficulty, and interesting factions and units. Kept me engaged the whole way through, which is not something I can say about most RTSs. DoW2 was one of my favorite RTSs but let's be honest, it was not a very good or interesting campaign. That was really a multiplayer game.

 

[Fenixgoon]

I gotta give a serious nod to Age of Mythology too. Probably one on the best RTS campaigns, with good pacing, good difficulty, and interesting factions and units. Kept me engaged the whole way through, which is not something I can say about most RTSs. DoW2 was one of my favorite RTSs but let's be honest, it was not a very good or interesting campaign. That was really a multiplayer game.

I loved the DoW2 campaigns. And the multiplayer is shockingly still alive (DoW2 elite mod)

 

[Stg-Flame]

Unification Mod - Dawn of War: SoulStorm

The UTTERMOST Dawn of War races' combiner, Vanilla Races Revamp, AND MORE. Search no further. Really. (Latest Unification version: 6.9.25 - (10/30/2022)

www.moddb.com

I'm not sure if anyone was following these huge mods and/or their development but this one has been in the works for around ten years now and it's finally being marked as complete. It fixes a lot of problems with the base game, adds a ton of new content, and plenty of new races (17 total) to play as during skirmish or multiplayer. The mod is pretty large with all three files sitting at over 10GB total, but luckily moddb's download speeds are really fast (averaging around 10mb/s on all three simultaneously).

 

[Fenixgoon]

Unification Mod - Dawn of War: SoulStorm

The UTTERMOST Dawn of War races' combiner, Vanilla Races Revamp, AND MORE. Search no further. Really. (Latest Unification version: 6.9.25 - (10/30/2022)

www.moddb.com

I'm not sure if anyone was following these huge mods and/or their development but this one has been in the works for around ten years now and it's finally being marked as complete. It fixes a lot of problems with the base game, adds a ton of new content, and plenty of new races (17 total) to play as during skirmish or multiplayer. The mod is pretty large with all three files sitting at over 10GB total, but luckily moddb's download speeds are really fast (averaging around 10mb/s on all three simultaneously).

That's incredible!

 

[Stg-Flame]

I forgot to add they reskinned basically everything. The mod also allows an increase for resources to prevent the horrendous lag, but during the bigger battles, it can still get pretty laggy at times. Especially when using the titan units.