I want your guys's (guys', guises?) take on RTS games

[Dorkenstein]

Yes, good players, but there's good cheaters and good smurfers too. That's the trouble with going online, but it can't be helped for now.

 

[shortylickens]

Whats a smurfer?
What is the difference between a good smurfer and a bad one?

 

[JoshGuru7]

A smurfer is a high ranked player who creates another account to get into low ranked (easy) matches. A lot of the time it's just to try out different strategies and such, but of course there are vets who just like easy wins too.

 

[lupi]

Without a doubt the TA series is the best. If I had to pick a current I lean heavily towards SComm over most of the rest, with CoH/DoW being close seconds.

Originally posted by: shortylickens
I never did play Dune during its heyday.

Oh man that game drove me crazy. I'm one that loves being able to beat back the initial rush then build a top notch fort; infuriates so many into making a mistake when they send wave after wave to die, and dune had extremely heavy rules about where you could place your buildings down.

Played the first C&C but it didnt really impress me.

I remember seeing the demo for it run on a loop at CUSA on the display monitors. Some of the first cinematic like quality quasi demo that I can remember.

Warcraft was the first one I really loved. And I mean REALLY loved. Spent way too much of my golden teen years on it.

Think I spent more time with W2, but a lot of it indeed. Used to love playing on a map that looked like western europe + britain.

I am one of the few people that thought the gameplay in TA:Kingdoms was far superior to TA, mostly because they simplified resourcing and the technology advancement and put a lot more focus on the action. Also they had 4 sides which were truly distinct from each other. If they had set it in a space fantasy setting instead of a Tolkein fantasy setting, it would have been a buttload more popular. It was the closed-mindedness of the average gamer at that time which caused Cavedogs downfall. That was also right around the time PC gaming in general started sucking because of all the crap games people were buying in massive volumes.

Not saying you're incorrect, but kingdoms suffered more from the crysis effect. It pushed a good bit on the performance envelope than TA did and the what can you do for me right now crowd crushed them on it.

Supreme Commander was actually pretty darn fun but too many folks got it in their heads it was supposed to be the 2nd coming of Christ or something. It was just good plain fun, nothing more. It didn't reinvent the genre but it had some excellent ideas that will probably be standard from now on.

A very good continuation of the TA series, and the new abilities/units it looks like they are adding to version 2 should make it another must buy.

I sincerely hope that Starcraft 2 kick starts things again. Even if I personally dont like it I believe that game will do a lot of good for the industry.

never got into the starcraft hype, so down on my list of the genre.

 

[bbarry]

TA+CC is still the best macro-style RTS in existance, and Starcraft the best micro-style.

I never played Supreme Commander (haven't had a powerful enough machine to play it since it came out; this changes tomorrow with my new box). It was made by the same core designers as TA and so people flat out expected it to be even better (and from what I understand many considered it a let down) and because of that the reviews suffered (along with the rather steep system requirements).

I am really looking forward to SC2 and SupCom2 (and to playing Supreme Commander itself).

 

[bbarry]

If you are looking for single player, the Earth 21xx franchise is all really fun. From what I remember, multiplayer isn't very well balanced but apparently there is at least a patch for 2160.

 

[JTsyo]

CoH was good but I had trouble with the multiplayer since you had to control points ont he map. It seems battles weren't as important as capping the points. I was probably doing it wrong, thinking in the old school way of map control.

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: JTsyo
CoH was good but I had trouble with the multiplayer since you had to control points ont he map. It seems battles weren't as important as capping the points. I was probably doing it wrong, thinking in the old school way of map control.

Z was actually quite similar, in fact zone control was even more important than in most games.
Every zone you captured increased your build speed. There were no resources to manage. If you had the edge in build speed you would have a strong advantage in beating your opponent. Games were typically very quick with either you stomping the computer or the computer stomping you.

I lost my copy a long time ago, but some folks who still have it and can get it working in Windows are enjoying it to this day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj3HuAmuX3M
That game was actually pretty slow paced. It looked like they were taking their time on purpose to show how the game played.

Each factory can only build one unit at a time, including base defenses. Your home base factory is slightly better than the others. Some zones dont contain a factory but the build speed bonus is still super important for all your other zones.