Can someone suggest a good PC game for me. I haven’t bought one in a while.
I’m really after some kind of real-time strategy game. Something I can get involved in huge battles for several hours. My favourites in this genre are Dungeon Keeper 2, Warzone 2100, Homeworld, Startopia, and Xcom Apocalypse. I quite like C&C games and Total Annihilation too.
Anyone got a recommendation?
Blizzard has churned out some of the best, IMHO…Starcraft, Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 3 (WC1 was great, but is a little dated now). Starcraft is the best for army building, but they are all good.
WC3 has a pretty engrossing story complete with lots of cutscenes, if that’s what you’re into.
They all basically use the same engine, so gameplay is similar…but controls are intuitive, and they have thousands of mods online for each to expand gameplay.
Timegate Studios has a great set of games called Kohan. Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns was the original, and Kohan: Ahriman’s Gift is the sequel. They’ve got slightly different gameplay from the standard RTS. A bit more compentent unit AI means that it’s a bit easier to concentrate on the overall strategy, rather than needing to constantly micromanage.
They’re also coming out with a third game in the series next year.
I asked this identical question some months back. I got some great suggestions, notably Age of Mythology. I’ve been playing it for quite a while and really like it.
I also picked up C&C Generals a while back, but believe it or not, its still in the box. I usually never buy a new game until I’m good and done with the last one, but this time I had an opportunity to unload my old Playstation and 5 or 6 games for about $45.00 which, with a little of my own pocket money, was enough to cover Generals. Unfortunately, since I’m not done with AoM, Generals sits on the shelf.
Get the latest and greatest - “Rise of Nations” by Microsoft/BHG. It’s definately better than AoM (and I liked that). It’s the next generation of “Age of” style games and it’s incredible. Unit control has finally been perfected. No more “I wish they had a hotkey that…” It’s also significantly more tactical than it’s predecessors. If you enter enemy territory without supply wagons you suffer constant attrition damage. There is also a 2x bonus for flanking. Generals, Spies, Commandos. Land, Sea, Air. 17 civilizations. Go from the ancient age to the information age. There is also a turn based single player game that is similar to Risk but where you fight the actual battles in real time instead of rolling dice.
As soon as I thought of it, I realized it wasn’t a RTS, but I thought Masters of Magic was really cool. It’s like a magic version of Civ, and it came out about 100 years ago (ok, maybe 7 or 8).
Actually, I think it’s a little above Civ in that there’s an option to actually fight the battles instead of having the AI take care of it.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I need to get myself down the nearest PC shop and spend some cash.
Another vote to Age of Mythology. I have enjoyed playing it a lot! However, if KidCharlemagne is correct, then go with his suggestion. I haven’t played that one yet, but I look forward to it.
I haven’t played the command and conquer series yet, can anyone tell me if it is worth dropping some cash on?
Europa Universalis II. While it is a strategy game in real-time it doesn’t really fit the RTS genre of workers gathering resources to build buildings and units and tech to wipe out the other guy’s workers and buildings and units.
The game goes from 1418-1818 and depicts the entire world. You play as a country, you can pick anything from Spain to Austria to Luxemburg to the Aztecs to Zimbabwe to Malaca. The game includes political, diplomatic, military, diplomatic and religious models. Combat consists of raising armies from your provinces, moving them to enemy provinces where they defeat enemy armies, then your army besieges the province to capture it, all while attrition is eating away. You propose peace deals to enemy countries where you can swap provinces…the more of the enemy country you have conquered, the more you can demand from a peace deal.
The game is very interesting, like a hybrid of Civilization and Age of Empires, but with an attempt to realistically model how countries interacted during the age of exploration. The game is really in a genre of it’s own, so it takes a bit of getting used to. You can open up a new RTS or FPS or RPG game and know how to do almost everything, but the interface for Europa Universalis is completely different. The game has been out for a year or two so you should be able to pick it up really cheap…under $20 bucks.
Excuse me, but I’m off to conquer the world right now…
I still think that Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 is the best RTS ever…although I haven’t played Generals yet.
Well, you’ve already said Homeworld… it’s all downhill from there. 
Homeworld 2 by the end of the year, though!
For straight RTS, “Rise of Nations.” It’s an astounding achievement, the first really groundbreaking RTS in many moons.
I second Rise of Nations, I have never really enjoyed RTS games, even the really good ones - I played Starcraft about a week before I got sick of it. I love Rise of Nations and I play it all the time, it lacks most of the annoying features that turn most people off of RTS games.
Here’s a question, specifically to RickJay, KidCharlemange, and Lemur866.
I love(d) Civ II, III, and Alpha Centauri and I hated AoE. If any of you have played these, how do Rise of Nations and Europa Universalis II compare and would you recommend either of them to someone who doesn’t like RTS?
Oops, I’ll add Badtz Maru to that last question of mine.
I adored “Europa Universalis II.” Despite the fact that it’s technically a real time game, it really is nothing of the sort. It’s a strategy game like Civ, not an RTS game like “Age of Empires.”
I like Civ-type games more than RTS, but I loved EU.
Rise of Nations is, by comparison, an RTS game. It and Europa Universalis are totally different.
Stronghold is one of the most fun castle/siege/medieval RTS games I have ever played. You can fling dead cows with trebuchets and amass armies of knights and pikemen. You will love it!
Empire Earth was fun, it plays from the ancient to nano age. It’s alot like AoE, but it’s fully 3D and zoomable. And it can take a long time to win a war.
Yuri’s Revenge and Starcraft are still my favorites.
I was always a big fan of Age of Empires II with the Conquerers expansion pack. Online is best. If you get the right opponents, sometimes those games could last hours.