Good RTS Games For A Beginner

[Smithy311]

Hi, I've always liked the idea of RTS games and have wanted to get into them for a while now. I bought Starcraft 2 but I don't think I'm used to RTS games enough to do well in it. I play a lot of Dota 2, just as a side note.

I have also got:

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Uprising
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Game of the Year Edition
Company of Heroes

But I haven't had a chance to play any yet. Are any these good RTS games to start with?

What games would you recommend?

Any advice would be great

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Go with Warhammer 40k. Its a damn solid game with great mechanics, balanced gameplay/races and a shit load of mod support(not that you need it, but I'm just pointing out you won't get bored of that game anytime soon)

I played all those games and according to Steam I have 39hrs in Company of Hero, 62hrs in Red Alert 3, and 238hrs in Dawn of War. To me that says it all.

Company of Heroes is a fun game, but its aggressively small number of units makes for a boring game faster than you'd think.

Red Alert 3 is sorta' the same. There are way more units, but only like 3-5 in each faction that's any good. No matter what the game was(AI, Vs, Campaign, what-have-you) I found myself forgoing all tactics and just spamming helicopters with infantry riding in them. And that got boring after awhile.

But Dawn of War...oohh my, Dawn of War. I know some people will disagree with me, but I found near endless fun in matches. Part of it was my own doing because I always wondered what the 40k novel about the battle I just fought would be like, but there are so many viable tactics, so many races and so many options. To be fair, there aren't as many game modes(mostly just capture the area, kill the commander, kill everything or sudden-death) but I rarely found matches boring.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Age of Empires is very good. The campaigns, I recall, were pretty harcore (except for tutorial campaigns; Egypt in the first game, William Wallace in the second). But randomly generated games are a blast and have a very good learning curve. That's how I learned the basics of RTS games anyway.

 

[Jiggle Counter]

For sliding into the shoes of RTS, I'd go with Command And Conquer 3 (To me it feels like the easiest of the series) or Dark Reign 2 (Basic but very easy to control)

I'd recommend also the earlier C&C, just for the sake of old-game-appreciation.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Age of Empires is very good. The campaigns, I recall, were pretty hardcore (except for tutorial campaigns; Egyp in the first game, William Wallace in the second). But randomly generated games are a blast and have a very good learning curve. That's how I learned the basics of RTS games anyway.

I thought about offering that one, but I figured it'd be too...complex? Not sure it that's the right word, but between political victories, economic victories, military victories, alliances, trade, research/development, Ages, hundreds of units and 12+ countries...I figured it'd be too overwhelming for OP.

Not that I'm saying anything bad about you, OP! Just in my opinion(33hrs in Age of Empire III on Steam) AoE is a little complicated for a first RTS.

 

[sanquin]

I can recommend Grey Goo. It's a new game even, and I've played a little and seen a lot. And it's very newbie friendly in my opinion.

 

[Dansen]

Age of Empires is very good. The campaigns, I recall, were pretty hardcore (except for tutorial campaigns; Egyp in the first game, William Wallace in the second). But randomly generated games are a blast and have a very good learning curve. That's how I learned the basics of RTS games anyway.

I thought about offering that one, but I figured it'd be too...complex? Not sure it that's the right word, but between political victories, economic victories, military victories, alliances, trade, research/development, Ages, hundreds of units and 12+ countries...I figured it'd be too overwhelming for OP.

Not that I'm saying anything bad about you, OP! Just in my opinion(33hrs in Age of Empire III on Steam) AoE is a little complicated for a first RTS.

I doubt it, I played AoE II as an eight year old kid in spanish(not my native language). Its not that hard, the tutorial campaign teaches you everything.

AoE II is pretty fun. I had the most fun with the campaigns, but the senarios they have are real tough after the first two levels of a campaign. I managed to beat Red Beard and Joan of Arc's campaigns. Genghis and Saladin remain incomplete though.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

company of heroes is the best RTS ever made, highly recommended you should try it now since you have it

 

[Death_Cometh]

I was tempted to say that OP should start with an older more traditional RTS like Starcraft or Warcraft 3 but the older RTS games tend to have wonky difficulty curves and are painfully slow by modern standards. I would say that any of the games OP has are fine for learning to play RTS games. An extra consideration would be Age of Mythology. It is available on steam and the difficulty curve is pretty even throughout but the pace is still pretty slow.

 

[TheArcaneThinker]

Rome : Total war .


Its not just the best RTS game for a beginner but in my opinion the best RTS game of all .
This is coming from a person who has played some of the best RTS games ever made .
Its also a turned based game . Most of the bugs mentioned in the above review are fixed by the patches . Rome has 2 expansions which are as big as the core game itself


And any one who tells you to get medieval 2 total war "cuz its better"... do not listen... the only thing that game has better are graphics....

Other games include -
Age of Mythology - Better in every way better than Age of Empires .
Sins of a Solar Empire - A very good RTS game . Less strategy but more epicness and scale .
Company of heroes - Its a challenging RTS play it when you get atleast familiar with the RTS genre .
Men at Arms : Assault Squad - Very difficult RTS . Basically Company of Heroes , just improved in every way .

 

[The Enquirer]

I'd consider looking into Star Wars: Empire at War.

Grab it on steam since it comes with the expansion and a TON of mod support. It focuses more on unit deployment and tactics as opposed to resources. I found it to be great for a beginner. Though unless you start getting mods for it, it does grow stale quickly unless you're a huge Star Wars fan due to semi-limited gameplay.

Either way it's a good, solid choice for a beginner.

 

[Nazulu]

Total Annihilation would be the easiest. Not much strategy, just have to find which units work best for you and keep moving.

Starcraft 2 seemed basic enough to me, but I hate it and you should start with the original anyway, Starcraft and it's expansion Broodwar. Also pretty basic, but challenging, and out of all the RTS games I've seen, it has some of the best diversity and atmosphere, probably because of the legendary soundtrack. A must play, and still pretty popular too.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

If you want something slightly different, Dungeon Keeper 2 is actually pretty good for newbie rts players. Many of the early levels are quite slow paced, allowing you to build up forces and build your dungeon before this shit hits the fan and the combat is generally "dump as many minions in 1 spot as possible and overwhlem the enemy."

And if you want you can play it as an fps even!

 

[Rattja]

If you are not afraid to go a bit old and want to experience something different than the standard thing I would recommend Black & White. The first one was one of my favorite games for a long time, and still think it's better than Black & White 2.
Although, it should be noted that multiplayer in the first one is rather broken and don't work anymore (but damn was it fun back in the day), and sadly the new one does not have it at all for some reason.
In any case it is a solid single player experience with a lot of neat things to do.

Other than that I don't really know. There is always Tiberian sun and Red alert 2, which is basically where I stopped playing RTS as they simply don't make em like they used to anymore.

Then there is Supreme Commander which I don't have personal experience with, but a friend swears by it so I guess it's still good.

If you want something like a RTS/FPS hybrid sorta deal Battlezone is also a good one, as once you get satelite uplink you can basically play it like any other RTS if you want.

It seems to have been a shift some years ago where RTS games went from "base building" focus to "Unit management" focus, so it is worth keeping in mind that old games does not play like the newer ones.

 

[Aesir23]

I would suggest Medieval II: Total War if that can be considered an RTS. It was my introduction to RTS games and is the game that sparked my interest in a genre I previously had no real desire to try.

 

[DocJ]

Supreme Commander has always been a favourite series of mine. Something about the scale of it makes me grin. The sequel imposes a combined unit limit which is an interesting feature. You can have up to (if memory serves) 250 buildings, troops, or a combination of both. So every artillery piece you build will keep shelling enemies, but reduce your total unit count. It's an interesting system that lets everyone play how they like. Like turtling? Build artillery, nukes, turrets and shields. Like attacking quickly? Build a bunch of factories and maximise your troop production output. It is quite comical to watch two turtle players race to research nuclear tech and artillery as well as defences and seeing who runs out of counter nukes first.

 

[Smithy311]

Thanks for all the help! I'll play a little of all the games I've got so far, starting with Dawn of War. I'll look into Starcraft 1, as well as some older RTS games to try and break me in. I'll let you know what I think of each whenever I get around to playing them

 

[Pseudonym]

As somebody who hasn't played that much RTS I really liked age of mythology. Also, for getting into the genre you might want to check out stronghold crusader or battle for middle earth (both part 1). Those games have a lot of defenses for your base and thus cut down on harrassment and other annoying stuff while you get to learn at a slower pace.

 

[Blitsie]

World in Conflict I highly recommend, you won't learn much in terms of base building and all that since its all about just immediately dropping in units and going from there, but you learn how to micromanage units and such which is a pretty important skill to have in RTS games, especially in Company of Heroes for instance where proper placing and handling of all your squads can turn even the worst situation around if done right.

Also the game has one hell of an awesome single player mode.

 

[Scow2]

I was tempted to say that OP should start with an older more traditional RTS like Starcraft or Warcraft 3 but the older RTS games tend to have wonky difficulty curves and are painfully slow by modern standards. I would say that any of the games OP has are fine for learning to play RTS games. An extra consideration would be Age of Mythology. It is available on steam and the difficulty curve is pretty even throughout but the pace is still pretty slow.

Wait... so there are missions harder than trying to cut down that damn tree as Egyptians on the map where you don't start with much access to Gold, and you get a few token Vikings?