OLD RTS

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Total Annihilation, Command and Conquer, and Dune 2 - in that (descending) order.

I never really got the deal with Starcraft. First time I played it I just thought "Huh. It's Warcraft 2 with a new graphics skin." - I know there are more differences than that, but you know what they say about first impressions and all. Every time I play SC I get the nagging feeling that the best counter for a Zerg rush should be a force Paladins backed up by arrow towers. And that peasants wouldn't be able to breathe in space.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Homeworld, Homeworld 2, Total Annihilation, C&C95, RA95, Dark Reign, Warcraft 3, Supreme Commander I guess although it's not that old

Hell yeah for Homeworld! Brilliant game, still hoping for Homeworld 3.
Otherwise, I'll throw Age of Empires and Warcrft 3 into the mix. Those three games took up a substantial portion of my childhood. There were days in the holidays and weekend where I wouldn't go downstairs until 3pm because I was playing through one of them. Still got a save game on Age of Conquerors in which the timer is at 36 hours.

 

[Plinglebob]

Just an addition, while I played Warcraft 3 and Starcraft, I never really enjoyed them. I thought the story in Warcraft was great and the hero units were a good idea, but I never found a playstyle that I liked and if there was one you didn't like (bloody Undead), you had to either cheat or give up. With Starcraft, the Zerg really put me off playing as I can't get the hang of the playstyle and I didn't find the story all that engaging.

 

[Aeshi]

I'm a big fan of the Homeworld series and they are well worth a look at if you want an RTS that's different

Age of Empires II is also quite good, as somebody before me mentioned.

 

[Polyg0n]

I haven't played that many RTS's, but I remember having fun with Empire Earth (2001) and Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdoms (1998).

 

[veloper]

Homeworld counts as old(1999) and the game is still very playable by currrent standards.
More so than any other 10+ yr old RTS.

 

[DSK-]

Homeworld, Homeworld 2, Total Annihilation, C&C95, RA95, Dark Reign, Warcraft 3, Supreme Commander I guess although it's not that old

Hell yeah for Homeworld! Brilliant game, still hoping for Homeworld 3.
Otherwise, I'll throw Age of Empires and Warcrft 3 into the mix. Those three games took up a substantial portion of my childhood. There were days in the holidays and weekend where I wouldn't go downstairs until 3pm because I was playing through one of them. Still got a save game on Age of Conquerors in which the timer is at 36 hours.

Honestly my fave is still Total Annihilation. You can mod it, make new units for it and maps. It was the first RTS to be rendered in 3D and considering it came out in 1997, it's just an amazing game. The music was good too.

It's a bit special to me, because it was the first game I ever played on our very first PC. On the first morning we had it (It was Pentium 133mhz ) I was looking through the folders and looking at all the pretty icons when I saw the demo of Total Annihilation and loaded it up and I was simply amazed. First game I ever bought myself, at about 9 or 10. I still play it, and I'm 24 now

 

[Fidelias]

Well, I don't know if this is considered old yet or not, but Dawn of War, Dark Crusade is awesome so far, except for the one bug that no one seems to have fixed in 5 years.

By the way, anyone here know how to fix the problem where the game keeps randomly crashing for no reason?

It's not my video card or my system specs, it might have something to do with the fact I'm using vista. Or maybe it doesn't like SLI.

 

[deckai]

Warhammer: Dark Omen and Mark of Chaos were both solid games, that I still like to play from time to time.

Also R.U.S.E and World in Conflict. Games I really enjoyed, both hadn't the most original story but the game mechanics were quite enjoyable.

But I don't really now if they fit in your "old" category.... if not.. Spellforce, mix between rts and rpg.

 

[Blunderboy]

Well I've just started a new campaign in Rome Total War.
Beyond that I loved Homeworld, Age of Empires 2, Total Annihilation Kingdoms and Age of Mythology.

 

[LJJ1991]

Rise of Nations. Mind you, I never really played through it so much as I used cheats to be come the most POWERFUL NATION EVER. And then I destroyed my enemies all set on the easiest difficulty.

Don't judge me... I was ten. XD

 

[GrandmaFunk]

Metal Fatigue and Red Alert 2 were both great

as for one not yet mentioned by anyone.. Shattered Galaxy! granted, it's a MMORTS, but it's still the most fun i've ever had with RTS gameplay.

 

[GoodOmens]

Lesser known but still awesome...I loved the Warlords: Battlecry series. Fantasy RTS with persistent heroes. Your hero would gain experience during any battle, whether in the campaign, single-player skirmish, or PVP. Of course, he could easily become a game-breaker, and there were totally broken heroes. It was nice, though, that not all heroes were combat monsters; you could make a Tinker, or Merchant, or Bard for completely support abilities.

Also, the Kohan series kicks ass.

 

[Meatman]

Stronghold: Crusader

had lots of personality & charm, and was the first game i played where you could actually move units on the castle walls (always hated how age of empires had lame wall building mechanics)

Hell yes. Stronghold crusader for the win.

 

[Nieroshai]

I remember an RTS I really liked, but can't remember its name. You played in a postapocalyptic setting, where you controlled the robot conquerors of humanity. Your two goals were usually to stamp out resistance and to recover tech that's either abandoned or in use by the human rebels. Can anyone think of its name?

 

[jcj94]

oh, I completely forgot to mention World War 3 black gold. Another good, old, really dying RTS, mostly because no-one ever played Multiplayer, and the servers went offline. I still like the skrimishes and the real terrain editor. INGAME terrain editor, with actual 3d terrain. I believe this game came after SC1, and it actually allows you to rotate around, and zoom in and out on the MAIN screen, not just the minimap. The units can actually be custom made, putting a Jeep turret on an Abrahms tank. Fun, fun, fun. And then when you find the cheat codes >

He said old... and there's been no love for Dune 2? Come on... that game was awesome in its day!

[sub]but yeah, I'm a Supreme Commander fan too... [sub]I'm also a fan of the Supcom->TA conversion mod, however incomplete it is at the moment.[/sub][/sub]

You know, I actually came into this thread just to answer with Dune 2, because I was pretty sure he was looking for help identifying an old RTS, and that's the only one old enough to get the word in all caps.

OT: I've never been much of an RTS fan. I got a lot of fun out of Warcraft II with cheat codes enabled as a kid, but for the most part, I prefer turn based strategy -- anything from a 4X game down to something like Cyberstorm, which gave a choice of real time or turn based modes -- I, of course, always played it in turn-based mode.

Edit: Also, this thread has made me acutely aware of the fact that I don't currently have a numpad for my lap top. I've got four 4X games[footnote]Civilization, Civilization II, Galactic Civilizations II, and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri[/footnote] sitting on my shelf, but I can't comfortably play them without the numpad; units move in 8 directions on a grid of squares in all four of those games. It's really annoying to have to move units with the mouse, instead of the keyboard.

That is one thing that some RTS's are good for, and that some aren't. Op2, Warcraft 3, even starcraft were all good at using the mouse to move. In Op1, you never used your mouse but to point and click on in-game gui, all of it being 'month' based (turn based in a sense). The AI was no help in Warcraft 3, swarming you at times and ignoring you at others.