What needs to be said about Starcraft 2 other than the fact that the game’s multiplayer mode spawned an entire esports scene. I’ve probably spent more time using this editor than I did actually playing the game. The game also comes with a decent scenario editor, where you can make custom maps. What makes Stronghold Crusader truly fun is the excellent AI adversaries, each of them has a unique animated portrait, unique voice lines and a unique style of play, which can clearly be seen in the way they build their castle. The gameplay basics are fairly simple, gather resources, build a base, build an army and win, but it has some complexities compared to AoE, for starters you have to magane food supplies, population happiness and a basic economy, building troops costs money after all. The game is set during the crusades, it focuses on the skirmish mode, with a proper campaign being absent, not counting certain historical maps. If you’re a fan of RTS games you’ve probably heard of the Stronghold series, but if you’re new it’s easy to overlook them. The game got an HD re-release, but I’m still hoping for a proper sequel or maybe even a Definitive edition like the old Age of Empires games got. Honestly I’ve probably played Age of Mythology more than the entire Age of Empires series. Unlike in AoE, here religion and mythology play a big role, choosing which god to serve determines which bonuses you get and which mythological unit you unlock. It allowed for more creativity to the developers since they were not tied down by historical accuracy. How would I describe it, it’s basically Age of Empires, but set in the Troyan war era of Greek mythology. Age of Mythology HD (PC / MacOS)ĭo you like RTS games? Are you a fan of Age of Empires? Do you have an unhealthy obsession with Greek mythology? Well this is the perfect game for you. In certain aspects it’s completely unique and hasn’t been surpassed by more modern titles still. While a bit dated I would still recommend Rise of Nations to anyone interested in the genre. Also, the tech tree of Rise of Nations spans from the stone age all the way to modern times, and you know me, I any game that allows you to drop a nuke on someone is excellent. Like nearly all RTS games it’s based around resource gathering, base building and combat, but unlike many in Rise of Nations your base represents a city which controls some territory, and you can only build within your own nations territory. Rise of Nations is probably my favorite RTS game ever, I’ve played it for thousands of hours. Rise of Nations (PC / MacOS)Īn often overlooked RTS game from the golden era of RTS games. All of this combined means that AoE II Definitive is still worth playing today. So, if it’s so similar to AoE IV, why should you get it instead of that? Well for starters it’s less than half the price, it objectively has more content, I mean it’s 20 years older, of course it has, and the multiplayer is still very active.

AoE II is very similar to AoE IV, or vice versa since AoE II came first, the gameplay is excellent, the factions are extremely varied, especially with all the expansions. AoE II Definitive is a remaster of the original that includes all the previous expansions, better graphics and general improvements.

Read more: The Fall and Rise of Real-Time Strategy GamesĪge of Empires II is considered by many to be the best RTS game of all time, the pinnacle of the genre. AoE IV is, in my opinion, the best RTS game currently out there, and I would highly recommend everyone to play it. MEaning AoE IV isn’t exactly innovative, but it doesn’t need to be, what matters is that it got the basics right, the resource gathering, the base building, the unique factions. How did they do this? It’s simple, instead of messing around too much they gave the fans exactly what they wanted, which is just a basic RTS game made in modern times with modern tech. It managed to actually please fans of the genre.

The newest Age of Empires game, coming in 16 years after Age of Empires III, managed to do the impossible. Age of Empires IV (PC)Īge of Empires IV, the second coming of the RTS genre. With that in mind, here are the best RTS games, in no particular order: 15.

If we don’t count Paradox Interactive’ grand strategy games, which I’ve decided to exclude from this list, this genre has been quite stale in the mid 2010s, but in recent years it has experienced something of a revival, as you will be able to see from our list. While any strategy game which has real-time gameplay can fall under this definition, the RTS name has been associated with resource collecting,base building and unit commanding RTS games the most, such as Age of Empires. RTS or real-time strategy games are, like the name implies, a subgenre of strategy games where the actual gameplay happens in real-time rather than turns.

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