The Best of the Best RTS - My Base is Bigger than Yours.

There's a moment when every man feels compelled to gather up an army and conquer land for its resources, being wood, shiny blue crystals, radioactive tiberium or banner poles. Why is this? what's the reason? no one knows, except commanding armies feels fucking good, must be something primal in ourselves, and those shiny blue crystals must be something either truly expensive or delicious, and the possibility to build something that can be seen from space has an inherent satisfaction.

But since doing so in real life is a little illegal and there's no tiberium to fuel my housemade mech, you must already know about RTS, the gentlemen's genre in videogames.

Real Time Strategy is the name of them all, and this genre is most of the time characterized for being a mix between tactics and grand strategy with a fast pace in building an outpost, gather resources, build a base, then an army to conquer the opponent, which is probably doing the same thing as you, only in a cheesier and more robotic way, because they think it's the most efficient way to win, and sometimes it is, but that's why you have to think ahead and enter the realm of metagame, which is the actual appeal of all RTS. Then kick the other guy's ass.

-Metagame, you say? RTS are just build orders and rushing.
That's a valid strategy. Now what are you doing to go ahead the enemy rush?
That's the real metagame strategy and the tactics that go along it.

So there may be a sea of games that spawned across all these years, but certainly few can be landmarks in history and here are the best of the best, the top notch of the genre in no particular order since all of these have different flavors within each other, but without a doubt they're the best on what they do:

1.- Age of Empires II: The Conqueror's Expansion

Oh god this game. There's nothing better than building an empire from the dark ages to the imperial age and getting straight A++ in history class. Made by Ensemble and Microsoft Studios and launched in 1999, this game wrote the best essay on how to do an RTS right. Fun, deep, beautiful and awe inspiring. Playing on a LAN with your friends and having 200 units per player up to 8 players in one match assures you'll be staying up all night.
The appeal in AoEII is how it exudes ambience and production values, of a time where chivalry and crusades were the only entertainment people had. It has beautiful sprites and sounds, music, voices, and campaigns, all together in a tight gameplay revolving around building a village, gather the main 4 resources (stone, gold, wood and food), growing and achieving victory with a strong army by conquest or economy building and maintaining a unique Wonder for an amount of time. Branching technologies and natural expertise and advantages for certain civilizations (being around 20 factions to choose) bring you a LOT of possibilities on strategies.

It's ten years old, and it's still unmatched by its peers. No other game has this fine mix between economy, macro and fast paced micromanagement and not even Ensemble Studios could best themselves. Even if it sounds dated ITS NOT and if you truly want to have a worthy experience with your friends you can't miss this title.

As an honorable mention, Age of Mythology was pretty good as well and also worth checking out.

2.-Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty

After twelve years and with the biggest anticipation from all Asia and myself, Stracraft made its return with Wings of Liberty, promising to not fuck the legacy the first game left the industry for all eternity. And it didn't dissapointed... for the most part, that is.

You see, the original Starcraft was already a legend back then. the war between 3 races told in a magnificent campaign and a mindblowing fast paced multiplayer and internet support made it an instant classic that survived all these years, being relevant and actively played until this day and on. People loved it, Korea made it a national sport, i shit you not, so imagine the hype around its official sequel.

SC2 Wings of Liberty maintains that cutthroat and fast paced multiplayer focusing in micro management without sacrificing its macro and basebuilding for stronger economy. it's competitive enough to already have a strong following and community and tournaments going on across America, Europe and Asia. If you're looking for fast and exciting matches this game is for you. Just learn to accept defeat from cheesy moves, because you will find them all the time.
All the god damn time.

Although the multiplayer is really good and polished the campaign wasn't its strongest point. The original campaign had a really awesome story with intrigues and twists, and the characters had actual character and motives. in SC2, although fun and varied, the story is, plain and simple, utter shit, and Blizzard should be ashamed of pandering only to their WoW crowd. It's weak and clichèd to the point of being irritating to old fans and newcomers as well, and all the likeable characters and story was dumped to bring an obnoxious and retarded cast to solve their teen issues instead of developing a galatic war. I fear for Diablo III, i really do.

SC1 Raynor: "...I'll see you dead for this, Kerrigan."
SC2 Raynor: "DUUURRRHHHhhhh I loev kerigan zorg"
-Shakespeare.

But back to the point, the game is really worth your time, and you should check it out without hesitation. The gameplay is so good it was worth my money. Now that's something to think about.

3.- Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade

May the Emperor bless this game. A game with a name so long can only be situated in the 40k universe. It's so fucking 40k it has "war" two times and a synonym on it.

What's that? You don't know about the Warhammer 40,000 universe? Well, shit son, you have been lost your entire life without the light of the Emperor upon thee. Made by Relic Studios, this game kicks so much ass in so many different ways it will exorcise the daemons out of you. With the most impressive adaptation of the tabletop game ambience (said ambience, not fluff) to a videogame, this game plunges you to the most grim and dark grimndark 41st millenium where there's only war across the stars.

The game has the BEST, BAR NONE voice acting in all RTS. Hell, it has better voice acting than story driven games, completing the already over the top lore that W40k manages to put together. Relic is a company that has some serious experience with RTS, and when they got their hands on the franchise, they did an excellent job on it. It's fast paced and addicting as no other, where the only resources to build a minimal base and have 10 minutes carnages against the other player is Power Generators and Requisition Points, earned by capturing map points with raising a banner over the enemy's territory, forcing the player to be always in battle and always firing.

The units, animations, effects, menus, voices and art make this game one of the most impressive games ever seen, not because it has so much production value, but because the attention to detail Relic is proud to flaunt. Seven races to choose and 2 more on the Soulstorm Expansion, this game may not be the most balanced out there, but it is the most fun to play.

I recommend getting Dark Crusade and/or Soulstorm up to 1.2 patch to truly enjoy a more balanced gameplay. Get them both in Steam.

4.- Homeworld 1&2

Relic is a veteran when it comes to this genre for a reason. They made the award winning Homeworld back in 1999. Enough said.

This can only be described as a "space opera" with a campaign and original soundtrack that brought a sense of despair and tears to the player. It makes you afraid of space, being more in tune with a survival game with strategy involved. Did I mention is hard as fuck?

Homeworld has a fantastic storytelling about a civilization who lost their home planet and the search for a new one, where you control the only Mothership left in existance. Capturing enemy vessels and gathering just enough resources is the only way to survive.

Homeworld's gameplay is unique because it's a 3D enviroment completely, instead of the most classic isometric view. Your space ships can go in Y and Z axis, adding more positioning than clicking around the enemy.

The sequel to Homeworld was released in a butchered way, with the original plot dismissed and a lot of content cut out because of Sierra rushing out Relic to release it. And still, the game managed to be fucking beautiful and the gameplay is still unique to this day.

I recommend checking them both, and I do a honorable mention to Homeworld: Cataclysm, a spinoff game not developed by Relic but still really good and faithful to the original.

5.- Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance

Enough with population caps. Fuck your RAM and your CPU, when you said you wanted HUGE armies you knew you had a meltdown coming and you got it. Supreme Commander FA is about that, ridiculous population caps and gigantic overkill superunits destroying the landscape.

The spiritual successor of Total Annihilation got it right. SupCom, developed by Gas Powered Games is a game with a focus on macro management, extreme base building, build efficiency and invading at grand scale. 1000 pop-caps and excellent graphics with a nice unique interface bring you up to long matches where there's never enough resources or production.

Using a hero-like commander giant mech, you must build up a massive factory to produce mass units and cross islands and land to secure carbon extractors and build with it generators, these being the only two resources required. The map is big enough to play in many ways, whether you are a turtler, defender, rusher, aggresive or guerrilla type of player (but being honest, no turtler ever wins). As the match goes on war can escalate from infantry encounters to nuking an entire continent-like land. Super units like massive spider like mechs and super tank carriers can be built in a vulgar display of power if your ego demands it or the enemy just won't surrender.

Or you can just take your commander and suicide it amidst the enemy base, delivering a thermo nuclear explosion upon death amidst his factories just because it's a fun way to lose.

This game is really good and it's unique in its righteous own, and the AI has different modes to skirmish with. Just remember to not include a lot of AI's because this title has a strange issue where if the match goes on, the CPU will chug to almost a halt and to my knowledge it was never officially fixed, but playing against human friends is just a blast.

You can get it through Stardock's Impulse store.

6.- Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts

I already mentioned two games from Relic Entertainment, and you already know about their talent, and still I haven't told you about their masterpiece. After Dawn of War series Relic started to work on a new engine that could iron out their out of the box and bold ideas and then they developed this fine piece of work.

Company of Heroes is simply the best RTS game of the 2000's. Working on what they learned with Dawn of War they delivered this micro management focused game set in WWII where there's minimal basebuilding but an increased tech paths to work with. Allies vs Axis, the game centers around capturing strategical points on the map and holding them until victory countdown is achieved. Think of it as King of the Hill game mode with resource points with a lot of teamwork.

Two factions in the first vanilla game (Americans and Wehrmacht) and two more on the Opposing Fronts expansion (Brits and Panzer Elite), the game is stunningly detailed, from graphics to effects and voice acting, just like in the original DoW series, with a strong emphasis on moving your not so numerous units around the map and fighting with them in an arrange of possibilities amidst the battle, giving an intense metagame to the table. each faction with three different "doctrines" that change the playstyle of it and opens the possibility to clever ruses and flanking maneuvers, always pushing you to fight with infantry, howitzers, light and heavy tanks, each of them with a unique set of controls and values that affect the split second decisions and making you either win or lose a strategic position.

I cannot make enough emphasis on the effects and details this game has. If you love terraforming the shit out of the enemy, bombarding and leading to booby traps and other tactical approaches you may use, this game makes it feel good all around. Or if you want to fuck off with the tactical approach you can call in overkill bombardments and V1 rockets, and still maintaining a fair balance the game is for you.

This title and all expansions are on Steam and they're always on a great deal. But i liked it so much I bought it at full price and as a gift for $30 dollars because ITS WORTH IT, SON.

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If you are looking for an RTS it's imperative to first try these. There are a lot of games in this wonderful genre and I would like to name them all, (Command & Conquer series for example, Rise of Nations and others) and all of them have something for different tastes and people. If you have a game to recommend or want to say something don't forget to comment below.

Look no more and PLAY THESE. You won't be dissapointed.
Happy conquest commander.