I got a gift card to Best Buy for Christmas, and I'm thinking I'm gonna buy a new game with it. I'm just not very up to date on what games are out there. Any suggestions on whats a good RTS game that I could get. It could even be several years old, as I haven't bought any in a while.

Supreme Commander, And it's expansion Forged Alliance.
GET IT NOW.

ensemble studies Age of Empires series.. any of them. I prefer 2 but 3 is good too.

What is your PC like?

Starcraft, Starcraft: Broodwar
Warcraft 3, Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War (and expansions)
Supreme Commander's good, better with online really
Command and Conquer 3 is really really good
Rome: Total War still kicks ***

There're more but that's just off the top of my head.

Age of Mythology was my favorite, period.

AMD 3000
2 gigs RAM
6600GT w/128 megs RAM.

Enough to run Half Life 2 on medium settings no problem, but its nothing great. Plan on building a new one this summer.

I've got the Blizzard games, so I'm looking for something else.

C&C3 would be my recommendation if you're buying from Best Buy. I also think C&C Generals and the Zero Hour expansions are amazingly fun, but those are more of bargain bin games by now. If you decide to try Generals, search for mods for it, there are a lot of fantastic ones, including some good realism mods. The Pro:Gen mod has been out of active development for some time, but is still nice. Its modifications are in the same vein and style as the original game, nothing out of the ordinary. The author has made several mods for many C&C games, usually they do things like bring back units not in the final release (but still exist in the asset files), that sort of thing.

Also for bargain bin games, try out Red Alert 2, and its expansion, Yuri's Revenge. On their own they are great games, but with the DeeZire mod, they're amazing. You need Yuri's Revenge to run it on XP or newer, however. It's by the same guy that makes Pro:Gen, and adds a lot of content. Originally it started out just adding unfinished units from the game's assets, but by the final release it has ended up more like an unofficial expansion. It's incredibly fun and dynamic.

You can find both mods here.

Dawn of War + Expansions will run best, and is really really fun. C&C3 still has good online, and will run okay. Rome: Total War won't run as well, but god it's fun

Company of Heroes might look like crap, but you should definitely see if it runs/look into it.

Oh yeah, the other great thing about Generals and especially RA2 is that it runs well on older computers. A GeForce 3 will run Generals pretty on medium to high settings. RA2, unfortunately slows down in very large games, even on larger systems, I think because of some framerate limiting it might have. There might be a way around that though I never looked into it.

At Best Buy you can get Command and Conquer: The First Decade (which i think includes everyone of them up through Generals) and C&C3 in a pack for 50 dollars.. lots of awesome games.. definitely the best bang for your buck.

I really really like Battle for Middle Earth 2.

World in Conflict destroys all these other games.

Worst, AOE, EVER.


See my name... KOP_AoEJedi

Age Of Empires (any of them in the main series, 1, 2, 3, and the expansions) is an amazing RTS.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert was a sweet game too.

Starcraft was good, but... its starting to show its age and simplicity.

Not really an RTS, but a good game... Diablo 2 (expansion is a must). Long game, fun to play. Good online play with friends.

Guys, look out. He has AoE in his name, he's the ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY ON RTS'!

None of us can compare!

Just acquiesce to his obviously superior knowledge

But yeah, rogue, let us know which one you pick.

I've heard a lot good about C&C Generals, so that C&C pack sounds like a good bet.

I really liked Age of Mythology.

Good? RTS?

(we need a flamebait emoticon)

No one has mentioned the Homeworld series? For shame!

Here's another vote for Company of Heroes and Starcraft too.

Actually, I was mainly speaking in terms of AOE games. I've played them all more than a healthy amount and believe i have a good opinion on them.

Can you do mods if you get the C&C Decade, or only if you buy the original games? That might be something to consider.

I think you can.
Athough from what i heard the decade pack is missing a bunch of patchs that EA was too lazy to include.

Yeah. And I'm not so sure Multiplayer works either. I remember seeing a thread on SA about it, but didn't follow it to it's conclusion.

World in Conflict.

Is Age of Empires one of those RTS games where you start out at the beginning of civilization and then work your way up to the modern age? I've never played any of those kind of RTS games and always wondered if they were any good.

Yeah. Personally, if you're into that aspect, and want a really really good tactical RTS I'd suggest Rome: Total War. Otherwise try Civ 4, maybe Empire Earth 2 or 3 (haven't played them but heard a lot of good things).

Empire earth 3 sucks, Stay FAR away from it.
Seriously, Google up some reviews.

Obviously have done that too. But I thought I'd get some opinions here as well to narrow down the search. Well, I'll let you guys know what I end up getting. Rome: Total War looks interesting.

Look into Supreme Commander.
It can get really intense when you have thousands of units battling. But that rig might not be up to it.

You...already said that.

Well i just wanted to stress how good it is.

If you're living in the past, Empire Earth 1 was a really enjoyable game.

Your posts are already horrible enough, we don't need you repeating them.

Well, went to Best Buy just now and picked up Supreme Commander. I like the idea of massive battles and the strategy involved with land, sea, and air units. Plus the reviews I read gave it really good marks. I remembered that my laptop that I just barely bought is considerably more capable then my desktop, so it shouldn't have too many problems running the game.

If you've played Total Annihilation before I'd recommend giving Spring a look-in. It's essentially TA in a newer fully 3D engine. I spend 4 or so months playing it online last year and it's awesome fun tactically in MP (only has MP). It doesn't need much bandwidth to play, but can be a bit of a system hog if the unit count starts getting high. It's still less of a strain than SupCom and a lot more fun.

I would NOT say Spring is a lot more fun than SupCom. At all.

BATTLE FOR MIDDLE EARTH (2)