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RTS games are extremely my poo poo, basically the first genre I ever really played. I've got my particulars though. Pretty apathetic towards Starcraft/Warcraft, they just feel so artificial. Total Annihilation just blew those games completely out of the water, imo, and even Command and Conquer due to the very simple fact that units can miss one another with their shots. The former of those two is still definitely one my absolute favourites and it's aged amazingly well and has some pretty drat impressive mods still being worked on. I've played all of its spiritual successors, but none of them have that same tactile edge that TA still has. Zero Hour and its mods are the best C&C game, fight me. Also big into Relic's style of Strategy (DOW3 never happened dammit), and COH2 and to a much lesser extent DOW2 are the only RTS games I've really put any time into PVP. Not gonna lie, the majority of my experience with the genre consists of skirmish matches and compstomps and playing mods and if you're noticing a trend, I am big into mods. I might do a write up of TA: Escalation and Mental Omega one of these days, because they've got a type of variety that commercial games could only dream of. I've also played (or tried to play) just about every obscure, lovely RTS around, including greater-than-one Korean Starcraft clones, so I'd be surprised if someone came up with something I've never heard of.
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Sep 26, 2018 05:32
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il serpente cosmico posted:Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander are my fav two RTS games. It's a shame TA: Kingdoms and SC 2 were both garbo. Soul Reaver posted:Dawn of War 1 is my favourite from the Dawn of War series. The battles are huge and over-the-top, and there are so many clever mechanics (you can shoot AND move? You have both melee AND ranged attacks, with different attack values? You get resources by holding points, not by having peasants walk back and forth? Morale?) Dawn of War 2 was fun but just doesn't hold a candle to 1. Dawn of War 3 (except the trailer) does not exist.
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Sep 27, 2018 01:40
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Anyone remember Battleforge? It was an EA-published CCG-RTS that later went free to play, then closed a few years later. Basically you built aspected decks (Fire, Ice, Nature, Shadow) and summoned the units and buildings into both PVE and VS realtime battles and it was actually pretty fun. Anyway, I'm posting about it now because there's actually a fanmade revival that launched earlier this month, Skylords Reborn. Well, to be example it's an "Open Stress Test" and when I messed around with it earlier today I kept getting disconnected from the server, but it's something to keep an eye on. Still looks pretty nice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW3pA5CsEdI
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Sep 28, 2018 03:37
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Uh, XCOM2?
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Sep 28, 2018 04:32
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Zero-K's very much its own thing now, not just a remake. And it's on the Spring engine which has a lot of great new functionality but I could never quite get into it. Speaking of, might have a write up for TA tomorrow.
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Sep 28, 2018 04:55
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Effortpost incoming, my first ever on these forums Something Awful.com. Please notice me sempai! What is TA? Total Annihilation is a 1997 real-time strategy game designed by Chris Taylor of the long defunct Cavedog Entertainment. Two similar factions, the ARM and the CORE, battle it out over separate 25 mission campaigns, a skirmish mode and online multiplayer. A pair of expansion packs were released not long after, The Core Contingency and Battle Tactics, the former of which added a bunch of new units while the second one was basically just a mission pack. Total Annihilation is available on Steam and on GOG, should work out the box with Windows 10, and even supports native widescreen, possibly even 4k, which is crazy considering its age.  What makes TA special? Warfare on a massive scale: With over 150 units and buildings at launch, TA featured more aspects of warfare than any game before it, or arguably since. Battling over land, sea and air, you could crush your foe with a gunship-supported army of tanks and robots, you could build a massive artillery base and shell them back into the stone-age, you could launch a surprise attack from sea with an assortment of ships, hovercraft and underwater tanks. Core Contingency expanded these concepts even further, adding a third technology level to the eponymous Core and letting them build the mighty Krogoth, a huge, one-man army mech, and allowing the ability to construct an entire base beneath the waves. Macro>Micro: Though you could actually take out the AI's Commander with a small squad of starting units if you were quick enough, TA's focus was definitely on production lines and army composition over APM. The game uses a very unique resource system, where you're constantly gaining metal and energy up to what your current storage can hold, and construction drains from this pool at different rates, depending on what you're building. This means you can't actually really run out of cash, and all $ is generated from a variety of static buildings, but you can definitely stall out your economy if you aren't mindful. The game also isn't balanced around a simple rock/paper/scissors system; for example a vertical-launch rocket will always do a lot of damage to whatever it hits, but first it has to hit. Which leads to...  A fully 3D battlefield: TA might not have been the first three-dimensional RTS made, that distinction probably belongs to some obscure European title. But it was definitely the most notable one at the time. Though presented from a top-down perspective, every object in the game, every unit, weapon, or terrain feature operated under a consistent physics model. This meant that an artillery cannon's plasma projectile could miss its intended target but still hit and damage whatever was behind it. Tanks would struggle getting up steep hills, giving merit to the individually weaker Kbots. A heavy laser tower surrounded by walls could remain practically impervious to anything with a low arc of fire, while being able to fire over protection due to its height. This 3D gameplay extended to its LOS system; mountains and forests could block a player's sight, making radar and sonar stations and absolute must. The music: Jeremy Soule's first major composition, TA's soundtrack also nabbed him his first industry award. It's a dynamic, sweeping, orchestral affair that waxes and wanes accordingly. Seriously, listen to this poo poo!  Modding Custom content was encouraged and supported from the very beginning of TA's release, leading to the creation of literally thousands of individual units, maps, balance mods, new races and total conversions. There are mods that turn the game into WW2, into Star Wars, into an original space RTS. It boggles the mind. Most everything can still be downloaded from the Unit/FileUniverse, too.  Development continues to this day; TA Zero re-imagines the Total Annihilation universe, emphasizing factional asymmetry and adding an entirely new, alien race, while Devolution contains only a few additions and aims to make sure every tool has its purpose. But by far the largest, and most active mod is Escalation.  Total Annihilation Escalation adds a slew of high-quality new units over every tier, over every front, rebalances the entire game, and pushes the engine to the limit. Its got bubble shields and teleporters. Certain units and structures can be upgraded. Tier 3 has been expanded with a full arsenal of powerful, pricey new toys, and a game-ending (temporarily removed  ) fourth tech level was added. Its sheer scale and variety is absolutely insane, and Escalation's become the de-facto way to play TA online. The latest version came out around a month ago, with balance patch on the way, after which the dev plans to wrap up T3, make the naval game more enticing, and add even more ridiculous T4 juggernauts. The future of TA gently caress if I know. Wargaming acquired the license a few years back and Chris Taylor worked with them for a bit, subsequently left. He's currently working on something new but there's nothing on that yet. There have, of course, been numerous Total Annihilation "successors," commercial and otherwise, but I won't touch on them here and I never really liked them anywhere near as much as the original. Despite my love for the game, it does have a few issues that prevent a revival: pathfinding can wonk out at times, the AI is very simplistic and just sends constant swarms at you, and the netcode isn't great. Currently, multiplayer games are all played through GameRanger, so there's a barrier to entry too. There's still a small, but active community over on https://www.tauniverse.com the surviving hub for all things TA. I should mention that one guy over there is working on his own , open-source engine for the game that's basically aiming to replicate it instead of doing its own thing like Spring, but he's just one man. Still, I highly encourage everyone to buy TA and play skirmishes and mods because it's still the loving best. 
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Sep 28, 2018 22:02
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Dandywalken posted:Mental Omega for Yuri's Revenge would be absolutely amazing if you could save your drat campaign mid mission. Last I played you couldn't. Good news everyone, as of 3.3.3, MO uses a version of Ares that lets you save again.
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Sep 29, 2018 02:00
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Dandywalken posted:I just saw! This is definitely awesome news. Absolutely recommend this mod to anyone who was into RA2. It even has unique Coop missions! It's another prime example of the way mods, made by enthusiasts, over a long period of time can have more complexity than a commercial game can ever hope for, either due to budgets, time constraints, or the need to keep things simple so as to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. See also: Shockwave/Contra/Rise of the Reds for Zero Hour, or any one of the many sperg mods for Star Wars:EAW.
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Sep 29, 2018 02:26
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Deakul posted:I miss base building, resource collecting units, defense towers, walls, and all that jazz in my RTSes. It's in EA and I haven't actually played it because it's in EA, but They Are Billions sounds like what you're looking for.
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Sep 29, 2018 17:36
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I don't much like Starcraft; battles just felt to "fake" after playing TA and Relic games, and I never cared about its hardcore competitive scene. Different strokes.  Klaus88 posted:I really want to do the mental omega campains, but my unrelenting shitiness at Westwood RTSes keeps me from enjoying them.
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Sep 30, 2018 20:48
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Someone on the TA Universe forums wrote up an economy guide that should help anyone just getting into the game. It's for the Escalation mod, but it should pretty much apply to vanilla too. https://www.tauniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?p=758949#post758949
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Oct 9, 2018 20:00
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Looks like work on the RA2 mod for OpenRA's come along further than I though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TOiFOgsxDk
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Oct 14, 2018 22:43
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Yeah, my brother bought and returned it, said it was way too simplistic.
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Oct 27, 2018 23:35
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Huh, looks like the Tiberium Dawn remaster is being done by Petroglyph. https://www.pcgamer.com/command-and-conquer-and-red-alert-remastered-are-being-developed-by-former-candc-devs/
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Nov 14, 2018 20:23
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 If you call that living...
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Nov 14, 2018 22:42
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I adored Deserts of Kharak and thought it was an amazing return to form for the Homeworld universe. I also thought it was the slickest-controlling RTS I've played too, everything just felt so responsive.
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Nov 15, 2018 16:36
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In the pantheon of TA-likes it's not bad. Better than Planetary Annihilation, worse than SupCom. The Escalation update added some much-needed complexity, and it's still being updated with new units and tech. I think it's got quite a few solo campaigns too, if that's your bag.
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Nov 16, 2018 21:50
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Crosspost:Mordja posted:I still have a 50% Total Warhammer 2 coupon that expires tomorrow, hit me up on PMs or a trade request at https://steamcommunity.com/id/lord_mordja if you want it.
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Nov 17, 2018 21:45
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:NetStorm is so loving good. I wanna say it came out as freeware a while back? It came out as freeware about 15 years ago, because it was definitely the first RTS I ever played online.
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Nov 20, 2018 04:43
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I am Communist posted:Were there any good must have mods or unit packs for supreme commander forged alliance? I've searched some sites but lots of broken links. Use this for all your Forged Alliance needs. https://www.faforever.com/ Anyway, Blackops is the best unit pack imo.
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Nov 24, 2018 05:14
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Deakul posted:I hope we get another rerelease of Age of Mythology some day, the extended edition is so god damned bad. I thought the only problem with it was that the new faction sucked?
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Nov 27, 2018 04:59
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Looks like you can get the RA2 mod for OpenRA from here: https://github.com/MustaphaTR/Romanovs-Vengeance It's still pretty early, but promising and further along than I'd expected. Requires original RA2/YR installs.
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Dec 24, 2018 09:47
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2>1 for me, easily, but both were great.
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Jan 8, 2019 22:54
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Well for C&C3, Tiberium Essence is pretty much the big mod, so there's that, I guess.
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Jan 14, 2019 03:45
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Huh, weird. Turns out there's a free version of a game I only ever played the demo of as a kid. Colobot is an RTS whose shtick is that you've actually gotta program the robots to mine, defend, etc. so in other words it's for nerds. Guess it got some community.
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Mar 9, 2019 05:48
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I know some people like Blizzard games; Warcraft and Warcraft 2 are now available on GOG. https://www.gog.com/game/warcraft_bundle
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Mar 28, 2019 16:21
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There's a SWINE remaster coming out. Why? I don't know. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwCp-_LxlYU
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Apr 17, 2019 23:03
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Has anyone played Driftland? It reminds me a little of Netstorm.
Mordja fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Apr 19, 2019 |
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Apr 19, 2019 19:00
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Turtle friendly RTS Conan Unconquered just came out, alongside its launch trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpgz0X2SaiY Basically a They Are Billions-like developed by the ever underfunded Petroglyph, ex C&C devs.
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May 29, 2019 18:19
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In what must be a repudiation of their public image, Destructive Creations has released a Crusades DLC for their RTS Ancestors Legacy wherein you play as Saladin on his campaign to retake the Holy Land. The expansion also adds the Saracens as a new faction to skirmishes and multiplayer. I enjoyed what I played of the game, that is the beta, but I never actually bought it due to concerns about its longevity and simplicity. It's basically a medieval-era Company of Heroes and I mostly play those for the multiplayer, something I'm guessing didn't really take off. Still, I recall there was one dude around here who dug it so there you go!
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Jun 3, 2019 20:18
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Mordja, are you just using this dead thread to talk to yourself about a dead genre? Yes I am, other Mordja. Yes I am. Anyways, Liquidation is an in-development RTS that looks to have way more visual polish that other indie strategies, been trucking along at a decent pace. Four factions duke it out in a science-fantasy world. It's VERY Warcraft/Starcraft, if that's your bag. It isn't mine, actually, but I'm desperate. https://twitter.com/LiquidationGame/status/1121826752232337408 https://twitter.com/LiquidationGame/status/1125799422846283776 https://twitter.com/LiquidationGame/status/1132290330982801409 https://twitter.com/LiquidationGame/status/1136264067990118407
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Jun 5, 2019 15:46
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Prav posted:the "we added two spikes so TECHNICALLY it doesn't infringe on copyright" artstyle Be honest mang, that was Blizzard's reasoning when they ripped of Warhammer only they removed spikes instead.
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Jun 5, 2019 17:19
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Potential BFF posted:The C&C Remastered sidebar looks sharp enough: That's basically the RA2 and onwards sidebar, so I guess they're definitely overhauling the actual gameplay then.
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Jun 5, 2019 22:58
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Fallom posted:It also doesn't actually imply any gameplay changes. Though I do hope they throw some modern UI stuff into the game and give people the option to turn it off. Anyways, found another in-development indie RTS that, uh, wears its inspiration on its sleeve, this one out of Russia. Mars 2000 aims to be a sort of copywrite-free, spiritual successor to Dune 2000, complete with FMV! https://twitter.com/mars2000game/status/1137117532752699392 
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Jun 8, 2019 15:57
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I hope Relic makes Dawn of War 3 afterwards
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Jun 11, 2019 21:19
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I haven't played in a while but COH2's the one RTS I played a bunch online. It's COH1 but mostly improved and I think the complaints were about the campaign, which I never touched.
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Jun 13, 2019 02:57
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Weird question, but which of these has the shortest, most manageable campaign? Company of Heroes COH2 Homeworld Homeworld 2
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Aug 18, 2019 00:40
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Been playing the COH campaign and, whoda thunk it, it's really good. Ironically, despite loving all of Relic's RTS (except, you know), and RTS in general, I never actually beat the campaigns of most of them. I mostly played skirmishes, comp stomps, and mods.
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Aug 24, 2019 01:04
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J675BQaIuQs So Homeworld 3's being made, except it's only in pre-production. It's also got a fig campaign running, except it's for a single, American $1 and supposedly they're already fully-funded so I guess it's a way to drum up some extra scratch? I don't loving know, but I loved Homeworld DOK so I'll buy this new game if it ever comes out.
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Aug 30, 2019 22:26
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Time for another effortpost, this one on Mental Omega. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmYE3JDL59g Mental Omega is, by my money, one of the most fully-featured mods around. Billed as an "unofficial expansion pack" for Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge, the sheer amount of content in this thing eclipses that moniker. It's got a staggering number of new units, new missions, new maps, and new gameplay mechanics.  How many new units? Well, I didn't count them but the mod's got four factions, each faction is divided into three subfactions, and each subfaction has a mostly unique set of units. Diversity is the name of the game here, and while there are definitely shared archetypes across the races, they tend to play quite differently. For example, while both the Soviet's Latin Confederation and Epsilon's (Yuri) Scorpion Cell are fast and cheap, the former harasses with suicide and debuff units while the latter contaminates the battle with poison and strikes from below.  Anyone familiar with Yuri's revenge might have noticed I mentioned "four" factions because MO 3.3 added a completely new one to the game, the Foehn Revolt. They're this expensive, high-tech army that's got nanotech, plasma weaponry, and wind manipulation, and borrow a few designs from the original C&Cs and even Dune 2.  As for the number of missions, that I will count. As per the website, this mod's currently got a whopping 66 campaign levels, split into two acts, 16 side missions, and 36 co-op ones. I'm pretty sure that's more than any existing commercial RTS on the market though I'd love to be proven wrong. On top of that I'm gonna say the game probably has well over a hundred different skirmish and multiplayer maps, including PVE challenge and 1v3 Fortress maps.  The entire mod's built for CNCNet, meaning its got multiplayer support right out of the box and a much more customizable front-end. If you own Yuri's Revenge, you should definitely give Mental Omega a try. The latest version can be downloaded here.
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Sep 3, 2019 20:39
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