Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

RTS Which RTS have a good single player campaign?

miles teg

Scholar
Joined
Jan 18, 2015
Messages
130
By good I mean something different from "tutorial, then play multiplayer"). I might be wrong but it seems that single player campaigns quality started declining somehow 15 years ago and it never came back on top.
Anyway I personally still enjoy a good campaign but honestly I'm not an expert of RTSs, so which games do you suggest? In random order, I think I've already played all (or most of) the classics:

Dune 2 and 2000, Starcraft 1 and 2 (but I hated the time based missions), Warcraft 2 and 3, Red Alert 1, 2 and 3, DoW 1 games, Homeworld(s), The star wars RTS based on Aoe II, Dark Reign, TA and SC.

What else is there worth playing for the single player campaign?

Please, by RTS I mean Dune 2 clone RTS, so resource management, buildings, units, clusterfuck battles. I can accept Ground Control clones, too, but don't start suggesting Commands and stuff: I know they are technically real time but it;s not what I'm looking for :D
 

Morkar Left

Guest
Total War games :smug:

And I enjoyed Age of Empires 2 campaigns. And there is Warlords Battlecry 2 and 3.

And people say that Homeworld has a very good campaign.
 
Joined
May 11, 2007
Messages
1,853,654
Location
Belém do Pará, Império do Brasil
Outpost 2's campaign is pretty good. Bear in mind OP2 is kind of a mix of a City-builder with RTS, so you have stages more focused on building, and unit-only stages. The Plymouth Campaign is probably the best one, because its final stage is so epic.

Warzone 2100 has a great campaign. Timed through, so better play smart!

Earth 2150 has a good campaign too. Actually, three of them. One interesting thing is that you have a strategic, not tactical objective, so you're going across a bunch of stages to fulfill your goals, and may meet with success or failure in some stages, which may not end your game if you can win other ones unlocked after that. Its timed too, but you have a while to win it.
 

Maculo

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 30, 2013
Messages
2,533
Strap Yourselves In Pathfinder: Wrath
If you are looking for additional single player campaigns, WC3 has a lot of custom campaign content. Off the top of my head: Rise of the Blood Elves; Curse of the Forsaken; Warden (Zelda inspired?); Chosen Ones; and To the Bitter End. Rise of the Blood Elves and Curse of the Forsaken are more reminiscent of the campaign structure in WC3. Both custom campaigns loosely follow WoW lore, which can be a turn off for some. If I remember correctly, Warden, Chosen Ones, and To the Bitter End are all hero focused, and so there is no resource management, etc. I found most maps at the hiveworkshop.com.

Two recommendations that are different from your original request, but I would nonetheless recommend are Warhammer 40K Gothic Armada and Total War: Warhammer. Gothic Armada has you build up a selection of space battleships that you buy, upgrade, and repair with renown. Renown is obtain through missions and performance in said mission. The missions and campaign are loosely collected in chapters, each culminating in a special ship battle or objective. I found this one entertaining, but grindy at certain points.

Personally, I have had a lot of fun with Total War:Warhammer 1&2. The game is a Risk styled overmap, but each individual battle is in real time. Each faction has a different play style and particular objectives that must be met for victory conditions. For example, the Dark Elves have a slave mechanic that can massively boost their economy at the cost of public order and rebellions, whereas the Lizardmen have the geometric web that grows in strength with each developed province. Total War:Warhammer 2 provides a more focused campaign with the Vortex campaign compared to Total War:Warhammer 1 or the Mortal Empire campaigns (i.e., world domination). The Vortex campaign requires the completion of several rituals that will summon chaos hordes to attack your territory, as well as attract the ire of competitors. Recently, CA added Tomb Kings that ignore the Vortex and instead hunt for lost books, each of which grants a campaign bonus. Come May 31st, there will be DLC with new legendary lords with more ambitious campaign mechanics (e.g., Hellebron must sacrifice slaves to rejuvenate, or she faces penalties that increase in severity over time).

The drawback of Total War:Warhammer is that when you tally the collective cost of the games, plus DLC, the cost gets ridiculous. The DLC content is worth playing, but wait for a steam sale.
 

Storyfag

Perfidious Pole
Patron
Joined
Feb 17, 2011
Messages
15,899
Location
Stealth Orbital Nuke Control Centre
Earth 2150 has a good campaign too. Actually, three of them. One interesting thing is that you have a strategic, not tactical objective, so you're going across a bunch of stages to fulfill your goals, and may meet with success or failure in some stages, which may not end your game if you can win other ones unlocked after that. Its timed too, but you have a while to win it.

Oh you cannot praise that one enough. A real gem.
 

miles teg

Scholar
Joined
Jan 18, 2015
Messages
130
It appears I already own 2150 and 2 expansions on Steam. I guess I'll start from that. Anyway all names here are in my google doc now, so I'll tackle all of them (at least the ones that are on Steam/Gog).

I'm also interested in Grey Goo (but I read it's pretty short) and Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak which has some good reviews.

Whatt can you tell me about Earth 2160 and 2140? Are they worth it as well?
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
4,466
Location
Shaper Crypt
I'm also interested in Grey Goo (but I read it's pretty short) and Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak which has some good reviews.


Grey Goo is "good enough". It's on the same tier of Universe at War (that has a bitchin' soundtrack) and Act of War, they are solid and uninspired in gameplay. Grey Goo has a nice.... "story", we can say. Desserts of Kharak is mediocre. Gameplay is boring and it has the HW2 bug, trying to ape mindlessly the feeling of wonder of HW and managing to be only "meh".



Whatt can you tell me about Earth 2160 and 2140? Are they worth it as well?

Earth 2140 is a KKnD-era RTS, so not bad, merely dated. 2160 is.... bad. HP bloat and terrible design decisions abound.

Also, two suggestions for the FPS-RTS hybrid:

Battlezone 1998 & Battlezone 2

Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising
(pretty much a SP-only RTS-FPS hybrid)
 

miles teg

Scholar
Joined
Jan 18, 2015
Messages
130
Started Earth 2150 and having a lot of fun. I have to admit I have some problems distinguishing the units from each other, but that's more due to the low resolution I'm playing at than anything else.
I can picture myself spending a shitload of time on this title already....
 

U-8D8

Savant
Joined
May 2, 2018
Messages
168
Stronghold 1's campaign is good, though it's a more castle sim than RTS. Instead of recruiting and controlling your workers, peasants are attracted to your castle and put into a pool from which you can train troops or assign work which they will do without any need for oversight if you've placed the required buildings. The way to attract peasants is popularity, which can be affected either positively or negatively by the amount of food available and the tax-rate. For instance, if you increase rations, the peasants will be happier but you'll have to up food production. The key is maintaining balance between all of the different elements and compensating for your deficiencies. Say if you're placed on a map without much farmland, you could give the peasants quarter-rations and build a few churches to keep their morale up in the face of hardship.

Moving on to combat; I admit, unit vs unit isn't as in depth as games like Age of Empires and while there are some counter units, I still wouldn't call it involving. But that's okay, where the game really shines is in its sieges. See, walls can be placed anywhere within a radius of the castle and they aren't just barriers to keep the enemies out. You can place archers, crossbowmen and siege equipment, (if the appropriate tower is built) on them for an added range bonus. Additionally they give you a lot of fun historical castle defenses to use like killing-pits, moats and even burning pitch. Attacking is just as much fun. You can tunnel and undermine walls, break them down with siege engines, or just scale them with ladders or a good siege tower. At the expense of some of your livestock, you can even chuck diseased animal carcasses into the enemy castle to spread pestilence and disease.

I am biased, since the series was my first RTS, but I still think it's well worth your time. In fact, if you're interested I could give you my Steam copy. I never use it as I've got both the disc and the GoG version so its no skin off my back.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
Warzone 2100 has really good and fun campaign and it has persistant campaign. Meaning that everything you do, you don't lose at end of the mission.

Earth 2150 is very similar to Warzone2100 that it relies on same aspect (having your main base and persistence of units) but it is much bigger game and imo even more fun as each side of conflict is really different to play.

Homeworld1 and Cataclysm hava amazing campaigns. H2 also is good one but worse than 1st and Cataclysm.

Earth 2140 with expansion packs on other hand had best classic rts campaign. It was seriously fucking hard, especially expansions and you always felt like each new mission was something interesting instead of being just another build a base and win map.

My favorite mission from E2140 was when i had like 5 prototype bipedal units and i had to make best out of them to move past the map. It took me like 20-30 tries. It was hard as fuck but it was worth it.
 

Chippy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 5, 2018
Messages
6,037
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Just finished Empire at War and Forces of Corruption again. It's very (very) RTS lite, but worth a few bob at GOG and worth playing at least once. Graphics are good, voice over great, put it on hard difficulty and it's a lite version of C&C set in the Star Wars universe. Should grab the latest patch for modern systems - not included in GOG version.
 

deama

Prophet
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
4,352
Location
UK
I recently played Zero-K (it has an offline set of missions), but had to give up cause it got too hard for just me (you can coop). It doesn't have much of a story, but the missions are done well.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom