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Recommend me a RTS with good sp campaign

v1rus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
2,253
Now, shitton of great answers suggestions. I played a good deal of those games (Age of Mythology, Kohan II) some completely, some partially, and some I already mentioned (I know battle realms by heart bros.)

OTOH, some games dont fit my current mood (historical).

Perimeter, Paraworld seem like most in my alley, once I'm done with DoW. Finished main campaign, onward to winter assault. Are both order/disorder worth a play?

I also know of Black Moon Chronicles :p Seen the pretty pictures, prolly gonna read it when they translate the prequels fully.
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,156
Almost all good RTS have been mentioned by now. Warwind 1 and 2 may be Warcraft clones, but they have some unique ideas as well. There's that game whose name escapes me now available in GOG, where you traveled through time to the prehistory to gather a Special Mineral (TM), while fighting pesky Russians and Arabs. The campaigns were quite open and with branching paths and C&C, I think. Also many mods.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
There's that game whose name escapes me now available in GOG, where you traveled through time to the prehistory to gather a Special Mineral (TM), while fighting pesky Russians and Arabs. The campaigns were quite open and with branching paths and C&C, I think. Also many mods.
Original War
Not available on GOG anymore.
Publisher delisted it years ago from there.
 

Neanderthal

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Granbretan
Warrior Kings, good story, fantastic C&C with three different paths, tight gameplay, bit easy but fucking hard in some places.

Oh DOW and WA can be played on Soulstorm engine with a mod that adds cut content and ups the difficulty, pretty good.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Developer
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Rival Realms went completely bonkers in its attempt to let every soldier become a hero (all units could level up, and loot stuff, to the point the map was littered with loot as killing any lvl3+ unit or so gave a reward).
It was fun, but had a ton of issues. It sure is weaker than most of its competitors (WC3, WBC1-3), but it did let you carry over your top 5 units from mission to mission iirc.
Like all budget RTS of the time, it had horrible AI and pathfinding.

5514-6-rival-realms.jpg


warlord.jpg


As you can see here, each of your units can carry up to 4 items, because why not?
 

Alpan

Arcane
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Joined
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Messages
1,340
Grab the Codex by the pussy Pathfinder: Wrath
I realize that you asked for classic RTS, but it would be criminal not to mention Majesty. For the price of giving up manual control over units you'll get many hours of base-building, RPG-tinged fun and some very difficult scenarios indeed.
 

Tolias

Educated
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Messages
40
1) Rise of Nations. Great campaigns.
2) Mental Omega mod for Red Alert 2. MO is basically a whole RTS in RA2 skin. Devs have totally rebalanced the game for Aliies/Soviets/Yuri and even added a whole new faction (Foehn). This has been on development for like 10+ years. Over 40 SP missions plus quite a few fan made ones. Note that the difficulty of the missions is sometimes staggering. Easy is pretty much normal, normal is about hard and anything above is actively painful unless you are very good at the game.
3) Similarly, Twisted Insurrection mod for Tiberian Sun. Over 30+ SP missons + new faction.
 

Yosharian

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2018
Messages
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Grand Chien
Now, shitton of great answers suggestions.

OTOH, some games dont fit my current mood (historical).
I strongly recommend the following, even if they aren't historical games:

Warzone 2100: a lot of people will talk about the 'design your own unit' aspect of this game, but I don't really rate it very much, because essentially most of the time you just want a cannon tank with the toughest chassis, and then some sort of artillery/missile tank as a second line unit. However what makes this game really good is the story and music, and the technology research aspect. Also, if you play the game with an imaginary objective: don't lose a single unit, it becomes really cool as your units slowly grow in power and end up as powerful veteran units by the end of the game - you can 'recycle' unit experience, putting it into a new unit, so you can keep upgrading your veterans as you go through the campaign. Did I mention the campaign is fucking awesome?

Dark Crusade: by far the best Dawn of War game. Who gives a shit about story, the DoW games never had decent story. The DC game mode can get a little repetitive by the end, but it's still the best game in the series.

World In Conflict: I seem to remember this game has a very strong campaign. I recommend it.
 

v1rus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
2,253
Now, shitton of great answers suggestions.

OTOH, some games dont fit my current mood (historical).
I strongly recommend the following, even if they aren't historical games:

Warzone 2100: a lot of people will talk about the 'design your own unit' aspect of this game, but I don't really rate it very much, because essentially most of the time you just want a cannon tank with the toughest chassis, and then some sort of artillery/missile tank as a second line unit. However what makes this game really good is the story and music, and the technology research aspect. Also, if you play the game with an imaginary objective: don't lose a single unit, it becomes really cool as your units slowly grow in power and end up as powerful veteran units by the end of the game - you can 'recycle' unit experience, putting it into a new unit, so you can keep upgrading your veterans as you go through the campaign. Did I mention the campaign is fucking awesome?

Dark Crusade: by far the best Dawn of War game. Who gives a shit about story, the DoW games never had decent story. The DC game mode can get a little repetitive by the end, but it's still the best game in the series.

World In Conflict: I seem to remember this game has a very strong campaign. I recommend it.

No-no, it goes the other way round - I dont want historical games :D
 

Yosharian

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2018
Messages
9,418
Location
Grand Chien
Now, shitton of great answers suggestions.

OTOH, some games dont fit my current mood (historical).
I strongly recommend the following, even if they aren't historical games:

Warzone 2100: a lot of people will talk about the 'design your own unit' aspect of this game, but I don't really rate it very much, because essentially most of the time you just want a cannon tank with the toughest chassis, and then some sort of artillery/missile tank as a second line unit. However what makes this game really good is the story and music, and the technology research aspect. Also, if you play the game with an imaginary objective: don't lose a single unit, it becomes really cool as your units slowly grow in power and end up as powerful veteran units by the end of the game - you can 'recycle' unit experience, putting it into a new unit, so you can keep upgrading your veterans as you go through the campaign. Did I mention the campaign is fucking awesome?

Dark Crusade: by far the best Dawn of War game. Who gives a shit about story, the DoW games never had decent story. The DC game mode can get a little repetitive by the end, but it's still the best game in the series.

World In Conflict: I seem to remember this game has a very strong campaign. I recommend it.

No-no, it goes the other way round - I dont want historical games :D
I see. Not exactly an RTS, but have you played Dungeon Keeper?
 

Yosharian

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2018
Messages
9,418
Location
Grand Chien
I see. Not exactly an RTS, but have you played Dungeon Keeper?

Yeah. Great stuff, but i prefer Evil Genius. Dem pervasive bases!
If you liked DK, you might check out War For The Overworld, which is a sort of spiritual successor. It's not without its faults, but it's got some solid Dungeon Keeper-esque gameplay, and the Heart of Gold expansion is particularly good.
 

DemonKing

Arcane
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
5,958
Company of Heroes is the obvious answer, as others have pointed out. Both 1&2 still look and sound great and play well today.

D&D Dragonshard wasn't terrible from memory, and was unique in that it had both above ground and below ground areas.
 

Mastermind

Cognito Elite Material
Patron
Bethestard
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
21,144
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Emperor: Battle for Dune. First 3d C&C style RTS and a very good one. The Harkonnen cutscenes are particularly entertaining.

Red Alert 3 I hated at first but eventually it grew on me.

Starcraft 2 campaigns are very well done mechanically, good customization between missions and the commando levels are miles above the ones in sc1. The story is kinda lackluster and has caused quite a bit of butthurt tho.
 

circuit breaker

Educated
Joined
Apr 27, 2019
Messages
77
  • Homeworld: Cataclysm (also known as Homeworld: Emergence on GOG)
  • Age of Empires 2
  • Starcraft 2
  • Supreme Commander/Forged Alliance
  • Dawn of War 1
  • C&C 3: Tiberium Wars/Kane's Wrath
  • Rise of Nations
  • Ground Control 1
  • Red Alert 2 + Yuri's Revenge + Mental Omega mod
  • Total Annihilation/The Core Contingency/Battle Tactics
 

Daedalos

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
5,559
Location
Denmark
Dark Colony

Krush Kill & Destroy (KKND)

Company of Heroes 1 + 2

Starcraft 1 + 2 should be mandatory. Starcraft 2 is very shitty compared to 1, but it's still fairly fun missions, but the story is kind of shit overall.

C&C 1, 2 and 3, Red Alert 1

Warcraft 1,2 and 3

Dune 2, Dune 2000, Dune: Battle of the emperor

Black Goo

Z
 
Last edited:

Kliwer

Savant
Joined
Oct 19, 2018
Messages
215
I realize that you asked for classic RTS, but it would be criminal not to mention Majesty. For the price of giving up manual control over units you'll get many hours of base-building, RPG-tinged fun and some very difficult scenarios indeed.

This should be highlighted. I am not RTS fan and this is one of few quasi-RTS games which I like. The general idea of the game is just magnificent. It's like RPG game, but the player is not a hero but... quest-giver. I like the atmospher - something between fantasy and fairytale (as a "The Hobbit").

You are buliding city and setting prizes for monsters heads but you do not have direct controll over your units. Your town guards are pathetic (as they usually are in RPGs games...) but your heros could become very powerfull. You, as a ruler, should give them opoportunities to buy better equipment and you should know their habbits becouse it is only way to use them. For example: rangers willingly discover unknown territories (even without any reward), paladins are powerful units who like to ride monsters lairs (which could be very dangerous becouse destruction of the lair somethimes summons hordes of enemies), priests of the Moon like to patrol your town and so forth. In most missions you have to choose which units fit you best (becouse many of them do not like each other, for example elves do not live toghether with dwarves). Wizards, as you can expect, are weak at the beggining but could become killing machines on high levels (it is important to build for them places to buy spells and to train); but even then they are useless against some types of monsters (beholders, medusas).

All this factors make quite complicated and original game, it is not as simple as rock-paper-scissors.
And almost any mission is unique. The only sirious drawback of this game is that it is almost impossible to win some of the hardest scenarios in the first approach; you have to make a test-run to know what surprises wait for you.
 

Dr Skeleton

Arcane
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
811
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Armies of Exigo - a shameless Starcraft/Warcraft clone that I really liked. Features some unique mechanics like a surface/underground layered map and the campaign was pretty fun.
This one. If you like Warcraft 3, this is a good, obscure Warcraft 3 rip-off with a long campaign.

This is scraping the barrel because most good RTS games were already mentioned but: Kingdom under Fire (the original from 2001) is a Korean Starcraft/Warcraft 2 rip-off with one saving grace being the long, difficult campaign. It has some awful "RPG" missions where you only control a hero but most of it is RTS, and the RTS parts are solid and some missions are really difficult. I've only played the Polish version but if the translation and voice acting in the English one is just as hilariously bad then that's a big plus too because the story is otherwise very generic (evil orcs, drows and undead vs good humans, elves and dwarves).
 

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