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[Antioch]

definatly close combat (5 is my favorite but the multiplayer has a fair ammount of bugs).

[Virex]

Ground Controll springs to mind, but that's a Tactics game (Ground Controll 2 is a bit more RTS-like, and also a bit lighter on the strategy side). You're starting missions with a limited amount of units and have no way of getting new ones, so it's all a quation of proper unit placement (shadows reduce the distance at which they're seen, artillery is excelent for shelling buildings but you'll need to see them) and choosing the right tools for the job.

[a1s]

And I haven't found any free one that models supply lines either.

Off the top of my head: there's people's tactics (which contrary to the name is in fact a strategy- there's supply management (and -lines!), troop building and research, and I think there was some rudimentary diplomacy)

[Muz]

Point is, some complete fool who has a strategy guide, and follows things by the book could easily beat a genius who tries to figure things out himself.

It doesn't work like that at all in RTS games. Yeah, the genius will lose the first game as he figures out which unit does what, but the second game is his.

Have you ever played a RTS multiplayer?

In Stronghold, some kid just speed-clicked, build a huge field of apple farms, created a lot of apples, sold them all, bought weapons, and sent a few hundred swordsmen to my place before I figure out WTF he was doing. It didn't matter that I had a nice fort going, he could just spam my fort by manipulating that apple production flaw. And he claims that there's people who could do that faster.

In major RTSes.. AoE, Starcraft, Warcraft, C&C (especially Generals!), if you lag a little (i.e. THINK), your enemy will have a strong production stream going while you're trying to figure out which units are best to counter his. As smart as you are, the only thing you need to know in winning, is how to get your production up the fastest (from spoilers, likely), the best unit combos, and instinctively know the enemy's weakness.

Battle for Wesnoth involves a fair bit of strategy. (It's free, to boot.) The Total War series probably too.

Total War's strategies seem a bit simple to me.. because your always playing against the dumb AI. I mean it's nice, I've done some pretty sweet maneuvers and bluffs with it, but a bit limited.

I'm going to try out some of the other games mentioned, though

[Kagus]

Try Knights of Honor.  It's more strategic than tactical, and a lot of it is just diplomacy (which, frankly, I like), but there's just something really satisfying about leading the forces of Scotland to send all the English into France.

Really, the world map ends up looking pretty damn crazy after a while.  Especially when you get Vatican City taking over most of Germany, which is pulling back up into Finland.

[Karlito]

Try Multiwinia.  It's fun and tactical, and requires actual planning and thought, although the multiplayer servers are just about dead.

[Micro102]

i like the Stronghold series. One of my favorite games. Multitasking is not very useful as there aren't queues or anything like that.

Battle

Awsome map building 1

Awsome map building 2

[Kagus]

Two things...   One, Stronghold was just shown to suffer a rather nasty exploit and some generally twitchy player behaviour a couple posts back.

Two, please do not refer to Stronghold 2 as Stronghold or the Stronghold series.  The Stronghold series ends with Crusader.  If you try and bundle Stronghold 2 with the original while there are Stronghold fans around, you may find yourself on quite a few black lists.

I'm not saying you should preach the glories of the original and complain about Stronghold 2, I'm just saying you should keep them separate.  For your own safety.

[Micro102]

It sounds like that was done on the duke level, that would never work if you started at squire. or anything requiring honor. In every game highest resource settings = SPAM. You can look at what the opponent is doing too so it should be rather easy to fight off.

And as much as I'd like to debate how stronghold 2 is part of the stronghold series thats not what this thread is for.

[DJ]

Have you ever played a RTS multiplayer?

In Stronghold, some kid just speed-clicked, build a huge field of apple farms, created a lot of apples, sold them all, bought weapons, and sent a few hundred swordsmen to my place before I figure out WTF he was doing. It didn't matter that I had a nice fort going, he could just spam my fort by manipulating that apple production flaw. And he claims that there's people who could do that faster.

In major RTSes.. AoE, Starcraft, Warcraft, C&C (especially Generals!), if you lag a little (i.e. THINK), your enemy will have a strong production stream going while you're trying to figure out which units are best to counter his. As smart as you are, the only thing you need to know in winning, is how to get your production up the fastest (from spoilers, likely), the best unit combos, and instinctively know the enemy's weakness.

Don't know about Stronghold, because I haven't played much multiplayer there.

Others, however, you're dead wrong. I've played a fair deal of multiplayer AoE2 and Starcraft, and believe me, pulling off a perfect build order means squat if you suck at strategic planning. Yeah, you need to learn some basic openings to defend from rushes (zergling rush is laughably easy to defend from), but after that it's all about choosing your battles, ie strategy. Saying that there's no strategy in RTS-s because there's a couple of standardized starts is like saying there's no strategy in chess because it has standardized openings.

The build orders themselves are fairly intuitive, I think. You just need to remember to constantly make workers, and it all flows from there. So RTS-s are even better than chess in this regard.

[Virex]

Others, however, you're dead wrong. I've played a fair deal of multiplayer AoE2 and Starcraft, and believe me, pulling off a perfect build order means squat if you suck at strategic planning. Yeah, you need to learn some basic openings to defend from rushes (zergling rush is laughably easy to defend from), but after that it's all about choosing your battles, ie strategy. Saying that there's no strategy in RTS-s because there's a couple of standardized starts is like saying there's no strategy in chess because it has standardized openings.

This is verry true for starcraft at least, since it's map desing is littered with chokepoints and having the higher ground means a lot. You need to know when to fight and at what location or you're going to get mauled by a force smaller then your own.

[Vester]

I think your problem is with RTS games that have base-building, since those involve production chains and build queues and whatnot.

So why not the RTS games that don't have a base-building dynamic? The Total War series, Company of Heroes (can't think of any other ones right now) - those barely have any base-building.

Or... you could play Chess.

... or Checkers.

[ChairmanPoo]

Depends on the map and on the zergling rush. In a small enough map (or a large map where you have the bad luck of getting located early) a zergling rush is simply devastating.

[tp12]

I think your problem is with RTS games that have base-building, since those involve production chains and build queues and whatnot.

So why not the RTS games that don't have a base-building dynamic? The Total War series, Company of Heroes (can't think of any other ones right now) - those barely have any base-building.

Or... you could play Chess.

... or Checkers.

Although I love base defences to death... I hate those games where everybody just has to build a base the size of half the map... Mabe a game where you can select a pre made base design (pre made by you of course) and not be able to extend it further?

[DJ]

Depends on the map and on the zergling rush. In a small enough map (or a large map where you have the bad luck of getting located early) a zergling rush is simply devastating.

On a small map, SCV rush beats zergling rush any day of the week. On defence, four or five SCVs with two marines will absolutely crush the zerglings, provided you micro your marines a bit.