A decent RTS game for a somewhat old PC?

[ShadowFireLance]

So, I have a problem, and I come to thee for help, playground.
My normal gaming Computer (And one I use for everything else) has decided it wants to cause me grief, and as such, I cannot use it currently.
I have once again defaulted back to my old computer, which can run the following games just fine, for reference:

Cortex Command
Age of (Anything other than Empires 3)
Command and Conquer Red alert 2

And the main problem I'm finding with my old fallback (Age of Empires 2) is the horrible AI and walkpaths. It takes friking forever to mobilize any sort of an army, and get them to do anything. Micro means nothing, and Macro is the only thing that matters.

So what I'm asking (Read: Begging) for is a game where the AI doesn't walk the opposite direction, and Micro means something.
It can be a TBS, but I'd really like an RTS.
I'm open to any genre, Fantasy appeals to me most, however.


Any suggestions?

[BladeofObliviom]

The original Battle for Middle Earth seems to fit your bill, though I'm less sure about the sequel due to not having actually played it. It has fairly low system requirements, focuses more on tactics and small-team battles than Age of Empires does, and is competently coded as far as AI goes.

[Grif]

Oh? Let me get out my big book of RTS-es:

Recommended:
Warcraft III and its expansion, The Frozen Throne. (One of the most successful Blizzard fantasy RTS. Heavy micro needed.)
Rise of Nations and its expansion, Thrones and Patriots. (Best RTS IMO.)
Homeworld (one of the few true 3D RTS)
Sword of the Stars (RTS/TBS hybrid)
Battle Realms (Eastern fantasy RTS)
Starcraft and its expansion, Brood War (Self-explanatory, Starcraft is a bit of a big thing. Heavy micro needed.)
Total Annihilation (Supreme Commander predecessor. Massive amounts of units.)
Dawn of War (I) and all its expansion. (Might be a little too heavy on the hardware though. Do check before trying.)

Good to try:
Submarine Titans (Underwater RTS. One of its kind. Rather buggy though, and poorly balanced.)
Seven Kingdoms (I and II)
Metal Fatigue (Giant robots? Giant robots. Good luck trying to get it running on a modern machine though.)
Rise of Legends (Spin off from Rise of Nations. Not as good, but worth a look.)

Just for lulz.
Startopia :smallbiggrin:

[Don Julio Anejo]

Heroes of Might and Magic III is still the best TBS game in existence.

[MLai]

You want Warhammer 40K: Dawn Of War + at least the 1st two expansions. It's cheap now.
I consider W40K fantasy IN SPACE! Your army runs around fighting space orcs and space elves with space swords. It's fantasy + explosions, i.e. the best of both worlds.

[Dumbledore lives]

Majesty, where you don't control the units and they just kind of do whatever. Sounds incredibly frustrating, and occasionally is, but it has such a great world and fun missions that it is well worth it.

[ShadowFireLance]

The original Battle for Middle Earth seems to fit your bill, though I'm less sure about the sequel due to not having actually played it. It has fairly low system requirements, focuses more on tactics and small-team battles than Age of Empires does, and is competently coded as far as AI goes.

I hear good things about that, is it decent enough? I'd trust your opinion more than some random person's on another forum.



Oh? Let me get out my big book of RTS-es:

Recommended:
Warcraft III and its expansion, The Frozen Throne. (One of the most successful Blizzard fantasy RTS. Heavy micro needed.)
Rise of Nations and its expansion, Thrones and Patriots. (Best RTS IMO.)
Homeworld (one of the few true 3D RTS)
Sword of the Stars (RTS/TBS hybrid)
Battle Realms (Eastern fantasy RTS)
Starcraft and its expansion, Brood War (Self-explanatory, Starcraft is a bit of a big thing. Heavy micro needed.)
Total Annihilation (Supreme Commander predecessor. Massive amounts of units.)
Dawn of War (I) and all its expansion. (Might be a little too heavy on the hardware though. Do check before trying.)

Good to try:
Submarine Titans (Underwater RTS. One of its kind. Rather buggy though, and poorly balanced.)
Seven Kingdoms (I and II)
Metal Fatigue (Giant robots? Giant robots. Good luck trying to get it running on a modern machine though.)
Rise of Legends (Spin off from Rise of Nations. Not as good, but worth a look.)

Just for lulz.
Startopia :smallbiggrin:

I actually have played Warcraft I-III, and have all of them, it fits pretty well.
From Wikipedia, that looks awesome. Going to take a lookie.
I hear that one is good as well..
Never heard of it, but It doesn't quite look different than Sins of a Solar Empire. Which I have. Is it any different?
Looks interesting.
Should really make a list of games i've played.. I'm Grandmaster on SC2, and this PC won't come close to that, and I've played it since Brood war days. :smallbiggrin:
I do love SC:FA, So that will be worth a look.
It is indeed, My gaming laptop does not like it, and the interface is just a little on the clunky side.
Thanks for all the suggestions!



Heroes of Might and Magic III is still the best TBS game in existence.
I hear good things about this, What exactly IS it though?


You want Warhammer 40K: Dawn Of War + at least the 1st two expansions. It's cheap now.
I consider W40K fantasy IN SPACE! Your army runs around fighting space orcs and space elves with space swords. It's fantasy + explosions, i.e. the best of both worlds.
I've beaten all of the expansions, and the main. And 2. I love 40k. :smallbiggrin: Those are way to high end for this thing however.


Majesty, where you don't control the units and they just kind of do whatever. Sounds incredibly frustrating, and occasionally is, but it has such a great world and fun missions that it is well worth it.
Might want to take a look...

[FLHerne]

Warzone 2100 - FOSS, so not much to lose if you hate it.

Futuristic thingy with energy weapons, very customisable vehicle types, and a fairly intelligent if rather predictable AI. Resources are a bit oversimplistic but the tech tree is nice, and there's plenty of stuff to micro-tweak (sensor allocation, combat groups, experience level of individual units).

It is realtime-rendered 3D, but so hideous and low-poly that your PC can probably run it just fine.

[Tebryn]

Sins of a Solar Empire. A thousand times Sins of a Solar Empire.

[Ailurus]

Do you have the exact specs of your old computer? Would help knowing exactly where to draw the line.

I'll second Battle for Middle Earth (the original, though, not BFMEII) and Warcraft 3. While it does change up some stuff (especially base building) BFME sounds like its right down the alley of what you're looking for. Though I'd check the hardware first, since it may be too much.

And, I'll toss a new one into the mix. AI War: Fleet Command. Its light on the graphics side of the hardware, though it can get a bit heavy on the CPU side (not sure if that helps or hurts your computer). If you want a good AI, a solid combination of micro and macro, multiple victory conditions and near-infinite replayability there's nothing like it. That being said, though, it is similar to dwarf fortress in two ways - both that there's a learning cliff (not quite as bad as DF though), and be prepared to die a lot, especially in the beginning.

[MLai]

Answers to some of your questions:

1. I hear good things about that, is it decent enough?
Battle For Middle Earth is quite decent. However, I believe it's more of a hardware hog than DOW1 (I had both).

2. Never heard of it, but It doesn't quite look different than Sins of a Solar Empire. Which I have. Is it any different?
Sword Of The Stars is a 4X space game that's heavy on the spaceship battle micro, which I hear is what you want. Think Star Trek ship-to-ship battles. In contrast, SoaSE is a 4X space game that plays like a grand-strategy RTS, without true individual spaceship micro.
Ofc, if you decide to buy SotS, you must purchase all 3 expansions. The vanilla game is mediocre, but becomes a gem with all the meaty expansions.

3. I hear good things about this, What exactly IS it though?
HoMM series plays like this:
-> On the overworld map, you build up your castles and recruit generals (heroes) to lead your fantasy armies.
-> The generals gallop around on the overworld map securing your territory, gaining exp by killing creeps (like WC3), and fending off enemy generals.
-> When you fight, the game goes to a battle map which looks like a chessboard. The battles are visually similar to Battle Chess.

[Morithias]

Why not Starcraft 1?

[ShadowFireLance]

Why not Starcraft 1?

Once you go 2, you only go true 2.
That was horrible.

Anyways, Reason 1: Can't select enough units in one click.
2: Walkpaths.

Otherwise I would play it so hard.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Majesty, where you don't control the units and they just kind of do whatever. Sounds incredibly frustrating, and occasionally is, but it has such a great world and fun missions that it is well worth it.
I dunno that Majesty has a lot of micro, however. I mean, I guess that managing your builds and bounties can involve a good bit of micro...

Still an awesome game, though.

Leave my gold...alone.

[Triaxx]

Because he asked for a decent RTS? :smallbiggrin:

Plus he mentioned having it already.

I'll second Total Annihilation, and also recommend Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. It's built on Age of Empires 2, and it's even better. Even if you don't like Star Wars, it's pretty awesome.

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms is TA, fantasy version.

[Airk]

I was all set to come in and recommend Kohan: Ahriman's Gift, but then I saw that you WANTED a micro heavy game, the best thing about Kohan is the fact that you _don't_ have to micromanage "Okay, cast Fireball now! On that guy!".

Sword of the Stars is fairly radically different from SoaSE. Just because they are both space games... :P

Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War is pretty good too, though it's another one that I think needs a couple of expansions (in this case, two - word on the street is that the Soulstorm expansion is awful and buggy) to really shine.

[Antonok]

I'd recommend Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Theres not troop micromanagement and its is a bit turn based, but its still one of the few RTSs that I've been able to play repeatedly without losing interest.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I'd recommend Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Theres not troop micromanagement and its is a bit turn based, but its still one of the few RTSs that I've been able to play repeatedly without losing interest.
Erm...

...there is nothing real-time about any of the Civ games/spinoffs. :smalltongue:

(I think that Pirates! is the only Sid Meier game I've played which has real-time anything.)

[The Glyphstone]

I'll reiterate Sub Titans and Homeworld, since they've been listed already. Both innovative and incredibly fun games, though only Homeworld managed to produce a franchise (none of which are as good as the original).

[GloatingSwine]

Because he asked for a decent RTS? :smallbiggrin:

Plus he mentioned having it already.

I'll second Total Annihilation, and also recommend Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. It's built on Age of Empires 2, and it's even better. Even if you don't like Star Wars, it's pretty awesome.

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms is TA, fantasy version.

TA isn't exactly Micro City though, it's more "build a giant blob, A-move that way".

Warzone 2100 is similar, they're more macro games than micro.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

It occurs to me that, although it's not strictly real-time (and is more of a sandbox game), Dwarf Fortress might be interesting to offer. You micro-manage a massive fortress of beer-swilling dwarves who have a propensity to tantrum-spiral the fortress into mass death. Then you build another fortress and learn from your mistakes.

[shadow_archmagi]

Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War is pretty good too, though it's another one that I think needs a couple of expansions (in this case, two - word on the street is that the Soulstorm expansion is awful and buggy) to really shine.

I'd describe Soulstorm as lackluster more than awful; it adds a couple more factions, and variety is always nice.

I haven't hit too many bugs with Soulstorm, and the balance is a lot better than Dark Crusade.

Dawn of War in general is great though, would def reccomend.

[Airk]

I'd describe Soulstorm as lackluster more than awful; it adds a couple more factions, and variety is always nice.

I haven't hit too many bugs with Soulstorm, and the balance is a lot better than Dark Crusade.


Maybe they fixed it, because when it came out, people were talking about how it basically destroyed the game.

[Choyrt]

I am seeing some very good and familiar games, here. Seven Kingdoms and Rise of Nations are both great. I will add these:



Worth a try and HILARIOUS
KKND

http://www.cdaccess.com/gifs/shared/front/large/kkndxtr.jpg



Totally original and never topped
Homeworld Cataclysm

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/Homeworld_-_Cataclysm_Coverart.png

[Tengu_temp]

I'll second Majesty and Battle Realms. They are both very fun games, though also very different. And Majesty is so old it should run smoothly on any computer that hasn't fallen apart from old age yet.

[Gnoman]

It occurs to me that, although it's not strictly real-time (and is more of a sandbox game), Dwarf Fortress might be interesting to offer. You micro-manage a massive fortress of beer-swilling dwarves who have a propensity to tantrum-spiral the fortress into mass death. Then you build another fortress and learn from your mistakes.

DF is extremely resource-heavy. If he can't run the Dawn of War games, DF will be unplayable.

[ShadowFireLance]

DF is extremely resource-heavy. If he can't run the Dawn of War games, DF will be unplayable.

Actually, I can run DF, but not DoW.

[shadow_archmagi]

DF is extremely resource-heavy. If he can't run the Dawn of War games, DF will be unplayable.

DF scales down extremely well. I could run a 2x2 fort on my old machine that could barely run Adobe Reader.

[MLai]

I personally like Soulstorm, but only because I was into the DOW mod scene so I knew all the fix-it mods to install to play Soulstorm as it was meant to be played.

[brutii]

Haven't tried it myself, but heard of this (http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/08/19/after-14-years-an-aoe2-fan-mod-becomes-an-official-expansion/) recently.

[Winthur]

Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn (http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cnc95upd/cc95p106/), Command & Conquer 2: Tiberian Sun (http://cnc-comm.com/community/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=41) and Red Alert 1 (http://iran.cnc-comm.com/ra/) have all been released by EA for free a long while ago, and optimized versions of those games are available now. They run on any system with high resolution packs and what not.

[Partysan]

I personally like Soulstorm, but only because I was into the DOW mod scene so I knew all the fix-it mods to install to play Soulstorm as it was meant to be played.

Could you elaborate? I was rather disappointed with SS, because I played Dark Eldar in the tabletop.

[Ailurus]

DF is extremely resource-heavy. If he can't run the Dawn of War games, DF will be unplayable.

The problem with most older gaming machines - especially laptops - is the graphics card, not the CPU or RAM. And something like DF barely tickles the graphics card.

[MLai]

Could you elaborate? I was rather disappointed with SS, because I played Dark Eldar in the tabletop.
First of all, official game patches had fixed the critical game-breaking bugs such as the bug that allowed Sisters Of Battle to get unlimited resources.

Second, there's a well-known DOW Bugfix mod that fixes all the lesser bugs which cause balance annoyance but didn't critically upset gameplay.

3rd, there's the DOW Skirmish AI mod which makes AI considerably smarter without cheating. Be prepared for 3-hours-long skin-of-your-teeth battles against the AI.

Lastly, there's a plethora of graphics enhancement mods which make the new factions prettier, such as mods that make the SoB buildings' stained-glass windows reflective, that make the dilapidated textures sharp and colorful, etc.

Unfortunately, there's no quick fix to make the DE play more like DE, unless you're willing to use the game rebalance/redesign mods such as DOWpro.

[Worm_in_a_Box]

Master of Orion 2 is a TBS, but it is awesome. It is old, but the graphics are nice, the AI is ok and it has great replay value.

Commandos : Behind The Enemy Lines might please you, since it is a different kind of RTS.

[shadow_archmagi]

"want a strategy game where micro means something"


Alright, so, x-com and XCOM are good options. Dunno how well the new one will run on your computer. X-Com Apocalypse can be played as RTS or TBS, the rest are pure TBS.

I don't know how well Men of War will run on your computer, but that's the most micro-intensive game I've ever seen. You can manage inventories (Alright, I have a six man grenadier squad. Everyone give your grenades to Steve, he'll go off by himself and lob grenades all day, the rest of you will be the distraction), take manual control of units (useful for cooking grenades so they go off just as they land, for getting vehicles to drive through walls, for shooting enemies you know are there but who've vanished into the fog of war, etc etc)

[Laughing Dog]

If you don't mind Sci-Fi, there is also Star Trek Armada II.

[Rustic Dude]

If you don't mind Sci-Fi, there is also Star Trek Armada II.

Take this mod and proceed to sink hours in that amazing game.

http://www.fleetops.net/

[PhallicWarrior]

I vote Dawn of War: The Dark Crusade. It's an expansion, so if you want to play as anybody other than the Tau or Necrons online you'll need the base game, but it has (in my opinion) the best single player campaigns in the whole franchise. (Admittedly, I never finished the sequel.) The campaign for Kronus is awesome, the skirmish mode lets you play as absolutely everybody (SM, Chaos, IG, Necrons, Tau, Orks, Eldar) and it's endlessly moddable. (There are several mods that do a solid job of adding the Tyranids, among others.)

Lots of replayability, and it's not much of a resource hog. (Plus, it runs without the disk, being from the era before game companies decided to start being jerks to everybody.)

[MLai]

I vote Dawn of War: The Dark Crusade. It's an expansion, so if you want to play as anybody other than the Tau or Necrons online you'll need the base game, but it has (in my opinion) the best single player campaigns in the whole franchise.
Both Dark Crusade and Soulstorm are stand-alone expansions, so if you're not playing online, Soulstorm allows you to play all 9 factions rather than 7 factions.

However, yes, DC does have the best campaign of the DOW1 franchise, while Soulstorm has the worst (so bad it has memes).

If you want to play online using other factions, you'd need to purchase the vanilla and 1st expansion. The online community is pretty dead, though, since it's such an old game.

[Triaxx]

I think you've got Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander mixed up. TA is very micro intensive. Most of the maps are close quarters affairs, with inches being the difference between victory and defeat.

SupCom is build massive blob of units and send them to attack. And if it's not working, you're not sending enough units.

[BladeofObliviom]

I think you've got Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander mixed up. TA is very micro intensive. Most of the maps are close quarters affairs, with inches being the difference between victory and defeat.

SupCom is build massive blob of units and send them to attack. And if it's not working, you're not sending enough units.

Really? In my experience, you win at SupCom by setting up artillery first and making it rain on the enemy base. :smalltongue:

(Then send bombers to take out any artillery they're trying to build, of course.)

[ShadowFireLance]

I think you've got Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander mixed up. TA is very micro intensive. Most of the maps are close quarters affairs, with inches being the difference between victory and defeat.

SupCom is build massive blob of units and send them to attack. And if it's not working, you're not sending enough units.

So, I just finished a massive nine hour SC:FA 8 player battle.

I do believe this is technically true.
Though, it reminded me why I don't play it anymore.

[Triaxx]

Thing is that I've learned the techinique of the rolling upgrade, to bump my factories one tech level at a time. So after about ten minutes, I'm getting units at a rather ridiculous rate. Say, one mech marine every two seconds, times fourteen or so factories. At the end of the first half hour, I'm usually doing better still. I will start mixing in heavier units after a bit, but that initial first push, it's a hard pressed opponent who's still alive.

[GloatingSwine]

The problem with most older gaming machines - especially laptops - is the graphics card, not the CPU or RAM. And something like DF barely tickles the graphics card.

Yeah, but it's badly enough optimised that any CPU you can throw at it will eventually be overwhelmed.

[shadow_archmagi]

Sure, but even when it runs slowly it's still completely playable. Perhaps moreso, since it gives you time to think.