Retro RTS thread

[Anonymous No.4843483]

Can we talk about pic related? It was and still is one of my favorite games ever. I remember countless hours as a child playing the demo mission.

The second one is great also (1999) not exactly retro yet but very worth playing. Especially because playable Frythans.

[Anonymous No.4843532]

>>4843483
I never manage to fully grasp how to play that game. Not in the sense of it being too hard or anything, but what is your actual, fucking goal. It felt like lolsrandom to me.

[Anonymous No.4843549]

>>4843532
What do you mean it was always destroy the other guys

[Anonymous No.4843769]

Is WarCraft III old enough to be considered retro? I recall loving that game way too much way back then, during 2005-2009. Then recently earlier this year, I reinstalled it and found out I only ever loved it for the epic campaigns, engaging story+characters, and the fun custom maps (including dota). The actual skirmish gameplay I find to be very "dry"(?). Didn't enjoy it much when I played it this year. My favourite RTSes will still be the early C&Cs and StarCraft. Very mainstream tastes I'll admit, but those were what I enjoyed the most back then and even now. I still have Tib Sun installed on my laptop and once every couple months I'll just hop in for an 8-player comp stomp.

I recall trying to get into Empire Earth because people praise it to no end but it somehow didn't really click with me. I dunno why. Still had some fun regardless.

[Anonymous No.4843819]

>>4843483
There was always something a bit off about Seven Kingdoms. The game seemed to push you towards trying to create a lot of wealth, but the correlation between wealth and military power was fairly weak, and since the overall goal of the game was to wipe everyone else out, military power was key; yet the economic systems were way more complex than the military systems.

I enjoyed the game, don't get me wrong, but I never really liked it.

[Anonymous No.4843839]

>>4843819
Fair enough. Espionage was really strong as well. They kinda kept the same recipe in 2, frythans were different and interesting though.

[Anonymous No.4843848]

>>4843819
>>4843839
Also Trevor Chans secong "big" game was Capitalism. I think he always had a thing for economy simulations so he tried to give it a little bit more weight in Seven Kingdoms as well.

[Anonymous No.4843859]

[Anonymous No.4843953]

>>4843859
Oh man, that brings back memories. The Shama'li campaign ending was one of the best retro moments I've ever had.

[Anonymous No.4843971]

Been playing some Majesty (dunno if that counts but what else would it be in?) and I don't think I get it? There doesn't seem to be much if any depth, strategic or otherwise, to building and the maps seem incredibly small and barren. Does it improve further on? Everyone gushes about it but it's starting to feel like it's nostalgia for what was an innovative concept for its time. I'm not saying the game is bad just that it has been incredibly easy and brainless so far.

[Anonymous No.4843997]

>>4843971
Not really, it's a timewaster but it's an average 5/10. Some missions do pick up but the game is quite easy

[Anonymous No.4844020]

If you liked Total Annihilation, I would recommend playing Zero-K. It uses the SpringRTS engine and stays fairly true to TA's mechanics, gets updated constantly to this day and is free

[Anonymous No.4844570]

>>4843859
Funny, I haven't seen this game being discussed very much here. I too had almost forgotten about its existence until the latest Gog.com summer sales campaign when I bought both War Wind games. Last time I played War Wind 2 was some 15 years ago at friend's place.

[Anonymous No.4844584]

>>4844570
For some reason people don't know about it. It was very much playable and had deep, revolutionary mechanics. Some of them haven't been reproduced either, like the disguise/stealth system, while others are genre standards now, like heroes. It was a much deeper game than Warcraft, for example, yet it was ultimately flawed and doomed by its inevitable jank.

[Anonymous No.4844838]

>>4844584
>It was very much playable
As someone who played it a lot, that's only true in a very technical sense. The campaigns, maps, and races were badly balanced (Tha' Roon always win, Shamali are awful). It was also fairly buggy, crashing often and there was definitely something wrong with the pathfinding mechanics when sending a group somewhere.

It could have been a truly great game. As it was, I really do think that its flaws outweighed its brilliance, unfortunately.

[Anonymous No.4844881]

>>4844838
No one was that big on balance back then, although I tend to agree. What I meant it was an enjoyable game that offered ideas that could have been used and expanded in further, newer titles. And not only War Wind games. It could've been one of those titles that has a legacy, while in in itself being a flawed gem, like many of the early CnC games for example.

[Anonymous No.4844919]

>>4843971
>innovative concept for its time
Given that no other games I'm aware of are particularly similar to Majesty, I wouldn't say it was just innovative "for its time." The ideas it introduced have never really been expanded upon.

The game does have some serious flaws, though. Although the later missions are a little more interesting, the outcome of nearly all of them is going to be decided in the first five to ten minutes or so. If you survive the initial onslaught and stabilize enough to start expanding, then you've won, because the opposition has no real means of escalating in strength.

[Anonymous No.4845020]

Can we talk RTT as well? Why did they never develop outside of WW2 genre? Picrelated was a great fantasy RTT and Ground Control covered future. These games were rather successful. Why did the genre die?

[Anonymous No.4845465]

>>4845020
Most of the players became husbands and dads and most of the next generation didn't have intelligence required to play them

[Anonymous No.4845516]

>>4843819
This. Some of the game concepts were pretty interesting (every unit having a name, the garrison system, etc.), but it felt more interesting than actually fun. The combat left a lot to be desired.

It feels like a weird predecessor to games like Kohan or Rise of Nations.
>>4843769
The custom maps are just about the only thing I like about WarCraft III compared to the games that came before it.

[Anonymous No.4845929]

It is to my great shame that I actually like this game, even though it's really buggy, strategically limited, and honestly not very good at just about anything. But the AI playing Saruman actually uses the battle plans laid out in Unfinished Tales, so I nerdgasm over it anyway.

[Anonymous No.4846812]

>>4845020
Check out S.W.I.N.E. I don't think it's a well-known game, but I really liked it back then. The devs made it freeware a while ago: http://www.gamershell.com/download_11942.shtml

Installing the unofficial patch is highly recommended. You can get it here:
http://digi.atw.hu/2.3.php?lang=en

[Anonymous No.4846970]

I liked Battle Realms. It's a pretty unique game with tons of ideas I hadn't seen before. You could set buildings on fire, every unit could have different powers, you could tame horses, sneak in the woods or set it on fire if you suspected your enemy was there since the birds would fly away, there was a stamina bar to see how far you could run that also functions as a mana bar.

I'm just glad my friends and me got to play it sometimes in the lan parties we used to have because it was such a commercial failure.

[Anonymous No.4847564]

Anyone play the Settlers games? I've been meaning to grab S4 sometime

[Anonymous No.4847667]

>>4847564
Hell yeah, I replayed S2 Gold campaigns last year. It's such a relaxing game and was wondering which one is the best in the series.

>>4845516
>Kohan

These games sure aren't talked about much. Not the best RTS, but they still tried interesting ideas with the squads, zones and RPG elements.

[Anonymous No.4847705]

>>4843483
>Can we talk about pic related? It was and still is one of my favorite games ever. I remember countless hours as a child playing the demo mission.
>The second one is great also (1999) not exactly retro yet but very worth playing. Especially because playable Frythans.

Fuuuuuck this game was eeeeeeebin!

Played it till i dropped

[Anonymous No.4847708]

>>4843483
Shit I love Seven Kingdoms. I bought a big box yesterday on ebay. Good timing anon. It feels so comfy to me.

[Anonymous No.4847727]

>>4847708
>>4843483
Is Seven Kingdoms 2 any good?

[Anonymous No.4847735]

>>4847727
Yes, it basically expands on the idea of 1 and adds playable Frythans that have unique mechanics. Highly recommended. I recently bought the HD version on Steam and had no problems with it.

[Anonymous No.4847737]

>>4847735
>Highly recommended
This I will spend money on

Is ther multiplayer for 1 and 2?

i dont remember

[Anonymous No.4847739]

>>4847737
I played 2 in MP, there are some facebook groups with people looking for matches. I don't remember if 1 had MP though.

[Anonymous No.4847745]

>>4847739
>there are some facebook groups with people looking for matches. I don't remember if 1 had MP though.
noice

[Anonymous No.4847786]

>>4847727
I grew up with the first version of Seven Kingdoms so I'm not really objective. I thought Frythan Wars was uglier, slower, buggier and inferior.

[Anonymous No.4847789]

Is Warlords Battlecry retro? Certainly one of my favorite rts games, even though I treat it more like an rpg at times.

[Anonymous No.4847790]

>>4847789
>Shalom Shekelstein
>Lvl 15 Merchant


kek

[Anonymous No.4847828]

>>4847789
I thought about posting it. Awesome games. But none of them fit the 20 years rule yet.

[Anonymous No.4847857]

>>4847828
>20 years rule
is it really a fix rule?

[Anonymous No.4847878]

>>4847857
I don't know desu. But I want to talk about WBC as well. You should check out the Protectors mod if you haven't. Just google it.

[Anonymous No.4848034]

>>4846812
Thanks, I'll check it out. Although it still kinda looks like a WW2 game.

[Anonymous No.4848220]

>>4847667
After having known of it for well over a decade, I finally got around to playing Kohan within the last year or so. It's actually become one of my favorite RTS games due to the city-based gameplay and lack of micromanagement.

I do feel like the combat could be improved though by making it feel more "squishy" though.

[Anonymous No.4848683]

Cossacks will probably always be my favorite RTS. My dad used to be obsessive about it, he played online for hours every day, and I eventually got decent at it as well. The battles are just so huge and involved that going back to controlling a dozen units in other games felt dumb, and the amount of attention given to historical detail is just great. Campaigns in this game are really crazy too, the maps can take hours to complete. Even the "control a small squad" levels can be massive - one of my favorite levels in any RTS is the one where you start with a 100 pikemen, I think it was the russian campaign.
Just a timeless game IMO.

[Anonymous No.4849318]

>>4848683
Have you tried Cossacks 3? From what I understand it is more of a remaster of a third game. Although I don't remember much about Cossacks to support this, I have played through a couple of campaigns in C3 and so far it is pretty good.

[Anonymous No.4849503]

>>4846812
Came back here to thank you, anon. I really like this game. It's very similar to ground control, but there is so much attention to detail. Like in a night mission your units start to whisper, but switch to their normal voice when you are in combat. I really like the supply system so far. It makes it harder to cheese through campaign.

[Anonymous No.4849631]

>>4843483
I hope you guys dont hate me for this but... Does anyone have giant difficulties when trying to play old RTS games? Whenever I try to play an old classic that lacks an attack move command or at least a patrol command I can't bring myself to play it. I really wanted to play the old Command and Conquer games but I just could not bring myself to get past the first mission. Unit controls really suck. I don't have this issue with any other genre of game.

I sorta thought I was being a typical "modern gamer" and I finally "aged out" of older titles but looking at many old reviews for RTS games in general I notice most of them have sub par scores with the main complaint being developers stubborn refusal to add control features that had long become standardized by other titles in years past. So now I'm wondering if there was some sort of elitism surrounding purposefully limiting controls. When I downloaded the beta for 0.A.D I was so shocked to see they didnt want to include an attack move command. At least it had a patrol command but still, why not have both?

[Anonymous No.4849810]

>>4843819
This. The military systems feel like an afterthought.
Seven Kingdoms 2 doesn't make things much better either, it's still focused mostly on economy and espionage.

[Anonymous No.4849837]

>>4849631
I think that's to be expected, RTS is mechanically a very derivative genre and there were a bunch of common interface improvements in the late 90s that appeared in basically every game after that.

I can play AOE1 fairly comfortably, but everything before that is pretty fucking dated IMO.

[Anonymous No.4850041]

>>4848683
>hat going back to controlling a dozen units in other games felt dumb,

forming units never made sense though

just make a big group of soldiers and attack....

[Anonymous No.4850340]

>>4843848
Weird how a game with such a strong focus on production chains (mine goes to factory goes to market goes to other nations, make sure to produce what other players can't produce, etc) completely loses it in lategame where you can just autotax your citizens for infinite money without producing anything.

[Anonymous No.4850369]

>>4848683
>The battles are just so huge and involved that going back to controlling a dozen units in other games felt dumb, and the amount of attention given to historical detail is just great.
Cossacks is a classic, but as time goes on I find myself gravitating toward games with more small-scale battles like Company of Heroes.

It's too bad The Entente turned out so badly.
>>4849631
Yeah, as much as I love the first couple of WarCraft games, I wish someone would give them the OpenRA treatment. Even later games I have issues with when it comes to failing to deliver certain expected features (ex., Battle for Middle-Earth II not having speed settings when setting up a game).
>>4850041
But don't the officers give bonuses to the troops fighting under them?

[Anonymous No.4850957]

>>4850369
>Yeah, as much as I love the first couple of WarCraft games, I wish someone would give them the OpenRA treatment.

http://wargus.github.io/

[Anonymous No.4851232]

>>4850957
It's a good idea, but it still needs some polish at this point. It's too bad Stargus was abandoned, too, but I guess that's not that big of a deal since Blizzard started updating StarCraft again.

[Anonymous No.4852030]

>>4850340
It all depends on the number of independent villages and how you tweak the settings. I also think the economy is a bit more refined in two, since Frythans are competing for villages as well. On the other hand I like that you have this combination of money influx, trading, taxing and killing Frythan lairs.

[Anonymous No.4853717]

>>4843483
I think my friend had this, I just remember each faction having a supernatural best unit that fit them thematically

[Anonymous No.4854016]

Krush Kill and Destroy 2, literally one of my first games on PC ever.

[Anonymous No.4854348]

>>4843769
>I recall trying to get into Empire Earth because people praise it to no end but it somehow didn't really click with me.
It's fun, but terribly balanced. Building walls all over the fucking map is an OP strategy the AI abuses to no end, and if you rush your way up the epochs you'll be able to overpower the computer with superior firepower.

Populous The Beginning is a unique if simplistic RTS. There are no races/teams to pick, everyone is about the same in terms of what they can do, it's just a matter of using the resources and people and spells you have to win. The timed missions can eat a dick, but it's a fun game where you can form land bridges with magic and spawn a volcano in the middle of your opponents base.

Dune 2, the remake Dune 2000, and the fanmade Dune Dynasty are fun, but damn if the game doesn't do it's best to piss you off near the end of the campaigns. If you make a 2nd refinery, a sandworm WILL eat one Harvester. Better build good turret lines in front of your base from mission 6 onwards, since the AI's strategy is to flood you with the best units it can once the initial mission timer is done. Mission 8 for Artredes(sp?) involves Harkonnan and Ordos sending Siege Tanks to your base every 45-60 seconds once they start flooding. You'll be lucky to have a weak defensive line OR a single Heavy Factory up by the time it starts. Don't even get me started on the Deviator units that let the enemy mind-control one of your units for 20-30 seconds. Oh, and do NOT build a Repair Bay if you want an Carryall to ferry your Harvesters around. The moment a mech unit gets injured, it will fly over and carry them back home for repairs. Next thing you know your Harvesters are slowly moving back home from all the way across the map, and half your attacking force is back home sitting outside the Repair Bay. Pick one or the other.

[Anonymous No.4855237]

>>4843549
Yeah, but nothing beyond that. Just "spawn on random map, build or no few buildings, smash the other guy". It was so fucking basic and yet everyone seems to have jello in their pants about it

[Anonymous No.4855243]

>>4848683
Cossacks were fucking godly with the amount of troops and the scale of combat. It's so far the only RTS to cover that timeframe (let's just not talk about the disaster that AoE3 was). Then there was American Conquest, which while had some issues, added bunch of really great mechanics, like morale (and routs, man that was glorious feeling to force 3k strong army back the fuck up against your tactically placed thin red line and two cannons) or the new recruitment system and the general fact every single building could work as a garrison

>>4849318
Cossacks 3 is literally Cossacks 1 in new graphics, worse campaigns and god-awful naval combat. But mechanically, nothing was added, changed or fixed. I'm actually annoyed by the fact nothing was done with that game, considering the same company made both C2 and American Conquest, both having great gameplay elements.

[Anonymous No.4855246]

>>4850041
>just make a big group of soldiers and attack...
... and get shot to pieces by troops holding ground and having bonus that makes them immune to roughtly half of your damage.
Or absolutely trampled by cavalry formations, since they could go as far as get immune to any damage below 40 hp.

>>4850369
>But don't the officers give bonuses to the troops fighting under them?
They did. Quite substantial one.

[Anonymous No.4855260]

>>4855243
I still remember my first time with Cossacks. It was LAN party in the morning, most people were already sleeping, so one of the guys proposed a quick game of this new RTS he just got from his buddy and would like to test on multi.
Initially everyone treated it like it was just AoE or SC, making a handful of units. And then one of the guys realised mercs build super fast and accidently set hiring of archers for "unlimited". He for a while laughed, but didn't say to us why and simply told us "go check Mirek screen"
Imagine our faces when suddenly over 500 archers were marching toward my base and I had fucking 30 units to defend it. Still made it, but only because archers are really fucking bad, while I also had two turrets build by then and soon after added the multi-barreled cannon rolled out.
By the time we finished our "two hour point game" to make breakfast for the entire party, all four of us were in love with Cossacks' scale.

[Anonymous No.4855405]

>>4843483
Bought it toda on steam.
Its -60% of today

[Anonymous No.4855492]

rise of nations is my favorite

[Anonymous No.4856728]

>>4843859
First RTS I played along Warcraft 2. I loved the setting, the alien races and how different they feel from each other even of their units are not so different at all, but for God's sake the pathfinding was so awful and the AI so unbalanced. Been replaying it lately and it's a fucking mess.
War Wind 2 is even worse.

Eaggra are cute. CUTE!

[Anonymous No.4857448]

>>4855243
>worse campaigns
Can you elaborate? Are the campaigns the same as in 1 or different? How are they worse?

[Anonymous No.4858641]

>>4857448
C3 has brand-new campaigns. Their objectives are super-easy to finish and the AI is scripted to not really oppose you in any meaningful way. Also, they glitch extensively when event flags are triggered, so you can get stuck and unable to progress, having to replay the entire scenario from the very start.
The biggest challenge is to literally endure the absurd amount of time certain scenarios take to finish, but it's not a hard task, simply very slow one.
And solo missions are boring as fuck, no different than randomly generated maps, that's how bland they are.
I'm amazed how bad C3 is in this regard, especially considering they sell DLCs that provide those campaigns and they are all uniformly shit. In the same time, C3 is C1 with new graphics, but they don't reuse a single map (not to mention campaign) from original game.
So the game doesn't improve mechanically from original, has worse campaigns, worse maps and absolutely annoying music, offering no real improvements aside ability to scroll down/up for better view. Not worth the price, didn't felt bad for pirating it and dropping after a week. And I'm a long-standing fan of the series.

On the top of all that, you are still more likely to find people who want to play C1 than getting players for C3.

[Anonymous No.4858654]

>>4843483

Submarine Titans

[Anonymous No.4858708]

>>4858654
One of the weirdest and most fun SC clones

[Anonymous No.4858713]

The best RTS ever made. And it's retro despite being released in '01.
Fite me.

[Anonymous No.4858721]

I've tried to like this genre since I was a kid but I never managed to do it.

[Anonymous No.4858734]

>>4858721
Why?
And what games have you tried? I remember how much I disliked AoE2 and SC, despite people literally cumming their pants about those two.

[Anonymous No.4858749]

>>4848683
I there a online multiplayer to cossacks?

[Anonymous No.4858763]

>>4858734
Tried AoE2 in the past, also remember playing a Star Wars RTS, I got bored with Civilization as well.

Maybe another setting could get me into the genre. I have CoH lying around and never got to play it.

[Anonymous No.4858808]

>>4858763
>Star Wars RTS
You mean Star Wars Force Commander?
This game was awesome?

[Anonymous No.4858824]

>>4858808
Just checked, Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds.

[Anonymous No.4858846]

>>4858721
As a kid it was love first sight. I remember a war2 demo came in those pc magazines and I ended up buying the game not long after.
The ost is simply fantastic.
Nowadays I don't care about the genre anymore and even if I did I'd have a hard time to find opponents since the genre is dead in my country. I'm not gonna play games online with a latency of 200ms ever again in my life

[Anonymous No.4858973]

[Anonymous No.4859053]

>>4858973
Looks like shitty Siedlers rip-off

[Anonymous No.4859059]

>>4858763
Civ isn't an RTS thou.
CoH is... fine, I guess. The campaign is fun at times, average for the most part. Try what >>4858713 suggested, it's a really interesting mix of RTS and RPG, with absolutely golden campaigns. There is non-retro, but fantastic Rise of Legends, which is a self-made "fantasy" mod of Rise of Nations, an RTS by Brian Reynolds, the real mastermind behind early Civ games. There are early Settlers, too, I especially would like to recommend 2 and 3. 4 is still fine, but the campaign is meh.
Plus RTS doesn't exactly mean you have to play base-building games. Stuff like Patrician or tycoons are still RTS. And there are of course games like SimCity.

If AoE didn't click for you in the past, you can still try Cossacks and/or American Conquest. Those two have a massive advantage over every other RTS ever made, since instead of commanding handful of units, you are moving around thousands of units, having an actual feeling of commanding a 17th century army, rather than company or squad.

[Anonymous No.4860626]

>>4843769
I loved Warcraft 2. I hate Warcraft 3.
FUCKING TAXES?!