expansions included, there are seven unique and (pretty much) well balanced armies, lots of diversity in terms of playstyle and personality
simply the best resource model i have ever experienced in a rts, encouraging aggressive play early on
a game focused on massed infantry battles with an awesome blend of ranged and melee combat, all of which is perfectly brutal
an excellent squad mechanic that both allows for easy unit control on a large scale and streamlines the logistics of moving units into battle thanks to the squad reinforce feature - keeping the player focused on the battle
a well implemented rock/paper/scissors damage system that ties well into technology progression and unit types
little/no unit redundancy as higher technology levels are unlocked
set in awesome warhammer 40k universe, and making excellent use of the license
there are many other reasons i love dow, but these are the biggies - starcraft definitely deserves a mention, it was ahead of its time when it was released, but i think dawn of war is a more than worthy replacement
Rise Of Nations: Thrones and patriots, Age of empires 2(w/ expansion), WH40K DOW: Dark Crusade, Rise Of Legends, Company Of Heroes, Medieval Total War 2.
I still play StarCraft (+BroodWar). Most of the RTS games  issued after StarCraft were clones more or less successful with little or no innovation at all. No doubt there are other good games but I prefer to stick to the pioneer one.
Same with me and Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors. The amount of micromanagement in both economy, buildings, and military was awesome. You needed to control everything yourself to win the game, while from what I hear in other RTS's battles are more automated and whoever has stronger and more units wins. Definitely not the case in AOC.
EDIT: The time when the multiplayer was still working Myth:TFL was the best RTS ever. I have never had more fun with a RTS online, it had an awesome ranking system I like till this day, and it has by far the best single player out of any RTS I've ever played. Myth 2 was also great, but I couldn't play it online because netzero sucked so bad.
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BTW:WC3 isn't too much like SC, SC is just WC2 in space, except that WC was fun.Â
In my opinion, a toss-up between Red Alert (1, not 2) and Total Annihilation. Red Alert was just a joy to play, while Total Annihilation remained the closest thing the game industry has ever come to creating my dream RTS. Homeworld 1 and 2 are also great. Dawn of War, while fun for a while, didn't have a lasting appeal on me, but it certainly highlighted Relic's talent in making cinematic RTSs. As expected, Starcraft is a popular answer. Although I will respectfully refrain from contesting the opinions of the numerous proponents present in this thread, I will mention my honest dislike for the game as a reason I cannot follow suit in recommending it. I have not played Company of Heroes, and I have not played enough of Medieval 2 Total War to make any judgements. My jury is still out on Supreme Commander.
I like Civ-IV (turn base strat) better than all RTS games. I played every skirmish mode in CoH like 5 different ways, 5 different times and the game still didn't last as long as Civ IV.
[QUOTE="Hoi-Yant"]StarCraft. Hands down. Judging by all the people who thinks the same, I think we all now know what the best RTS is. inoperativeRS
The only thing we know is how many that haven't played Dawn of War ;)
I played DoW. Its exactly the same as CoH but just with a cheesy theme and older graphics. If you want to play that game just get CoH. I guess if you have an older system that cant run CoH, DoW might be a decent alternative but that's about it.
[QUOTE="Hoi-Yant"]StarCraft. Hands down. Judging by all the people who thinks the same, I think we all now know what the best RTS is. basersx
The only thing we know is how many that haven't played Dawn of War ;)
I played DoW. Its exactly the same as CoH but just with a cheesy theme and older graphics. If you want to play that game just get CoH. I guess if you have an older system that cant run CoH, DoW might be a decent alternative but that's about it.
Haha I've played CoH, but it isn't as good as DoW IMO. While the fundamental gameplay may be more interesting there just aren't enough factions and units to keep it fun for as long as DoW. I played CoH for 3 months, DoW for 2 years.
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