Which RTS should I play as an introduction to the genre?

As the title implies, I have never played an RTS, and I'm looking to get started in the genre. I've looked at a few options, like Company of Heroes 2 and the Warhammer franchise, but I have no idea where to start.

Warcraft 3 is a pretty good starting point. Army sizes are not too big, the single player campaign has an awesome story too. Pretty easy too learn, and the build requirements for various things isn't too complicated.

Age of empires 3 is pretty good too. Age 2 is sort of regarded as the "best" in the series, if you aren't put off by old school sprite based graphics.

There are a lot of good options out there, but it is important to keep in mind that there are, more or less, two "types" of main RTS's and then there are two "focuses" of RTS's after that.

First off, you have your more traditional RTS's that are based off resource gathering, base- and army-building, then sending them out to defeat enemies and accomplish objectives. These are games built on the Dune 2/Command and Conquer mechanic of real-time strategy. In this area, I would recommend game franchises and titles such as:

-Warcraft 3, a fantasy-based RTS. Very popular, very fun story with a great campaign.

-Starcraft 2, basically the same as Warcraft but sci-fi. Again, fun campaign, good story.

-Command and Conquer: The First Decade collection, which includes basically all the good command and conquer games which also means that it includes a lot of just plain good RTS's, period.

-Grey Goo, a recent title from former Westwood employees (makers of C&C), it had a surprisingly fun campaign and while not a popular game, it was pretty good!

-Supreme Commander: huuuuuuuuuuge scale RTS, it does base building and resources a bit differently but it's really fun. Maps are ginormous and you can have thousands of units in battles at once (most RTS's only have dozens at a time), lots of unit variety and such.

Homeworld Remastered: my favorite RTS of all time (arguably), the game was remastered a short while ago and is really fun. It's a bit different in that you don't really build a permanent base, but you build a mothership and move it around from mission to mission. Really great plot and storytelling, diverse missions....one of the best singleplayer experiences of my life.

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Second, you have the more tactical RTS's where you don't really worry about resources or building a base, but instead you control a fixed amount of units and command them like a general would. I recommend:

-World in Conflict: a really good, cinematic game about a conventional WWIII in the US. What if Russia invaded, and the war was fought without nukes, just tanks and soldiers and planes and helicopters? Well that's what this game is all about. Really fun, good story telling.

-Wargame: Air-Land Battle/Red Dragon: a more realistic interpretation of a conventional conflict than World in Conflict, it is more of a battle simulator than a traditional RTS in that respect. Still, it is a lot of fun to play armchair general and order various units around, pretending there's a Soviet invasion of Germany going on.

-Dawn of War 2: Command Space Marines on planet-hopping missions around the galaxy and take out enemies. Upgrade them, grow attached to them...watch them die horribly. It's a really well-done game, lots of fun!

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It's also important to remember that there are RTS's that are really amazing singleplayer experiences, really great multiplayer experiences, but very few that are good at both. Blizzard (Starcraft, Warcraft) manages to do both. Command and Conquer tends to be really good singleplayer, as was Homeworld. So just do your research and make sure you know what you want out of the game; if it's your first foray, you might want to get a good singleplayer game so you can grow comfortable with the mechanics.

Thanks for your thorough response. I'm aiming more towards the single player experience, so I'll definitely research these listed above.

@vvulturas: Ah, in that case:

• Homeworld Remastered
• Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
• C&C: The First Decade
• World in Conflict yes that's Alec Baldwin lol

Good stuff above. I might also suggest Empire Earth 2. It doesn't really have a campaign with a story, but it has really fun single-player experiences nonetheless. The thing that is nice about it is it has a very intuitive interface + set of mechanics, but also a fair bit of depth to grow into. So I think it's a good starter game that also has longevity as you get into the genre. It's old, though - graphics are actually still not half bad, but it's not "the latest and greatest thing". That being said, I think it has better pacing than Starcraft 2 for a newb (SC2 has great campaign though. Really enjoyable stuff)

I would start with the Command and Conquer collection. Start with Command and Conquer 95. Great classic game and one of the best games ever created.

C&C Generals

C&C wasn't that full motion video cut scenes?.

Also, you MUST play warcraft 2, at least long enough to click repeatedly on every unit to see what they all say.

You'll understand so many more gaming memes after doing this.

ME NOT DAT KIND OF ORC!

You don't touch the other elves that way......

I'll add the first Company of Heroes to this already excellent list, it has a pretty great singleplayer campaign.

it was! Great and corny, gotta love 'em. KANE LIVES!!!

C&C Tiberian Sun even had Michael Beihn and James Earl Jones!

The earlier games generally did not have any famous actors (which is fine! they did all right with their FMVs and cutscenes) but later on you'll see some recognizable people. Hell some of the Red Alert games had half the cast of Battlestar Galactica, it seemed lol.

I would suggest Blizzard RTS games. They are simple games to learn and the campaigns are interesting.

Highly suggest Red Alert 2, while I played the earlier CnC games prior to that game, RA2 was the game that really got me interested in the Genre. Its as simple of an RTS as it gets, but with awesome unit variety, great sense of humor, and a very entertaining campaign. So many cool/different units to play around with in that game, that it'll keep you playing for dozens of hours.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I went with Company of Heroes and have been having good fun for now!

Warcraft 3 if you prefer high fantasy

Starcraft 2 if you prefer sci-fi

@pl4yer_f0und: In fact, red alert 2 is better than red alert 3

dawn of war 2

it has to be noted that the original StarCraft is now free - kind of a no brainer there.

This is the most current installer that Blizzard is offering AFAIK:

https://eu.battle.net/download/getInstaller?os=win&installer=StarCraft-Public-Test-Setup.exe

I suggest Northgard, because in the state it is currently in it can be a very relaxing game and you can take your time to get to know all the different elements there are to an RTS.

It's kind of a cross between RTS and City Builder so it can be very welcoming to newcomers.

Besides that I also suggest you look into the Company of Heroes series.

Once you get the hang of the basics don't be afraid to jump into multiplayer.

Once you start playing MP you'll find you keep getting better and better by facing stronger opponents.

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance - Really well balanced. Great UI. Still a really active community. It's an amazing game.

Empire Earth (First one) - This one has different ages from pre-historic all the way to future tech.

I never really like RTS games like Starcraft and Warcraft. They seem shallow to me.

I absolutely loved Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes! Fun, cheap, and very basic. You can create your own race and hero. It's a bit older but still a very solid fun to play game. I was actually thinking about playing it on my youtube channel.

Warcraft 3 is the classic go-to entry point, I'd say.

Someone mentioned World in Conflict, and I totally agree. It's hectic without being overbearing, and really, they balanced the streamlining and depth so marvelously in that game.

Dawn of War 1 is good, but if you are familiar with isometric RPGs, Dawn of War 2 is a very good entry point to the genre since it shares quite a few similarities. Or Company of Heroes, like you are doing now.

You can't go wrong with any of the Dawn of War games (warhammer 40k has a metric tons of lore to dive into outside of their games if you want to dive deeper into the story). Warcraft 3 is also up there, and is from the golden age of when Blizzard use to be one of the best if not the best devs around. Company of Heros is also good if you like WWII stuff and Homeworld remaster is amazing if you like deep rts stuff.

I'd ignore Starcraft 2, while WoL was amazing the last two expansions have been meh and the last one LoV was just a letdown in terms of story/how it ended.

@vvulturas: Ok. so, your best bet is to go with free games. And Im not talking free2play, Im talking fully free. So, go to this thread I made, scroll down to the strategy section and try them. Has some different types of RTS games in there. More specifically you should go for the command and conquer titles, warzone 2100, S.W.I.N.E, 0 A.D and Starcraft.

In anycase, you picked the wrong time to get into RTS games as they're not so hot right now.

The only RTS game that I like is one from Total War Series.

Warcraft, Starcraft, C&C, CoH , Warhammer, World in Conflict and Supreme Commander have all been over-rated for a long time, even though I did enjoy playing them to some extent.

I would really recommend you check out the Classic Age of Empires 2 : HD Edition. I huge fan of the AoE series lol.

Age of Empires 3 Complete Edition

@vvulturas: How about the Lord Of The Rings games - Battle For Middle Earth 1 and 2.

Simple to learn and great games with lots of atmosphere.

I always felt that World in Conflict could have been a Tom Clancy game had Ubisoft publish it first before picking up the ip from Sierra. Tom Clancy's World in Conflict seems fitting. Great game and I wished Massive could had worked on another rts.