This genre and RPG are the ones that made me understand I really have become a gamer. Not more casual arcades 2 hours duration, I was really playing for weeks to the same game, and still returning time to time.
Man, every time I see a video like this I'm reminded of Total Annihilation's existance and my crazy fondness for that game, back in the day, it's super well done and, even though C&C will always be my #1 RTS series, Total Annihilation was mind blowing and incredibly innovative at the time (eveything was interactable, and units that died would leave husks that could be reclaimed. The waypoint system was amazing for building those dream bases with patrol routes, etc, and the armies and weapons were massive). It also brings back memories of me sneaking floppy discs into school so I could download new units for the game, which were super easy to add in to it, as often at home our internet was too slow or unstable to do such things. The soundtrack in it is amazing too, and the way you presented it in this video gives me Transformers vibes, which I never really made the link to before, but oh yeah lol. Funny thing with Starcraft - around the time it was released, there was another ('me-too') RTS in the works making the rounds in the PC Gaming Magazine scene. I can't even remember what it was called now. Terrain Dominion, or Dominion 3, or something like that. I could be completely wrong. Either way, that was the RTS me and my brother were most looking forward too. But we couldn't get it in the end, for whatever reason, and had to settle on Starcraft instead. Happiest most lucky disappointment ever. I'm 100% sure we ended up with a better game, and it wasn't long before Starcraft made us forget the other game was even a thing we wanted. As for Brood War, it was a fucking nightmare of an expansion pack to find in stores. There was like a gazillion third-party companies releasing unofficial expansions (though we didn't realise at the time) to Starcraft, due it's crazy popularity. Every time our grandparents took us out to get Brood War, we'd always have to settle for one of those instead (some were decent enough, others, not so much. They were all built using the excellent Mission Editor that was available to everyone though). I actually never got a chance to play Brood War till many, many years later. I never understood the hate for Dune 2000. In particular I just liked the feel of the UI, unit and sounds in the game. It was snappy. It was a nicely done remaster, and added some much needed depth to the game balance in Dune 2. It didn't innovate, sure, but that's not what it set out to do - and what it set out to do, it did very well, IMO. It also benefited from being the best balanced RTS at the time (though that was likely due to mostly identical sides - before anybody says - "but Starcraft!" - it had only just released and had to be patched several times to get to that point). I guess when people were comparing it to Starcraft, released the same year, it was no wonder it fell a bit short though. I think to Westwood, it was just a quick easy side project to get some extra needed money for that Tiberian Sun development anyway, which had a notoriously super troubled and resource-consuming development cycle. Speaking of Tiberian Sun - yeah, that music - that environment. Chills. Nailed that atmosphere, that's for sure. Another game that was notoriously difficult to get hold of on release, my father saw how much we had adored C&C/RA though and really, REALLY, went out of his way to get us a copy, paying well above the RRP for it (when my parents had always been notoriously tight with money and buying us things in general) bless him. The beauty of the C&C games was the dual-CD releases, Meant with only a single copy of it, both me and my brother could play the game. Looking back, I think my father really appreciated that about the Westwood titles too, which is why he probably didn't mind going to all that trouble and paying extra to get us Tiberian Sun in the end. Never really got into Age of Empires or Homeworld, but my older brother was very fond of both of them. My little brother ended up being more a Blizzard-style RTS kind of guy, eventually moving onto DOTAs (ewww) for a while before reverting. I myself stayed firmly in the Westwood-style RTS camp though. All of us appreciated most of these golden age titles though. Anyway, thanks for the memories, look forward to part 2!
@@Stefandup The original Supreme Commander, yeah I have, not the sequel though. Didn't like it as much as Total Annihilation though. Had some fun with it, but seemed much more...I dunno, meta-gamey and clunky than the original Total Annihilation. I think watching icons shoot at each other on a screen just doesn't hit the same way as the old 3D models from TA. I think the scale in Supreme Commander was just a bit _too_ big for my liking.
Total Annihilation just made my heart stop, cause the surge of really good memories about childish times. Excellent video, I think we need de second part of this awesome video, "The fall of RTS"
I hope at some point once you get all the main well known strategy games out of the way, i do hope to see a video that tackles some lesser known games even if its like a minute per game , lots of strategy games out there that have been kind of interesting but left in the dust sadly (one of my favorites being the likes of Para World )
this is some trip down the memory lane! Excellent Video! I was there, from Dune 2 until the end...each word of every intro movie burned into memory. each sound evokes smells and images... thank you
yeah you featured TA in your video. this game was a gem and the forefather of the greatest RTS every: supreme commander :) good there are so many titles to talk about... i played nearly everyone of these games... glad you did this video its great
This is a journey back through my childhood. My father was playing Dune 2 and that was the first game I'd be fascinated by. And then Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Command & Conquer, Red Alert, StarCraft, Age of Empires... I lived it all and would choose to do so again.
Good one, despite some minor flaws. What I'm missing is _Bullfrog._ Populous, Powermonger and most importantly Dungeon Keeper are too important to ignore.
Warcraft , Starcraft and Command and Conquer is a master tier game for me, i don't care about others opinion. RTS always got underratd because of flashy game like doom, csgo, COD ( i played all of it too ) and it's actually make me feel sad about it
Ah dune 1 and 2, my childhood. Populous too Supreme Commander was the game that got me in the proper mind-set for rts, with c&c being the more relaxed rts games
anyone here use to play 2 games called Warzone 2100 and KKND:Krossfire? these two games was just as important to my childhood as the command and conquer series, it's a shame that i don't see any videos made about these two games... i say they was rather underrated
Awesome work. I agree that the first RTS game that started defining the genre is the first Dune from 1992. But the first Strategy game that i have played is North & South for the Nintendo Entertaintment system, a game that first came out for Commodore Amiga and Atari ST. Still i miss a very important RTS game in the 90's that it is "Dungeon Keeper" from Bullfrog Studios, that combined many aspects ofr rpg genre with a Dungeon builder Strategy Game. Also had very good graphics for it´s time, combining a 3D view for the map and 2D for the unit models, with a very unique and interesting function, that you can "possess" your own units and control them directly in a first person view. Keep up the good work, i want to see the second part with amazing games like Warcraft III, Warhammer 40.000 Dawn of War, Command & Conquer 3 or Company of heroes.
thank you for taking me down a walk through my entire childhood. I feel grateful I played every single one of these (and more) at their release and the at their height of their popularity. The intro song from Total Antihalation gives me goose bumps.
Yes, I didn't need C&C First Decade, because I still had all the game originals with all the expansions and there are still ways to make them run normally today. I use iso versions of them because the CD/DVD versions may load slow or die someday, but still, I own them so I can play copies.
Wow, I must say that I'm very impressed by this documentary about RTS. You really showed the pioneers of the genre with C&C, AoE, Warcraft and Starcraft, your analysis is totally on point. You deserve a lot more views, keep your high quality standard !
never seen your channel before, but i really enjoyed this doc style video! my frist PC game was Redalert and much of my young gaming memory's are with Tiberium Sun and Redalert 2, i cant wait for part 2 of this video! :D
Still play Dune II and D2K every now and then. Dune II was the first game I ever played, starting when I was 3 years old, after having watched my dad and older brother play it for a few months before I was finally allowed to. To this day they hold their place as my favorite games ever of all time, and I can't overstate just how much I absolutely LOVE Frank Klepacki's work in both of them
8:41 That's a spice bloom, not a sand worm... 12:11 That's actually the 1997 Win95 port of C&C, not the original 1995 game. 13:15 You forgot the biggest improvement of all... the context sensitive mouse click unit commands, instead of sidebar command buttons, a feature originally developed for the Megadrive port of Dune II. 13:50 Internet play over modem was already possible in the DOS version, though. And, as far as I know, C&C95 was only released in 1997; it's built on upgraded UI engine of Red Alert, and RA was already from November in 1996. 15:51 The Fog of war was a simple UI option in Warcraft II though; you could just disable it. 28:31 Dune 2000 was not actually made by Westwood Studios; it was outsourced to the British company Intelligent Games. Westwood only did the videos and music. 30:11 Uh, C&C games never had a population cap. The only Westwood game with a noticeable cap was Dune II. 37:15 And KKND.
Couldn't have explained RTS History as well as You did Bro. Well Done! Lived and Researched! Dune II so much personal history I wouldn't even want to explain pubically. However it involved a photocopier and some flippy disks.
I was linked this video in my Discord server and instantly subscribed. I am super excited for part 2 as I'm modding Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge as I'm watching this. I'm playing the game to this day, still.
You got a few things wrong in this video. The original C&C had no unit caps and you could produce units until your game crashed but was unlikely to happen do map size and limited max resources on the map. You would have to go out of your way to make that happen. Also food was a managed resource in the first Warcraft game just like it was in the second game.
Fun fact: starcraft was presented to games workshop as they were looking for designs for 40K. They didn't make the cut and went ahead a made their own game with it.
Orcs & Humans was also thought as a Warhammer game at some point, but eventually branched into its own franchise :P It was really inspiring back then seeing the two companies one-up each other - like a dare - "check this out... how you gonna beat THIS?!" *DIE WAFFEN, LEGT AN!* - goddamn it was awesome to see.
@@KaiserMattTygore927 Still draws a LOT of inspiration from it. Zerg and Tyranids are both hive-like races (both inspired by the Bugs from Starship Troopers) and even have numerous look-alike units (Zergling - Hormagaunt, Hydralisk - Ravener, Ultralisk - Tyrant Guard etc). The Protoss look a lot like the Tau but act a lot like the Eldar and the Terran draw inspiration from the Imperium of Man's arsenal.
@@RoadKamelot2nd all sci-fi genres borrow from others. 40K borrowed heavily from Star Wars And Halo look like it borrowed heavily from Starcraft. But all these genres are good enough on their own to be considered separate.
Even knowing it was coming from the comments, the Total Annihilation intro still caught me by surprise with a sucker punch in the feels. Loved that game. Hell, 20 minutes in and the only game on the list so far that I didn't (don't think anyway) play was dune 2, due to timing. Feeling like I learned a lot while simultaneously being reminded of so much I already knew. Good video.
Starcraft is the biggest RTS that is single handhandedly making the genre relative today. Starcraft Brood war is still kicking internet in the Korean competitive scene (I don’t think it very much s a staple e-sport over there) Star Craft II still draws crowds globally and is like the 4-5th largest pc Esport game still. It’s just all the other RTS games from the 90s have died or being held by the likes of E.A. Perhaps pushing for and support for a lot more new RTS games on both PC and consoles would re-invigorate the genre to a new age?
I played Dune 2 many times, but never bothered to build slabs under my buildings. Sometimes I used slabs to build all he way to enemy base to discover it though. Also don't forget Earth 2140
If im still a bad gamer, and still a gamer, its just coz of the fun I get in RTS, and this video is just the fact that good gamers are just not hard to find, but the best games are always in stratergy games, I loved this video btw, very nicely detailed and researched work
I remember playing this game a lot called Dark Planet battle for natrolis it had 3 races and it was pretty similar to starcraft with the tech humans, another mystical race like the protoss and an insect like race like the zerg. It had pretty good graphics for its time.
Quite surprised you didn't mention the introduction of the "Skirmish" mode as for me it really was the big BIG game changer. The idea that you can make a map where the factions start off at the same level and grow to take over the map like a multiplayer game but with bots was HUGE. It really is a genre defining gameplay change. For example, The difference between C&C and Red Alert was if I wanted to play C&C against A.I. I had to load up a campaign mission, that was it, Red alert had the Skirmish mode which gave so SO much more playability. It really did completely change the genre. Every RTS has it now, as standard, many people forgoing the campaign just to play skirmish.
I find it interesting that, back then, 500,000 units in 3 months was a big thing. I guess it was still the time when PC's were bought to do work on, and playing games on them was still a novelty. I imagine it was easier to pitch management heavy games to people at that time, since most people using a computer would've been used to spreadsheet software anyway. As much as I love RTS, I can totally see why it's a niche genre now. We still get some greats, though. Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak was fantastic in my opinion, I quite enjoyed Planetary Annihilation and I'm enjoying Iron Harvest atm. Niche is, arguably, kind of good for RTS. It means only teams passionate about the genre attempt it.
Nice video dude, my RTS games growing up for KKND, Red Alert, Warcraft 2 and Starcraft - Great times! Big into the SC2 competative scene now, but I hate how low my APM is so I never play outside the campaign haha.
How about KKND? It maybe didn't introduce some new concepts, but the atmosphere and the advanced AI made it a unique and great game! Very tough to beat at that time. And units, maaan, the units, absolutely awesome!
KKND and KKND2 Krossfire were brilliant. Although KKND2 was insanely hard. You can still play them on GOG. KKND1 (I believe its named KKND extreme) plays ok, but KKND2 has a major bug that warrants you a mission failure notice randomly. It has never been fixed which is a shame, but makes it unplayable, at least campaign wise.
The problem with the RTS genre is that nee video games have to be produced every few years. These come new and more complicated mechanics in order to give the existing audience something new. This alienates newcomers to the genre who feel overwhelmed. Imagine every decade a sequel to Chess came out with new pieces. It would be a nightmare.
90's and early 2000's was such a rich time to be a gamer, just like being a movie enthusiast was in the 70's, the directors had control, now sadly like the movie industrie it's the studios and marketing teams that run the industries to their detriment.
From this video i wish that we can have new RTS game, nowadays game is only about Battle Royale,Moba ,Battlepass, and high quality Graphic without good gameplay Its unfortunate that new RTS Iron Harvest have bad mechanics Hope they can improve Iron Harvest more
Grey goo, Relic's RTS, Deserts of Kharak, Spellforce 3, Petroglyph's 8-Bit series, Ashes of the singularity, Supreme commander, Commandos 3, Shadow Tactics shogun, world in conflict, wargame Red dragon.
Uh ! What an amazing video ❤ It felt like it was only 15 minutes long when it reached the end. One game I was expecting 100% was Z. Although not classic RTS model but it gave C&C & Warcraft real kickin ! This definitely needs more parts, 1. One focused on the very beginnings of strategy games: Hertzog Zwei, Stronghold and some others that laid basics to the genre, 2. One dedicated to lesser known games of the golden age: KKnD, M.A.X., Dominion, 7th Legion, War Wind, Tbh, I was surprised I didn't see Earth 2150 in the video as it was very inovative game. 3. Dawn of RTS, 4. Games that came after. Excellent video really, its shame when quality hard work is not appreciated when stupid vlogs are getting millions of views. Shame I found it only now. Best wishes mate ❤ Btw, I never had PC in the golden era and mostly fed on reviews and articles in magazines. Only got computer in early 2000s. And nowadays I can't find time to spend on games.
with the exception of Herzog Zwei and Homeworld, I've played these games for much too many hours during my teenage years. I have all these games purchased one way or another and even have some of them installed on my laptop this very moment. this just shows the dedication put into these games by their developers and the long-term gratification they provide to users. I'm glad I grew up playing these RTS games, today's strategy games look more like a neverending grind to me riddled with DLC's and so on. btw, thanks for the hint, I'm gonna get Homeworld and give it a good try!
C&C didnt have a skirmished so I’m pretty sure I played TA more than any of them combined. What a perfect fucking game that was. The score too, how it would tell the situation and play something for it... amazing.
Let's see... The entire Command & Conquer franchise, Age of Empires 1, 2 and 3, Total Annihilation, Warcraft 3 and FT, the Dune games, Homeworld, some StarCraft, Earth 2150... Man, I've played a lot of RTS games over the decades...
Jarrid Mendelson is a genius who made Ordos OST for the legendary Emperor: Battle for Dune game, David Arkenstones' Harkonnens OST also a cult classic. The game is legendary for a surprising reasons. Balance between factions was pretty uneven, story was for a checkmark, but But excellent music and amazing atmosphere what's made it epic. Gameplay was very solid and dynamic. Graphics where unseen for the time. They're inherited Lynches brilliant aesthetic of Dune and nailed it with their rendition. Sub-factions are very important new addition to the old formula, it was fresh wind into the genre. It was a pinnacle of Westwood RTS at the time (Of course Generals further pushed the genre for the greater heights).
While the remasters of old classic RTS games are a good effort for the most part, the genre can't rely on these alone to carry it into the 2020s and beyond. It needs brilliant and passionate visionaries who truly love the genre to once again take the industry by storm as it did back in the early 1990s. The same kind of people who were inventing brand new genres at that time that we now take for granted.
Yeah I completely agree with this. I actually think one of the reasons why the RTS genre ended up declining was because their wasn't enough innovation going on. Most developers ended up just ended up copying off one another which caused stagnation in the genre. Of course it's difficult to do something innovative or unique without sacrificing the core fundamentals of the genre itself. Remasters I think at best will just delay it's decline, but it won't stop it. And not all remasters are guaranteed to be good. Such as what happened with WC3 Reforged.
I was nailed my dream list, which is Emperor Battle For Dune. It was best game for 2000 rts(in my opinion). In the end, without Dune, there no way other game will followed, and without Popularized RTS like CnC or Age of Empire or etc, it never feel same.
What was called the rts about the earthlings vs grey aliens, not X-Com Defence, but in the C&C style with patrol routes. And btw there was a polish approach to this genre with Polanie and later Polanie 2 AKA Knight's Shift.
Also it worth mentioning unsuccessful games like Armies of Exigo, it's very subtle why they're not gained popularity being modern and full-featured RTS games
Dune 2 was my first RTS. There were a couple of bugs you could exploit to help in the later levels. Once you could build All Purposes Carryalls. You box in your Repair Facility take a Siege Tank, Rocket Launcher. Sonic tank or Devastator (Something good at destroying structures) drive it around to the back or side of an enemies base. Have it attack a structure and start taking damage. When it's health got low the Carryall would come and pick it up to be repaired and because your repair facility is blocked in the Vehicle can't drive out, so the Carryall picks it up and drops it off back in the enemies base where it got it. Only now the Vehicle will be completely ignored by all the AI units so long as you don't attack them. Leaving the Vehicle to destroy the base at it's leisure, just avoid Rocket Turrets unless you managed to get a Rocket Launcher or 2 to become invisible. Another is when playing as Ordos. Using Deviators. When you gas an enemy unit and it temporally becomes yours. Select it and chose the attack command, then wait for it to turn back to an enemy unit. Except you still have the attack command active. So you can tell it to go attack any place on the map and it will drive there and keep shooting that spot until you attack it. Just dash a Raider Trike early in the game into the enemy base to locate the construction yard and other important structures. Then have a couple of Deviators out in the field capturing units heading to your base and send them straight back to destroy their base.
I never use repair facilities, because I usually pour tons of tanks from my starport and Harkonnens are especially bad at this because exploding devastator can destroy my base when it is sent to repair xD But I use things like the deviator bug, sending infantry against enemy harvesters to make them stop harvesting forever, building slabs, radar and turrets inside enemy base to make them destroy own buildings (and put a wall there so the enemy can't rebuild) or keeping my fast scout on screen when scouting and enemy units away so they can't catch me. Also I always build my heavy factory farthest back in my base and block enemies with lines of turrets because they always go after the heavy factory. I love all these little tricks I can do in the game, it is so much fun. Especially spamming fremen or death hands from palaces, they make total chaos of the battlefield as well as the deviators.
@@FluffySylveonBoi Yeah I rarely used the Devastator Tank too. It was fun at first but like you said it's more of a threat to you than the enemy. On my first play through I chose House Harkonnen. I ended up just using the Devastators as suicide bombers. Positioning 2 of them in the right spot just outside the enemies base using a Trike to attack the other side of the base to draw all their defending units towards it while the Devastator are slowly bee-lining it to park next to the enemies Con Yard. I may use a couple of trikes to distract any rocket turrets that can't be avoided or have 3 Missile Tanks engage the Turret while it's targeting the Devastators. I would save just before launching the attack because sometimes Missile Tanks spaz out and struggle to hit any target. It always made me laugh when they would just fly in a circle straight back out you even though you targeted something far away. But a quick reload would fix this. Repeat if needed until they all hit with precision. You could do the same with the Death Hand Missiles. I played through Dune 2 again about 5 years ago. It was funny though. I crushed the game with ease. Without the need to use any of the bugs. I realized why though. 31 year old me was a far better resource gather and time manager compared to 9 year old me. Pumping out a large army while relying on the bare minimum for base defense which I could immediately reinforce with a few units of my nearby amassing attack force. 9 year old me would focus to much on creating these expensive bases full of Rocket Turret 4 packs or 6 pack groups supported by tanks that would be repaired by the carryall pick up and return method. The base was impenetrable but required lots of power. Plus for some reason I only built 2 refineries. When it came time to build an attack army the remaining large spice fields either sat in no mans land or off in far away unexplored spots that would often result in "Wormsign!" This is how I learned all the exploitable tactics and bugs. Trying to find ways to defeat the enemy with my pandemic affected economy. But spending hours playing the late game missions was fun back then. Because the enemy was always sending small waves of attacks that would initiate the awesome under attack music that got you pumped up. Plus hearing all those rocket turrets launching, tank cannons firing, vehicle explosions and infantry death screams never got old.
@@VegarotFusion Yes, I usually built tons of rocket launchers via starport and I was amazed how many I can get above unit limit. As a Harkonnen, I used Devastator only, when I got them, firing upon every turret then exploding when HP was red, saving the game before that, because the destruction had to be sure. And the enemy hardly replaced destroyed buildings and almost never replaced turrets. Same with Death Hand, so many reloads. I loved doing this as a kid, and I loved Ordos the most, because after I got the Deviator, I had great fun. I kinda liked Atreides too, because they poured Fremen like crazy, but I was always slowest to destroy the annoying palaces with Atreides, because unlike Death Hand or deviated Rocket Launcher, destroying enemy's Death Hand capabilities was way harder even with Sonic Tanks. I was annoyed as a kid that I have to save/load so much against two incoming missiles.
There was a game that checks most of the boxes of a RTS published on the Apple //e and I think Commodore 64 long ago. Cytron Masters. Call it a proto-RTS. You had resource control, real time unit control, multiple units and types, group management (there was a special unit that managed other units) and base defense (you had a main base that you needed to defend). No tech tree. Since the game had a single page 'map' there was no fog of war. But in all it was an interesting little game. I want to say it was published by SSI but I'm not certain.
This genre and RPG are the ones that made me understand I really have become a gamer. Not more casual arcades 2 hours duration, I was really playing for weeks to the same game, and still returning time to time.
High five :)
Wow!
I still felt betrayed when they killed Command and Conquer Generals 2
I FEEL YOU MAN
Ditto
Would you rather have a repeat of C&C 4? That's what likely would have happened if the devs released a game they couldn't even finish.
Generals was an abomination to the C&C title. No MCV, no sidebar. Might as well play the so called C&C 4 if you want to heretical concepts.
Kane: “where to strike”?
Jethild: community’s hearts, and minds
Kane: good
RTS was always the best type of game genre.
Ditto
Man, every time I see a video like this I'm reminded of Total Annihilation's existance and my crazy fondness for that game, back in the day, it's super well done and, even though C&C will always be my #1 RTS series, Total Annihilation was mind blowing and incredibly innovative at the time (eveything was interactable, and units that died would leave husks that could be reclaimed. The waypoint system was amazing for building those dream bases with patrol routes, etc, and the armies and weapons were massive). It also brings back memories of me sneaking floppy discs into school so I could download new units for the game, which were super easy to add in to it, as often at home our internet was too slow or unstable to do such things. The soundtrack in it is amazing too, and the way you presented it in this video gives me Transformers vibes, which I never really made the link to before, but oh yeah lol.
Funny thing with Starcraft - around the time it was released, there was another ('me-too') RTS in the works making the rounds in the PC Gaming Magazine scene. I can't even remember what it was called now. Terrain Dominion, or Dominion 3, or something like that. I could be completely wrong. Either way, that was the RTS me and my brother were most looking forward too. But we couldn't get it in the end, for whatever reason, and had to settle on Starcraft instead. Happiest most lucky disappointment ever. I'm 100% sure we ended up with a better game, and it wasn't long before Starcraft made us forget the other game was even a thing we wanted.
As for Brood War, it was a fucking nightmare of an expansion pack to find in stores. There was like a gazillion third-party companies releasing unofficial expansions (though we didn't realise at the time) to Starcraft, due it's crazy popularity. Every time our grandparents took us out to get Brood War, we'd always have to settle for one of those instead (some were decent enough, others, not so much. They were all built using the excellent Mission Editor that was available to everyone though). I actually never got a chance to play Brood War till many, many years later.
I never understood the hate for Dune 2000. In particular I just liked the feel of the UI, unit and sounds in the game. It was snappy. It was a nicely done remaster, and added some much needed depth to the game balance in Dune 2. It didn't innovate, sure, but that's not what it set out to do - and what it set out to do, it did very well, IMO. It also benefited from being the best balanced RTS at the time (though that was likely due to mostly identical sides - before anybody says - "but Starcraft!" - it had only just released and had to be patched several times to get to that point). I guess when people were comparing it to Starcraft, released the same year, it was no wonder it fell a bit short though. I think to Westwood, it was just a quick easy side project to get some extra needed money for that Tiberian Sun development anyway, which had a notoriously super troubled and resource-consuming development cycle.
Speaking of Tiberian Sun - yeah, that music - that environment. Chills. Nailed that atmosphere, that's for sure. Another game that was notoriously difficult to get hold of on release, my father saw how much we had adored C&C/RA though and really, REALLY, went out of his way to get us a copy, paying well above the RRP for it (when my parents had always been notoriously tight with money and buying us things in general) bless him. The beauty of the C&C games was the dual-CD releases, Meant with only a single copy of it, both me and my brother could play the game. Looking back, I think my father really appreciated that about the Westwood titles too, which is why he probably didn't mind going to all that trouble and paying extra to get us Tiberian Sun in the end.
Never really got into Age of Empires or Homeworld, but my older brother was very fond of both of them. My little brother ended up being more a Blizzard-style RTS kind of guy, eventually moving onto DOTAs (ewww) for a while before reverting. I myself stayed firmly in the Westwood-style RTS camp though. All of us appreciated most of these golden age titles though.
Anyway, thanks for the memories, look forward to part 2!
dude have you tried supreme commander ??
kinda like a modern total aniahlation
@@Stefandup The original Supreme Commander, yeah I have, not the sequel though. Didn't like it as much as Total Annihilation though. Had some fun with it, but seemed much more...I dunno, meta-gamey and clunky than the original Total Annihilation.
I think watching icons shoot at each other on a screen just doesn't hit the same way as the old 3D models from TA. I think the scale in Supreme Commander was just a bit _too_ big for my liking.
One thing I notice is how badass these games were. (themes, music, and so on) It's like somewhere in the 2000s they forgot what cool was.
The 2000s were when gaming became just another sector of mass consumerism
this needs a Part 2 !
Totally!
I think so too.
Total Annihilation just made my heart stop, cause the surge of really good memories about childish times. Excellent video, I think we need de second part of this awesome video, "The fall of RTS"
pls no
Yes. I need to know
Totala had one of the best sequels ever: SupCom. This is, imho, still the best RTS ever. It's sad how bad the campaign is tough.
I hope at some point once you get all the main well known strategy games out of the way, i do hope to see a video that tackles some lesser known games even if its like a minute per game , lots of strategy games out there that have been kind of interesting but left in the dust sadly (one of my favorites being the likes of Para World )
Yo!
Can you recommend some to me i have always search them with no luck.
@@martinmastervt2438 Somewhat unique, and probably rare is Netstorm:Island at War(1997). People say it is abandonware, so free to play.
Warwind is cool imO. But has a LOT micromanagement. Its on gog.
@@martinmastervt2438 Z.
Dark Reign was cool due to its easy moddability. It had a solid engine you could mess around with and make your own units.
"I need shoes" ~the rts with most memorable quotes, guess it 🙂
It's "Can I have some shoes?" And that'd be the GLA worker from C&C Generals.
Ak47s FOR EVERYONEEEEEE
"I C A N B U I L D A N Y W H E R E"
"Preserving Freedom"
"I LOVE A CROWD"
Thanks for reminding me that I'm still waiting for the sequel of Emperor: Battle for Dune for 20 years now.
this is some trip down the memory lane!
Excellent Video!
I was there, from Dune 2 until the end...each word of every intro movie burned into memory.
each sound evokes smells and images...
thank you
Sounds like you are passionate about it - appropriate screen name. 👍🏻
Hey brother!
That is awesome, it also gives me the most potent and pure euphoria to this very day.
I'm absolutely salivating for Part 2, as what will come next is Red Alert 2, the Zenith of Westwood's Command and Conquer.
I’m still waiting for part 2 too!
yeah you featured TA in your video. this game was a gem and the forefather of the greatest RTS every: supreme commander :)
good there are so many titles to talk about... i played nearly everyone of these games... glad you did this video its great
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This is a journey back through my childhood. My father was playing Dune 2 and that was the first game I'd be fascinated by. And then Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Command & Conquer, Red Alert, StarCraft, Age of Empires... I lived it all and would choose to do so again.
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muh childhood i played 95% of these
Me too, but mostly at my cousins house or getting chased out of appliance stores trying to get a game of AOE in.
Peace through power!
Kane Lives!!!
Same.
Good one, despite some minor flaws. What I'm missing is _Bullfrog._ Populous, Powermonger and most importantly Dungeon Keeper are too important to ignore.
This is the most underrated channel I've ever seen. Keep up the awesome work.
Yes!
Yes, too.
Warcraft , Starcraft and Command and Conquer is a master tier game for me, i don't care about others opinion. RTS always got underratd because of flashy game like doom, csgo, COD ( i played all of it too ) and it's actually make me feel sad about it
Try age of empires, you'll like it
Still playing Yuri’s revenge on daily basis
@@yewnew I remembered before me and my friends playe 8 player FFA and everybody gangsta until they heard nuclear detected
@@Class1czz a shield or iron curtain takes care of that
@@yewnew lol ik that but like no one know who is getting nuked and there's 8 people so someone randomly nuked every 5 minutes
Ah dune 1 and 2, my childhood. Populous too
Supreme Commander was the game that got me in the proper mind-set for rts, with c&c being the more relaxed rts games
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anyone here use to play 2 games called Warzone 2100 and KKND:Krossfire? these two games was just as important to my childhood as the command and conquer series, it's a shame that i don't see any videos made about these two games... i say they was rather underrated
Yea war zone 2100 had an awesome campaign, I loved that game
@@biguncle554 i agree with it being split into three parts, what i liked the most was the ability to change your tank designs
oh yeah... Warzone 2100 was really cool game... now i need to download it 😁
KKND Extreme was better than Krossfire IMO.
Awesome work.
I agree that the first RTS game that started defining the genre is the first Dune from 1992. But the first Strategy game that i have played is North & South for the Nintendo Entertaintment system, a game that first came out for Commodore Amiga and Atari ST.
Still i miss a very important RTS game in the 90's that it is "Dungeon Keeper" from Bullfrog Studios, that combined many aspects ofr rpg genre with a Dungeon builder Strategy Game.
Also had very good graphics for it´s time, combining a 3D view for the map and 2D for the unit models, with a very unique and interesting function, that you can "possess" your own units and control them directly in a first person view.
Keep up the good work, i want to see the second part with amazing games like Warcraft III, Warhammer 40.000 Dawn of War, Command & Conquer 3 or Company of heroes.
This is really an excellent video! Thanks for taking the time to make it!
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you deserve way more views on quality videos like this!
Agreed
Very comprehensive and impressive
thank you for taking me down a walk through my entire childhood. I feel grateful I played every single one of these (and more) at their release and the at their height of their popularity. The intro song from Total Antihalation gives me goose bumps.
Yes, I didn't need C&C First Decade, because I still had all the game originals with all the expansions and there are still ways to make them run normally today. I use iso versions of them because the CD/DVD versions may load slow or die someday, but still, I own them so I can play copies.
omg my whole childhood in a video..if you added in civ 2 and colonisation it would be complete. Also lemmings.
Wow, I must say that I'm very impressed by this documentary about RTS. You really showed the pioneers of the genre with C&C, AoE, Warcraft and Starcraft, your analysis is totally on point. You deserve a lot more views, keep your high quality standard !
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the funny thing is age of empires is the first game i ever played when i was 7. dident understand english at all but it was fun
love sc and rts history ty
never seen your channel before, but i really enjoyed this doc style video!
my frist PC game was Redalert and much of my young gaming memory's are with Tiberium Sun and Redalert 2, i cant wait for part 2 of this video! :D
Still play Dune II and D2K every now and then. Dune II was the first game I ever played, starting when I was 3 years old, after having watched my dad and older brother play it for a few months before I was finally allowed to. To this day they hold their place as my favorite games ever of all time, and I can't overstate just how much I absolutely LOVE Frank Klepacki's work in both of them
Highly enjoying your C&C content and this overview of RTS in general. I'll stick around for more.
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We need part 2! Come on!
Thank you for this amazing video :)! Cannot believe how many details you included. Very good job!
"This is not just Warcraft in space. It's much more sophisticated."
Nicely made, I hope you make more!
8:41 That's a spice bloom, not a sand worm...
12:11 That's actually the 1997 Win95 port of C&C, not the original 1995 game.
13:15 You forgot the biggest improvement of all... the context sensitive mouse click unit commands, instead of sidebar command buttons, a feature originally developed for the Megadrive port of Dune II.
13:50 Internet play over modem was already possible in the DOS version, though. And, as far as I know, C&C95 was only released in 1997; it's built on upgraded UI engine of Red Alert, and RA was already from November in 1996.
15:51 The Fog of war was a simple UI option in Warcraft II though; you could just disable it.
28:31 Dune 2000 was not actually made by Westwood Studios; it was outsourced to the British company Intelligent Games. Westwood only did the videos and music.
30:11 Uh, C&C games never had a population cap. The only Westwood game with a noticeable cap was Dune II.
37:15 And KKND.
Couldn't have explained RTS History as well as You did Bro. Well Done! Lived and Researched! Dune II so much personal history I wouldn't even want to explain pubically. However it involved a photocopier and some flippy disks.
I was linked this video in my Discord server and instantly subscribed. I am super excited for part 2 as I'm modding Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge as I'm watching this. I'm playing the game to this day, still.
You got a few things wrong in this video. The original C&C had no unit caps and you could produce units until your game crashed but was unlikely to happen do map size and limited max resources on the map. You would have to go out of your way to make that happen.
Also food was a managed resource in the first Warcraft game just like it was in the second game.
C&C YES!
@03:05 Not gonna lie... That sound immediately warmed my cold heart for a moment or two 😮
Bloody hell, 1999 was a golden year for RTS!
Roger that.
Fun fact: starcraft was presented to games workshop as they were looking for designs for 40K. They didn't make the cut and went ahead a made their own game with it.
Orcs & Humans was also thought as a Warhammer game at some point, but eventually branched into its own franchise :P
It was really inspiring back then seeing the two companies one-up each other - like a dare - "check this out... how you gonna beat THIS?!"
*DIE WAFFEN, LEGT AN!* - goddamn it was awesome to see.
You know I’m glad it wasn’t a 40k game. We likely would not have gotten Dawn of War 1&2.
Wrong, this was WarCraft 1 back in the early 90's. for the Fantasy side of Warhammer
Starcraft was never indended to be a 40k game.
@@KaiserMattTygore927 Still draws a LOT of inspiration from it. Zerg and Tyranids are both hive-like races (both inspired by the Bugs from Starship Troopers) and even have numerous look-alike units (Zergling - Hormagaunt, Hydralisk - Ravener, Ultralisk - Tyrant Guard etc). The Protoss look a lot like the Tau but act a lot like the Eldar and the Terran draw inspiration from the Imperium of Man's arsenal.
@@RoadKamelot2nd all sci-fi genres borrow from others. 40K borrowed heavily from Star Wars And Halo look like it borrowed heavily from Starcraft. But all these genres are good enough on their own to be considered separate.
Even knowing it was coming from the comments, the Total Annihilation intro still caught me by surprise with a sucker punch in the feels. Loved that game. Hell, 20 minutes in and the only game on the list so far that I didn't (don't think anyway) play was dune 2, due to timing.
Feeling like I learned a lot while simultaneously being reminded of so much I already knew. Good video.
Starcraft is the biggest RTS that is single handhandedly making the genre relative today.
Starcraft Brood war is still kicking internet in the Korean competitive scene (I don’t think it very much s a staple e-sport over there)
Star Craft II still draws crowds globally and is like the 4-5th largest pc Esport game still.
It’s just all the other RTS games from the 90s have died or being held by the likes of E.A.
Perhaps pushing for and support for a lot more new RTS games on both PC and consoles would re-invigorate the genre to a new age?
3:04 gave me goosebumps
YOOOO DUDE THIS IS SO UNDERRATED
Awesome video! Thank you Jethild. You really mapped out the beginnings of this great genre. I'll be keeping my eye on future updates from you.
Dune 2000 was my first game, let along RTS game. The graphics still hold up.
Underrated game.
I do hope you revisit this series when you feel ready, It's very well done.
Me too
I played Dune 2 many times, but never bothered to build slabs under my buildings. Sometimes I used slabs to build all he way to enemy base to discover it though.
Also don't forget Earth 2140
If you can please cover a RTS game called Battle Realms it would be great, because it is an underrated classic that should get more exposure.
I’ll have to check it out.
Omg this got me hooked up til the end, i grew up playing strategy games all the time, kinda sad so few people that still care.
I want more rts so bad. Boss man your channel would get big fast if you keep up the good work
Thank you for this informative video.
Loved it. Thank you. That era was the best time one could live in.
If im still a bad gamer, and still a gamer, its just coz of the fun I get in RTS, and this video is just the fact that good gamers are just not hard to find, but the best games are always in stratergy games, I loved this video btw, very nicely detailed and researched work
Great video, thank you!
This is an amazing video
I remember playing this game a lot called Dark Planet battle for natrolis it had 3 races and it was pretty similar to starcraft with the tech humans, another mystical race like the protoss and an insect like race like the zerg. It had pretty good graphics for its time.
Quite surprised you didn't mention the introduction of the "Skirmish" mode as for me it really was the big BIG game changer.
The idea that you can make a map where the factions start off at the same level and grow to take over the map like a multiplayer game but with bots was HUGE. It really is a genre defining gameplay change.
For example, The difference between C&C and Red Alert was if I wanted to play C&C against A.I. I had to load up a campaign mission, that was it, Red alert had the Skirmish mode which gave so SO much more playability. It really did completely change the genre. Every RTS has it now, as standard, many people forgoing the campaign just to play skirmish.
Hoping to see such forgotten gems as Black & White and Cossacks in your part 2.
Fantastic video, really well done and deserves a lot more views! Only critique would be that it may have been worth mentioning 'The Settlers' series
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I find it interesting that, back then, 500,000 units in 3 months was a big thing. I guess it was still the time when PC's were bought to do work on, and playing games on them was still a novelty. I imagine it was easier to pitch management heavy games to people at that time, since most people using a computer would've been used to spreadsheet software anyway.
As much as I love RTS, I can totally see why it's a niche genre now. We still get some greats, though. Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak was fantastic in my opinion, I quite enjoyed Planetary Annihilation and I'm enjoying Iron Harvest atm. Niche is, arguably, kind of good for RTS. It means only teams passionate about the genre attempt it.
Nice video dude, my RTS games growing up for KKND, Red Alert, Warcraft 2 and Starcraft - Great times! Big into the SC2 competative scene now, but I hate how low my APM is so I never play outside the campaign haha.
Auto-captions accidently spelled out "nano-stalling" as "nano Stalin" which, in my opinion, is the best name for a future Red Alert 4
Yoooo this video was great brought me back to my childhood.
How about KKND? It maybe didn't introduce some new concepts, but the atmosphere and the advanced AI made it a unique and great game! Very tough to beat at that time. And units, maaan, the units, absolutely awesome!
KKND 2 is also good, the music is super awesome, we definitely need KKND 3.
Motion data captured
@@Passonator11 initiating kill!
Barrage Craft, Missile Crab and Mech. Absolute destruction.
KKND and KKND2 Krossfire were brilliant. Although KKND2 was insanely hard. You can still play them on GOG. KKND1 (I believe its named KKND extreme) plays ok, but KKND2 has a major bug that warrants you a mission failure notice randomly. It has never been fixed which is a shame, but makes it unplayable, at least campaign wise.
Great video, looking forward to part2! Aside from Dune, Warcraft and Startcraft, I also really enjoyed 'Z' and 'Beasts & Bumpkins'.
Great vids buddy, keep it up!
Bro hello from Russia and Thanks you for that video! The best of all !
Literally grew up by playing all these games XD. Good ol times.
The problem with the RTS genre is that nee video games have to be produced every few years. These come new and more complicated mechanics in order to give the existing audience something new. This alienates newcomers to the genre who feel overwhelmed. Imagine every decade a sequel to Chess came out with new pieces. It would be a nightmare.
90's and early 2000's was such a rich time to be a gamer, just like being a movie enthusiast was in the 70's, the directors had control, now sadly like the movie industrie it's the studios and marketing teams that run the industries to their detriment.
From this video i wish that we can have new RTS game, nowadays game is only about Battle Royale,Moba ,Battlepass, and high quality Graphic without good gameplay
Its unfortunate that new RTS Iron Harvest have bad mechanics
Hope they can improve Iron Harvest more
Grey goo, Relic's RTS, Deserts of Kharak, Spellforce 3, Petroglyph's 8-Bit series, Ashes of the singularity, Supreme commander, Commandos 3, Shadow Tactics shogun, world in conflict, wargame Red dragon.
Is it time for me to cry again because no Command and Conquer sequel in 8 years?
14 years*
Tib Twilight doesn't exist
*pours one out for Westwood Studios*
Uh ! What an amazing video ❤
It felt like it was only 15 minutes long when it reached the end.
One game I was expecting 100% was Z.
Although not classic RTS model but it gave C&C & Warcraft real kickin !
This definitely needs more parts,
1. One focused on the very beginnings of strategy games: Hertzog Zwei, Stronghold and some others that laid basics to the genre,
2. One dedicated to lesser known games of the golden age: KKnD, M.A.X., Dominion, 7th Legion, War Wind,
Tbh, I was surprised I didn't see Earth 2150 in the video as it was very inovative game.
3. Dawn of RTS,
4. Games that came after.
Excellent video really, its shame when quality hard work is not appreciated when stupid vlogs are getting millions of views.
Shame I found it only now.
Best wishes mate ❤
Btw, I never had PC in the golden era and mostly fed on reviews and articles in magazines. Only got computer in early 2000s. And nowadays I can't find time to spend on games.
freaking hillarious robot warfare, those Z cutscenes where amazing!
Very informative Video. Good work
Thx for this video
your channel is so great!
Empire Earth, Dark Reign, Battle Realm, Supreme Commander, Warzone 2100, are some of my favourite RTS.
with the exception of Herzog Zwei and Homeworld, I've played these games for much too many hours during my teenage years. I have all these games purchased one way or another and even have some of them installed on my laptop this very moment. this just shows the dedication put into these games by their developers and the long-term gratification they provide to users. I'm glad I grew up playing these RTS games, today's strategy games look more like a neverending grind to me riddled with DLC's and so on. btw, thanks for the hint, I'm gonna get Homeworld and give it a good try!
I'm sure most people know this, but Age of Empires 2 has experienced a very strong reniassance.
Of course, it is one of the ages in the game :D
It was one of my main Genres in the 90s and 2000s!
C&C didnt have a skirmished so I’m pretty sure I played TA more than any of them combined. What a perfect fucking game that was. The score too, how it would tell the situation and play something for it... amazing.
Let's see... The entire Command & Conquer franchise, Age of Empires 1, 2 and 3, Total Annihilation, Warcraft 3 and FT, the Dune games, Homeworld, some StarCraft, Earth 2150...
Man, I've played a lot of RTS games over the decades...
you just run me trough memory line of my childhood !.. damn son ... good times , good fun !!
This is a great video mate, really enjoyed it! should have way more subs
Jarrid Mendelson is a genius who made Ordos OST for the legendary Emperor: Battle for Dune game, David Arkenstones' Harkonnens OST also a cult classic. The game is legendary for a surprising reasons. Balance between factions was pretty uneven, story was for a checkmark, but
But excellent music and amazing atmosphere what's made it epic. Gameplay was very solid and dynamic. Graphics where unseen for the time. They're inherited Lynches brilliant aesthetic of Dune and nailed it with their rendition.
Sub-factions are very important new addition to the old formula, it was fresh wind into the genre. It was a pinnacle of Westwood RTS at the time (Of course Generals further pushed the genre for the greater heights).
I really love RTS genre, sadly it doesn't developed to it fullest.
Btw anyone play battle realms here. Such a cool concept and unique
great video. great job. you rock
I still play dawn of war and starcraft !
While the remasters of old classic RTS games are a good effort for the most part, the genre can't rely on these alone to carry it into the 2020s and beyond.
It needs brilliant and passionate visionaries who truly love the genre to once again take the industry by storm as it did back in the early 1990s. The same kind of people who were inventing brand new genres at that time that we now take for granted.
Yeah I completely agree with this. I actually think one of the reasons why the RTS genre ended up declining was because their wasn't enough innovation going on. Most developers ended up just ended up copying off one another which caused stagnation in the genre.
Of course it's difficult to do something innovative or unique without sacrificing the core fundamentals of the genre itself.
Remasters I think at best will just delay it's decline, but it won't stop it. And not all remasters are guaranteed to be good. Such as what happened with WC3 Reforged.
I was nailed my dream list, which is Emperor Battle For Dune. It was best game for 2000 rts(in my opinion).
In the end, without Dune, there no way other game will followed, and without Popularized RTS like CnC or Age of Empire or etc, it never feel same.
What was called the rts about the earthlings vs grey aliens, not X-Com Defence, but in the C&C style with patrol routes.
And btw there was a polish approach to this genre with Polanie and later Polanie 2 AKA Knight's Shift.
Also it worth mentioning unsuccessful games like Armies of Exigo, it's very subtle why they're not gained popularity being modern and full-featured RTS games
Dune 2 was my first RTS.
There were a couple of bugs you could exploit to help in the later levels. Once you could build All Purposes Carryalls. You box in your Repair Facility take a Siege Tank, Rocket Launcher. Sonic tank or Devastator (Something good at destroying structures) drive it around to the back or side of an enemies base. Have it attack a structure and start taking damage. When it's health got low the Carryall would come and pick it up to be repaired and because your repair facility is blocked in the Vehicle can't drive out, so the Carryall picks it up and drops it off back in the enemies base where it got it. Only now the Vehicle will be completely ignored by all the AI units so long as you don't attack them. Leaving the Vehicle to destroy the base at it's leisure, just avoid Rocket Turrets unless you managed to get a Rocket Launcher or 2 to become invisible.
Another is when playing as Ordos. Using Deviators. When you gas an enemy unit and it temporally becomes yours. Select it and chose the attack command, then wait for it to turn back to an enemy unit. Except you still have the attack command active. So you can tell it to go attack any place on the map and it will drive there and keep shooting that spot until you attack it. Just dash a Raider Trike early in the game into the enemy base to locate the construction yard and other important structures. Then have a couple of Deviators out in the field capturing units heading to your base and send them straight back to destroy their base.
I never use repair facilities, because I usually pour tons of tanks from my starport and Harkonnens are especially bad at this because exploding devastator can destroy my base when it is sent to repair xD But I use things like the deviator bug, sending infantry against enemy harvesters to make them stop harvesting forever, building slabs, radar and turrets inside enemy base to make them destroy own buildings (and put a wall there so the enemy can't rebuild) or keeping my fast scout on screen when scouting and enemy units away so they can't catch me. Also I always build my heavy factory farthest back in my base and block enemies with lines of turrets because they always go after the heavy factory. I love all these little tricks I can do in the game, it is so much fun. Especially spamming fremen or death hands from palaces, they make total chaos of the battlefield as well as the deviators.
@@FluffySylveonBoi Yeah I rarely used the Devastator Tank too. It was fun at first but like you said it's more of a threat to you than the enemy.
On my first play through I chose House Harkonnen. I ended up just using the Devastators as suicide bombers. Positioning 2 of them in the right spot just outside the enemies base using a Trike to attack the other side of the base to draw all their defending units towards it while the Devastator are slowly bee-lining it to park next to the enemies Con Yard. I may use a couple of trikes to distract any rocket turrets that can't be avoided or have 3 Missile Tanks engage the Turret while it's targeting the Devastators. I would save just before launching the attack because sometimes Missile Tanks spaz out and struggle to hit any target. It always made me laugh when they would just fly in a circle straight back out you even though you targeted something far away. But a quick reload would fix this. Repeat if needed until they all hit with precision. You could do the same with the Death Hand Missiles.
I played through Dune 2 again about 5 years ago. It was funny though. I crushed the game with ease. Without the need to use any of the bugs. I realized why though. 31 year old me was a far better resource gather and time manager compared to 9 year old me. Pumping out a large army while relying on the bare minimum for base defense which I could immediately reinforce with a few units of my nearby amassing attack force.
9 year old me would focus to much on creating these expensive bases full of Rocket Turret 4 packs or 6 pack groups supported by tanks that would be repaired by the carryall pick up and return method. The base was impenetrable but required lots of power.
Plus for some reason I only built 2 refineries.
When it came time to build an attack army the remaining large spice fields either sat in no mans land or off in far away unexplored spots that would often result in "Wormsign!"
This is how I learned all the exploitable tactics and bugs. Trying to find ways to defeat the enemy with my pandemic affected economy.
But spending hours playing the late game missions was fun back then. Because the enemy was always sending small waves of attacks that would initiate the awesome under attack music that got you pumped up. Plus hearing all those rocket turrets launching, tank cannons firing, vehicle explosions and infantry death screams never got old.
@@VegarotFusion Yes, I usually built tons of rocket launchers via starport and I was amazed how many I can get above unit limit. As a Harkonnen, I used Devastator only, when I got them, firing upon every turret then exploding when HP was red, saving the game before that, because the destruction had to be sure. And the enemy hardly replaced destroyed buildings and almost never replaced turrets. Same with Death Hand, so many reloads. I loved doing this as a kid, and I loved Ordos the most, because after I got the Deviator, I had great fun. I kinda liked Atreides too, because they poured Fremen like crazy, but I was always slowest to destroy the annoying palaces with Atreides, because unlike Death Hand or deviated Rocket Launcher, destroying enemy's Death Hand capabilities was way harder even with Sonic Tanks. I was annoyed as a kid that I have to save/load so much against two incoming missiles.
starcraft pretty much started esports along with quake
There was a game that checks most of the boxes of a RTS published on the Apple //e and I think Commodore 64 long ago. Cytron Masters. Call it a proto-RTS. You had resource control, real time unit control, multiple units and types, group management (there was a special unit that managed other units) and base defense (you had a main base that you needed to defend). No tech tree. Since the game had a single page 'map' there was no fog of war. But in all it was an interesting little game. I want to say it was published by SSI but I'm not certain.
Starcraft 2 released on 2010 is basically alive and kickin'