I think Blizzard RTS is definitely a very specific sub-genre within RTS games. Like how enjoying Street Fighter doesn't necessarily mean you'll love Tekken or Marvel vs Capcom.
Yeah. Blizzard RTS or even more broadly competitive RTS gamers are very particular about how a RTS should play. These type of players aren't really RTS fans per se (or more specifically generalist fans, there are some out there).
I personally think that it's actually a mistake to think that there's a single cohesive "RTS audience". The people who play RTS tend to have extremely different tastes from each other. A lot of people are only here for the campaigns. A lot are only here for multiplayer. Some people want more action-y skill-based RTS. Some want more slow-paced tactical RTS. Some people want a mix of the two. Guarantee, for every new RTS that releases, even if it's good, most of the RTS audience is still going to find it doesn't suit their tastes and go back to whatever they were playing before Sure, you might get a some folk who can play a whole bunch of very different RTS games and enjoy all of them, but from what I've seen over the years I genuinely think this is the minority of people who play RTS
I would go as far as to say some RTS games have more in common with 4x turn base, then the spirit of RTS. Which isnt bad, i myself am mostly a 4x turn based player , that somehow fell in love with SC2. But when i play for example Dune Spice Wars, which is a great game, i feel im playing a turn based strategy where turns are just continuous then an RTS. I think for me the distncition is if the speed and multitasking is at the core of the gameplay.
I think the problem is that you kinda need to learn a bunch of units before you can enjoy an RTS. Especially if the story is bland. And often players then find out that most of the units are bland as well. That's why I don't understand moves like Blizzard did, making a different balances for singleplayer, multiplayer and coop each. The commanders are cool, but every unit is different as well? If players only play one game mode, it's unnecessary as hell. And if not, they could learn the game by enjoying the campaign and then jump into multiplayer or coop. But Blizzard is... Blizzard.
@@nightmareTomek I'm not sure what would be confusing about using different units in different modes? The campaign needs to be balanced differently from multiplayer - if they used the same units in all of them, then every single melee unit or high mobility unit would be completely and utterly worthless in the campaign, because the campaign has no value for harassment and melee units are bad because the enemy has overwhelmingly more resources to the point that even getting a 2:1 trade is terrible for the player so you have to use units that can win fights without taking any losses, which is a completely different mindset from multiplayer where taking a 1:1 trade can often be advantageous depending on the context.. it would be impossible to balance units for both modes. Co-op also falls into a pretty similar category to the campaign, but because they wanted to have a wide range of commanders they obviously needed to create new units for those commanders otherwise there would be no point to adding new commanders at all (most of the early commanders did in fact use campaign units and abilities, but once they run out of abilities and units to use they obviously have to start creating new ones if they want to add new commanders).
@@asdfqwerty14587 Seriously? That's some nonsense I haven't heard in a while. Maybe for you it would be too hard to balance, but for everybody else... not. Probably you're not used to the balance being the same in SP and MP. I am. From Starcraft 1 for example. Or Warcraft. Or literally any other game. It maybe would be a bit harder to balance than giving the player one overpowered hero that steamrolls everything on its own (Kerrigans Baneling summon skill) and turning the campaign into an aRPG. But not much harder. Honestly if the player doesn't lose any unit in the campaign it feels kinda dull. Well, just like the SC2 story...
Setting and art direction is supremely important imo. A lot of these RTS games *look* very generic and the units designs are uninspired. Space marines are cool. Crossbowmen and castles are cool. Zerglings and siege tanks are cool. Paladins and death knights are cool. You can have the best RTS mechanics in the world but if the dudes you order around look boring and stupid then the game is DOA.
Yes. Most modern RTS games or even other games in general have pretty awful designs now tbh. Why are there no cool units and factions in games now? People should look at a unit and say "I want to control that unit because it looks cool". None of the units in Stormgate for instance have that look at all.
@@Skumtomten1didn't play stormgate but the vulcan mech and atlas artillery immediately stand out to me also any rts has to have their generic line of units for the actual cool stuff to stand out ... if everything in your unitpool is crazy is it still that special?
my dude the starcraft design is so generic that to this day people believe it was meant to be a Games Workshop license game - the true champions of generic design
@@MrTBSCthose units stand out by how hard I don’t want to command them. For me, StormGate is Concord the RTS in terms of visual design and approach to game mechanics.
I think you're missing one important subgenre of rts that's adjacent to the "classic" rts: the large scale rts, or Total Annihilation clones. These games involve elements of base building and zone control, but have a number of common mechanics that set them apart from the other genres (streaming economy, simulated physics/ballistics, land air and water combat, and most importantly massive scale with hundreds of units. Games include Total Annihilation (the OG), Supreme Commander, and Beyond All Reason.
@@markfrazer8545 oh, KKND is right there, because it's basically a C&C reskin. I've got fond memories of playing it as a kid, but that series is possibly the prime example of why RTS games were just called "C&C clones" in the 90s.
The "They are Billions" should be next level for you. It is absolutely insane the number of units you can get in final spawns if you have the difficulty ramped up. The down side is that the movement mechanics have to be extremely basic to pull that off. However, it is still impressive to pull off.
@@reek7518 Yeah. It feels like aoe4 on release, except it looks worse to me. Fun as you learn the game, but aoe4 really needed the updates to feel nice to play (which it does now). AoM doesn't have that level yet imo
@@TheGreatDanish It is pretty different from aoe2, so maybe thats why. It does have its niche, but is not polished and will likely struggle once the 'shiny and new' thing wears off, unless they start improving it quick.
@@tophatz3869 Same. I've owned the game since it came out, and then despite not buying reforged, my copy was downgraded due to the forced 30gb patch. Sure I could torrent an older version, but why should I have to? It's sad to know we will never get a Warcraft 4, and sadder to know that the only company that was capable of making it no longer exists, and hasn't for a long time. Blizzard truly embodies the quote "Die a hero or live long enough to become a villain".
You should also try Battle for Middle Earth 2. It's honestly so good yet I rarely see it being mentioned when talking about RTS games. One of the best RTS game ever imo but it's very underrated.
Your discovery re single player quotient is spot on. A 2-5 minute non combat buffer to scout, base build and formulate a strategy based on map conditions and your opponent is not only what makes RTS more enjoyable but also what makes it entertaining and watchable from a caster / spectator PoV. It gives the caster the opportunity to set the stage, build tension and allow the audience to settle in for the "show". Keep up this type of content I love it, great insights.
I think the pleasure of building a base is subjective. I played some wargames and RTS without base building. Now I'm bored playing RTS where I have to grind resources for 5 minutes.
I always liked the Lan experience of Warcraft 3 TFT, Age of Empires 2 and C&C Red Alert. Having all friends in the same room who add their own personality into their playstyles and BM'ing each other is what made these games far more fun to me than other RTS games.
I had that asshole friend that had an IQ solidly in the mid 80's. Seriously, his head was even shaped like early mans, the sloping forehead and heavy unibrow etc. But I shit you not, put him in front of a PC with an RTS game and he became Stephen Hawking. For some reason, it just clicked with him. He had 300+ APM back in the day when APM wasn't even a thing. Even in POPULOUS and DUNGEON KEEPER the guy was a machine! He put me off playing C&C and Red Alert pretty much instantly, when he'd commando raid my base with a chinook or destroy me with a single submarine he'd built in a tiny lake at the other side of the map! He found ways to cheese that Satan wouldn't lower himself to do! But he was our secret weapon at LANS. In those big epic RTS battles on Dawn Of War, Total Annihilation, Warcraft III etc - Craig would single handedly slaughter the entire enemy team if we just fed him our resources!
@@TheVanillatech RTS - the good ones - are a series of problems to solve. I don't do well in school - I either get it and the homework is pointless... or I don't get it and the homework is pointless; and it is that binary. But school isn't about figuring out the problem, getting it understood, and moving on - school is about blind obedience, and filling in the right number of boxes in the pre-aproved way. And I'll wager that friend of yours was this to a greater extreme. I love optimization problems - and RTS is FILLED with them. TTRPG's have piles of them. CRPG's - the good ones - have plenty of this going on as well.
You missed the prototypical, and probably most successful, city-building RTS of all times: The Anno series of games. The last entry, Anno 1800 has sold more than 2.5 million copies. It is heavily focused on building huge beautiful cities, with complex resource and production paths, requiring expanding to various islands, fighting naval battles to control trade routes, etc. All of this in real time and with multiplayer.
Have you tried C&C3: Kane's Wrath? You have 3 factions to choose from (GDI, Nod, Scrin), with each of these divided into 3 sub-factions (1 balanced and 2 specialized). The game offers multiple technology tiers, superweapons, stealth and stealth detection, sabotage, EMP, mobile anti-air, air-transport, fire and tiberium based weaponry, artillery, teleportation, commandos, building capture, unit upgrades, unit specializations, unit and base repair, unit veterancy, unit garrisoning inside vehicles either for transport or to shoot out of, even base defenses get upgrades and the unit synergy is second to none. You also harvest a resource (tiberium crystals) from fields that will deplete (but slowly regenerate over time). You have to manage and defend your harvesters, else no income. Also, units can't just "shoot and do damage". You need certain damage types for certain units. Bullets against infantry, rockets against vehicles, etc. Not to mention the voice acting for the units and the soundtrack are absolutely superb. I play it every day and cannot get enough of, no matter what.
Worthy of note is that the MP scene is currently being maintained by the community. A lot of bugs have been fixed, plenty of maps have been added over the years and its has a few balance changes as well.
There are also economic RTSes like Offworld Trading Company. Unlike classical city builders, they can focus on multiplayer and their "single player" quotient is extremely low, but they don't have any battles. You have to rely on economic dominance to eliminate other players.
Beyond All Reason is one of the best modern RTS's I've played, and is completely free. You missed the entire Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander genre.
He really did miss a part of the genre by not mentioning TA and its legacy. It's right up there with C&C and Warcraft setting the tone for future games in the genre (for decades to come!)
Heard someone say that Grubby disliked BAR. So insane to me, I also think it's the best modern RTS, far better than what's currently being overhyped. And it never lands on any content creators list.
I didn't expect Sins 2 to be worth playing over Sins 1, but they've refined the underlying systems a TON and the game is incredibly fun. The biggest issue the game has is that it's difficult for new players to understand the very different economies of the three factions.
My favorite Classic RTS - Supreme Commander: Forged Aliance (Which had second life when entusiasts made FAF (Forged aliance forever) client). This game is really looks epic in team vs team fight.
Act of War - High Treason was pretty much a better C&C Generals with great Air Combat, ressource gathering and anti super weapons mechanics. Sadly Act of War 2 wasnt that good anymore.
Just a refresh of the franchise would be good enough! A bunch of NEW games, well written and designed, don't have to break the mould just be decent games with incredibly cheesy voice acting and cutscenes! Is that too much to ask? Or are we living in COD and Tombraider and Battlefield world forever......
@@goliver9991 are they actually good? I remember downloading one which adds Russia and Europe(NATO)and it gets a bit wacky, and not in a bad way but it completely changes everything and it really feels like a downgrade despite adding a lot of relatively cool stuff
I hope Grubby somehow stumbles upon Earth 2150. It's quite old now (it was released in 2000) but it's a unique twist on the classic RTS formula. You have base building and C&C-like resource gathering, but the most unique part of it is the research aspect. Within the match you research new weapons and unit chassis and you can create your own combinations of units and depending on the size of the chosen chassis and the chosen weapon you can stockpile a bunch of different weapons. It's truly a unique system for a unique game with a really cool atmosphere. Be warned that it's quite janky due to how old it is.
Yeah, Earth 2150 did not age well at all, janky unit control based on really big grid, FPS locked to 30 but it can be circumvented with a console command, tunneling and ground reshaping feels uninmpactful and hardly useful due to how maps are constructed although the idea itself is really amazing and has ton of potential, weather system is really awesome, in winter units are colder so thermal weapon"s" (IIRC only ED lasers rely on killing by overheating) are less effective, on volcanic maps it is the opposite I think, strong winds slow fliers down etc. . Factions are really diverse (although for some reason the go to weapon for LC, the high tech faction are... rockets...) Earth 2150 feels like a lot of great ideas hindered by budget and/or lack of technology as it is a polish game from year 2000... Also Warzone 2100 predated Earth 2150's customizable units by a year.
Yeah, to say it aged badly is a severe understatement. Forced low framerate, resolution issues, compatibility issues with modern system, controls being very stiff. I loved the game when I was a kid, and I have tried playing it 3 times ever since and I just can't, it's too scuffed. Warzone 2100 is a better choice, it might be even older but it has received extensive support over the years and is perfectly playable and enjoyable even today.
Yeah, impossible for me to play this nowadays but back then? Spent hours playing and loved it. But then i discovered Metal Fatigue (2000) with a similiar system but with mechs, you could research and upgrade different parts of each mech and you could even pick up parts from defeated enemies, bring it back to base and research it so you can start building for your own mechs or just outright detach one of your parts an simply attatch to your mech right away.... Theres was 3 layers of play, Space for solar energy and something else that i forgot, earth level which was the 'normal' play as in, base buidling, harvest material army ect and then underground for even more resources or even more bases... Man writting this is bringing me back lol. I want a Metal Fatigue in modern times, guess gonna have to install it.
Anyone of you played Z: Steel Soldiers? I think it was from 1996. Unique gameplay where you have to conquer sectors and there are unit factories in each sector and you can steal enemy units when you conquer a sector shortly before the unit finishes. Was my first RTS and I loved it back when I was half the height I am now...
The best RTS out there is Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance Forever (not just Forged Alliance, the Forever part is important, as once the servers and development shut down, a group of people took over development and hosting). You need to download and play it RIGHT NOW.
The old Battlezone was also a type of RTS, controlling a small economy with the base and commanding a few other units, while still controlling one space-rover directly.
4x is not RTS it turn based RTS , Total war is Total war. We could call almost all rts 4x because its about explore, conquest, expand blabla I think there should be a name for the "I have a base, I can expand it, and I have to attack my opponent" Type of RTS, I enjoy them the most aswell. For me the best 5 of these games are: 1. BFME2 you should Check it out! It has much less micro though. 2. Aoe 2 3. Cossacks 3
I'm surprised Grubby hasn't ever really mentioned LotR:BFME2. That one I feel is a perfect RTS for casual fanboying over the LotR universe, and has all the core elements of a classic RTS, plus heroes, though with much less worker management.
@@Akario3 It looked like a natural inheritor for the RPG RTS. I remember being hyped for this just as much as WC3 though I never actually played either. The theming looked well done.
true its part of the same one WC3 is in. i always thought it was fun casually but a bit too simplistic. i havent played it competitively but heard its a bit low strategy variety. like every race has its go to opener and then you either clash those or build specific counter units
My favorite RTS of all time is Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. It was released as standalone "DLC" to the original, but it was actually just a much more balanced and upgraded version of the original Supreme Commander. Forged Alliance dates from 2007, but the graphics are much better than you might think for that era, and there are lots of mods. It is literally so good that there is an active community today that maintains their own servers and has regular competitions. It still sells, too, and is available on Steam and GOG.
Coh, at least 1, had heroes. The more time you donate to each unit to micromanage it, the better it gets, the more it levels, the more impact it has. A ranger squad with bazookas could be your main focus and exceed in value. Or it's that veteran Firefly tank. A unit could get x20 it's price in value like a hero or get oneshot like a peasant. Unfortunately, 2 and 3 took away from it.
You missed the strategic category of rts with flowing economies: total annihilation, supreme commander 1 and 2, forged alliance, beyond all reason. Starcraft 2 in comparison plays like a tactical game.
@@robertfulcher7410 he'll need to get the motivation to sort the hotkeys out first. The default one's suck something awful, and I think the idea of completely re-working every key put him off a bit, when he tested the beta (Edit: read 'remapping' instead of 're-working')
@@itswakkowarner tbf, I didn't say they weren't remappable. Maybe I should have said re-mapping instead of re-working... sorry. But yep, the 100% agreement that the default ones are a travesty :D
Bro got me panicked with the Rimworld music I thought I had it running on second monitor. Goated soundtrack, an underrated rts element. A crazy game too, it undeniably has enough RTS elements. Single player quotient is off the charts...
For some interesting older classical RTS' I'd recommend Perimeter and Heroes of Annihilated Empires. Perimeter has a mobile main building and the player covers their levelled area with energy cores for ressource production. They can erect a perimeter energy shield for defense. Units are assembled from specific amounts of Soldiers, Officers and Engineers and depending on what you have in any group you can rebuild the combined unit into something else. Heroes of Annihilated Empires is basically the fantasy version of Cossacks by the same developer (GSC). It's very much an RTS, but has a Hero aspect to it and there easily can be hundreds of units on the screen. I did enjoy the faction design in this one.
RTS itself is a subgenre of strategy games. I think the term "RTS" tends to be lumped in to describe strategy games that aren't turn based, probably because certain RTS games are some of the most popular strategy games of all time. I tend to like strategy games of many different flavours, but I've hardly played most of them.
RTS is a misleading term anyway. Most RTS games are not strategy games, but tactical games as the operating level, or you can call it "the scope", is too limited and what the gameplay is too limited to be described as "strategy".
Among people who aren't traditional RTS fans, the term "RTS" gets broadly applied to a lot of games that genre fans would never associate it with. Factorio is called an RTS on its wiki page, for instance, which seems wild to me. But the weirder one was that I had people using the term "RTS" to describe Unicorn Overlord, just because its maps have a "real-time with pause" element to troop movement.
Very good video. This is a topic that is quite dear to me as I grew up on games like WC2 and WC3, and I felt the genre never really went anywhere. Instead of breaking down individual parts of your video, I'll just say it's great and share some of my thoughts. The single player quotient factor is a really clever addition to this debate, kudos. Besides that, I would say that the three most important factors to me are: 1. A gripping and long spanning story / campaign. It might not be intrinsically important to the competitive scene, but it's how you get people (or at least me) initially invested into your game. 2. Art direction. Everything from the game itself, to the concept art you go over when you read through the manual. I still have the images of brutal orcs in the WC2 manual burned onto my retina. 3. An extremely robust map/scenario/campaign editor. I'm primarily a custom game enjoyer. It essentially extends the lifespan of a game to an infinite duration, as there will always be new and novel experiences. And you will find some maps that really resonate with exactly what you enjoy that you will play over and over for thousands of hours. And there's nothing quite like having a friend message you that they found a really cool custom game and sitting down and playing it with each other, and there's no need for either person to go and buy a new game or anything. You both already have everything you need for a low-effort session. However, for this to exist, you need a robust core game with plenty of mechanics that can be expanded upon and combined in unique ways by map makers. So I think that by necessity you will have an excellent competitive game if you accomplish this. If WC3 as a core didn't have heroes, spells, items, inventories, unit tech, tiers, resources, workers, damage/armor types, etc. etc. you'd not have custom games of the quality we do either. It's also very interesting how custom games and the competitive mode can indirectly interact with each other. Someone who plays a ton of custom games will learn mechanics and quirks of the game that a competitive player might not be aware of, and a highly skilled competitive player will obviously have mechanical skills that can lead them to enjoy custom games even more.
You should try Myth the Fallen Lords. If there's a game that needs remake it's definitely this one. Someone needs to shed light on this old masterpiece.
Two games worth mentioning (in separate comments): 2) An entire hybrid genre you missed, probably because I only know of one pair of examples, from before your time: the RTS-FPS hybrid, as shown by Battlezone 98. It is definitely an RTS, with worker units gathering resources, modest amounts of base building, and lots of unit production, but you yourself are piloting one of the vehicles, leading the other tanks into combat. Good piloting and shooting skill can sometimes carry the day, but other times your base setup and choice of additional units and weapons are crucial. Failing to defend an objective can lead to mission failure, but so does getting yourself killed. (Note that you don't necessarily die when the tank you're in is destroyed; you auto-eject and can then commandeer one of your other vehicles, though you are extremely vulnerable as a pilot on foot until you do.) You might think controlling an RTS in first person perspective would be difficult, but they came up with a surprisingly good interface for it. There's an expansion, Red Odyssey, which is also good. Despite their age, I believe they are still available on Steam. It also has a sequel which is decent but not as compelling as the original (though I've heard there are a couple of great custom campaigns for it).
@@GrubbyTalks Yes and no; as I said it's a hybrid of Real Time Strategy and First Person Shooter. It has all the elements of a classical RTS, but *you* are also one of the units. Sometimes, you can sit back in your base and send other units out to objectives, and there are limited opportunities to run things in the isometric perspective. But often, you'll be out fighting with your other units. Either way, you choose the composition of those other units, based on your macro constraints. Maybe consider yourself to be the ultimate, perfectly micro-able, hero unit. he game had a very active multiplayer community for a while, but due to its hybrid nature, there were two, very different game types. Deathmatch mode was basically pure FPS. Strategy mode was the classic "one building plus workers" RTS start, plus yourself in a standard tank. Even the best shooter can't win that mode in a standard tank without collecting resources and building wingmen. (Unfortunately, network constraints of the time made the latter often unplayable.)
@@GrubbyTalks If shooters don't appeal to you, then this hybrid genre probably won't either. But if, like me, you like both, then this was an amazing and fun combination. BZ98 was pretty popular at the time and BZ2 did OK, so it surprises me a little that no one else has ever attempted to make something like them.
You missed Total Annihilation / Supreme Commander / BAR / Planetary Anihilation Titans and similar games. I think these are their own 'Subgenre' and very very fun to play.
I wonder if you heard about SILICA, it's like a mix of first person and RTS, where you have one player as a commander building like in Starcraft, but then some players can be literal units on the field controlled in First person in 3D environment. They can chose what they wanna control or ask commander to build them a unit they want to control.
My all-time favorite under-the-radar RTS that I personally consider a classic is the Warlords: Battlecry series (spun off from the classic turn based Warlords series), AKA, the first RPG-RTS. The gameplay is completely classical RTS, but you have a single persistent hero that levels up within the game and then carries over their levels and items into future games as well. Obviously this imposes massive challenges on competitive multiplayer (and the series never had anything but peer-to-peer multiplayer which didn't help mattes) but as a singleplayer experience I still don't find any other RTS more fun to just play through the campaign or in random maps vs. AI. It still has an active modding community as well.
something I don't see mentioned like ever is… let's call them "linear RTSs" even though I only know of the Stick Wars series (Stickwarslike is a mouthful) basically a classic RTS except: - the map is a narrow strip - traditionally no or limited base building - units can castle by exiting the map on their side, making them invulnerable and healing them fast the most complete example IMO is Stick Empires (Stick Wars 2's multiplayer companion game) the simple change of a very narrow map changes the whole way worker harassment and territory control work, because you simply can't go around the enemy army but throw in castling and the game state can actually get very dynamic
There is an another hero-based RTS which is criminally underlooked called Rising Kingdoms It is kinda like a mix of WC3 and SC1, where you have fantasy setting and heroes like in WC3 but drastically different factions like in SC1/2 It came out in 2005 and it's probably long forgotten but the campaign is still enjoyable for me I wonder how Grubby would rate it if it came out today
What a great analysis on the current state of this multifaceted genre! There are all kinds of RTS games these days. My personal all-time favourites are WarCraft III and Against the Storm, 2 very different games from completely different time periods that keep me glued to the screen equally hard.
@@Igor369 The same reason he likes old Warcraft 3 and not the remake. The feeling in the game is different. A good remake isn't just improving the graphics a bit. The entire game as a whole gets reworked.
I'm getting into game dev as a hobby, and while I'm not specifically looking to make an RTS I do want to incorporate some RTS elements into a project. These discussions are really insightful for me, thank you Grubby and friends!
Good RTS for me is 1. Skill expression has many viable outlets 2. Prioritizing attention is necessary since perfect play is impossible 3. Every phase of the game is important, every phase is different. This keeps the gameplay interesting indefinitely, and makes pro play fun to watch since players have very distinct strengths and styles.
Well said. I think every phase needs to have variety too, it's always meh when in some RTS you play the first 5-10 min exactly or almost exactly the same every game.
Prioritizing attention sounds to me like you have 1000 things to do and yeah, you can't do them all, but there will always be someone who can do 50% more than you. And then the amount is the most crucial to winning a fight. So I hate it. I prefer where you have to make a choice between multiple tech trees and you can't afford all of them, but you can do it calmly. The first 10 minutes being always exactly the same sounds like Starcraft 2 to me. Honestly it's more like the first 40 minutes, people do the same attacks since 2014.
@@nightmareTomek Then maybe you prefer turn-based strategy games? If two people are equal in decision-making, the faster one will always win. But of the 100s of things you could be doing, choosing the right ones to focus on and how much attention to put there and what decision to make is extremely difficult. Only the absolute best players get even close to making optimal attention decisions in a game like Brood War.
@@しらこ-465 That's not it. The absolute best players can focus on microing without neglecting macro, something weaker players don't accomplish very well. Meaning that weaker players can't focus all their attention on the fight because there are chores in the base. I don't think this is good game design. Blizzard tried to accomodate that with changing how inject works, because many players lost fights solely due to missing their inject timings. I hate the inject mechanic in general because it's the epiphany of bad game design. Also people don't have equal decision-making. Or they're not supposed to. Back in Broodwar and in the first years of SC2 and even in WC3 it felt like thinking quickly could give me an advantage when I was at a disadvantage speed-wise. I could recognize what enemies were doing from minimal scouting and counteract it. There was a study on Broodwar that said Broodwar players have better cognitive abilities. Now in SC2 it feels like there's no more of that. There's just meta and it can stop anything anyway, if you try to play anything but meta you gonna have a really hard time. Decisionmaking is gone. For example there is no decision to make between expanding or teching, with the explosive economy you simply do both or you're behind. Other areas have lost their decision making aspect as well. In games like Beyond All Reason it's different. You choose a playstyle in the beginning and you can make a choice changing that playstyle whenever you want, but it might be a good or a bad choice. Turn-based strategy games could be an option, but I haven't found one that I really liked yet. Are there any very popular ones? But there quick thinking is also not required, only thinking.
I would add one more subgenre: mass RTS, where you able to control thousands units and there is no "hardcap" for amount of units. Examples are planetary annihilation, supreme comander, cossaks: back to war and cossaks 3
That's just an RTS, there is no need to create subgenres that don't really help define meaningful aspects of it. It's fine to simply call them RTS games, you can compare them to TA if you want to evoke particular qualities of it.
4x RTS. C&C3: Kane Wrath. The main campaign is just RTS, yet there is an option to play turn based strategy game, where interactions are resolved either by computer or in real time missions. That was one of the RTS games I had most fun with. Unfortunately only scrin provides the elimination victory condition, as player might not chose to build the towers, other factions win before elimination happens. I also like the asymmetry of such gameplay - there is always the same 3 factions and the goals are not conflicting, yet the resources are.
If you like RPG RTS you should try Sins of a Solar Empire 2, the capital ships are basically heroes and it even has creeping with all the neutral enemies and derelicts around.
i think the most appealing basic RTS that everyone thinks of when they think of RTS is base building sim city'esque but a bit more basic coupled with unit fighting in a heads up battle in a match format, like your warcraft, starcraft and age of empire type of games. it's just that jumping straight into the PVP section of those games are too daunting of a straight up thing which is why it has broken down into several different subgenres of either skipping base building completely or removing single unit interaction in favor of larger scale battles like total war games, or simply made complete single player experiences based on the base building and or unit production portion of it, and i think why people give up on the more "traditional" RTS type like warcraft and age of empire is because they perceive the only way to play those games is the PVP section of those games and that they are just "git gud" kinda types of RTS where you have to grind to competent skill to start enjoying the pvp. when in reality the biggest draw for any game really is the singleplayer aspect which is why atleast warcraft had amazing campaigns with cutscenes and story to keep you hooked to keep playing as you gradually got comfortable with the controls of the game as you progressed and to which people enjoyed those games because the mechanics although a bit awkward at first to learn or understand makes you want to continue playing that game which is why it was so beloved by casuals and some continued to play them but then as a pvp thing because there was only so much the cpu could offer in terms of challenge. however for grubby i think seeing as grubby enjoys more small skirmish unit games i think if grubby would enjoy a single player experience it would have to be a pause and play rpg game like baldurs gate or pillars of eternity or something like that or commandos although commandos is more of a stealth game i guess, but you don't have to pause if you have good enough micro, the pause thing is to just make things easier to micro things, because really there isn't much difference i think between pause and play rpgs and warcraft 3 with heroes that you level up, if you like to fight small skirmish battles with cool characters that you get to choose i think that would be appealing especially if he liked baldurs gate 3 and likes the thrill more of an evolving real time combat scenario with several units to control then those games i think could be worth checking out. but who knows maybe the total war warhammer games could be interesting, there's a pvp section that exist outside of just campaigns, it's still a lot of micro and hero units but just no bases and invididual step by step micro like warcraft or age of empire where you try to micro manage sometimes every single auto attack or every single step you take with a unit.
I wouldn't call games like Against the Storm and Rimworld as RTS, personally. Not even survival-RTS. I think there is enough distinct elements, specific to these types of games, that we have genre/tag for them: Colony Sim. Sure, it may be technically a sub-genre of RTS, but it's confusing to continue calling them RTS.
Yep, there is no such thing as an RTS city builder, it's just city builders. Same with Tower Defence RTS, it's just Tower defence games (with RTS elements you could say). RTS is not a confusing term that's hard to define, Grubby severely overplayed that aspect of it in the video. For as long as I've lived I don't think I've seen a single game I wouldn't be able to immediately classify as either an RTS or not an RTS, there might not be set in stone set of characteristics but everybody who played enough of them knows one when they see one.
@@RiskOfBaer Without starting a semantics discussion, RTS City Builder is fully possible as a concept. Manor Lords is the closest example so far. If (keyword: if) it got more content in the RTS direction, I would call it a true hybrid of both genres.
Have you played Original War? It's a classic RTS from 2001 that has a unique spin on basically everything. Your units are all individuals with their own strengths. They can train to take different roles like scientist, engineer, soldier, mechanic and gain xp in various skills by performing relevant actions. Vehicles need to be driven by individuals and fueled, though there are technologies to get around those requirements. There are two campaigns, which are fantastic, and units persist between missions. 94% positive with 1600 reviews on steam. Battle Realms: Zen Edition is a remake of another classic RTS that has a somewhat similar conceit of having a basic unit that gets trained into different roles. It's in Early Access right now but it's fully playable.
Thats why AoE is my favorite RTS cause it feels much closer to a city builder, probably also thanks to the down to earth theme, so there is rarely a game I hate it always feels comfy to an extend
Grubby, do you know Supreme Commander? An RTS from 2007. It's very unique and innovative. But at the same time familiar to Warcraft and Starcraft players.
Sins of a Solar empire would probably be fun to see Grubby play. I haven't played the sequel yet (though I've heard it's much like the first game, just more, which to me sounds like a good thing), but the first one was very much WCIII in space. Capital ships have levels, abilities and even ultimates, there are neutral pirates and defenses around planets that you have to defeat in order to expand, and there is even an upkeep system as you upgrade your fleet size tech. There is much less emphasis on micro, since you have to deal with ship turn rate and acceleration, and more on picking your battles and compositions as well as controlling hyper-jump lanes and resources, whether with defensive fleets or static structures and starbases.
Him and uThermal talked about doing BAR together as two outsiders on the WC3 coach session. I think someone like uThermal can make a good case for the game. The utility/control available to the player is unlike any other game I've ever seen and deserves a gold medal for that quality alone.
Some old gems you could give a try: Tzar: Burden of the Crown is an eexample of the "Classical RTS" definition with a bit of hero thing but not exactly. In that game every single unit gets experience through combat and levels up over time, you're rewarded for keeping veteran soldiers alive, and various techs leverage on the system (like one tech making new soldiers passively gain more exp when fighting near an high level soldier). Sadly the gameplay and grid movement are clunky by today's standard. Sparta, with few innovations that sadly didn't stick: stuff like siege weapons and horses didn't belong to a player, you could kill units controlling them and send your units to take the neutral objects. Conquest Frontier Wars: set in space but closer to a Classical RTS. Unique fleets and admirals mechanic, plus adds the importance of logistics with the limited ammunition for ships. For the hero genre I suggest Dragonshard. The eco management is minimal, since it's troops doing resource collection, but the dual-world mechanic was quite interesting imo. It shines in the campaign, where doing secondary quests lets you power up your heroes across different missions.
No Total Annihilation/Supreme Command/BAR mentions? Personally I liked Dawn of War 2 more than one but thats more of a single player Squad based RTS but there is multiplayer. What about Wargame RTS Like Wargame:Red Dragon, Steel Division and lately Warno and Regiments
A very good RTS series that combines the Hero and Tactical elements is Battle for Middle Eart 1, 2, and the Edain Mod (which is basically BfME 3) Since both titles are abandonware you can download them from certain websites for free. Some Dungeon Keeper style games are also arguably RTSes that form their own subgroup (imo).
Bro is staring at the world through Warcraft 3 lenses. I can imagine on the first date Grubby saying: Hey girl your graphics look kinda interesting to me but I don't really enjoy the lack of workers management and the Rpg elements. She: Say what?
Slow hands and terrible multitasking might stop me from enjoying most of the games mentioned here, but I'll always enjoy this guy's content. Excited for the 2+ hrs history of RTS
The rts community has held the genre hostage. RTS fans "love" how hard, annoying, frustrating, etc that rts games are like. They have 0 self awareness of survivor bias that the only people left are the ones that didn't mind all the annoying aspects of rts. But the general population did mind them and left. It's elitism and frankly RTS is likely "dead" for good unless a major major company like vavle riot or blizzard makes an rts. Dead as in not an S, A, or B tier esport in popularity edit: to add on to my post. Gamers still love hard games. Mobas are hard. CS and Val are hard. Rocket League is hard. But all of those games are much easier to get into tho AND rarely have the frustration that comes with losing in most popular RTS games. Having to memorize build orders is annoying, losing to cheese is the worst feeling in all of gaming, losing half of your units/workers in 1 second is annoying. Building up for 10 minutes to lose in 5 seconds is annoying. Severe fog of war is annoying. Honestly the list goes on. I can die or lose a round in other games and it still goes on. Most RTS games outside of high level play is you have 1 fight and the game is over, while also having the longest and most annoying build up. Running around looting in a battle royale is also build up but it isn't annoying or difficult. Remembering to build a supply depot every 10 seconds is annoying. At the end of the day, maybe RTS as a genre is just too difficult to appeal to large audiences anymore. But I do think a lot of these could be improved without taking the competitiveness out of it.
I think the big thing that a lot of RTS developers get wrong is focusing too hard on the PvP content of the game. I think generally speaking you can't really focus on "creating an esport" - if you're going into game development trying to turn it into an esport, then it's almost certainly going to fail - rather, you just need to focus on creating a game that people find fun to play in general, and then if the game is fun enough the competitive scene of the game will develop more or less on its own (well, it probably needs some balancing of course but that can be done after designing the game, the design of the game has to always take precedence over the balancing) - any game with a large enough playerbase will find a way to become competitive pretty much (well, as long as there is some form of multiplayer of course), even if it wasn't a focus when the game was originally created. A lot of the time RTS developers will advertise how they've talked with pro players or have pro players working as developers for their game.. but I actually see that as a huge red flag, because the kinds of content that a pro player wants in their games is very very far removed from what will actually make the game popular in the first place (and ironically, I think it ends up being worse for the pro players too because of that because without a critical mass of players the game will never have any kind of pro scene even if the game was theoretically interesting to pro players because of bad matchmaking and no interest in tournaments etc.). Pro players are good at playing games.. but the skills that make someone good at playing games are not the same skills that make someone good at designing games.
From my observations I think people doesn't like to try new things. For example: Grubby played Warcraft 3 as a kid so he loves Warcraft 3 to this day. Would he appreciate some unique gameplay such as Northgard or Dune: Spice Wars? Maybe... but he will still love Warcraft 3 more. There is no possible way to make a game that would change that. This is why many gamedev teams try to recreate same concept of some popular games. This is why Stormgate/ZeroSpace/Immortal are clones of Starcraft 2. They know that SC2 players will love to play the same thing, but done better or at least with the same quality level. That's the sad truth and real killer of creativity in gamedev. I'm aware that I'm not an exception and for me Starcraft 1 will be top 1 foverer. But at least I'm aware of that... and I can appreciate something really unique and fresh, like Northgard.
@@joe8133 Yeah, that is their point. Game devs want to make rts easier to get into but veteran RTS fight against it and it's putting RTS genre in a very difficult spot
You should really try Beyond All Reason. It’s old school and free. It was developed by fans to be able to have the gameplay these fans wanted in a modern-ish graphics engine and next level ui.
As someone who grew with C&C I relate to this, C&C is incredibly simple so most RTS for me feel overwhelming with how many skills/items/specials they have. Not saying they're bad, I played like 200h of Rimworld and that game has so much stuff to do, it's honestly super fun and engaging, but I crave for the simple RTS like C&C used to be. Even Red Alert 3 for me was too much, they tried to make it like Starcraft with all the units having secondary abilities...
Nothing ever topped the original Command & Conquer games for me. AOE II is also a classic, followed by Warcraft and Starcraft obviously. The proto-RTS as I called it would have to be Dune II, a little rough around the edges but should always be mentioned.
My problem with modern RTS games is that there's been pretty much no innovation in the genre in decades. You compare a modern FPS, RPG, racing game or most other genres to a game of their genre 30 years ago, you will find vast differences in how they play and what features they have. Often taking advantages of newer technology, melding features and ideas from other genres and games from over the decades. RTS genres hasn't seen this innovation. They all largely play exactly like they did 30 years ago and you can usually trace what game 30 years ago they are "inspired by". You've got Tempest Rising, 9-bit armies, global conflagration; all clearly built upon C&C. Stormgate, Zerospace are very evidently 'craft' games. BAR, Sanctuary: Shattered Sun; Total Annihilation inspired. While they all offer their own take on the formulas they emulate, at their fundamental cores, they are still the same games we were playing 30 years ago.
Any idea what kind of innovation you'd wanna see in any of these genres? I personally think most don't innovate on units and how they play, it's just tiny tank, small tank, medium tank, big tank and giant tank, all behave similarly and you just attack move them. And the strategy is to build the biggest army of biggest tanks and then... to attack move (and micro while doing so). It doesn't sound like there's much strategy involved. Just base management and then micro. I'd like to make an RTS myself one day... and change that.
Innovate and u get c&c4 and dawn of war 3, so yes this have been tried alot of Tims and failed. Aoe 4 Went back to the roots and it suucced. We just need new Rts games using the new tech, but made in the Old formula.
@@haakonglindtvad5489There have been many "golden age of RTS" kind of games over the years and pretty much none of them have found any major success. If that's really what players want then where were they for games like Act of Aggression? Crossfire Legion? 9-Bit Armies? all using the formulas establised three decades ago but despite their polish, none of them found success.
That's simply not true. It is no different then any other genre. Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age: Origins and Divinity: Original Sin 2 play in a very similar way just like Command and Conquer Generals, Company of Heroes 2 and Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak play in a similar fashion. I am not sure why it is so hard to accept that they were on top of the world once and now they are not due to change of gaming landscape (rise of consoles, genre fatigue in late 00s and increase of casual gamers who prefer instant action games) Strategy genre is so vast and diverse and you have many choices which are grand strategy (Total War, Knigts of Honor), classic base builders (Ancestores Legacy, SpellForce 3), settlement strategies (Northgard, Pioneers of Pagonia), City builders (TerraScape, Kingdims and Castles), besieged city builders (Riftbreaker, They are Billions), automations (Factorio, Satisfactory) colony city builder (Kingdom Two Crowns, Anno), survival builders (Banished, Frostpunk), tactical strategies (Last Train Home, Xcom 2), guerilla (Shadow Tactics, Partisans 1941), space strategies (AI Wars, Battlefleet Gothic Armada), 4x (Imperiums Greek Wars, Endless Space 2), tycoon (Railway Empires, Port Royale), naval (Cold Waters, Atlantic Fleet), wargames (Steel Divison, Men of War), or MOBA (I avoid that genre due to very hostile community). As you see genre did evolve and branched out. There may not be another Age of Empires or Stracraft, but so what? Just because some idiots from to-big-to-fail company said the genre is dead to justify their own incompetence like Blizzard, doesn't mean it is actually true. As far as I am concern ever since 2019-2020 when Bethesda, the last good top-dog Publisher started to mess things up, the so called AAA has nothing interesting to offer. When was the last time you saw something cool from Blizzard, Ubisoft, Rockstar? EA released only one cool and game called Lost in Random from a small studio, but rheir own games are just uninteresting at best or remakes. The fact that genre is stuck in technological past is also blatantly false. AI Wars is a perfect example how much techonology evolved with improvment for AI or play Medieval 2 Total War and compare that AI to Total War: Three Kingdoms or Total War: Attila and while you are at it look at the Total War look at visual advancments especially Total Warhammer visuals. Or what about fusion of genres like Age of Wonders which is 4x RPG or Northgard which is classical RTS, City Builder and 4X fueled into one? I love RPGs, but they are not that diverse or innovative and honestly so what? That didn't stop me from enjoying Expedition series (one of the best RPGs), Shadows Awakening, Witcher saga or Grim Dawn. Same goes with Platformers which are thankfully making a comeback. Do you want to know what real stagnation looks like? Look no further then Shooters and Sport games. Shooters made entire circle where they returned back to the 90s. We are literally back to DOOM clones, kinda tried and failed to return to Arena Shooters while tacitcal shooters like Battlefield are frozen in time with examples like Isonzo and Red Orchestra. Meanwhile sport and racing games haven'y changed since early 00s and yet EA who has monopoly over it is making millions. Not everything is grim and dark, if anything gaming as whole right now is in silver age as far as I am concerned. Not every game and genre is for everyone and that is perfectly fine. I myself can't stand the so called walking simulators to the point I don't even classify them as games, I find sport and racing games pointless, military shooters are for me nothing but interactive propaganda (usually American thanks to the Call of Duty and Medal of Honor) and like I previously said MOBA has such hostile community that I don"/ want to interact with them.
There isn't much money in RTS games. You'll earn more with some garbage copy paste scummy mobile gatcha that scams you out of your money. The risk of game development is also super high. RTS needs bigger brains. People have smol brains. People whine about 40, 60, 100$ price tags, even though they are happy to waste money elsewhere. So we get shit games. Fair.
What really is not standart anymore for RTS games, but for me is important factor, is nice looking, colourful, funny and easy to understand UI and ICONS. Where are the ages of W3 and they fitting themed UI??? Why are most modern ones so plain? Black boxes, with 30 tiny icon not recognizable by one look? Where are the playful icons of all different stapes and colours? All we get not is again black boxes with 2 swords for barracks, bow for archery range, etc.
Unlike Dawn of War 3 (which has been and always will be shit), Company of Heroes 3 has seen a lot of improvements this past year and is on par with the original now for multiplayer. I think it's a bit of a No Man Sky situation coupled with the fact relic being dropped by Sega has left what's left of the team with inadequate resources to start a new game, meaning that the only thing they can do is try to improve what they do have.
@@HighLanderPonyYT It was absolutely bad. Lacking in mechanics, Factions and anything that made it unique. It felt like a 13 year old getting design directions ("make it cool") about something he has no idea about, nor any passion for.
I have played RTS for years... if I'd rate them would be W3TFT for gameplay and storyline, C&C generals zero hour for map tactics and counters, SC2 for micro and multiplayer play, Age of mythology for the war fantasy, Stronghold crusader for the resource management, Red alert II for the rock paper scissors mechanics, and DK2 for the grim campaigns and humor... and Dota I for defining a genre... I'd like to have a talk about these games with you Grubby that's for sure, and maybe play some of these games for fun.
@@ca4999 it's dungeon keeper II ... a rather unusual RTS half builder half half resource management...fight elements and veteran system... maybe I'd add black and white on the list since at that time had one of the best game AIs ...
One of the most enjoyable mechanics for me was in Battle for Middle Earth 1, where through the campaign you kept the units from 1 level to the next. And those units would level up as well though fighting and surviving and you could upgrade them weapon and armour and those would transfer through campaign levels too. It was amazing just watching a full parade of Rohan cavalry marching into the map with glowing weapons.
I'm a mostly blizzard rts player but Company of Heroes 3 didn't feel completely dissimilar to me. Just an extremely satisfying micro focused game. It's just the camera and bugs that made me drop it pretty early and then it seemed to die so I never returned.
Spellforce 3 and like Dungeons 3 are neet. But yeah I mostly stick with Blizzard RTS. I love some grid based turnbased games though like Into the Breach and Gloomhaven.
Within the broad genre of strategy there are several sub-genres (such as RTS) and there are games that, while sharing some elements of that sub-genre, does not make them RTS. Real-time gameplay, base building, strategy, resource management, unit production and combat are fundamental features for an RTS and some features may be more simplified than others and that's why there are different games, but the reality is that there are other games that don't meet the vast majority of what's out there and prostitute the genre on Steam.
He's mentioned a few issues before that make him not enjoy it very much, I imagine he'll do a video on it at some point since it's one of the biggest RTS at the moment.
@@HighLanderPonyYT Yeah, I don't think Grubby is an RTS fan at all, he just really likes the old Blizzard style of RTS games. So far any other RTS he has tried didn't grab him at all, and he outright didn't enjoy some absolute bangers.
In todays world Tiktok and YT Shorts has made so many of us lazy, i stopped watching them for a long time and now im having an absolute blast in Stronghold Crusader Extreme
Its crazy how similar your list is to mine is and for all the same reasons. I find it quite frustrating the studios that claim they are big fans of classic RTS, want to make a classic RTS, but who deliberately downplay the core components of classic RTS, claiming that it's somehow still classic RTS. Also I'm sick of being recommended they are billions. It's like saying "I like jrpgs" and being recommended dark souls...
Yeah that was my first reaction to TAB. Hey, it's fun, but it's a tower defense zombie survival CG like you may find INSIDE of wc3. It's not what I expected when I search RTS, but thats why im trying to improve my lexicon and labing of RTS's!
You really should try out Sins 2. It plays somewhat like WC3 in the early game with you clearing out neutrals and leveling up your herolike ships, while having some 4x economy elements inside. Overall it's more of an RPG RTS rather than 4x game.
Unfortunately the game has no dedicated single player content, the game gets boring after a couple AI skirmishes. It's also almost entirely the same as the first game, so it's not very interesting after having played that extensively. Unless you are going to be playing multiplayer with your friends, Sins 2 is a bad choice.
@@RiskOfBaer while I agree that lack of proper singleplayer campaign is bad, I do think it's rather easy to have fun in multiplayer with random players. As for the game being too similar to first one, it shouldn't be a problem for a person who haven't played first one, right? :)
Youre a warcraft 3 fan, not an rts fan, and theres mothing wrong with that. I grew up playing all the rts games during the golden age of the 90s-2000s and most of them were really damn good.
i tihnk the best "modern" rts game is tooth and tail, its a very minimalist game but it has the visual and sound design done absolutely right, its a very charming game outside of that i think scbw is still the best rts ever made supcom is also good and if you consider offworld trading company an rts then thats up there as well
I guess you could call it a city builder, but it is a lot closer to an RTS considering how much micro you need to do. Sure, the macro part is easier because you can just pause and build the buildings. But if you disallow yourself to use the pause feature it just straight up becomes an RTS.
RPG and RTS are kinda similar IMO. They both have objetctives on the map, and getting them earlier give you big advantage to keep up the economic lead.
@@Voradorek84 DC Risk style campaign put me to sleep and was hyper grindy barring the stronghold missions. I prefer the more linear stuff with less chaff.
@@Voradorek84 Winter Assault as the Guard is a *nightmare*, in major part because the faction isn't finished and all you get are un-upgraded Guardsmen for most of the game
Some of the games listed in the first image aren't RTS by my definition. Real time with Pause is NOT an RTS. Which disqualifies They are Billions, Against the Storm and Frostpunk. I love all three of those games though, especially Against the Storm. IF it's not "real time" then it's not an RTS, end of story. Just call it a strategy game! Why include RT when it simply isnt?
Even though it's not 100% pure rts, I recommend aliens dark descent, it was a surprisingly great experience, and I loved every minute of my 40 something hour playthrough.
I went through this video and I found out that I love every genre of RTS games mentioned here. I turns out that for me it's not the RTS subgenre that is important but that the game is done well, looks fine and is fun to play. And it's not that surprising because before Fallout 3 introduced me to open-world RPGs I played almost exclusively strategy games (both RTS and TBS). Some of the upcoming games look unappealing to me because they simply don't look good. Some of them are blocky, but not the "fun" retro-blocky. Others have seemingly good graphics, but the art design is so bland that I could paint a local train station with it (looking at you, Stormforge!). Whenever I play some RTS game, I'm all "Yeah, this is the subgenre that I love the most"... until I play another one. I love Classic RTS (WC3, SC2, C&C TibSun, C&C RA2, C&C Generals, AoE2, AoE3, AoM, BfME2). I love City Builders (Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar). I love "City Builders with combat" (Settlers 3 and 4). I love Tower Defense (Defense Grid). I love 4X (Civ5 and 6, TW WH). I love tactical RTS (DoW2). I'm actually not sure what games even are "action RTS", but I think there were some WC3 custom maps like Castle Fight that I loved. And I adore Rimworld as a survival RTS.
I'm a small indie dev working on an RTS inspired game, but after listening to this I'm not sure if you'd classify it as an RTS. Honestly, I'm not even sure what I'd classify my game as, cause gameplay wise it is pretty unique. Right now I only have a vs mode and am currently working on a single player mode/campaign. Let me try explaining it via bullet points and people in the comments can feel free to share your thoughts: - You control a Captain character instead of being in "God Mode" via mouse and keyboard - Where ever the Captain is currently standing is where they will summon a troop or place down a building (after pressing a button) - Most troops & buildings warp in instantly with no wait/build time - Instead of workers you place down Piggy Banks which automatically earn you money. The more banks you have down the more money you earn. - Instead of micro managing troops, they move automatically according to their own AI. I designed the logic simply so players can always expect what a unit will do. - Players can pick up to 5 out of 25 units per game (so you have to commit to a strategy beforehand) - Players take turns picking units in attempt to to counter each other's picks - Games can last from 1 minute to 15+ minutes. 15 minutes would be considered a long game. In tournaments we usually do at least a best 2 out of 3. - When a Captain dies your opponent earns money and a new Captain is spawned instantly by your starting location. - Goal of the game is to take out your opponent's "jar" by their starting location. Once the "jar" is gone, no more Captains can be spawned so the player must take down the final captain to win. Now that I explained how the game works. Let me list strengths and weaknesses: Strengths: - Very accessible for an RTS game - Despite its simplicity, the gameplay still has a lot of depth (explained below) - Real estate is key (the more land you control the more Piggy Banks you have room for) - You maintain your real estate by placing down walls and cannons at key choke point locations - In addition to Piggy Banks, you can also place down Spawners which are weak defensively, but they constantly spew out troops (place lots of these to overwhelm your opponent) - Captain movement is the new micro (if your good at dodging stuff, then you can summon things in your opponent's base) - The best players are rewarded for maintaining a health balance of offense, defense, and managing their macro in the backend over time. The game requires you to pay attention to multiple things at once. - Huge emphasis on strategy. There are 53130 different unit combinations so each game feels different. - Units are designed to either hard or soft counter other units. Kinda like rock, paper, scissors. This means proper planning before a match even starts is key. Weaknesses: - The game may be too simple for hardcore RTS fans - Most people playing "building" or "strategy" games probably prefer using a mouse & keyboard rather than moving a character around - The game is called Peanut Butter Jelly Wars so it probably doesn't appeal thematically to people who play PC (for reference I originally made the game for my nieces and nephews until the scope grew bigger and bigger) - Has too many "new" or "different" mechanics to be considered an RTS maybe? The main inspiration was my love for playing Star Craft while growing up. However, that game is really hard to get new people into it. So I decided to simplify the gameplay while still keeping the heart of what I believed an RTS to be: Micro and Macro. In this game's case Micro is the fast paced action in the front dodging stuff with your Captain while Macro is building up you economy in the back with Piggy Banks, Spawners that constantly spawn new troops, etc. Anyway, this is a super long post. Don't expect many people to read it. At least I was able to write this down to clearly get my thoughts out (cause I'm still figuring out on how to properly classify my game).
@@adamkahmann2937 I'm hoping for an RTS renaissance with SnowPlay engine. Dang nice, Pixel 2D sounds like you will emphasize gameplay which is awesome. Might also be the better move to get a game out quickly and figure out how it will play. Best of luck with that ^^
There is a much overlooked type of rts player and thats immersion To this day, people go for satisfying mass battles on bfme with no regard to min maxing and strategy In games like bfme, coh,dow,the "competitive" player base is a minority I remember a statistic from an mmo i've played where around 1% of players were doing raid content. Think of soda and how he plays custom maps, barely knowing the base game. DoW1 was never about finetuned hotkey apm action. It has a 3d camera and sync kills where you often just lean back and vibe. People don't try to end it quick so they get to use the juicy units. Zooming all the way in on units in 2005 was massive and pretty much anyone had a collection of action screenshots. Many good rts are more of an excuse to play with virtual tin soldiers. But new rts somehow all try to be starcraft without any of it's style, ambience and music.
the issue is that new games are not just as good as the old ones - less mechanics, bad art direction, doesnt pass the "vibe check" I keep picking up older titles and they are good with 0 nostalgia
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I think Blizzard RTS is definitely a very specific sub-genre within RTS games.
Like how enjoying Street Fighter doesn't necessarily mean you'll love Tekken or Marvel vs Capcom.
Exactly this
"macro-micro" RTS. You're correct.
Yeah. Blizzard RTS or even more broadly competitive RTS gamers are very particular about how a RTS should play. These type of players aren't really RTS fans per se (or more specifically generalist fans, there are some out there).
I personally think that it's actually a mistake to think that there's a single cohesive "RTS audience". The people who play RTS tend to have extremely different tastes from each other. A lot of people are only here for the campaigns. A lot are only here for multiplayer. Some people want more action-y skill-based RTS. Some want more slow-paced tactical RTS. Some people want a mix of the two. Guarantee, for every new RTS that releases, even if it's good, most of the RTS audience is still going to find it doesn't suit their tastes and go back to whatever they were playing before
Sure, you might get a some folk who can play a whole bunch of very different RTS games and enjoy all of them, but from what I've seen over the years I genuinely think this is the minority of people who play RTS
This is very true, I only play history related RTS games.
I would go as far as to say some RTS games have more in common with 4x turn base, then the spirit of RTS. Which isnt bad, i myself am mostly a 4x turn based player , that somehow fell in love with SC2. But when i play for example Dune Spice Wars, which is a great game, i feel im playing a turn based strategy where turns are just continuous then an RTS. I think for me the distncition is if the speed and multitasking is at the core of the gameplay.
I think the problem is that you kinda need to learn a bunch of units before you can enjoy an RTS. Especially if the story is bland. And often players then find out that most of the units are bland as well.
That's why I don't understand moves like Blizzard did, making a different balances for singleplayer, multiplayer and coop each. The commanders are cool, but every unit is different as well? If players only play one game mode, it's unnecessary as hell. And if not, they could learn the game by enjoying the campaign and then jump into multiplayer or coop.
But Blizzard is... Blizzard.
@@nightmareTomek I'm not sure what would be confusing about using different units in different modes? The campaign needs to be balanced differently from multiplayer - if they used the same units in all of them, then every single melee unit or high mobility unit would be completely and utterly worthless in the campaign, because the campaign has no value for harassment and melee units are bad because the enemy has overwhelmingly more resources to the point that even getting a 2:1 trade is terrible for the player so you have to use units that can win fights without taking any losses, which is a completely different mindset from multiplayer where taking a 1:1 trade can often be advantageous depending on the context.. it would be impossible to balance units for both modes.
Co-op also falls into a pretty similar category to the campaign, but because they wanted to have a wide range of commanders they obviously needed to create new units for those commanders otherwise there would be no point to adding new commanders at all (most of the early commanders did in fact use campaign units and abilities, but once they run out of abilities and units to use they obviously have to start creating new ones if they want to add new commanders).
@@asdfqwerty14587 Seriously? That's some nonsense I haven't heard in a while. Maybe for you it would be too hard to balance, but for everybody else... not. Probably you're not used to the balance being the same in SP and MP. I am. From Starcraft 1 for example. Or Warcraft. Or literally any other game.
It maybe would be a bit harder to balance than giving the player one overpowered hero that steamrolls everything on its own (Kerrigans Baneling summon skill) and turning the campaign into an aRPG. But not much harder. Honestly if the player doesn't lose any unit in the campaign it feels kinda dull. Well, just like the SC2 story...
Setting and art direction is supremely important imo. A lot of these RTS games *look* very generic and the units designs are uninspired.
Space marines are cool. Crossbowmen and castles are cool. Zerglings and siege tanks are cool. Paladins and death knights are cool. You can have the best RTS mechanics in the world but if the dudes you order around look boring and stupid then the game is DOA.
Yes. Most modern RTS games or even other games in general have pretty awful designs now tbh. Why are there no cool units and factions in games now? People should look at a unit and say "I want to control that unit because it looks cool". None of the units in Stormgate for instance have that look at all.
@@Skumtomten1didn't play stormgate but the vulcan mech and atlas artillery immediately stand out to me
also any rts has to have their generic line of units for the actual cool stuff to stand out ...
if everything in your unitpool is crazy is it still that special?
my dude
the starcraft design is so generic that to this day people believe it was meant to be a Games Workshop license game - the true champions of generic design
@@martinkrauser4029to be fair he did flat out say space marines are cool. He already covered that base
What works? Rule of cool my dude
@@MrTBSCthose units stand out by how hard I don’t want to command them. For me, StormGate is Concord the RTS in terms of visual design and approach to game mechanics.
OG Stronghold has an elaborate city building mechanic plus a combat mechanic. Whatever genre that is. Maybe city builder + classical
I think you're missing one important subgenre of rts that's adjacent to the "classic" rts: the large scale rts, or Total Annihilation clones. These games involve elements of base building and zone control, but have a number of common mechanics that set them apart from the other genres (streaming economy, simulated physics/ballistics, land air and water combat, and most importantly massive scale with hundreds of units. Games include Total Annihilation (the OG), Supreme Commander, and Beyond All Reason.
The whole video I was thinking: "Where is Total Annihilation? Or KKND?" Thank you.
@@markfrazer8545 oh, KKND is right there, because it's basically a C&C reskin. I've got fond memories of playing it as a kid, but that series is possibly the prime example of why RTS games were just called "C&C clones" in the 90s.
Not including BAR on this list is crazy
@@Nebuchadwicknezzar It seems like something he would enjoy
The "They are Billions" should be next level for you. It is absolutely insane the number of units you can get in final spawns if you have the difficulty ramped up. The down side is that the movement mechanics have to be extremely basic to pull that off. However, it is still impressive to pull off.
Age of Mythology Retold is what you are looking for!!! It's such a fun classic RTS!
Yess 🎉
It feels so bad to play coming from AoE4 though, had to refund.
@@reek7518 Yeah. It feels like aoe4 on release, except it looks worse to me. Fun as you learn the game, but aoe4 really needed the updates to feel nice to play (which it does now). AoM doesn't have that level yet imo
Not really. Its just the same mid RTS it was back in the day. Why play a slightly worse version of AoE2 when I could just play AoE2?
@@TheGreatDanish It is pretty different from aoe2, so maybe thats why. It does have its niche, but is not polished and will likely struggle once the 'shiny and new' thing wears off, unless they start improving it quick.
I would be extremely disappointed as a child knowing there's no Warcraft 4 or Age of Mythology 2, just a bunch of remakes
I will NEVER forgive Blizzard for making WoW instead of Warcraft 4
we got SC2 tho
@@LoveKasumin1253I will never forgive blizzard for reforged, I'm still SOOO ANGRY.
@Broockle yeah...a game that was so good story wise they needed to shit on it by having that terrible ending
@@tophatz3869 Same. I've owned the game since it came out, and then despite not buying reforged, my copy was downgraded due to the forced 30gb patch. Sure I could torrent an older version, but why should I have to?
It's sad to know we will never get a Warcraft 4, and sadder to know that the only company that was capable of making it no longer exists, and hasn't for a long time. Blizzard truly embodies the quote "Die a hero or live long enough to become a villain".
If you’re interested in RTS games you should try Warcraft 3.
;-)
is it any good? never heard of it
You should also try Battle for Middle Earth 2. It's honestly so good yet I rarely see it being mentioned when talking about RTS games. One of the best RTS game ever imo but it's very underrated.
Why? If he's interested in RTS games he should play RTS games.
i mean, considering the type of DotA player he is, I bet he'd be a natural at it!
Your discovery re single player quotient is spot on. A 2-5 minute non combat buffer to scout, base build and formulate a strategy based on map conditions and your opponent is not only what makes RTS more enjoyable but also what makes it entertaining and watchable from a caster / spectator PoV. It gives the caster the opportunity to set the stage, build tension and allow the audience to settle in for the "show".
Keep up this type of content I love it, great insights.
i actually skip the first 1-2 minutes of a starcraft 2 match until one of the 2 players do something or the first units comes out
I think the pleasure of building a base is subjective.
I played some wargames and RTS without base building. Now I'm bored playing RTS where I have to grind resources for 5 minutes.
I always liked the Lan experience of Warcraft 3 TFT, Age of Empires 2 and C&C Red Alert. Having all friends in the same room who add their own personality into their playstyles and BM'ing each other is what made these games far more fun to me than other RTS games.
I had that asshole friend that had an IQ solidly in the mid 80's. Seriously, his head was even shaped like early mans, the sloping forehead and heavy unibrow etc. But I shit you not, put him in front of a PC with an RTS game and he became Stephen Hawking. For some reason, it just clicked with him. He had 300+ APM back in the day when APM wasn't even a thing. Even in POPULOUS and DUNGEON KEEPER the guy was a machine!
He put me off playing C&C and Red Alert pretty much instantly, when he'd commando raid my base with a chinook or destroy me with a single submarine he'd built in a tiny lake at the other side of the map! He found ways to cheese that Satan wouldn't lower himself to do!
But he was our secret weapon at LANS. In those big epic RTS battles on Dawn Of War, Total Annihilation, Warcraft III etc - Craig would single handedly slaughter the entire enemy team if we just fed him our resources!
@@TheVanillatech Keyboard Mongo Craig
@@TheVanillatech RTS - the good ones - are a series of problems to solve.
I don't do well in school - I either get it and the homework is pointless... or I don't get it and the homework is pointless; and it is that binary. But school isn't about figuring out the problem, getting it understood, and moving on - school is about blind obedience, and filling in the right number of boxes in the pre-aproved way. And I'll wager that friend of yours was this to a greater extreme.
I love optimization problems - and RTS is FILLED with them. TTRPG's have piles of them. CRPG's - the good ones - have plenty of this going on as well.
Confirm
@@formes2388 Psychologists say that homework is pointless either way. Very much to all teachers dismay.
You missed the prototypical, and probably most successful, city-building RTS of all times: The Anno series of games. The last entry, Anno 1800 has sold more than 2.5 million copies. It is heavily focused on building huge beautiful cities, with complex resource and production paths, requiring expanding to various islands, fighting naval battles to control trade routes, etc. All of this in real time and with multiplayer.
Think if Bobby Cothech could put some money in to the Anno series, that would be fun
but is it Anno 1800 the best Anno? is it like 1404 or whatever was 14** year?
Have you tried C&C3: Kane's Wrath? You have 3 factions to choose from (GDI, Nod, Scrin), with each of these divided into 3 sub-factions (1 balanced and 2 specialized). The game offers multiple technology tiers, superweapons, stealth and stealth detection, sabotage, EMP, mobile anti-air, air-transport, fire and tiberium based weaponry, artillery, teleportation, commandos, building capture, unit upgrades, unit specializations, unit and base repair, unit veterancy, unit garrisoning inside vehicles either for transport or to shoot out of, even base defenses get upgrades and the unit synergy is second to none. You also harvest a resource (tiberium crystals) from fields that will deplete (but slowly regenerate over time). You have to manage and defend your harvesters, else no income. Also, units can't just "shoot and do damage". You need certain damage types for certain units. Bullets against infantry, rockets against vehicles, etc. Not to mention the voice acting for the units and the soundtrack are absolutely superb. I play it every day and cannot get enough of, no matter what.
Worthy of note is that the MP scene is currently being maintained by the community. A lot of bugs have been fixed, plenty of maps have been added over the years and its has a few balance changes as well.
There are also economic RTSes like Offworld Trading Company. Unlike classical city builders, they can focus on multiplayer and their "single player" quotient is extremely low, but they don't have any battles. You have to rely on economic dominance to eliminate other players.
Finally someone reference this. Offworld is such a great design, I wish the game was more popular.
Beyond All Reason is one of the best modern RTS's I've played, and is completely free. You missed the entire Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander genre.
He assigned Sanctuary Shattered Sun a "base building RTS" subgenre lol.
I loved this one. It's a real gem
He really did miss a part of the genre by not mentioning TA and its legacy. It's right up there with C&C and Warcraft setting the tone for future games in the genre (for decades to come!)
@@Pigzorkly Knowledge gap, which means research shortcoming, will educate! Thanks
Heard someone say that Grubby disliked BAR. So insane to me, I also think it's the best modern RTS, far better than what's currently being overhyped. And it never lands on any content creators list.
Age of mythology retold been pretty good for me
It`s not new xD
But its so good
@@robertfulcher7410 yeah for sure been a while since I’ve had fun with a RTS besides wc3
It was mid back in the day, and its still mid now.
@@TheGreatDanish each their own
I didn't expect Sins 2 to be worth playing over Sins 1, but they've refined the underlying systems a TON and the game is incredibly fun. The biggest issue the game has is that it's difficult for new players to understand the very different economies of the three factions.
SINS 2 is great. I was a bit worried early on, but the end product ended up awesome.
My favorite Classic RTS - Supreme Commander: Forged Aliance (Which had second life when entusiasts made FAF (Forged aliance forever) client).
This game is really looks epic in team vs team fight.
I want a new C&C General game.
Act of War - High Treason was pretty much a better C&C Generals with great Air Combat, ressource gathering and anti super weapons mechanics.
Sadly Act of War 2 wasnt that good anymore.
mods for generals zero hour are also pretty good
Just a refresh of the franchise would be good enough! A bunch of NEW games, well written and designed, don't have to break the mould just be decent games with incredibly cheesy voice acting and cutscenes!
Is that too much to ask? Or are we living in COD and Tombraider and Battlefield world forever......
I cant believe Generals is so underrated, that was the best C&C game for me
@@goliver9991 are they actually good? I remember downloading one which adds Russia and Europe(NATO)and it gets a bit wacky, and not in a bad way but it completely changes everything and it really feels like a downgrade despite adding a lot of relatively cool stuff
I hope Grubby somehow stumbles upon Earth 2150. It's quite old now (it was released in 2000) but it's a unique twist on the classic RTS formula. You have base building and C&C-like resource gathering, but the most unique part of it is the research aspect. Within the match you research new weapons and unit chassis and you can create your own combinations of units and depending on the size of the chosen chassis and the chosen weapon you can stockpile a bunch of different weapons. It's truly a unique system for a unique game with a really cool atmosphere.
Be warned that it's quite janky due to how old it is.
Yeah, Earth 2150 did not age well at all, janky unit control based on really big grid, FPS locked to 30 but it can be circumvented with a console command, tunneling and ground reshaping feels uninmpactful and hardly useful due to how maps are constructed although the idea itself is really amazing and has ton of potential, weather system is really awesome, in winter units are colder so thermal weapon"s" (IIRC only ED lasers rely on killing by overheating) are less effective, on volcanic maps it is the opposite I think, strong winds slow fliers down etc. .
Factions are really diverse (although for some reason the go to weapon for LC, the high tech faction are... rockets...)
Earth 2150 feels like a lot of great ideas hindered by budget and/or lack of technology as it is a polish game from year 2000...
Also Warzone 2100 predated Earth 2150's customizable units by a year.
Yeah, to say it aged badly is a severe understatement. Forced low framerate, resolution issues, compatibility issues with modern system, controls being very stiff. I loved the game when I was a kid, and I have tried playing it 3 times ever since and I just can't, it's too scuffed.
Warzone 2100 is a better choice, it might be even older but it has received extensive support over the years and is perfectly playable and enjoyable even today.
Yeah, impossible for me to play this nowadays but back then? Spent hours playing and loved it. But then i discovered Metal Fatigue (2000) with a similiar system but with mechs, you could research and upgrade different parts of each mech and you could even pick up parts from defeated enemies, bring it back to base and research it so you can start building for your own mechs or just outright detach one of your parts an simply attatch to your mech right away....
Theres was 3 layers of play, Space for solar energy and something else that i forgot, earth level which was the 'normal' play as in, base buidling, harvest material army ect and then underground for even more resources or even more bases...
Man writting this is bringing me back lol. I want a Metal Fatigue in modern times, guess gonna have to install it.
Anyone of you played Z: Steel Soldiers? I think it was from 1996. Unique gameplay where you have to conquer sectors and there are unit factories in each sector and you can steal enemy units when you conquer a sector shortly before the unit finishes. Was my first RTS and I loved it back when I was half the height I am now...
@@RiskOfBaer
I used to love Warzone as a kid. It was SUPER innovative.
The best RTS out there is Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance Forever (not just Forged Alliance, the Forever part is important, as once the servers and development shut down, a group of people took over development and hosting). You need to download and play it RIGHT NOW.
Yeah it's good but i need infantry. Thata the only lack about supcom and all its clones.
Idk man, could never get into it
Stronghold is another series for those who love macro play, there's over 15 diffrent ressources to collect or make. Its dated but somehow unique.
stronghold crusader is my favorite rts
The old Battlezone was also a type of RTS, controlling a small economy with the base and commanding a few other units, while still controlling one space-rover directly.
The only first-person RTS to do it properly
4x is not RTS it turn based RTS , Total war is Total war. We could call almost all rts 4x because its about explore, conquest, expand blabla
I think there should be a name for the "I have a base, I can expand it, and I have to attack my opponent" Type of RTS, I enjoy them the most aswell.
For me the best 5 of these games are:
1. BFME2 you should Check it out! It has much less micro though.
2. Aoe 2
3. Cossacks 3
AoE2 is absolutely GOATed
I'm surprised Grubby hasn't ever really mentioned LotR:BFME2. That one I feel is a perfect RTS for casual fanboying over the LotR universe, and has all the core elements of a classic RTS, plus heroes, though with much less worker management.
@@Akario3 It looked like a natural inheritor for the RPG RTS. I remember being hyped for this just as much as WC3 though I never actually played either. The theming looked well done.
@@josephreynolds2401 its like playing the movies. The game is phenomenal, and still being kept alive by the community.
true its part of the same one WC3 is in. i always thought it was fun casually but a bit too simplistic. i havent played it competitively but heard its a bit low strategy variety. like every race has its go to opener and then you either clash those or build specific counter units
I think he might just forgot it, cause ot fells into that exact list of "favorite RTS games of all times"
I didn't mention it because I was never aware of it and didn't play it (until recently)!
My favorite RTS of all time is Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. It was released as standalone "DLC" to the original, but it was actually just a much more balanced and upgraded version of the original Supreme Commander. Forged Alliance dates from 2007, but the graphics are much better than you might think for that era, and there are lots of mods. It is literally so good that there is an active community today that maintains their own servers and has regular competitions. It still sells, too, and is available on Steam and GOG.
You sir, are a man of culture.
@@uncle-bux Thank you for finding such a nice way to say that I am getting old...
Coh, at least 1, had heroes.
The more time you donate to each unit to micromanage it, the better it gets, the more it levels, the more impact it has.
A ranger squad with bazookas could be your main focus and exceed in value.
Or it's that veteran Firefly tank.
A unit could get x20 it's price in value like a hero or get oneshot like a peasant.
Unfortunately, 2 and 3 took away from it.
One of my all time favorites is a game called Z from 1996.
I wonder where Dungeon Keeper fits in all of this, though. I love that game like no other.
I think this is indirect control RTS, there is also Majesty which is similar.
@@GadwinsSecretMove Oh, Majesty! That's a heartwarming title
You missed the strategic category of rts with flowing economies: total annihilation, supreme commander 1 and 2, forged alliance, beyond all reason. Starcraft 2 in comparison plays like a tactical game.
And Sanctuary shattered sun is on the way!
Would love to see you get into more age of mythology multiplayer with the new retold release.
Yes this :) I think Grubby would get quite good.
@@robertfulcher7410 he'll need to get the motivation to sort the hotkeys out first. The default one's suck something awful, and I think the idea of completely re-working every key put him off a bit, when he tested the beta (Edit: read 'remapping' instead of 're-working')
@@Schmitty7546 Ya, I had the same issue. AoE4 did a much better job in letting folks remap hotkeys.
@@Schmitty7546 The hotkeys in Retold as almost fully remappable, but yeah the default ones are awful.
@@itswakkowarner tbf, I didn't say they weren't remappable. Maybe I should have said re-mapping instead of re-working... sorry. But yep, the 100% agreement that the default ones are a travesty :D
Bro got me panicked with the Rimworld music I thought I had it running on second monitor. Goated soundtrack, an underrated rts element. A crazy game too, it undeniably has enough RTS elements. Single player quotient is off the charts...
No Stronghold Crusader mentioned? For me still unique RTS. Is here some oldschool player which knows RTS called "Primitive wars" ? :D
For some interesting older classical RTS' I'd recommend Perimeter and Heroes of Annihilated Empires.
Perimeter has a mobile main building and the player covers their levelled area with energy cores for ressource production. They can erect a perimeter energy shield for defense. Units are assembled from specific amounts of Soldiers, Officers and Engineers and depending on what you have in any group you can rebuild the combined unit into something else.
Heroes of Annihilated Empires is basically the fantasy version of Cossacks by the same developer (GSC). It's very much an RTS, but has a Hero aspect to it and there easily can be hundreds of units on the screen. I did enjoy the faction design in this one.
It really seems like age of mythology retold fits a lot of your criteria, I'd love for you to give ranked a real go :))
RTS itself is a subgenre of strategy games. I think the term "RTS" tends to be lumped in to describe strategy games that aren't turn based, probably because certain RTS games are some of the most popular strategy games of all time.
I tend to like strategy games of many different flavours, but I've hardly played most of them.
uhhh no, RTS is strictly not turn based.
RTS is a misleading term anyway. Most RTS games are not strategy games, but tactical games as the operating level, or you can call it "the scope", is too limited and what the gameplay is too limited to be described as "strategy".
@@Broockle Yes. That is what I said.
Among people who aren't traditional RTS fans, the term "RTS" gets broadly applied to a lot of games that genre fans would never associate it with. Factorio is called an RTS on its wiki page, for instance, which seems wild to me. But the weirder one was that I had people using the term "RTS" to describe Unicorn Overlord, just because its maps have a "real-time with pause" element to troop movement.
@@EmpyreanSky o.. my bad, u worded that rly weird tho 😅
Very good video. This is a topic that is quite dear to me as I grew up on games like WC2 and WC3, and I felt the genre never really went anywhere.
Instead of breaking down individual parts of your video, I'll just say it's great and share some of my thoughts.
The single player quotient factor is a really clever addition to this debate, kudos.
Besides that, I would say that the three most important factors to me are:
1. A gripping and long spanning story / campaign. It might not be intrinsically important to the competitive scene, but it's how you get people (or at least me) initially invested into your game.
2. Art direction. Everything from the game itself, to the concept art you go over when you read through the manual. I still have the images of brutal orcs in the WC2 manual burned onto my retina.
3. An extremely robust map/scenario/campaign editor. I'm primarily a custom game enjoyer. It essentially extends the lifespan of a game to an infinite duration, as there will always be new and novel experiences. And you will find some maps that really resonate with exactly what you enjoy that you will play over and over for thousands of hours. And there's nothing quite like having a friend message you that they found a really cool custom game and sitting down and playing it with each other, and there's no need for either person to go and buy a new game or anything. You both already have everything you need for a low-effort session. However, for this to exist, you need a robust core game with plenty of mechanics that can be expanded upon and combined in unique ways by map makers. So I think that by necessity you will have an excellent competitive game if you accomplish this. If WC3 as a core didn't have heroes, spells, items, inventories, unit tech, tiers, resources, workers, damage/armor types, etc. etc. you'd not have custom games of the quality we do either. It's also very interesting how custom games and the competitive mode can indirectly interact with each other. Someone who plays a ton of custom games will learn mechanics and quirks of the game that a competitive player might not be aware of, and a highly skilled competitive player will obviously have mechanical skills that can lead them to enjoy custom games even more.
Grand strategy games (Paradox games, EU4, CK3, etc.) : Am I a joke to you? :D :D Seriously though fun video!
You should try Myth the Fallen Lords. If there's a game that needs remake it's definitely this one. Someone needs to shed light on this old masterpiece.
Have you seen the Mandalore Gaming review? I highly recommend his movies.
Two games worth mentioning (in separate comments):
2) An entire hybrid genre you missed, probably because I only know of one pair of examples, from before your time: the RTS-FPS hybrid, as shown by Battlezone 98. It is definitely an RTS, with worker units gathering resources, modest amounts of base building, and lots of unit production, but you yourself are piloting one of the vehicles, leading the other tanks into combat. Good piloting and shooting skill can sometimes carry the day, but other times your base setup and choice of additional units and weapons are crucial. Failing to defend an objective can lead to mission failure, but so does getting yourself killed. (Note that you don't necessarily die when the tank you're in is destroyed; you auto-eject and can then commandeer one of your other vehicles, though you are extremely vulnerable as a pilot on foot until you do.) You might think controlling an RTS in first person perspective would be difficult, but they came up with a surprisingly good interface for it. There's an expansion, Red Odyssey, which is also good. Despite their age, I believe they are still available on Steam. It also has a sequel which is decent but not as compelling as the original (though I've heard there are a couple of great custom campaigns for it).
This looks like a shooter game to me?
@@GrubbyTalks Yes and no; as I said it's a hybrid of Real Time Strategy and First Person Shooter. It has all the elements of a classical RTS, but *you* are also one of the units. Sometimes, you can sit back in your base and send other units out to objectives, and there are limited opportunities to run things in the isometric perspective. But often, you'll be out fighting with your other units. Either way, you choose the composition of those other units, based on your macro constraints. Maybe consider yourself to be the ultimate, perfectly micro-able, hero unit.
he game had a very active multiplayer community for a while, but due to its hybrid nature, there were two, very different game types. Deathmatch mode was basically pure FPS. Strategy mode was the classic "one building plus workers" RTS start, plus yourself in a standard tank. Even the best shooter can't win that mode in a standard tank without collecting resources and building wingmen. (Unfortunately, network constraints of the time made the latter often unplayable.)
@@GrubbyTalks If shooters don't appeal to you, then this hybrid genre probably won't either. But if, like me, you like both, then this was an amazing and fun combination. BZ98 was pretty popular at the time and BZ2 did OK, so it surprises me a little that no one else has ever attempted to make something like them.
You missed Total Annihilation / Supreme Commander / BAR / Planetary Anihilation Titans and similar games. I think these are their own 'Subgenre' and very very fun to play.
I wonder if you heard about SILICA, it's like a mix of first person and RTS, where you have one player as a commander building like in Starcraft, but then some players can be literal units on the field controlled in First person in 3D environment. They can chose what they wanna control or ask commander to build them a unit they want to control.
My all-time favorite under-the-radar RTS that I personally consider a classic is the Warlords: Battlecry series (spun off from the classic turn based Warlords series), AKA, the first RPG-RTS. The gameplay is completely classical RTS, but you have a single persistent hero that levels up within the game and then carries over their levels and items into future games as well. Obviously this imposes massive challenges on competitive multiplayer (and the series never had anything but peer-to-peer multiplayer which didn't help mattes) but as a singleplayer experience I still don't find any other RTS more fun to just play through the campaign or in random maps vs. AI. It still has an active modding community as well.
something I don't see mentioned like ever is… let's call them "linear RTSs" even though I only know of the Stick Wars series (Stickwarslike is a mouthful)
basically a classic RTS except:
- the map is a narrow strip
- traditionally no or limited base building
- units can castle by exiting the map on their side, making them invulnerable and healing them fast
the most complete example IMO is Stick Empires (Stick Wars 2's multiplayer companion game)
the simple change of a very narrow map changes the whole way worker harassment and territory control work, because you simply can't go around the enemy army
but throw in castling and the game state can actually get very dynamic
There is an another hero-based RTS which is criminally underlooked called Rising Kingdoms
It is kinda like a mix of WC3 and SC1, where you have fantasy setting and heroes like in WC3 but drastically different factions like in SC1/2
It came out in 2005 and it's probably long forgotten but the campaign is still enjoyable for me
I wonder how Grubby would rate it if it came out today
Great video and thanks for shouting out Sheep Tag 2! I'm still struggling to come up with a classification, but action/survival RTS is sounding close.
Age of mythology retold is quite fun. The less serious you take it, the more fun it is.
What a great analysis on the current state of this multifaceted genre! There are all kinds of RTS games these days. My personal all-time favourites are WarCraft III and Against the Storm, 2 very different games from completely different time periods that keep me glued to the screen equally hard.
Play Age of mythology retold it is a perfect remake
Yeah i think its what Warcraft reforged should have been :D
@@robertfulcher7410 ripppp
Ok but if he did not like OG AoM why would he like AoM:R?
@@Igor369 The same reason he likes old Warcraft 3 and not the remake. The feeling in the game is different. A good remake isn't just improving the graphics a bit. The entire game as a whole gets reworked.
I'm getting into game dev as a hobby, and while I'm not specifically looking to make an RTS I do want to incorporate some RTS elements into a project. These discussions are really insightful for me, thank you Grubby and friends!
Good RTS for me is 1. Skill expression has many viable outlets 2. Prioritizing attention is necessary since perfect play is impossible 3. Every phase of the game is important, every phase is different.
This keeps the gameplay interesting indefinitely, and makes pro play fun to watch since players have very distinct strengths and styles.
Well said. I think every phase needs to have variety too, it's always meh when in some RTS you play the first 5-10 min exactly or almost exactly the same every game.
Sounds like AoE4 is perfect fit for you. Have you tried this?
Prioritizing attention sounds to me like you have 1000 things to do and yeah, you can't do them all, but there will always be someone who can do 50% more than you. And then the amount is the most crucial to winning a fight. So I hate it.
I prefer where you have to make a choice between multiple tech trees and you can't afford all of them, but you can do it calmly.
The first 10 minutes being always exactly the same sounds like Starcraft 2 to me. Honestly it's more like the first 40 minutes, people do the same attacks since 2014.
@@nightmareTomek Then maybe you prefer turn-based strategy games? If two people are equal in decision-making, the faster one will always win. But of the 100s of things you could be doing, choosing the right ones to focus on and how much attention to put there and what decision to make is extremely difficult. Only the absolute best players get even close to making optimal attention decisions in a game like Brood War.
@@しらこ-465 That's not it. The absolute best players can focus on microing without neglecting macro, something weaker players don't accomplish very well. Meaning that weaker players can't focus all their attention on the fight because there are chores in the base. I don't think this is good game design.
Blizzard tried to accomodate that with changing how inject works, because many players lost fights solely due to missing their inject timings. I hate the inject mechanic in general because it's the epiphany of bad game design.
Also people don't have equal decision-making. Or they're not supposed to. Back in Broodwar and in the first years of SC2 and even in WC3 it felt like thinking quickly could give me an advantage when I was at a disadvantage speed-wise. I could recognize what enemies were doing from minimal scouting and counteract it. There was a study on Broodwar that said Broodwar players have better cognitive abilities. Now in SC2 it feels like there's no more of that. There's just meta and it can stop anything anyway, if you try to play anything but meta you gonna have a really hard time. Decisionmaking is gone. For example there is no decision to make between expanding or teching, with the explosive economy you simply do both or you're behind. Other areas have lost their decision making aspect as well.
In games like Beyond All Reason it's different. You choose a playstyle in the beginning and you can make a choice changing that playstyle whenever you want, but it might be a good or a bad choice.
Turn-based strategy games could be an option, but I haven't found one that I really liked yet. Are there any very popular ones? But there quick thinking is also not required, only thinking.
You should try Beyond All Reason.
Its a community made game, no publisher and its true RTS and you can play up to 8vs8 absolute madness.
I would add one more subgenre: mass RTS, where you able to control thousands units and there is no "hardcap" for amount of units. Examples are planetary annihilation, supreme comander, cossaks: back to war and cossaks 3
I always consider the spiritual lineage of TA as separate. They're pretty easy to spot.
'streaming economy' RTS was indeed subbed in this discussion
Man I loved planetary annihilation
That's just an RTS, there is no need to create subgenres that don't really help define meaningful aspects of it. It's fine to simply call them RTS games, you can compare them to TA if you want to evoke particular qualities of it.
@@Fatiguedrat Hey, I own this one! May try it some time
4x RTS. C&C3: Kane Wrath. The main campaign is just RTS, yet there is an option to play turn based strategy game, where interactions are resolved either by computer or in real time missions. That was one of the RTS games I had most fun with. Unfortunately only scrin provides the elimination victory condition, as player might not chose to build the towers, other factions win before elimination happens. I also like the asymmetry of such gameplay - there is always the same 3 factions and the goals are not conflicting, yet the resources are.
If you like RPG RTS you should try Sins of a Solar Empire 2, the capital ships are basically heroes and it even has creeping with all the neutral enemies and derelicts around.
i think the most appealing basic RTS that everyone thinks of when they think of RTS is base building sim city'esque but a bit more basic coupled with unit fighting in a heads up battle in a match format, like your warcraft, starcraft and age of empire type of games.
it's just that jumping straight into the PVP section of those games are too daunting of a straight up thing which is why it has broken down into several different subgenres of either skipping base building completely or removing single unit interaction in favor of larger scale battles like total war games, or simply made complete single player experiences based on the base building and or unit production portion of it, and i think why people give up on the more "traditional" RTS type like warcraft and age of empire is because they perceive the only way to play those games is the PVP section of those games and that they are just "git gud" kinda types of RTS where you have to grind to competent skill to start enjoying the pvp.
when in reality the biggest draw for any game really is the singleplayer aspect which is why atleast warcraft had amazing campaigns with cutscenes and story to keep you hooked to keep playing as you gradually got comfortable with the controls of the game as you progressed and to which people enjoyed those games because the mechanics although a bit awkward at first to learn or understand makes you want to continue playing that game which is why it was so beloved by casuals and some continued to play them but then as a pvp thing because there was only so much the cpu could offer in terms of challenge.
however for grubby i think seeing as grubby enjoys more small skirmish unit games i think if grubby would enjoy a single player experience it would have to be a pause and play rpg game like baldurs gate or pillars of eternity or something like that or commandos although commandos is more of a stealth game i guess, but you don't have to pause if you have good enough micro, the pause thing is to just make things easier to micro things, because really there isn't much difference i think between pause and play rpgs and warcraft 3 with heroes that you level up, if you like to fight small skirmish battles with cool characters that you get to choose i think that would be appealing especially if he liked baldurs gate 3 and likes the thrill more of an evolving real time combat scenario with several units to control then those games i think could be worth checking out.
but who knows maybe the total war warhammer games could be interesting, there's a pvp section that exist outside of just campaigns, it's still a lot of micro and hero units but just no bases and invididual step by step micro like warcraft or age of empire where you try to micro manage sometimes every single auto attack or every single step you take with a unit.
I wouldn't call games like Against the Storm and Rimworld as RTS, personally. Not even survival-RTS. I think there is enough distinct elements, specific to these types of games, that we have genre/tag for them: Colony Sim. Sure, it may be technically a sub-genre of RTS, but it's confusing to continue calling them RTS.
Yeah, Rimworld is a colony sim. Against the Storm is better classified as a roguelite city builder.
Yep, there is no such thing as an RTS city builder, it's just city builders. Same with Tower Defence RTS, it's just Tower defence games (with RTS elements you could say).
RTS is not a confusing term that's hard to define, Grubby severely overplayed that aspect of it in the video. For as long as I've lived I don't think I've seen a single game I wouldn't be able to immediately classify as either an RTS or not an RTS, there might not be set in stone set of characteristics but everybody who played enough of them knows one when they see one.
@@RiskOfBaer Without starting a semantics discussion, RTS City Builder is fully possible as a concept. Manor Lords is the closest example so far. If (keyword: if) it got more content in the RTS direction, I would call it a true hybrid of both genres.
I think you can defintely count them as RTS under some definitions.
My fav RTS is comman and conquer series, the music just kick ass with the units personalties
Have you played Original War? It's a classic RTS from 2001 that has a unique spin on basically everything. Your units are all individuals with their own strengths. They can train to take different roles like scientist, engineer, soldier, mechanic and gain xp in various skills by performing relevant actions. Vehicles need to be driven by individuals and fueled, though there are technologies to get around those requirements. There are two campaigns, which are fantastic, and units persist between missions. 94% positive with 1600 reviews on steam.
Battle Realms: Zen Edition is a remake of another classic RTS that has a somewhat similar conceit of having a basic unit that gets trained into different roles. It's in Early Access right now but it's fully playable.
Thats why AoE is my favorite RTS cause it feels much closer to a city builder, probably also thanks to the down to earth theme, so there is rarely a game I hate it always feels comfy to an extend
Grubby, do you know Supreme Commander? An RTS from 2007. It's very unique and innovative. But at the same time familiar to Warcraft and Starcraft players.
I will try this some time!
Sins of a Solar empire would probably be fun to see Grubby play. I haven't played the sequel yet (though I've heard it's much like the first game, just more, which to me sounds like a good thing), but the first one was very much WCIII in space. Capital ships have levels, abilities and even ultimates, there are neutral pirates and defenses around planets that you have to defeat in order to expand, and there is even an upkeep system as you upgrade your fleet size tech. There is much less emphasis on micro, since you have to deal with ship turn rate and acceleration, and more on picking your battles and compositions as well as controlling hyper-jump lanes and resources, whether with defensive fleets or static structures and starbases.
No mention of Beyond All Reason. I am disappointed
Yeah to me that is the best RTS of the last 5 years. He played it once for about an hour and didn't like it.
it's on the screen in the first 10 seconds.
But I guess he never talked about it.
Any discussion that doesn't mention Total Annihilation & streaming economy is not a 'complete' discussion of RTS genre.
Him and uThermal talked about doing BAR together as two outsiders on the WC3 coach session. I think someone like uThermal can make a good case for the game. The utility/control available to the player is unlike any other game I've ever seen and deserves a gold medal for that quality alone.
This is what happens when your game isn't super popular and isn't on Steam.
Some old gems you could give a try:
Tzar: Burden of the Crown is an eexample of the "Classical RTS" definition with a bit of hero thing but not exactly. In that game every single unit gets experience through combat and levels up over time, you're rewarded for keeping veteran soldiers alive, and various techs leverage on the system (like one tech making new soldiers passively gain more exp when fighting near an high level soldier). Sadly the gameplay and grid movement are clunky by today's standard.
Sparta, with few innovations that sadly didn't stick: stuff like siege weapons and horses didn't belong to a player, you could kill units controlling them and send your units to take the neutral objects.
Conquest Frontier Wars: set in space but closer to a Classical RTS. Unique fleets and admirals mechanic, plus adds the importance of logistics with the limited ammunition for ships.
For the hero genre I suggest Dragonshard. The eco management is minimal, since it's troops doing resource collection, but the dual-world mechanic was quite interesting imo. It shines in the campaign, where doing secondary quests lets you power up your heroes across different missions.
No Total Annihilation/Supreme Command/BAR mentions? Personally I liked Dawn of War 2 more than one but thats more of a single player Squad based RTS but there is multiplayer. What about Wargame RTS Like Wargame:Red Dragon, Steel Division and lately Warno and Regiments
A very good RTS series that combines the Hero and Tactical elements is Battle for Middle Eart 1, 2, and the Edain Mod (which is basically BfME 3) Since both titles are abandonware you can download them from certain websites for free. Some Dungeon Keeper style games are also arguably RTSes that form their own subgroup (imo).
Bro is staring at the world through Warcraft 3 lenses. I can imagine on the first date Grubby saying: Hey girl your graphics look kinda interesting to me but I don't really enjoy the lack of workers management and the Rpg elements. She: Say what?
Slow hands and terrible multitasking might stop me from enjoying most of the games mentioned here, but I'll always enjoy this guy's content. Excited for the 2+ hrs history of RTS
The rts community has held the genre hostage. RTS fans "love" how hard, annoying, frustrating, etc that rts games are like. They have 0 self awareness of survivor bias that the only people left are the ones that didn't mind all the annoying aspects of rts. But the general population did mind them and left. It's elitism and frankly RTS is likely "dead" for good unless a major major company like vavle riot or blizzard makes an rts. Dead as in not an S, A, or B tier esport in popularity
edit: to add on to my post. Gamers still love hard games. Mobas are hard. CS and Val are hard. Rocket League is hard. But all of those games are much easier to get into tho AND rarely have the frustration that comes with losing in most popular RTS games. Having to memorize build orders is annoying, losing to cheese is the worst feeling in all of gaming, losing half of your units/workers in 1 second is annoying. Building up for 10 minutes to lose in 5 seconds is annoying. Severe fog of war is annoying. Honestly the list goes on.
I can die or lose a round in other games and it still goes on. Most RTS games outside of high level play is you have 1 fight and the game is over, while also having the longest and most annoying build up. Running around looting in a battle royale is also build up but it isn't annoying or difficult. Remembering to build a supply depot every 10 seconds is annoying. At the end of the day, maybe RTS as a genre is just too difficult to appeal to large audiences anymore. But I do think a lot of these could be improved without taking the competitiveness out of it.
That's not dead though, just not so popular
I think the big thing that a lot of RTS developers get wrong is focusing too hard on the PvP content of the game. I think generally speaking you can't really focus on "creating an esport" - if you're going into game development trying to turn it into an esport, then it's almost certainly going to fail - rather, you just need to focus on creating a game that people find fun to play in general, and then if the game is fun enough the competitive scene of the game will develop more or less on its own (well, it probably needs some balancing of course but that can be done after designing the game, the design of the game has to always take precedence over the balancing) - any game with a large enough playerbase will find a way to become competitive pretty much (well, as long as there is some form of multiplayer of course), even if it wasn't a focus when the game was originally created.
A lot of the time RTS developers will advertise how they've talked with pro players or have pro players working as developers for their game.. but I actually see that as a huge red flag, because the kinds of content that a pro player wants in their games is very very far removed from what will actually make the game popular in the first place (and ironically, I think it ends up being worse for the pro players too because of that because without a critical mass of players the game will never have any kind of pro scene even if the game was theoretically interesting to pro players because of bad matchmaking and no interest in tournaments etc.). Pro players are good at playing games.. but the skills that make someone good at playing games are not the same skills that make someone good at designing games.
"gatekeeping bad" kekw
From my observations I think people doesn't like to try new things. For example: Grubby played Warcraft 3 as a kid so he loves Warcraft 3 to this day. Would he appreciate some unique gameplay such as Northgard or Dune: Spice Wars? Maybe... but he will still love Warcraft 3 more. There is no possible way to make a game that would change that.
This is why many gamedev teams try to recreate same concept of some popular games. This is why Stormgate/ZeroSpace/Immortal are clones of Starcraft 2. They know that SC2 players will love to play the same thing, but done better or at least with the same quality level.
That's the sad truth and real killer of creativity in gamedev.
I'm aware that I'm not an exception and for me Starcraft 1 will be top 1 foverer. But at least I'm aware of that... and I can appreciate something really unique and fresh, like Northgard.
@@joe8133 Yeah, that is their point. Game devs want to make rts easier to get into but veteran RTS fight against it and it's putting RTS genre in a very difficult spot
You should really try Beyond All Reason. It’s old school and free. It was developed by fans to be able to have the gameplay these fans wanted in a modern-ish graphics engine and next level ui.
I like RTS, then they changed what RTS was, now RTS is weird and scary to me…
You may like Age of Mythology: Retold, Age of Empires 4, Grey Goo, DORF (in development), SpellForce 3 and a few more!
As someone who grew with C&C I relate to this, C&C is incredibly simple so most RTS for me feel overwhelming with how many skills/items/specials they have.
Not saying they're bad, I played like 200h of Rimworld and that game has so much stuff to do, it's honestly super fun and engaging, but I crave for the simple RTS like C&C used to be.
Even Red Alert 3 for me was too much, they tried to make it like Starcraft with all the units having secondary abilities...
@@igorthelight Wow, thanks for telling me about D.O.R.F! I don't like modern times as a setting, but this game looks just astonishingly beautiful!
@@mynameizmaineimis1880 Glad to hear that!
Maybe you would like Zero-K (a modern take on Total Annihilation)
Nothing ever topped the original Command & Conquer games for me. AOE II is also a classic, followed by Warcraft and Starcraft obviously. The proto-RTS as I called it would have to be Dune II, a little rough around the edges but should always be mentioned.
My problem with modern RTS games is that there's been pretty much no innovation in the genre in decades. You compare a modern FPS, RPG, racing game or most other genres to a game of their genre 30 years ago, you will find vast differences in how they play and what features they have. Often taking advantages of newer technology, melding features and ideas from other genres and games from over the decades. RTS genres hasn't seen this innovation. They all largely play exactly like they did 30 years ago and you can usually trace what game 30 years ago they are "inspired by". You've got Tempest Rising, 9-bit armies, global conflagration; all clearly built upon C&C. Stormgate, Zerospace are very evidently 'craft' games. BAR, Sanctuary: Shattered Sun; Total Annihilation inspired. While they all offer their own take on the formulas they emulate, at their fundamental cores, they are still the same games we were playing 30 years ago.
Any idea what kind of innovation you'd wanna see in any of these genres?
I personally think most don't innovate on units and how they play, it's just tiny tank, small tank, medium tank, big tank and giant tank, all behave similarly and you just attack move them. And the strategy is to build the biggest army of biggest tanks and then... to attack move (and micro while doing so). It doesn't sound like there's much strategy involved. Just base management and then micro.
I'd like to make an RTS myself one day... and change that.
Innovate and u get c&c4 and dawn of war 3, so yes this have been tried alot of Tims and failed. Aoe 4 Went back to the roots and it suucced. We just need new Rts games using the new tech, but made in the Old formula.
@@haakonglindtvad5489There have been many "golden age of RTS" kind of games over the years and pretty much none of them have found any major success. If that's really what players want then where were they for games like Act of Aggression? Crossfire Legion? 9-Bit Armies? all using the formulas establised three decades ago but despite their polish, none of them found success.
That's simply not true. It is no different then any other genre. Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age: Origins and Divinity: Original Sin 2 play in a very similar way just like Command and Conquer Generals, Company of Heroes 2 and Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak play in a similar fashion.
I am not sure why it is so hard to accept that they were on top of the world once and now they are not due to change of gaming landscape (rise of consoles, genre fatigue in late 00s and increase of casual gamers who prefer instant action games) Strategy genre is so vast and diverse and you have many choices which are grand strategy (Total War, Knigts of Honor), classic base builders (Ancestores Legacy, SpellForce 3), settlement strategies (Northgard, Pioneers of Pagonia), City builders (TerraScape, Kingdims and Castles), besieged city builders (Riftbreaker, They are Billions), automations (Factorio, Satisfactory) colony city builder (Kingdom Two Crowns, Anno), survival builders (Banished, Frostpunk), tactical strategies (Last Train Home, Xcom 2), guerilla (Shadow Tactics, Partisans 1941), space strategies (AI Wars, Battlefleet Gothic Armada), 4x (Imperiums Greek Wars, Endless Space 2), tycoon (Railway Empires, Port Royale), naval (Cold Waters, Atlantic Fleet), wargames (Steel Divison, Men of War), or MOBA (I avoid that genre due to very hostile community).
As you see genre did evolve and branched out. There may not be another Age of Empires or Stracraft, but so what? Just because some idiots from to-big-to-fail company said the genre is dead to justify their own incompetence like Blizzard, doesn't mean it is actually true. As far as I am concern ever since 2019-2020 when Bethesda, the last good top-dog Publisher started to mess things up, the so called AAA has nothing interesting to offer. When was the last time you saw something cool from Blizzard, Ubisoft, Rockstar? EA released only one cool and game called Lost in Random from a small studio, but rheir own games are just uninteresting at best or remakes.
The fact that genre is stuck in technological past is also blatantly false. AI Wars is a perfect example how much techonology evolved with improvment for AI or play Medieval 2 Total War and compare that AI to Total War: Three Kingdoms or Total War: Attila and while you are at it look at the Total War look at visual advancments especially Total Warhammer visuals. Or what about fusion of genres like Age of Wonders which is 4x RPG or Northgard which is classical RTS, City Builder and 4X fueled into one? I love RPGs, but they are not that diverse or innovative and honestly so what? That didn't stop me from enjoying Expedition series (one of the best RPGs), Shadows Awakening, Witcher saga or Grim Dawn. Same goes with Platformers which are thankfully making a comeback.
Do you want to know what real stagnation looks like? Look no further then Shooters and Sport games. Shooters made entire circle where they returned back to the 90s. We are literally back to DOOM clones, kinda tried and failed to return to Arena Shooters while tacitcal shooters like Battlefield are frozen in time with examples like Isonzo and Red Orchestra. Meanwhile sport and racing games haven'y changed since early 00s and yet EA who has monopoly over it is making millions.
Not everything is grim and dark, if anything gaming as whole right now is in silver age as far as I am concerned. Not every game and genre is for everyone and that is perfectly fine. I myself can't stand the so called walking simulators to the point I don't even classify them as games, I find sport and racing games pointless, military shooters are for me nothing but interactive propaganda (usually American thanks to the Call of Duty and Medal of Honor) and like I previously said MOBA has such hostile community that I don"/ want to interact with them.
There isn't much money in RTS games. You'll earn more with some garbage copy paste scummy mobile gatcha that scams you out of your money.
The risk of game development is also super high.
RTS needs bigger brains. People have smol brains.
People whine about 40, 60, 100$ price tags, even though they are happy to waste money elsewhere.
So we get shit games. Fair.
What really is not standart anymore for RTS games, but for me is important factor, is nice looking, colourful, funny and easy to understand UI and ICONS. Where are the ages of W3 and they fitting themed UI??? Why are most modern ones so plain? Black boxes, with 30 tiny icon not recognizable by one look? Where are the playful icons of all different stapes and colours? All we get not is again black boxes with 2 swords for barracks, bow for archery range, etc.
Unlike Dawn of War 3 (which has been and always will be shit), Company of Heroes 3 has seen a lot of improvements this past year and is on par with the original now for multiplayer. I think it's a bit of a No Man Sky situation coupled with the fact relic being dropped by Sega has left what's left of the team with inadequate resources to start a new game, meaning that the only thing they can do is try to improve what they do have.
DoW 3 wasn't shit, just not what many loud fans wanted. The learning curve also put off many.
@@HighLanderPonyYT It was absolutely bad. Lacking in mechanics, Factions and anything that made it unique. It felt like a 13 year old getting design directions ("make it cool") about something he has no idea about, nor any passion for.
It has the most mechanics in the series.
@@HighLanderPonyYT I'll clarify: lacking in quality of mechanics.
Shoutout to KKND 2: Krossfire. An RTS that unfortunately released the same year as Starcraft. It was hilarious, fun, and absolutely awesome.
I have played RTS for years... if I'd rate them would be W3TFT for gameplay and storyline, C&C generals zero hour for map tactics and counters, SC2 for micro and multiplayer play, Age of mythology for the war fantasy, Stronghold crusader for the resource management, Red alert II for the rock paper scissors mechanics, and DK2 for the grim campaigns and humor... and Dota I for defining a genre... I'd like to have a talk about these games with you Grubby that's for sure, and maybe play some of these games for fun.
So casual, stop it
@@lakermangmx those game were good for genre defining reasons... tho some of the games mentioned by grubby got my interest for sure...
What is DK2? Sounds quite interesting
@@ca4999 it's dungeon keeper II ... a rather unusual RTS half builder half half resource management...fight elements and veteran system... maybe I'd add black and white on the list since at that time had one of the best game AIs ...
One of the most enjoyable mechanics for me was in Battle for Middle Earth 1, where through the campaign you kept the units from 1 level to the next. And those units would level up as well though fighting and surviving and you could upgrade them weapon and armour and those would transfer through campaign levels too. It was amazing just watching a full parade of Rohan cavalry marching into the map with glowing weapons.
RPG will definitely make a run for giving you less clarity than the expected game experience.
Sins of a solar empire for me, is like command an conquer in space. Or Supreme commander
I'm a mostly blizzard rts player but Company of Heroes 3 didn't feel completely dissimilar to me. Just an extremely satisfying micro focused game. It's just the camera and bugs that made me drop it pretty early and then it seemed to die so I never returned.
you should try Gates of Hell then, it's a lot better and polished.
Spellforce 3 and like Dungeons 3 are neet.
But yeah I mostly stick with Blizzard RTS.
I love some grid based turnbased games though like Into the Breach and Gloomhaven.
The sad part is CoH 3 is way better now than on launch.
@@pakkazull8370 That game is just single player right?
@@Broockle No, in fact I haven't even touched the single player in 300-ish hours of play.
Within the broad genre of strategy there are several sub-genres (such as RTS) and there are games that, while sharing some elements of that sub-genre, does not make them RTS.
Real-time gameplay, base building, strategy, resource management, unit production and combat are fundamental features for an RTS and some features may be more simplified than others and that's why there are different games, but the reality is that there are other games that don't meet the vast majority of what's out there and prostitute the genre on Steam.
No AOM from the biggest RTS fan? Something isn't adding up.
I agree he'd be so good in multiplayer!
He loves ONE RTS very much. I'll let people decide how that adds up for "biggest RTS fan". lol
Exactly.
He's mentioned a few issues before that make him not enjoy it very much, I imagine he'll do a video on it at some point since it's one of the biggest RTS at the moment.
@@HighLanderPonyYT Yeah, I don't think Grubby is an RTS fan at all, he just really likes the old Blizzard style of RTS games. So far any other RTS he has tried didn't grab him at all, and he outright didn't enjoy some absolute bangers.
In todays world Tiktok and YT Shorts has made so many of us lazy, i stopped watching them for a long time and now im having an absolute blast in Stronghold Crusader Extreme
Its crazy how similar your list is to mine is and for all the same reasons. I find it quite frustrating the studios that claim they are big fans of classic RTS, want to make a classic RTS, but who deliberately downplay the core components of classic RTS, claiming that it's somehow still classic RTS.
Also I'm sick of being recommended they are billions. It's like saying "I like jrpgs" and being recommended dark souls...
TAB is a legitimate RTS in the proud tradition of Stronghold.
Yeah that was my first reaction to TAB. Hey, it's fun, but it's a tower defense zombie survival CG like you may find INSIDE of wc3. It's not what I expected when I search RTS, but thats why im trying to improve my lexicon and labing of RTS's!
@@martinkrauser4029 Stronghold is a city builder, always has been
@@nanthilrodriguez except that it has siege missions with no base-building at all, let alone population needs management
Shouldn't TAB be classified as tower defense or wave defense instead? Everything is stuffed into the RTS definition.
Sins of a Solar Empire 2 is fantastic. And the complete overhaul Star Trek mod from the first title is being ported over
You really should try out Sins 2. It plays somewhat like WC3 in the early game with you clearing out neutrals and leveling up your herolike ships, while having some 4x economy elements inside. Overall it's more of an RPG RTS rather than 4x game.
sims 2?
Problem with Sins of a Solar Empire 2 is that it's not much different from 1. 1 has a lot of flaws if you try to go back to it.
Unfortunately the game has no dedicated single player content, the game gets boring after a couple AI skirmishes. It's also almost entirely the same as the first game, so it's not very interesting after having played that extensively.
Unless you are going to be playing multiplayer with your friends, Sins 2 is a bad choice.
@@RiskOfBaer while I agree that lack of proper singleplayer campaign is bad, I do think it's rather easy to have fun in multiplayer with random players. As for the game being too similar to first one, it shouldn't be a problem for a person who haven't played first one, right? :)
Was considering trying it but the reviews seemed a little lukewarm. Maybe I'll still try it
I'd highly recommend Five Nations if you don't already know it! A classic starcraft style RTS with a very long campaign.
Youre a warcraft 3 fan, not an rts fan, and theres mothing wrong with that. I grew up playing all the rts games during the golden age of the 90s-2000s and most of them were really damn good.
i tihnk the best "modern" rts game is tooth and tail, its a very minimalist game but it has the visual and sound design done absolutely right, its a very charming game
outside of that i think scbw is still the best rts ever made
supcom is also good
and if you consider offworld trading company an rts then thats up there as well
I always saw 'They are Billions' as more of a city builder game but with a loss condition, didn't know it was considered to be an RTS
I guess you could call it a city builder, but it is a lot closer to an RTS considering how much micro you need to do. Sure, the macro part is easier because you can just pause and build the buildings. But if you disallow yourself to use the pause feature it just straight up becomes an RTS.
I think it's just a city builder. RTS means you cannot pause just to build things.
RPG and RTS are kinda similar IMO.
They both have objetctives on the map, and getting them earlier give you big advantage to keep up the economic lead.
The first Dawn of War is awkward and clunky. The expansions Dark Crusade and Soulstorm fix enough of the engine faults so that it's much better.
I couldnt finish campaign of classic and WA. Dark Crusade though... *Chef's kiss*
@@Voradorek84 DC Risk style campaign put me to sleep and was hyper grindy barring the stronghold missions. I prefer the more linear stuff with less chaff.
@@Voradorek84 Winter Assault as the Guard is a *nightmare*, in major part because the faction isn't finished and all you get are un-upgraded Guardsmen for most of the game
@@Darkside007 YES. While IG became my fav race in DC^^
@@Voradorek84 Mine too. Heavy Weapons Teams go brrrr
Skip to 6:10, you're welcome.
Some of the games listed in the first image aren't RTS by my definition. Real time with Pause is NOT an RTS. Which disqualifies They are Billions, Against the Storm and Frostpunk. I love all three of those games though, especially Against the Storm. IF it's not "real time" then it's not an RTS, end of story. Just call it a strategy game! Why include RT when it simply isnt?
Technically, one can pause WC3. The difference is, when pausing in WC3 you can't issue commands, but you can in some of those other games
You've just removed Age of Empires 2 and Age of Mythology from RTS genre, congratulations. I do think that active pause should be a tag though
@@a13ph0 you can issue commands while paused in AoE2 and AoM? TiL, I've never tried because I assumed you couldnt
@@DaWombatGaming in multiplayer ranked you can't ofc but in single player you can pause and shift que commands
Even though it's not 100% pure rts, I recommend aliens dark descent, it was a surprisingly great experience, and I loved every minute of my 40 something hour playthrough.
The mini podcast is back🔥
I went through this video and I found out that I love every genre of RTS games mentioned here. I turns out that for me it's not the RTS subgenre that is important but that the game is done well, looks fine and is fun to play. And it's not that surprising because before Fallout 3 introduced me to open-world RPGs I played almost exclusively strategy games (both RTS and TBS). Some of the upcoming games look unappealing to me because they simply don't look good. Some of them are blocky, but not the "fun" retro-blocky. Others have seemingly good graphics, but the art design is so bland that I could paint a local train station with it (looking at you, Stormforge!).
Whenever I play some RTS game, I'm all "Yeah, this is the subgenre that I love the most"... until I play another one.
I love Classic RTS (WC3, SC2, C&C TibSun, C&C RA2, C&C Generals, AoE2, AoE3, AoM, BfME2). I love City Builders (Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar). I love "City Builders with combat" (Settlers 3 and 4). I love Tower Defense (Defense Grid). I love 4X (Civ5 and 6, TW WH). I love tactical RTS (DoW2). I'm actually not sure what games even are "action RTS", but I think there were some WC3 custom maps like Castle Fight that I loved. And I adore Rimworld as a survival RTS.
I'm a small indie dev working on an RTS inspired game, but after listening to this I'm not sure if you'd classify it as an RTS. Honestly, I'm not even sure what I'd classify my game as, cause gameplay wise it is pretty unique. Right now I only have a vs mode and am currently working on a single player mode/campaign. Let me try explaining it via bullet points and people in the comments can feel free to share your thoughts:
- You control a Captain character instead of being in "God Mode" via mouse and keyboard
- Where ever the Captain is currently standing is where they will summon a troop or place down a building (after pressing a button)
- Most troops & buildings warp in instantly with no wait/build time
- Instead of workers you place down Piggy Banks which automatically earn you money. The more banks you have down the more money you earn.
- Instead of micro managing troops, they move automatically according to their own AI. I designed the logic simply so players can always expect what a unit will do.
- Players can pick up to 5 out of 25 units per game (so you have to commit to a strategy beforehand)
- Players take turns picking units in attempt to to counter each other's picks
- Games can last from 1 minute to 15+ minutes. 15 minutes would be considered a long game. In tournaments we usually do at least a best 2 out of 3.
- When a Captain dies your opponent earns money and a new Captain is spawned instantly by your starting location.
- Goal of the game is to take out your opponent's "jar" by their starting location. Once the "jar" is gone, no more Captains can be spawned so the player must take down the final captain to win.
Now that I explained how the game works. Let me list strengths and weaknesses:
Strengths:
- Very accessible for an RTS game
- Despite its simplicity, the gameplay still has a lot of depth (explained below)
- Real estate is key (the more land you control the more Piggy Banks you have room for)
- You maintain your real estate by placing down walls and cannons at key choke point locations
- In addition to Piggy Banks, you can also place down Spawners which are weak defensively, but they constantly spew out troops (place lots of these to overwhelm your opponent)
- Captain movement is the new micro (if your good at dodging stuff, then you can summon things in your opponent's base)
- The best players are rewarded for maintaining a health balance of offense, defense, and managing their macro in the backend over time. The game requires you to pay attention to multiple things at once.
- Huge emphasis on strategy. There are 53130 different unit combinations so each game feels different.
- Units are designed to either hard or soft counter other units. Kinda like rock, paper, scissors. This means proper planning before a match even starts is key.
Weaknesses:
- The game may be too simple for hardcore RTS fans
- Most people playing "building" or "strategy" games probably prefer using a mouse & keyboard rather than moving a character around
- The game is called Peanut Butter Jelly Wars so it probably doesn't appeal thematically to people who play PC (for reference I originally made the game for my nieces and nephews until the scope grew bigger and bigger)
- Has too many "new" or "different" mechanics to be considered an RTS maybe?
The main inspiration was my love for playing Star Craft while growing up. However, that game is really hard to get new people into it. So I decided to simplify the gameplay while still keeping the heart of what I believed an RTS to be: Micro and Macro. In this game's case Micro is the fast paced action in the front dodging stuff with your Captain while Macro is building up you economy in the back with Piggy Banks, Spawners that constantly spawn new troops, etc.
Anyway, this is a super long post. Don't expect many people to read it. At least I was able to write this down to clearly get my thoughts out (cause I'm still figuring out on how to properly classify my game).
Seems like an auto battler with some rts elements to me.
Would you consider making your game in Snow Play?
@@Broockle Right now my current game is in pixel 2D, but if I ever made a spiritual successor in 3D I would definitely consider it!
Sounds like it could be fun, good luck
@@adamkahmann2937 I'm hoping for an RTS renaissance with SnowPlay engine.
Dang nice, Pixel 2D sounds like you will emphasize gameplay which is awesome.
Might also be the better move to get a game out quickly and figure out how it will play.
Best of luck with that ^^
There is a much overlooked type of rts player and thats immersion
To this day, people go for satisfying mass battles on bfme with no regard to min maxing and strategy
In games like bfme, coh,dow,the "competitive" player base is a minority
I remember a statistic from an mmo i've played where around 1% of players were doing raid content.
Think of soda and how he plays custom maps, barely knowing the base game.
DoW1 was never about finetuned hotkey apm action.
It has a 3d camera and sync kills where you often just lean back and vibe. People don't try to end it quick so they get to use the juicy units.
Zooming all the way in on units in 2005 was massive and pretty much anyone had a collection of action screenshots.
Many good rts are more of an excuse to play with virtual tin soldiers.
But new rts somehow all try to be starcraft without any of it's style, ambience and music.
Nostalgia is such a huge factor for the aging RTS crowd. A lot of people want to return to their youth, and a game can't do that.😂
What a joke of a comment 😂. By this logic nobody will like NEW THINGS 😂
@@jaipii1285 Young people do, but they don't like RTS in general.
the issue is that new games are not just as good as the old ones - less mechanics, bad art direction, doesnt pass the "vibe check"
I keep picking up older titles and they are good with 0 nostalgia
it's all culture. The Kids now grew up with Mobas rather than classic RTS games.
@@goliver9991 ye with old games you really have a much clearer view of what's worth your time and what you're getting into.
You should consider trying out Sacrifice(2000) since you really like RPG RTS games.