Getting good at RTS games

dropping and forgetting marines into enemy minerals isn't high micro nor is moving with a bunch of mutalisks from worker to worker

If you're anything like me, than RTS is just not your genre. Doesn't mean you can't become good at it, but you'll never be both good and feel comfy playing.

What you need is discipline and practice, either way.
Pick apart your fails to see where you failed and push yourself harder at those points.
Your movements must become more and more precise, wasting less and less time.
You must memorize unit stats (which expand and tie into build orders) so that in an unexpected situation you don't need to ponder whether building X faglings or Y nigralisks is a better call. You make that decision in a second or less.
You learn to sacrifice anything and everything. Everything is a tool and nothing more, no matter how much it costs or whatever.
You need to shrug off losses. Even if nine tenths of your main and only base is in ruins and you have 3.5 half-dead dudes, you keep on going, keep on thinking how to hurt your enemy while strengthening your position.
Every failure can be a lesson if you pay enough attention to details. Every lesson requires homework - another attempt.
I can probably go on for a while here.

Also, having a game you like for setting, lore or characters is a good thing, just don't make it the main practice dummy. You'll grow to hate it, like I did with StarCraft when a buddy helped me become a decent amateur, then the hate will go away but nothing will come to replace it.

Me too, I've been playing RTSs from when WarCraft II shipped through the death of the genre this decade, and while I can muddle through SP campaigns quite enjoyably, all my attempts at multiplayer have been shutouts like something out of a sitcom.

You need to practice your micro until controlling your units becomes as natural to you as driving a car.

Give up and embrace the superior genre that is turn-based strategy.

Playing anywhere around halfway decent in Generals requires lots of map and base awareness. I don't think it would be a good thing for a player with the difficulties OP has.

The problem with that is that default FFA/Melee AI in SC will rape his face off if he commits to a drop or some form hit-and-run attack. He's not quick and aware enough for that.

In that case "C&C" Generals is an atrocious one.

There's two parts to RTS.

Part one is the macro part. Build order. Scouting. Short term memory. Rest is just strategy. This part can be trained, but it's pretty rough if you don't get it instinctively.

Second part is micro. Controlling units. Controlling the screen movement. APM. This is pretty easy to learn and train: just keep doing it faster until your fingers or your brain can't keep up.

Figure out which part is problematic for you and work on it. But judging from your post, you're sorely lacking in the strategy department.

One of the worst mistakes every rookie makes is hoarding resources. Strategy games with base expansion are a lot like running a business: you need to spend money to make money. Spend your resources as soon as possible!

After that, it's playing too defensively. You need to harass your enemy, but make sure you always stay in control of the engagements: if it even looks like you will lose, pull your guys out. Keep in mind that your troops cost time and resources, and every lost man is valuable. Try to destroy your enemy's resource gathering units/buildings: it's a double whammy because it not only costs them more time/resources to replace them, but while they're gone, they're not gathering any resources. Whatever you do, just don't play like a fucking turtle: walling off your base makes you inflexible to changes in the battlefield.

Once you've started to get your economy under control and you're playing more aggressively, you're ready for the ultimate secret to strategy games: "intelligence". You need to control the information available in the game. You need to know what your opponent is up to (so you can counter it) while denying them useful intelligence. This is why turtle players nearly always lose: they've played their cards face up, and the enemy is able to react to that.

IMO, Dawn of War 1 and Company of Heroes 2 are some of the best games to learn because they force you to retain map control if you want resources. If you turtle you *will* lose.

Do you know why your shit dies?

Eg in SC1, concussive damage deals reduced damage to large targets and explosive deals half damage to small targets. This is why Vultures are kind of shitty despite having 20 damage (but theyre great against early light infantry, hit and run, worker harass, etc)

Another thing is height. Aiming from low to high has like a 25% miss chance if I remember. None of these are explained ingame but it literally decides why some units are good counters or not.

See what they build for defense and then copy it. See what they send to topple it. Watch a replay and youll see they build like 2 or 3 gateways and just shit out 12 zealots asap. The AI does this every skirnish game. Try playing as Terran v Protoss on Lost Temple (under ladder maps) and putting some Firebats in a bunker beside your ramp and repair it with an SCV. Youll do wonders.

Also play the campaigns they ai is designed to harass but ultimately lose

Yeah Dawn of War was a game I liked mostly because there was almost no defending in the game. Just constant attacking

I did complete SC1's campaign legitimately as a kid but I forgot most of it. I haven't been able to actually beat Brood War's campaign. I noticed something similar with Warcraft 2 and Beyond the Dark Portal.

I've found turret creep and setting up fortified forward bases is a good way to channel the urge to turtle into something useful. Just remember to continue to harass while you do it so that you can keep the enemy from quickly capturing strategic points while you fortify.

try adjusting down the speed and practice playing the game at slower pace, then increase speed as you get used to the game and microing

mind that at low speed the game might take hours

To sum up what everyone's said, you have to stop having fun playing a game.

The same way you get good at anything.
Step 1: Have a high IQ.
Step 2: Be disciplined.

Keep telling yourself that.

If RTS on average is too fast for him, as I suspect. But perhaps he will eventually reach the state in which he'll be a bit stressed but enjoying the process in a new way.

Broodwar and Beyond the Dark Portal are both respectively harder campaigns, same with Frozen Throne vs Reign of Chaos for WC3 (maybe a couple of exceptions, like the last mission against Archimonde can be hard on the highest difficulty where you can't cheese him by wiping out his basebuilding early and his dreadlord has Rain of Chaos on top of Inferno).

You should go through the campaigns again, it's a good way to build familiarity with each of the race's strengths.

Blizzard's RTS require good micro control to excel, and not everyone is good at micro but you can practice it. Never underestimate game knowledge either, build orders, macro, counter building, etc are all important, and floating resources (not spending them) is a bad idea. Memorize hotkeys, they're essential for good gameplay, unit group production structures so you can quickly build armies.

What race in SC do you like best? I find Zerg is very good for macro intensive players, you can boom very quickly and rush with zerglings, like having three hatcheries before they even come close to getting a second nexus if you practice well.

Also as others say, generally to get better at RTS you'll to to break comfort conventions. Being the aggressor is generally better as long as you're not wasting your troops/resources by making bad decisions. Turtling generally leads to losing. And often times to get better you have to get used to the stress of being extremely active micro and macro wise.

Having a high intelligence, gifted or above to be exact, is the minimum requirement for being successful at any activity that involves direct, and for the most part balanced competition. Obviously, it is not enough to be not retarded, you then have to take your natural abilities and practice with them. Related to games, the correlation between IQ and success has been studied particularly in chess. As related here, above 125 IQ, and time played/previous season's ratings were the best predictors of current performance. Below it, and IQ was the best predictor. Other studies have shown that in general, having a higher IQ allows you to learn more quickly and reach a higher level of understanding. Your personal distaste for "gookclick" is a non-sequitur response to mine. From my previous experience with retards and people who otherwise have little reading comprehension, which you may be one or both of, I don't even think you will understand this post as dispassionate discussion of the relevance of IQ to gaming success, but instead somehow interpret it as a specific defense of RTS or what it has become. If that is the nature of your next reply, I won't bother dignifying it with another of my own.

You loose agaisnt AI?
In skirmish or missions? Because in missions you really have no excuse.

Skirmish mostly

I usually just win through superior macro. I've never been able to click on that one unit that's hurt and move him out of the way.

Just turtle while the AI wears themselves out on your defenses and then attack.

There are a few RTS games out there where things like flanking are more important than individual unit macro might be more your speed. Total War and the like.

This can only work with lowest difficulty or in games with non-exhaustable resources (C&C, SupCom etc.). In StarCraft it's a death sentence.

Just remembered about Emperor: Battle for Dune.

It has a much more comfortable pace compared to C&C3, Generals or SC1.
It is more forgiving when it comes to inefficient trades as long as you have a turret or two back at the base and/or some cash to quickly spam a bunch of infantry.
Micro isn't much of an issue - most units are rather sluggish, - especially if you play the OP Atreides.

Maintaining a healthy economy consists of two things:
1) build and upgrade refineries as long as you have some standing forces and spare cash (and free space to build on);
2) make sure your harvesters aren't all killed.
Harvesters regenerate up to 50% on their own. Even if a harvester is destroyed you'll get a free replacement, although you won't be getting them forever (there's some limit, don't remember the numbers).

Bandboxing and attack-moving is a doable if you have enough units and can replace them quick enough. Even without muh right unit compositions. Just make sure to do some damage with them every time.
Also, if you don't want to cheat or just don't like Atreides, go for Ordos and amass basic hovertanks. 20+ can an absolute terror if handled properly.

All of this is only true for weaker AIs and most likely will not work or work only partially with computer opponents.

Nah, C&C 3 is still good. 4 is when it all went to shit.

With human opponents, dammit.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it unequivocally good. It tried to be an e-sport too hard. Not to mention the things they did to the setting and lore to get rid of "problematic" things that were interfering with the attempt to bite off a piece of SC's pie.
But it is definitely nowhere near terrible.

Getting good at RTS requires you to become more aggressive, same with CCGs. Most players have a tendency to play defensively when they start, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you need to develop three skills. Situational awareness, multitasking, and strategic aggression. I've won games by simply walling until I had player opponents surrender due to being incapable of breaching my defenses and them being out of resources, but this is a shit way to win a game.

Playing Zerg? Build a second hatchery early, and then another hatchery not long after. Make sure to spawn overlords, make enough drones to build bullshit, and build strong units and send them at your opponents' peon lines.

If you're REALLY ballsy and you know your opponent are noobs, you COULD send your starting Drones and defeat him in the first 3 minutes of a game. This strategy is a 50/50 shot, if you succeed you win, if you fail, you fucking lose.

Instead of building a bunch of bullshit for tech units, focus on one or two types of units instead. For example, is your strategy flying units? Then don't bother upgrading ground units. Is your strategy space marines, medics and firebats? Then focus purely on that.

A lot of players have a tendency to waste their early resources trying to unlock every tech tree, fuck that, you don't need that.

3 Supply Depots, 3 bunkers, and an academy will make the space marines you pump out stronger than any other starting units because of the adrenaline ability. Add in some medics and firebats and they get even stronger.

You need to increase your APM, but also become more efficient by cutting the fat and focusing on the best strategy to win.

keep playing against the hardest difficulty AI, try out different build orders
that worked for me in AOE2
i'm still pretty bad in multiplayer in comparison to mostly everyone else, but at least i'm not useless in a team game

What's a good rts that's entirely combat based,?like no or barely any economy to manage

Dawn of War is mostly combat based. Resource accumulation is even automatic in that game and based on capturing parts of the map

Dawn of War 2

Equating RTS to math simulators like Starcraft was the first mistake you made.

Move on to RTS games that don't require autism to play well, like Company of Heroes.

stronghold's siege missions are entirely combat based
and it's fucking hard to take an enemy castle when you can't get new troops
it's even harder when the enemy fucking sets his castle on fire while you're inside

Wargame series and R.U.S.E

to get gud at RTS it's all about getting to a point where you can roughly and accurately guess where your enemy is and will be in terms of eco since actually RTS is 80% eco management 10% scouting and 10% actually fighting

It doesn't take autism to play Starcraft, you just need to pay attention to what the best players all do. If you just watch, you might think "wow they're doing stuff fast" but pay attention to what they're ACTUALLY DOING. They don't build tech they don't need, they put just the right number of units to get the most efficient rate of resources, and they focus on hitting the best strategic targets. It's not blindly blasting shit, and they make sure to control their groups of units to focus fire on single units to kill enemies faster. Rather than having 12 units shoot at 12 units, 12 units shoot at 1, kill it fast, then 12 shoot at another, kill it fast, repeat 12 times. They might lose 2 or 3 units, but they come out on top, why, because when there's less units shooting at your units, it means your units will live longer.

That's a good advice, but it might be discouraging if you don't have much success at present. You may instead opt for trying to beat the AI that's currently a bit out of reach for you. So if you can consistently beat easy, you go for normal and continue playing until you feel you can up the challenge.

It's a good game, but it's an RTT.

CoH2 a shit. They fucking ruined the balance and have quintillions of microtransaction commanders with only a couple actually worth playing for each faction.
I prefer Men of War.

Look for RTT games.

To this day I can only effectively win against skirmish AIs from C&C Generals because it's braindead retarded, leaving most of its army inside its base even on insane difficulty.

When did you figure out you were too slow and unadaptable for RTS Holla Forums?

do you or have you ever scouted?
has harassing your enemies eco ever crossed your mind?

If you're comparing your skills to the AI's skills, remember that the AI can precision control every single one of its units and buildings simultaneously with like 10,000 APM. You are a human being.

Huh? Having regularly practised against 7 allied USA hard ones as GLA I can attest that they throw pretty much everything at you, leaving them open for various kinds of raids once you are safe enough.

I tried playing Age of Empires but I got sick of the microing and the pathfinding and my villagers walking to the other side of the fucking forest to cut a tree.

My micro has always been just shit enough to see recon units get eaten before they can cause too much annoyance. The times when I would implement decen harass was done at the expense of other tasks like base-building, unit production, and other movements.

That's weird, for some reason I always found they were excessively campy, often leaving clusters of vehicles sitting idle around strategic areas. Sure they'd send in small columns pretty regularly but it's pretty easy to feed them into base defences without getting overrun.

yesterday i started a standard game in AOE2 against 3 hardest AIs, no teams
i'm playing magyars
the persians were being invaded by incas the entire game and couldn't do shit
spanish controled the rivers with ships, and it was pretty much impossible to destroy their town because it was surrounded by trees and conquistadors
eventually the incas finally chose to completely destroy the persians, once the persians started making a wonder
then the incas and me moved onto the spanish
spanish died pretty quick, both of us had tons of halberdiers
so now it was just me and the incas
the issue is, that i don't have any decent units against them. my unique unit is cavalry with a bonus against siege
my siege weapons can't upgrade to the highest tier, + i don't want to waste my limited gold on them
so i started making halberdiers and arbaletists/crossbowman
you'd be surprised how easy it is to stop a horde of incas with a couple of meatshields and arrows. i managed to get a huge killcount just by getting one group to hold off the attackers, and another to flank them from behind
now my issue is that neither side can penetrate the other
incas can't beat my defense because i've got castles near my walls, and if they send siege equipment i just destroy it with my huszars
but i can't break through their borders because they've got an endless swarm of halberdiers, that are protected by their ships
i had to stop the game about 3 hours in since it was 2 am
gonna continue it sometime today

scouts are only for scouting, you send them off to die so that you can see what's coming

you need to learn your hotkeys then faglord

Instead of giving you a bullshit explanation of what you should be doing, I'll just summarize the game design for pretty much every RTS game for you.

You're playing rock paper scissors with the enemy.

Attacking defeats collecting resources. (Since no defenses = you're fucked.)
Collecting resources defeats defending. (Since you end up snowballing economy.)
Defending defeats attacking. (Since it takes time to move an army to the enemy, you should always have more units on defense than the enemy has on offense.)

If you're getting rekt by your opponent before you built anything, you focused too much on collecting resources.
If your attacks achieve nothing, then you're too greedy in trying to get a kill.
If you're barely getting by on defense without actually using structures; you're winning on virtue of snowball.

After that; the individual game's mechanics for snowball economy and tactics come into play. Not all RTS games allow proper resource collection expansion, turning the game into just a tactics game.
When it comes to tactics, remember you should use the units to the best of their abilities, and only pick fights where you end up on top. (That means: Your resource loss < their resource loss.)

And don't forget; AI's in most RTS games are cheating cunts. Never compare yourself to them, unless you know for sure that they're not cheating.

Oh, and don't forget to check replays and what-not to see how your opponents quickly do their expansion/buildorder/whatever to understand how they got units out so fast. If the RTS you're playing doesn't have replays, play a better RTS.

I used to be pretty shit at RTS' still am kinda. I found that being aggressive as early as possible is the best to beat AI. Human players are much trickier and I always lose against other people.

That they do, but those aren't very numerous. Also as they build up their taskforces (they have various groups with different unit compositions in the AI.ini or somesuch) those stay in their bases. Maybe that's what you mean? Because they never stop producing units - which is the right thing to do, as was mentioned above.

what version of dawn of war 1 is the played version? theres platinum which is 2 expansions combined and then soulstorm which is by itself

I think what happened was that I'd always keep enough pressure on their "reserve" while they threw token taskforces into my base defences.

I remember hurling a lot of artillery, superweapons and airstrikes against those massed formations. They'd always keep producing them yeah, but I could break them faster.

Are you gook? if not, just give up RTS all together. It's not worth competing.

80% of that is useless APM spam.

Make that 99%.

You know that whole muh micro and apm talk? It's bullshit.
Bottom line is that you're got two ways of improving: practice and repeat until you get sick of the game or take it comfy and just turtle up. WW1 that bitch.

It's not what you want.
Play Men of War AS2.

look the at that player screen. Those are not useless spam. That's how player brain works in RTS gaming. It's all about split second decision and reaction.

If you watch recordings of pro players playing, you might notice that there are rather large periods of time they waste a lot of clicks and keypresses just to keep themselves in shape for inevitable upcoming engagements. That's what he meant.

It's about being in charge of the battlefield OP. If your basic instinct is to turtle like a bitch then there is no real helping you at all. Too many poor players basic instinct is to turtle and whine about rushing. Rushing is good. Rushing lets you take control of a large portion of the map early. Learn how to rush first then everything else will fall into place. Why? Cause it's a lot better being in a position where you can afford to lose ground than being stuck at the midgame unable to take ground, starving for resources and any inch of ground you lose is catastrophic.

You look at that player screen. Clicking 20 times around the watchtower accomplishes the exact same thing as clicking once, it's spamming APM, as is the vast majority of "actions" done in SC2. The best case you can make for it is warming up for the rare situations when it matters.

There are two fundamental parts that you need to git gut at in every RTS that isn't gookclick.
a) Efficiency: Have every unit be doing something as soon as possible. If you aren't making worker units you're probably doing it wrong. If you aren't capping a point in games like DoW or CoH then you're doing it wrong. If you have a raiding force ready and you're not harrasing the enemy then you're doing it wrong. If you're harvesting more resources then you can consume, make more production buildings.
I remember one mistake I made as a kid in Age of Empires 2 was to just make one of every building. The exception was when I made a secondary base, but that would also have one of every building. In retrospect I think I may have been trying to play it like a city-builder.

b) Strategy: Know thy foe. To know him you need to have good map control as well as scout. Know what units he's building and where, and how to counter them. If you can guess what tech he's going to research based on his unit composition you may be able to move towards a counter before he attacks, tilting the scales in your favour.
If the game allows it, use the terrain to your advantage. Think about your unit composition. Even non-gookclick RTS players can benefit greatly from micro, so learn to use it.

That's not what scouts are for. You want your scouts to do two things: locate the enemy and tell you when they're moving. Early game scouts should be used to find where the enemy base is and which direction they are expanding towards, the rest of the game they should be set up wandering near the enemy forward positions and occasionally going into their main base to judge their progress.
They shouldn't really ever be used to attack anything just to give you sight. If they get destroyed, you know enemies are there or starting their advance. If you do get a scout behind enemy lines and into undefended parts, go ahead and blow some shit up but don't expect to be very effective with it. Getting the location of everything is more valuable than finding one undefended strategic point and chipping away at it until the enemy reinforces to stop your scout and makes it not undefended any more.

Go online and let a real person kick your ass. Then watch the replay. It's probably a very minor thing you're doing during initial expansion that sets you way back.

Play stronghold, you win making bread and filling your walls with archers

You assume RTS games require a high level of learning and strategic thinking. They do not.

They require memorization of shortcuts, build orders and high APM. Hence gook clickers.

Your attempt at insulting me is probably one of the most TIPS FEDORA I've seen around here. I sincerely hope it was copypasta.

RTS confirmed vidya genre of /vidya/

Fuck I need to stop drinking in the morning.

Have you tried to use hotkeys? They really help.

This does not actually address what I'm saying yet again.
Perhaps at whatever woodleague level it is you exist on, but as with anything game no matter how simple, high level play requires creativity and psychological games with the opponent.
Stating the truth of your inability to properly comprehend what I'm typing isn't insulting you, it's trying to help you. You clearly don't understand what you are, and you can't progress unless you do.

are towers actually that useful? unless it's a castle or bombard towar, regular towers hardly seem to do damage

Towers are useful for being distractions to players. They can't move their units in without destroying it because they take damage from it

I was like you, but I practiced a bit and eventually managed to dominate the AI back when I played Starcraft.

Starcraft 2 is actually easier to get into, as you can customize the difficulty more.

And that's where it ends for me. I can have fun with the AI, but pitch me against a human opponent and I have no chance. I still remember my first experience playing AOE2 online. Of course, those who play it online at all are veterans who use the keyboard as much, if not more, than the mouse, just like those Starcraft koreans.

I'd barely started before I was steamrolled.

To have any fun at all requires extreme dedication. Once you get autistic about it, the magic and immerison goes away and it becomes a numbers game. That's fine if that's what you're into. But if you're like me who has neither the talent, willpower or desire to get there, then you can have a lot of fun just with the AI.

You don't even need to become good at hotkeys to dominate the AI. Just keep practising.

It's not just RTS by the way. Go look at the Heroes of Might and Magic thread if it's still here. Russians dominate HoMM3 and have taken it to extreme levels. That requires autistically exploiting the AI. Again, nuts bolts and numbers game. That's what it takes to take a game to the highest level. It's a choice one has to make.

yeah, the initial grind in AOE2 is mildly annoying
especially if you're shit at it
that's why i tend to play saracens in online games, since they have good initial market prices and i can use that to make up for my shitty economy
sadly most games just become "who can afford to spam units longer", unless you know how to counter every situation

yea, but for the cost, a tower is not as good as a castle considering it's health, and more arrows
unless you're japanese or something, don't castles always work better while also being more efficient?

but those two factors decide "gookclick" every bit as much as other RTS, it just turns it up a notch
most failings of average players of these mystical "gooclick" games are due to not scouting, too much rest time, and just straight up not understand what units reliably win which fights and at what time to build them.

I don't care that you're correct, just find the nearest bridge and take a dive
laddering is dead and all we're left with is "look at my shiny badge" even though you fuckers couldn't maintain a c+ if you tried

Against humans you have to know how to counter and what to do. Watching some streams might actually help.

APM is not that important. Reaction time, map awareness and multitasking are.
There was one pro-player from germany who only made tanks and had 30 apm. He still was extremely hard to win against before siege tank nerfs.

Against AI you just need to know what to do. In SC2 Brutal AI always died from fast expand and timed push. Generally good economy with cost-effective defenses early are good idea. Depending on game you can learn fastest AI attacks and prepare exactly for them.

Forgot embed.

i don't know how it is in starcraft, but in AOE2 if you can survive the first 40 minutes against a bot, you'd probably be safe for the rest of the game. the challenge then is how to stop the AI from swarming you
in my case, the AI usually blows it's resources on units with the intention of rushing me, so knights, archers all that shit
the good thing is that their counters are food+wood units, so for the most of the early game i'm just making halberdiers/skirmishers to counter cavalry/archers
and once the AI catches on/runs out of gold, he'll also start spamming halberdiers, at which point you use your saved up gold either on archers or onagers, while also spamming halberdiers as meat shields

After every single game, think what you could have done differently/better, then do so in your next.
After 20 games you'll become good/decent.

Sounds like you got some unhealthy shadows of the psyche, user.

This.
I FUCKING HATE
how A LOT of players say "dow 2 retri takes skill, unlike dow 1" and I suspect anyone who dislikes dow 1 (or likes dow2) didn't play dow1.
I got 150 hours in SS (130 in multiplayer I guess) and it was amazing.
Then comes dow 2,

DOW 1 original, from what I've heard, was extremely balanced and tactical as everything had a counter and it was intense.
Even SS is really difficult.

But most fucking retarded autists stay in base for 30 minutes, then come out with 20/20 full army, then go on internet forums "game is boring", then we get DOW 2 and devs say "DOW 3 should be more like DOW 2, buyers liked it.
RRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Alright go build castles everywhere you'd build a standard tower then tell me how that goes. What's that? You don't have castles yet? You can't fit castles at a choke point effectively because the castle takes too much space and it's taking you twice as long to build? The increased DPS of the castle requires garrisoned units and don't have that many units?

See the problem? The Bombard Towers are banned because they're so OP, but regular towers when used offensively or just as harassment you can't ignore you can build several towers at once in half the time it takes to build one castle.

It was like that in theory (and in the original release) but the later expansions weren't as refined as something like Brood War. Since they added a bunch of new races to the game the balance started to go all over the place with some units being just better than others.

have you tried learning uber micro?

so just get extra villagers to build the castle faster

Or get extra villagers to build the towers even faster, then build the wall, then garrison the villagers in the enclosed wall at the chokepoint bringing them out for repairs to the wall and towers. If a castle falls then that's it the villagers are screwed because the one building is destroyed, if a couple towers are destroyed then the other garrisoned villagers can rebuild them after the remaining towers continue to harass and rebuild the wall. There is no ignoring this setup if you place it right, the opponent has to take out this fucking batch of towers in full with a concentrated force while a single castle can be taken out and all the DPS is gone and your villagers are fucked.

Castles are good, but you're really not giving towers credit for being superior harassment tools.

*Apologies to Samefagging but I'd just like to add that I'm not talking about the final tier of arrow firing towers, those are shit.

Not with the HD AI, the new AI gets more and more powerful in late game. It doesn't even resource cheat.

I fucking hate that. I stopped playing with friends cause they literally refused to go out into the map and cap points to gain resources which meant I was the only one doing any fighting or holding ground meaning even Standard Comps just steamrolled them. Thank fuck I know how to cheese Imperial Guard Grenade Spam and take on 7 experts at once cause of it.

Multiplayer should still be alive though, I think.
But yes, this is how games go

forgot images

I mean look at this game and say "DOW 2 is more difficult and more complex and better".

It would be impossible to make that assertion with a straight face.

Just saying, but DOW2 is not really meant to be treated as an RTS, it's meant to be treated like the game on which it's based, the Warhammer 40,000 Tabletop game. Which is why you don't build bunkers and bases and pump out 20 units. Your stating army is a set point size based on your army of choice, you fight for map control. Because that's what Warhammer 40K is all about. Dawn of War 1 (while not a bad game) is not indicative of Warhammer 40K, it's more like a bad mix of Warhammer 40K and Starcraft (which is ironic, because Starcraft was made based on Warhammer 40K in the first place).

Saying "Dawn of War 2 is a bad game" (like you did) is a complete misunderstanding of what the game is supposed to be. Dawn of War 2 is a real-time recreation of the Warhammer 40K tabletop game which is why you start with X units, and only get so many units. It's not meant to be played like Starcraft. It's not a bad game, nor is Dawn of War 1 a bad game.

I don't understand why you can't like both, however, did you ever consider that both are good games?

I think he's getting on that DOW2 has been treated by faggots like the be and end all of DOW games cause they couldn't get into DOW1, or worse never played it cause DOW2 was the first 40k game they played. I did notice a sharp decline in the standards of the 40k community as soon as DOW2 came out to be honest

that's what i meant
if you survived the initial onslaught, that means you're good enough to survive whatever he throws at you

I'm going to say, if you associate with any community for anything, you're going to pick up some awful shit, whether you glean other peoples' bad opinions, or other peoples' bad opinions grate on you. Just enjoy a game for what it means to you.

I have both DOW and DOW2, and I like them both, they're both good games, if a little bit more complicated in comparison to say Starcraft. But I don't have a preference for either, and would be more likely to play Last Stand because for me custom maps in games like Starcraft were just more fun playing say a coop RPG with a bunch of other people.

I don't know what the "be all and end all of Dawn of War" is, but I would say that no matter what, it's going to be your opinion vs someone else's. And that's fine. You don't have to argue and bullshit until you're blue in the face because someone likes something else.

DoW 2 barely even qualifies as an RTS, It's an ok game but a disappointing sequel.

Aphex Twin is a Total Annihilation fan.

Why don't people like Dawn of War 2?

I also have a problem with RTS games.I'm not good at macromanaging, And really I can only play one a team, I get really anxious without a teammate.
What do I do?

There is World in Conflict but its RTT, however its one of my favourite for the simple fact it really is entirely conflict based.

I thoroughly enjoy DoW2, with elite mod. It's really fun and more like the tabletop than DoW was.

Do you like the feeling of RTS where you are building a base, managing resources, constructing an army that counters your foe, pressuring at different times etc?
If you do, then keep playing, but play against other people. Learn how to play the game from people who are better than you. Watch videos/replays on how your opponent did.

I've only played 2 and not 1 and I really like 2.

This is what helped me:

-If you're floating resources, make more production buildings
-If you're low on resources, expand and make more workers
-If you ever feel you need to do something, just do it. (Example: Harassing the enemy, expanding, teching up, etc. Many new players tend to sit in their base for way too long because they're afraid of the opponent, when in reality they need to stop caring and just Do it).

-Always scout your opponent. Information is the key to success! It doesn't hurt to keep a unit at the enemy expansions just to see when he's trying to expand.

Macro > Micro

Wut
Its an RTS
Thats the genre

But there isn't any base building or resource collecting in it, so RTT seems the closest thing.R-right?

I like the idea of creating a base and creating a military that I use to clobber the opponent. It's more of a question of "how do I get good at doing this"

It's why I liked Dawn of War because base building was a very small part of the game and resource accumulation was automatic. It was just "create/upgrade squads". It felt like an all micro game.

This is actually something I can never figure out. How many worker units do I need to create at the start for my resources. Since whenever I watch replays they always seem to have a ton of worker units before they ever have any military.

Each game has its own weird nuances, and you really have to learn them on a per-game basis. When you enter a game as a total noob it can be really rough. I personally tried playing some Soulstorm, and after getting wrecked for a week I learned a basic build path that allowed me to quickly get to wraith lords, as I had seen many other Eldar do. Suddenly I could play on a reasonable level in casual games without being a burden.

If you mean 'how do I get good at micro/macro', that's fundamentals that you can only learn by practicing.

Imagine you were staring directly at the barrel of a gun right now.

The tell you that it's still an RTS because it's still a strategy game were you move units around and counter the enemy with the right units.

Would you agree with them or get shot?

This is slightly off-topic, but does anyone have a strong opinion about which open-source RTS is worth playing?

Warzone2100 is fun, but fukhueg tech tree for no real reason. 0 A.D. maybe?

Just looking for some opinions.

If that's the case then RTT doesn't exist because every strategy game is an RTS game and the RTT label has no meaning to it. And besides the modern meaning of RTS involves base-building and resource collection, while Real-time tactics is just maneuvering units and countering enemies solely without the bases.

Not as useful as their equivalent cost units but don't count towards the unit cap, can garrison villagers (granting them more firepower), and are cheaper and available sooner than bombard towers and castles, scaling with arrow technologies.
They have their niche but aren't the be all and end all. The reason why I had that many in that particular game is because I had a lot of stone and manpower but not much food or gold when an army showed up at my gates. Couldn't effectively make units within the walls to reinforce my guys outside and it was only a matter of time before they came in.

I always forget how nice that game looked
damn shame what happened to it

I remember when there were still people on the servers. Now an empty feeling overcomes me whenever I think about those empty servers. A damn shame indeed

Knockback still works? I haven't played in a long while, but, from what I remember, both in DC and SS with latest patches it wasn't nowhere near as efficient as before. Although perhaps I had a balance-changing mod.

in the time it takes to get good at an rts game you could have made your own rts game

Define "worth playing".
Warzone 2100 is good. I prefer Earth 2150, but it's not free.
Zero-K is both free and good.
0 A.D. was too raw when I last tried it.
There's also an RTS thread up right now.

After I tweaked the pop cap to a bit higher number, I found myself loving Elite mod.

DoW 1 was great too, but I got a bit tired of it (played it WAY too much).

Any Starcraft players try their hand at Natural Selection 1 or 2? How well did you manage the transition?

Why don't you girls play a real man's game?
are there any other good games that utilize the limited army like RD?

This is a bit Brood War specific, but play on the pro maps. No, seriously. The modern pro maps like Fighting Spirit, Circuit Breakers, and Overwatch all have a 2nd base(natural expansion) right next to the main with a choke point that can be blocked by 2-3 buildings depending on your race. With Protoss, I throw up a Pylon in the middle, then put my Forge on one side and my first Gateway on the other side. By the time the Forge comes up I put two cannons behind the buildings and get my first zealot up. 9/10 times I'll get the zealot out of the Gateway by the time Zerg sends 6 lings to try and do an early game wipe. The zealot sits next to the forge to prevent the lings from running past, and the cannons clean them up nicely. Once the initial rush has been blocked, I'm then in position to take an easy 2nd base and make a mad dash for templars.

Your average map that came with SC will usually have 2-3 routes into a base and rather wide choke points, meaning you have to spend a lot more resources on troops/defenses just to survive the mid-game rush. So go get the pro level maps, you'll be glad you did.

And to learn strategy, google team liquid and check out their wiki.

You need to realize, the pro SC/BW players are using a high level strategy that will take you TONS of practice to be able to pull off. They've done the math and found that the "sweet spot" of workers on minerals is roughly 2.5 workers per patch. Some players prefer using 2, others go with 3. There is a trade off in returns and your unit cap depending on which way you go, and there are diminishing returns as well. Part of the main bonus of the strategy is that when they have a new base come online they can send half the workers to the new base and get it running at a good speed immediately, without crippling the old base.

I've used 1 worker per patch for ages, lately I've been messing with 1.5. I really haven't noticed much difference, if any.

AOE2 has too many techs, and their relevance and prices depend on the civilization you play. If I were to try to master it, I would have to choose one civ. But they are all situational depending on a map. So if you've dedicated time and effort into mastering a naval civ and you get thrown into a black forest map then you're fucked.

This. It seems the higher the level, the narrower the possibilities and strategy because everybody get shoehorned into specific orders of building, attacking or other strategical blueprints. Because otherwise, you're choosing the less efficient option.

This seems to be the dead end of competitive RTS. In the beginning, the game is diverse in terms of strategy because it's new, so people play differently. But once they figure out the nuts and bolts, it's clickety-click actions per second that decides the winner.

I'd wager that the higher up the ladder you get in any RTS, the less strategies are actually utilized, because there can only be so many blueprints for max efficiency.

There are plenty of jack of all trades civs and other civs like that. But generally it's recommended to get good at a few particular strategies like rushing a particular unit or tech and pick a civ that's good at that when you're on a particular map.

A good RTS will try to avoid "deathball" rushes and try to encourage more individual strikes at enemies. Like it's one reason I like Starcraft because it encourages doing things like targeting individual units and how several really powerful units such as Valkyries or Reavers usually have crippling weaknesses like being unable to attack land/air units respectively.

You can memorize all of the build orders but at some point you need to get good at Micro in order to defeat a good opponent at the game. If you watch any professional Starcraft matches you'll see a lot of impressive Microing.

Are you having fun with tanks that run out of fuel after 4km? They can't even cross the map.

Not every RTS is competitive.

unfortunately for me, a lot of it has to do with memorization. learning what is time and cost effective, or when to expect certain events to happen. sometimes its going to feel like youre just going through a routine and the actual game doesnt happen until later.

You might do better at Real Time Tactics games then…
Anybody know any more?

Nigger you fucked up already. Kill yourself before going any further.

Nigga is this the Berenstain Universe?

Blitzkrieg and Sudden strike series are RTT. I can't get into Sudden strike at all though, just doesn't feel as good as Blitzkrieg to me.

I think RUSE might count as RTS because it has base building and unit production.

Also resource gathering

EndWar was good but the multiplayer is practically dead and it had a microphone gimmick to it. Found it neat at the time but seems average at best now. There is also a few Space combat ones like Nexus the Jupiter Incident and the WW2 Soldiers/Faces/Men of War series.

it's amazing what happens when you stick a maglan up someones ass.

Also remember that higher level AIs blatantly cheat. Dawn of War is notorious for this- ever had three Space Marine Chaplains leading four squads of Terminators shoved down your throat at the ten minute mark?

You clearly have no idea what the fuck you are talking about since RUSE is quite clearly an RTS game.

what does SC have to do with that ?

I miss the early DoW1 days, before patches sucked out all the fun out of the game.

Different guy, but SupCom is one of my favourites, I just don't like the idea of artillery and nukes demolishing you from the other side of the map. I always prefer to smash together all our forces and play it like a tabletop game, with clever positioning and movement needed to win the battle.

But suppcom clever positioning involves grouping units and A moving units to the enemy base.
At best you do a drop with air.

Supcom is very much a macro game. Giant blob armies and end-game arty/nukes are designed to reward the player who was able to retain resources/cripple his opponent's resources better than the other.

It has base building, on map production and resource gathering

The worst part about nexus was went they went "ayy lamoo" rather than just keeping it as hard sci fi corporate warfare out near jupiter
the rotating ship sections make my dick diamonds though

The biggest cancer on supcom is the no air no nukes crowd. Granted I basically only ever use my air units to harass generators early and transport a small group of t2 assault bots into the back of the enemy base but it's boring as sin to just have land units. You even have tactical missile defenses and shields to stop those kind of things from fucking up your base. Artillery is really inaccurate, has such a low rate of fire, and such an easy target to snipe that it's only a threat if you're already on the back foot.

The real threat in supcom is something you're not prepared for. If someone brings in bombers when you haven't got any anti-air you can say good bye to your power generators. Likewise, if you roll in with a massive air force into a base and they already have heaps of anti-air, you're completely fucked unless you can take out their anti-air with ground troops before the bombers arrive. The game rewards mixed unit tactics. Giant blob armies are only effective if they can actually attack the enemy.

they're just shitters who caught with their pants down and didn't build ant-nuke missiles

I find nukes to be quite underpowered in most RTS games unless it's something like RA2 Russian missiles or you use an strategy that rushes for one while crippling your opponent's eco. Everything else can only take on one-two buildings or can be countered as you say.

I can't believe people don't build anti before building a nuke silo, it's like, why are you even wasting resources on something that MAY NOT win you the game but not on something that WILL save your bases from utter annihilation? Antis are even cheaper than nukes in both SupCom and TA, there's no reason not to build anti at such a point in the game. If you don't have the eco to even build one, you should already have been dead at that point unless you're fighting 2v1 or something.

Yeah the first missions were great then it became usual sci-fi alien wars cliche. Atleast gameplay was fun.

It is funny how this reverses as player skill goes up. With constant scouting he may skip on SMD entirely if he knows his opponent can't build SML.