Loved Dune 2, loved Warcraft (1, 2 and 3), and was a little too addicted to Starcraft.
On a semi-related note: Does anyone know of any other pure RTS game that rivals Starcraft 2? Nothing seems to compare ...
On a semi-related note: Does anyone know of any other pure RTS game that rivals Starcraft 2? Nothing seems to compare ...
Games such as Ground Control have a promising concept, but suffer from an extreme lack of polish, which in this case means that you can't save the game during the mission, forcing you to restart and restart and restart over and over and over again until you get bored and uninstall the game.
However, I greatly enjoyed playing Myth and Myth II: Soulblighter. They are both pure tactical games from the 90s, meaning that you don't actually build any structures or produce units in them. Instead, you're given a small detachment (sometimes counting only 1-2 heroes) at the start of the mission and expected to plow through a horde of enemies. The AI is superb and will brutally punish your mistakes.
In some cases, you'll be given grenadier Dwarves and a huge cache of landmines they can carry and set on the ground, ready to be lit and blow everything nearby to smithereens. [0] [1]
The appeal is in the absolute carnage: blood splatters all over the map and the pieces of units fly everywhere, possibly even killing other units in the process. There is an active mod community to this day[2], with unofficial compatibility patches, larger resolution options and UI fixes.
I do not recommend Myth multiplayer, since only the most hardcore players are remaining, meaning that you'll fare poorly if you try competing against teams of people that've been playing for 10+ years consistently.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgXRO1HPBAg
One thing to note, though, is that they're generally much more focused around city planning and resource management than warfare. They're also have a far slower pace than, say, Starcraft does.
I'm sure you probably have, but give League of Legends a try if you haven't. There's still a lot of similarities with RTSes.
Apparently, it is intended to be a spiritual successor to Herzog Zwei.
I was a bit disappointed in the remake with regards to how they handled the sizing of the UI.
Every part of the UI is very small on my high resolution (2560 x 1440) display.
Not what I expected when they market it as a HD remake.
I searched the internet to see if anyone else was disappointed and found that indeed I was not alone.
Here is one example of what others are saying: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1bslgq/why_is_the_us...
Still, AoE II was a good game and I have fond memories of it from my childhood.
The HD version supports all sorts of resolutions, whereas the original game was restricted to just 800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x1024!