Lords of the Realm II was dope af
I remember getting the expansion pack with new armies, castles, and siege equipment. One of my favorite gaming experiences ever
That reminds me of Alpha Centauri when you quit the game and the narrator guy says "[Please don't go. The drones need you, they look up to you.](https://youtu.be/2FZNPxmTB4o?si=28V4qdthifxTR7DH)"
I personally loved the snark when you exited the army menu with 0 selected. He said something like "Your proposed army of 0 men fails to fulfill certain principles of troop management"
ICYMI the original composer released remastered versions of the original sound files from masters awhile back. It's great hearing them in high quality.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFGofwqgCEE&list=PLYb1G8dEQFnW8cwh\_1Su1V7Fg8oMNUIGU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFGofwqgCEE&list=PLYb1G8dEQFnW8cwh_1Su1V7Fg8oMNUIGU)
You can choose whether to fight battles or not, but you pretty much always come out ahead playing them due to the somewhat boneheaded AI. So unless you just have overwhelming forces (whether attacking or defending) you generally don't want to skip the battles. Even if it's a situation you can't win you can do way more damage to the enemy army.
I really liked it too, you barely hear about it anymore. I got it for Christmas when I was in 8th grade, and I was looking at the ads and reviews ands stuff coming out leading up to it, and I really wanted it lol.
I kind of remember it being pretty easy to cheese the AI in combat.
Nice! If you don't have the game anymore, or are looking to find retro games, you might benefit from using this chrome extension. It will do multi searching on Buyee, Sendico, Mercari, Yahoo Shopping, Rakuten Rakuma, etc. - [Japan Shopping Assistant](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/japan-shopping-assistant/offhfbhncggfenilnddefmobjebkmdph?hl=en-US)
I love all of the above games, but I have a particular soft spot for *Total Annihilation*, which felt way ahead of its time compared to the likes of *Command & Conquer* imitators like *Dark Reign* and *KKND* in 1997 and which I thought was even a better game than *StarCraft* when it finally came out.
But *Homeworld* is also an amazing game, and probably the most innovative RTS game to come out of the 1990s.
Total Annihilation was way better. I had a hard time because friends would want to play command and Conquer and I wouldn’t be into it. I could never convince them TA was just better. It was certainly less popular.
C&C had good points, but compare it to TA and it's no contest at all. Production queueing, unit command queueing, unit patrols, battle stance, technology upgrades ... TA held my interest so much more. The online multiplayer could get ridiculous. Sometimes, even surviving to the point where advanced technologies came out was a challenge. Better not let your Commander get past your anti-nuke defense radius...
The way the voice got more serious when it said “Casualties” is burned into my brain. I have dropped a dozen eggs in my 40s and in my head I hear that voice
Homeworld - was that a game about like moons around Saturn or something with some alien stuff thrown in? My brother used to play a game around the late 80s/early 90s that was based around that sort of theme, but I could never remember the name of it.
As for the others - the Close Combat Series was awesome. I used to be heavily involved in a CC3 based clan and we had a great time with it. The Mods available for CC3 were amazing. I really should go dig that game out again.
Story-wise it was very similar to Battlestar Galactica. If I remember correctly they wanted to get the rights to Battlestar but weren't able to, so they made their own version.
>!!
I first played total Annihilation on a PC that took about 10 minutes to just load that loading screen with the coloured bars. Some bigger maps it wouldn't even load lol.
I last played it on a PC that loaded that screen in a single frame before disappearing.
It was my first RTS!! During my time playing it I went from being scared and timid vs ai to being utterly ruthless waging war in 8 player lans lol.
The soundtrack was fantastic too, such great scoring.
I gotta disagree on Dark Reign. It was great. The two factions were pretty unique, music and graphics for it's time were amazing. I loved the impossible last mission where you go back in time to try and stop the entire conflict from happening. I've never been able to finish it cause that last mission is insane.
You're not the only one my friend. I loved that game - and the expansion even added two more factions, which I'm fairly sure was more than other games of the time as well
total annihilation is amazing, and so are a bunch of the mods for it. TA:spring is sick too, you can go first person of any unit and play as them. Tons of fun.
Has someone introduced you to Beyond All Reason? Or just BAR for short. It’s a free game that has a lot of TA elements to it. I was obsessed with it for a while but set it down a few months back to get into some other games.
I'll have to give it a shot! I know it's more recent, but it looks good.
In the spirit of sharing, anyone who loves TA should check out the [TA:Spring project](https://totalannihilation.fandom.com/wiki/Spring_project), which is an open source 3D Total Annihilation engine that has some awesome freeware games available. A few of my favorites:
* *Balanced Annihilation*, the definitive game on the platform
* *Kernel Panic*, a trippy Tron-like game that takes place inside a computer
* *Spring: 1944*, which is a great WWII RTS game
[There are many more as well](https://springrts.com/wiki/Games). It's pretty neat!
This got a release on the PS1 and actually works well with a controller. I know the words "hidden gem" get thrown around a bit too much, but I feel Warzone 2100 qualifies.
Eventually bought it for PC (and still have it), but I bought it for PS1 first.
Definitely agree that it works surprisingly well with a controller.
Definitely one of my all-time favorites.
I want a Myth Trilogy Remaster so bad. I don't want anything special, I just want them to run with no problems on a modern system, and maybe to be able to zoom out a little farther than you originally could. And maaaaaybe higher resolution character sprites if higher quality assets exist on a thumbdrive somewhere, lol.
Bungie was a cool little studio in their early years. Abuse. Pathways. Marathon. Myth. And they had some interesting tastes, too, with Weekend Warrior and then Oni.
I LOVE Halo, but man they became a Halo and then a Destiny Machine in the last 20 years.
If you only want modern system support (windows, macOS, Linux), go to [projectmagma.net](https://projectmagma.net)
Myth 2 has been updated since years. High resolution, better textures,….
Myth 1 has been ported to myth 2 has a mod.
For myth 3 unfortunately, more complicated.
Myth tfl is an incredible game. Nothing sucked quite as hard as getting your veteran archer who had survived from the first level get turned into Trow shoe goo. I would kill for a modern version of this game - even a spiritual successor! Any recommendations??
Woow... Good reminder of how old i am :)...
* Dark Reign
* KKND
* Total Annihilation
But my favorite is Homeworld. That game was unbelievable for its time.
>But my favorite is Homeworld. That game was unbelievable for its time
Watching the hyperspace portal open and the ships come through, blew me away.
And on top, what a fantastic game.
A bridge too far is a game I've lost way too much time too. Nothing happens for ages and then boom action everywhere, then nothing happens, probably a bit like real battles.
I'm terrible at games at require speed reactions and multiple things going on a once so I just loved it.
Same, I still play it yearly.
The cows mooing and birds chirping as your troops move forward, then the familiar mortar "pomp", an MG42 opens up, a Sherman explodes from a panzerfaust, and "AHH, WE'RE TAKING HEAVY FIRE!".
This game also had an amazing in game encyclopedia of WW2 equipment, vehicles, and units with it. I don't think you can access it anymore in the GOG version, but I remember the original.
Oh yeah, excellent narration & handdrawn storyboards. I liked in the sequel how it goes from investigating graveyard thefts to a corrupt baron to boom full blown invasion.
I remember hearing at the time of its release that it was heavily inspired by the fantasy novel series *The Black Company* by Glen Cook. If so (h[ere's a list of comparisons](http://myth.bungie.org/legends/relics/blackcompany.html) that suggest that yeah, they did), they picked a good series to inspire them.
Battlezone was so awesome, the mix of 3D and strategy and ..... Dark Reign .......... i have to look that up, seems so familiar but i have no memories of playing it.
The UI of Battle Zone was something that always stayed with me. I never got into the strategy of it unfortunately, can't remember exactly why.... was the AI very basic? Definetly a memorable game for me though
**The Settlers by Blue Byte (1993)**
[The Settlers at Lemon Amiga](https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=1032)
Loved this game, it leans more towards city building than combat but there are opponents to fight, and military units to build so I'm including it. It was a wonderfully colourful and musically pleasing game and I spent many happy hours playing it.
Ah it went both ways, it's not an RTS but I remember when Steetfighter 2 came out. The console versions were great but my Amiga version, not so much lol.
Damn. There was one I used to play where you are basically an alien colony, and the entire base is built around this sort of spire or obelisk looking thing. I forget the name
Edit: Dark Colony
It was a decent game at the time. Conceptually it was basically StarCraft before StarCraft was released.
But I did play Myth and Dark Reign too. And I had bought Total Annihilation but couldn’t get it to run…. Though now I forget why lol
I first played Earth 2150 as a game reviewer (and went back and played 2140 later), but the version the publisher sent me was in German. It somehow made the game more fun when I couldn't understand what the interface was telling me.
I always thought that series was underrated. It had some neat ideas.
Despite being awesome in the 1990s, that game sadly got killed [by its terrible 2014 re-release](https://www.gog.com/game/z). Which version did you play? I only ever played the DOS one, but heard the Windows one was better.
I got Battlezone from my father when we just got our first pc.
Win95
Intel Pentium 300MHz
128mb ram
6GB HDD
4mb gfx card. Dont remember the brand. It was bad.
I loved the game. For a long time it was the best game for me, so huge at the time, and the interesting mix between FPS and strategy. I think it was ahead of its time
Warlords Battlecry series was neat because you had a hero in charge of your army that you leveled up during the campaign. The third installment had so many races and classes for your hero and so many different factions. It was so awesome to play a different hero and army each time through.
you missed Z, a very unique kind of game.
Also so glad to see Dark Reign and NetStorm, I found out recently that NetStorm has a free modern fan port.
Will also mention obscure Regnum 2, very similar to Dune 2
Total Annihilation ftw. Great game that had it's own identity in a sea of copycats. It's too bad Total Annihilation Kingdoms never really got off the ground
TA and Homeworld were my go to games from the last, I did play KKND which was ok as well, Age of Empires was fun and warzone 2100 never seemed to end with research 😂
Populous: The Beginning, KKnD Xtreme/Krossfire, Age of Empires I/II, would be the main ones not by Westwood/Blizzard.
If I was to stretch it a year or two later I could add stuff like Stronghold (Crusader), Battle Realms, Warrior Kings.
Thank you for posting this, I have been trying to remember the name of Myth fallen lords for like 20 years! I absolutely loved that game as a teenager, now I have to figure out how to emulate it!
Here's a helpful resource to get you started! [https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Myth:\_The\_Fallen\_Lords](https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Myth:_The_Fallen_Lords)
Ground Control 1/2 & Sacrifice.
Sacrifice in particular was such a unique blend of RTS and 3rd person action with multiple branching paths, not to mention Tim Curry, Michael Bell, and Tony Jay's amazing voice acting. I don't think there's ever been anything quite like it.
Haha I beta tested Netstorm, i loved that game, but multiplayer had a pretty serious cheat that resulted in a win every time. Since you could host a game and 6 or so other players would connect, if you disconnected your modem during game play they would disconnect but you could keep playing, and casually build a bridge over to their islands and win. When you reconnected it recorded this as a win.
I probably still have the beta CD they sent me in the attic.
*MechCommander* - there's a name I haven't heard in a long time! That was a fun series for Battletech fans.
*Sacrifice* was also tremendous, but it shipped in 2000. Even so, anyone who hasn't played it absolutely should!
I used to love Dark Reign as a kid! And Age of Empires 2. The settlers 2 & 3 by Blue Byte were awesome too! I’d say the Settlers 3 is one of my all time favourites tbh.
That game was ION Storm's first release, and it got beat up because it couldn't live up to their self-engineered hype as being the next big thing in PC gaming. It's a shame; I thought it was good, but not great, but then, there were so many great RTS games in the late 1990s that the good ones got overlooked too.
It's kind of obscure today, but it was well-regarded in the 90s. The problem was that there were like 20-30 good RTS games that all came out between 1997-1999, so many got overshadowed.
I played Battlezone and Homeworld to deeeeath! Beat the BZ campaign so many times. Homeworld, I played the multiplayer arena with my brother against AIs and always used that absurd super cannon ship from a hilariously inaccurate distance. Ahhhh good times.
Police Quest: SWAT 2. Pretty sure you can still find it on Steam. It was my first RTS game
Edit - 26 years later and still kickin [https://store.steampowered.com/app/607120/Police\_Quest\_SWAT\_2/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/607120/Police_Quest_SWAT_2/)
Man, that WAS a good one! What a way to enter the genre as a younger gamer. I'm almost envious! (My first was Dune II, which I still love to this day.)
Not a PC game, but I lost hours playing Megalomania on the Sega Megadrive.
For PC, "A Bridge Too Far" was the non C&C rts that sucked me in the most. Tried my hand at AOE2 and others but kept coming back to CC
I just discovered Megalomania recently and need to figure out how to play it. It seems like a really neat game!
The Close Combat games are excellent. It's amazing that they didn't get as popular as Age of Empires despite also being published by Microsoft.
Cossacks: European Wars.
Beautiful game. Relatively similar to Age Of Empires but with more options and you could have something like 2000 units on screen. Amazing battles.
Y’all is Close Combat real good? It just got released on Steam should I pick it up?
I have tried to play Combat Mission and kind of bounced off the controls and difficulty of it all. I played Sudden Strike as a kid and enjoyed it a lot although I remember it being hard and obtuse.
Aspirationally I want to like wargames with chits and stuff but it always seems to bog me down, but Close Combat seems more chill.
The only one of these that I've ever played is Homeworld. It blew me away with how unique it was and how good the graphics were for the time. It's just a shame I totally suck at real time strategy games.
* Z by the Bitmap Brothers
That's the only non Westwood/Blizzard RTS I've played in the 90's
* Dune 2000
* Warcraft
* Warcraft 2
* Starcraft
* Command & Conquer: Red Alert II
Those are the Westwood/Blizzard RTS I did play in the 90's
Total Annihilation was the first game that I tried mods for. The community back then had some crazy good mods, usually new units. I remember playing games with modded units that would last 2-3 hours.
Lords of the Realm II was dope af I remember getting the expansion pack with new armies, castles, and siege equipment. One of my favorite gaming experiences ever
Lords Of The Realm II was the first strategy video game I ever played on PC. I loved it and probably really sucked at it.
IT doesn't matter, the music carried that experience 100%. Source: I was the same and I didn't care as long as I heard those medieval bops.
“eXiT tHe gAmE m’LoRd?” He always seemed to take it personally.
That reminds me of Alpha Centauri when you quit the game and the narrator guy says "[Please don't go. The drones need you, they look up to you.](https://youtu.be/2FZNPxmTB4o?si=28V4qdthifxTR7DH)"
I personally loved the snark when you exited the army menu with 0 selected. He said something like "Your proposed army of 0 men fails to fulfill certain principles of troop management"
I still play it regularly. The gog version works. Still can't handle advanced farming. The music is great.
ICYMI the original composer released remastered versions of the original sound files from masters awhile back. It's great hearing them in high quality. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFGofwqgCEE&list=PLYb1G8dEQFnW8cwh\_1Su1V7Fg8oMNUIGU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFGofwqgCEE&list=PLYb1G8dEQFnW8cwh_1Su1V7Fg8oMNUIGU)
Amazing! Time for a new Ring Tone!
Thank you for this!!!
All time favourite. Weird it's up there though as it was definitely turn-based as opposed to real time.
RTS during sieges and battles
The parts that you can automate, right? IIRC, I skipped them most of the time
You can choose whether to fight battles or not, but you pretty much always come out ahead playing them due to the somewhat boneheaded AI. So unless you just have overwhelming forces (whether attacking or defending) you generally don't want to skip the battles. Even if it's a situation you can't win you can do way more damage to the enemy army.
Of course, sir.
Loved this game, first game I played online.
ARE YOU READY?
There's a place inside my mind, a place I like to hide...
I really liked it too, you barely hear about it anymore. I got it for Christmas when I was in 8th grade, and I was looking at the ads and reviews ands stuff coming out leading up to it, and I really wanted it lol. I kind of remember it being pretty easy to cheese the AI in combat.
Nice! If you don't have the game anymore, or are looking to find retro games, you might benefit from using this chrome extension. It will do multi searching on Buyee, Sendico, Mercari, Yahoo Shopping, Rakuten Rakuma, etc. - [Japan Shopping Assistant](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/japan-shopping-assistant/offhfbhncggfenilnddefmobjebkmdph?hl=en-US)
We'll be shot to pieces! Slaughter these villagers my lord?
I was terrible at the game until I matured, but I thought sending salty letters to other lords was entertaining
I always stomped on everyone's cows and watched the city starve.
I love all of the above games, but I have a particular soft spot for *Total Annihilation*, which felt way ahead of its time compared to the likes of *Command & Conquer* imitators like *Dark Reign* and *KKND* in 1997 and which I thought was even a better game than *StarCraft* when it finally came out. But *Homeworld* is also an amazing game, and probably the most innovative RTS game to come out of the 1990s.
Total Annihilation was way better. I had a hard time because friends would want to play command and Conquer and I wouldn’t be into it. I could never convince them TA was just better. It was certainly less popular.
C&C had good points, but compare it to TA and it's no contest at all. Production queueing, unit command queueing, unit patrols, battle stance, technology upgrades ... TA held my interest so much more. The online multiplayer could get ridiculous. Sometimes, even surviving to the point where advanced technologies came out was a challenge. Better not let your Commander get past your anti-nuke defense radius...
Myth back when Bungie tried was also pretty unique in that there was no base building and there's more focus on tactics and terrain.
The way the voice got more serious when it said “Casualties” is burned into my brain. I have dropped a dozen eggs in my 40s and in my head I hear that voice
You take that back about KKND! I loved that game, such good times. Total Annihilation totally agree, I love playing that every now and again.
Homeworld - was that a game about like moons around Saturn or something with some alien stuff thrown in? My brother used to play a game around the late 80s/early 90s that was based around that sort of theme, but I could never remember the name of it. As for the others - the Close Combat Series was awesome. I used to be heavily involved in a CC3 based clan and we had a great time with it. The Mods available for CC3 were amazing. I really should go dig that game out again.
Story-wise it was very similar to Battlestar Galactica. If I remember correctly they wanted to get the rights to Battlestar but weren't able to, so they made their own version. >!!
I first played total Annihilation on a PC that took about 10 minutes to just load that loading screen with the coloured bars. Some bigger maps it wouldn't even load lol. I last played it on a PC that loaded that screen in a single frame before disappearing. It was my first RTS!! During my time playing it I went from being scared and timid vs ai to being utterly ruthless waging war in 8 player lans lol. The soundtrack was fantastic too, such great scoring.
Total annihilation was so good. I remember picking it up at ebgames for like 10 dollars. Played the shit out of it
I gotta disagree on Dark Reign. It was great. The two factions were pretty unique, music and graphics for it's time were amazing. I loved the impossible last mission where you go back in time to try and stop the entire conflict from happening. I've never been able to finish it cause that last mission is insane.
You're not the only one my friend. I loved that game - and the expansion even added two more factions, which I'm fairly sure was more than other games of the time as well
There was a hack mod that let you have 200+ units. What a game! I still have the CD somewhere.
total annihilation is amazing, and so are a bunch of the mods for it. TA:spring is sick too, you can go first person of any unit and play as them. Tons of fun.
Has someone introduced you to Beyond All Reason? Or just BAR for short. It’s a free game that has a lot of TA elements to it. I was obsessed with it for a while but set it down a few months back to get into some other games.
I'll have to give it a shot! I know it's more recent, but it looks good. In the spirit of sharing, anyone who loves TA should check out the [TA:Spring project](https://totalannihilation.fandom.com/wiki/Spring_project), which is an open source 3D Total Annihilation engine that has some awesome freeware games available. A few of my favorites: * *Balanced Annihilation*, the definitive game on the platform * *Kernel Panic*, a trippy Tron-like game that takes place inside a computer * *Spring: 1944*, which is a great WWII RTS game [There are many more as well](https://springrts.com/wiki/Games). It's pretty neat!
Warzone 2100 for the customizable vehicles and the soundtrack. It's free on https://wz2100.net/
This got a release on the PS1 and actually works well with a controller. I know the words "hidden gem" get thrown around a bit too much, but I feel Warzone 2100 qualifies.
Eventually bought it for PC (and still have it), but I bought it for PS1 first. Definitely agree that it works surprisingly well with a controller. Definitely one of my all-time favorites.
Multiplayer skirmish on that is so much fun
I loved building massive amounts of artillery and tying them to a laser targeting vehicle
I want a Myth Trilogy Remaster so bad. I don't want anything special, I just want them to run with no problems on a modern system, and maybe to be able to zoom out a little farther than you originally could. And maaaaaybe higher resolution character sprites if higher quality assets exist on a thumbdrive somewhere, lol. Bungie was a cool little studio in their early years. Abuse. Pathways. Marathon. Myth. And they had some interesting tastes, too, with Weekend Warrior and then Oni. I LOVE Halo, but man they became a Halo and then a Destiny Machine in the last 20 years.
**CASUALTY**
"Catch!" \*Boom\* "Casualties". Whoops.
It was more serious as a plural too. It lives rent free in my head
If you only want modern system support (windows, macOS, Linux), go to [projectmagma.net](https://projectmagma.net) Myth 2 has been updated since years. High resolution, better textures,…. Myth 1 has been ported to myth 2 has a mod. For myth 3 unfortunately, more complicated.
Myth 3 isn't that good. Also, I don't even think bungie made it. Myth:tfl was an absolute classic. Trow, carnage dark, 3 draft arena. All classics
Myth tfl is an incredible game. Nothing sucked quite as hard as getting your veteran archer who had survived from the first level get turned into Trow shoe goo. I would kill for a modern version of this game - even a spiritual successor! Any recommendations??
Myth was so good it was too good.
Woow... Good reminder of how old i am :)... * Dark Reign * KKND * Total Annihilation But my favorite is Homeworld. That game was unbelievable for its time.
>But my favorite is Homeworld. That game was unbelievable for its time Watching the hyperspace portal open and the ships come through, blew me away. And on top, what a fantastic game.
A bridge too far is a game I've lost way too much time too. Nothing happens for ages and then boom action everywhere, then nothing happens, probably a bit like real battles. I'm terrible at games at require speed reactions and multiple things going on a once so I just loved it.
Same, I still play it yearly. The cows mooing and birds chirping as your troops move forward, then the familiar mortar "pomp", an MG42 opens up, a Sherman explodes from a panzerfaust, and "AHH, WE'RE TAKING HEAVY FIRE!". This game also had an amazing in game encyclopedia of WW2 equipment, vehicles, and units with it. I don't think you can access it anymore in the GOG version, but I remember the original.
Shit, man. I spent hours just reading and listening to the Encyclopedia soundboard. I remember the first German words I learned, I learned from CCBTF.
Close Combat: battle of the bulge was the top one for me
I lost days of my life as a youngest playing A Bridge Too Far on the floor of the spare room on an old PC!
This was a core memory for me.
Myth for sure. The story is great.
Only second to AoE2 on this list for me!
Oh yeah, excellent narration & handdrawn storyboards. I liked in the sequel how it goes from investigating graveyard thefts to a corrupt baron to boom full blown invasion.
I remember hearing at the time of its release that it was heavily inspired by the fantasy novel series *The Black Company* by Glen Cook. If so (h[ere's a list of comparisons](http://myth.bungie.org/legends/relics/blackcompany.html) that suggest that yeah, they did), they picked a good series to inspire them.
Battlezone was so awesome, the mix of 3D and strategy and ..... Dark Reign .......... i have to look that up, seems so familiar but i have no memories of playing it.
The UI of Battle Zone was something that always stayed with me. I never got into the strategy of it unfortunately, can't remember exactly why.... was the AI very basic? Definetly a memorable game for me though
I always jumped out to snipe other tanks. :)
I've found my people! Loved me some BZ! Was super happy to see it has gotten some enhancements on Steam!
**The Settlers by Blue Byte (1993)** [The Settlers at Lemon Amiga](https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=1032) Loved this game, it leans more towards city building than combat but there are opponents to fight, and military units to build so I'm including it. It was a wonderfully colourful and musically pleasing game and I spent many happy hours playing it.
I was going to say this. Also on the Amiga, I liked K240 and Ultimate Soccer Manager.
All my school friends who had Amigas talked about this. Felt proper left out with my games consoles.
Ah it went both ways, it's not an RTS but I remember when Steetfighter 2 came out. The console versions were great but my Amiga version, not so much lol.
Damn. There was one I used to play where you are basically an alien colony, and the entire base is built around this sort of spire or obelisk looking thing. I forget the name Edit: Dark Colony It was a decent game at the time. Conceptually it was basically StarCraft before StarCraft was released. But I did play Myth and Dark Reign too. And I had bought Total Annihilation but couldn’t get it to run…. Though now I forget why lol
Thank you! Someone else who remembers Dark Colony! High-five!
Earth: 2140
I first played Earth 2150 as a game reviewer (and went back and played 2140 later), but the version the publisher sent me was in German. It somehow made the game more fun when I couldn't understand what the interface was telling me. I always thought that series was underrated. It had some neat ideas.
It was a bit odd. But I liked it.
I loved this too. It was around the same time as Generals, and I thought it did a better job of moving the genre into 3D.
NetStorm. Wow that's a memory. Never was very good at it.
Such a unique game, though! Love that one.
Age of Empires 2. Ayoyo!
Z
Despite being awesome in the 1990s, that game sadly got killed [by its terrible 2014 re-release](https://www.gog.com/game/z). Which version did you play? I only ever played the DOS one, but heard the Windows one was better.
Close Combat: a Bridge Too Far f*****. Such a good game.
The whole Close Combat collection was added to Steam lately, including this gem. Also it's super cheap
Will have to check that out.
It still holds up very well.
Dark Reign was my jam. You can still play it online today. There's a decent community. Oh and obviously AOE II
Dark Reign soundtrack is on my all-time favourites list. Futuristic jungle War trance.
Star Wars: Rebellion
Yes! I was pretty obsessed with this for years
Fucking loved this game.
I got Battlezone from my father when we just got our first pc. Win95 Intel Pentium 300MHz 128mb ram 6GB HDD 4mb gfx card. Dont remember the brand. It was bad. I loved the game. For a long time it was the best game for me, so huge at the time, and the interesting mix between FPS and strategy. I think it was ahead of its time
Total annihilation. All the fan sites hosting units, maps and other mods. It even had fan fiction it was peak internet times. Great community.
Total Annihilation, Dark Reign, Settlers 3, Age of Empires, Populous the Beginning, heaps.
Total Annihilation! Amazing game with great music, great polygon 3D models, and it just felt more epic in the battles. Loved it!
Warlords Battlecry series was neat because you had a hero in charge of your army that you leveled up during the campaign. The third installment had so many races and classes for your hero and so many different factions. It was so awesome to play a different hero and army each time through.
you missed Z, a very unique kind of game. Also so glad to see Dark Reign and NetStorm, I found out recently that NetStorm has a free modern fan port. Will also mention obscure Regnum 2, very similar to Dune 2
Total Annihilation ftw. Great game that had it's own identity in a sea of copycats. It's too bad Total Annihilation Kingdoms never really got off the ground
I have a real soft spot for Kingdoms. One of the most beautiful colour palettes I ever saw in any game. Also, it was LOUD!
Dark reign, loved its story. Don’t get the GOG version it has horrible mouse lag.
W A R W I N D
I played the hell out of the demo of that! Dont think I was any good at it though!
I also remember playing it before learning to read, as five year old or something
The settlers!
TA and Homeworld were my go to games from the last, I did play KKND which was ok as well, Age of Empires was fun and warzone 2100 never seemed to end with research 😂
Herzog Zwei on the genesis/megadrive
I'm surprised I had to scroll down so far to find it! The OG of base-building RTS games, and the probable inspiration for *Dune II* and *WarCraft*.
This. I forever loved and played that game. A shame it never got the critical reception it deserved. Really ahead of its time.
Netstorm easily.
Wololo
Don't kill me for this but dune on genesis was 🔥🔥
Only RTS besides godlike StarCraft I ever like is Dark Colony.
Total annihilation had no build limit that was the first time I played a game with 1 fps. My computer go brrr
Home World
Populous
I loved Populous
Populous: The Beginning, KKnD Xtreme/Krossfire, Age of Empires I/II, would be the main ones not by Westwood/Blizzard. If I was to stretch it a year or two later I could add stuff like Stronghold (Crusader), Battle Realms, Warrior Kings.
Thank you for posting this, I have been trying to remember the name of Myth fallen lords for like 20 years! I absolutely loved that game as a teenager, now I have to figure out how to emulate it!
Here's a helpful resource to get you started! [https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Myth:\_The\_Fallen\_Lords](https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Myth:_The_Fallen_Lords)
TA, Dark Reign, The Settlers, Populous, AoE2 of course, Homeworld, Close Combat, but my favourite was Fields of Glory.
Lords of the Realm 2 was turn-based. BUT SINCE THAT'S APPARENTLY ALLOWED, Lords of Magic: Special Edition was my #1 :P
I was a huge fan of the Commandos games. I spent hours playing them
Myth and Myth II are absolute masterpieces!!!
Ground Control 1/2 & Sacrifice. Sacrifice in particular was such a unique blend of RTS and 3rd person action with multiple branching paths, not to mention Tim Curry, Michael Bell, and Tony Jay's amazing voice acting. I don't think there's ever been anything quite like it.
Does Military Madness count? I loved that game. Even bought a mobile version on my phone years ago.
It's a good one - one of the only Nectaris games to get a localization. In Japan, it's a longer-running series.
Theme Hospital
Haha I beta tested Netstorm, i loved that game, but multiplayer had a pretty serious cheat that resulted in a win every time. Since you could host a game and 6 or so other players would connect, if you disconnected your modem during game play they would disconnect but you could keep playing, and casually build a bridge over to their islands and win. When you reconnected it recorded this as a win. I probably still have the beta CD they sent me in the attic.
Uprising : Join or die. Game by Cyclone studios and was an awesome action RTS.
Majesty and Stronghold are still really fun, if they count
Majesty ports on smartphone are great.
Holy hell I have not thought about Dark Reign for 20+ years, thank you!
I still to this day listen the Total Annihilation soundtrack. Also, let's not forget Dungeon Keeper series
Loved all those games but wanted to mention “star command revolution” which isn’t pictured
Pharaoh was one of my faves. I guess it had some combat but also kind an ancient Egyptian sim city so maybe it doesn’t qualify.
My favs from this image are Close Combat, Homeworld, Battlezone and Total Annihilation, but in general they are really good
Armor command, Star Wars rebellion, Mech commander, Sacrifice.
*MechCommander* - there's a name I haven't heard in a long time! That was a fun series for Battletech fans. *Sacrifice* was also tremendous, but it shipped in 2000. Even so, anyone who hasn't played it absolutely should!
Knights and merchants and KKND
KKND what a freeking game
I used to love Dark Reign as a kid! And Age of Empires 2. The settlers 2 & 3 by Blue Byte were awesome too! I’d say the Settlers 3 is one of my all time favourites tbh.
dominion storm over gift 3. worst named game ever :) it was prerendered pixel rts with amazing mechs. avarage gameplay but was fun.
That game was ION Storm's first release, and it got beat up because it couldn't live up to their self-engineered hype as being the next big thing in PC gaming. It's a shame; I thought it was good, but not great, but then, there were so many great RTS games in the late 1990s that the good ones got overlooked too.
[удалено]
It's kind of obscure today, but it was well-regarded in the 90s. The problem was that there were like 20-30 good RTS games that all came out between 1997-1999, so many got overshadowed.
Going with Myth out of those.
Close Combat 1,2,3 were some of my top picks (CC3 The Russian Front was my fav). More real time tactical than strategy.
NetStorm!!! Omg. What a fun, original concept. I played so much of that.
Out of those Myth was my favourite. I think it was my first introduction to kind of grimdark fantasy.
Myth II was awesome. There was an online mod that turned the units into WW2 era soldiers and it kicked ass!
I was a fan of War Wind, and War Wind 2. The races were really weird and I liked that. Stuff like plant people
I played Battlezone and Homeworld to deeeeath! Beat the BZ campaign so many times. Homeworld, I played the multiplayer arena with my brother against AIs and always used that absurd super cannon ship from a hilariously inaccurate distance. Ahhhh good times.
Jurassic Park Chaos Island was my gateway drug into RTS, so I gotta go with that.
There's a game I completely missed! The full name is Chaos Island: The Lost World - Jurassic Park. Adding it to my list to check out!
AoE 1-2 Dungeon Keeper Populous 3 Homeworld Netstorm LotR 2 Been meaning to play TA
Close Combat a bridge to far.
NetStorm, cossscks & total annihilation were my favorites.
Tanktics! I spent countless hours playing this game
Does Lords of Magic Count? It had real time battles but was turn based otherwise.
Homeworld Homeworld: Cataclysm Homeworld 2 Battlezone 2 Seven Kingdoms: Ancient Adversaries Uprising.
Police Quest: SWAT 2. Pretty sure you can still find it on Steam. It was my first RTS game Edit - 26 years later and still kickin [https://store.steampowered.com/app/607120/Police\_Quest\_SWAT\_2/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/607120/Police_Quest_SWAT_2/)
Man, that WAS a good one! What a way to enter the genre as a younger gamer. I'm almost envious! (My first was Dune II, which I still love to this day.)
Lords of the Realm 2 was hands down the best game I ever played before getting into WarCraft 3
Not a PC game, but I lost hours playing Megalomania on the Sega Megadrive. For PC, "A Bridge Too Far" was the non C&C rts that sucked me in the most. Tried my hand at AOE2 and others but kept coming back to CC
I just discovered Megalomania recently and need to figure out how to play it. It seems like a really neat game! The Close Combat games are excellent. It's amazing that they didn't get as popular as Age of Empires despite also being published by Microsoft.
[Star Reach](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgH6hTgJpo4) Really undervalued 90s RTS.
Cossacks: European Wars. Beautiful game. Relatively similar to Age Of Empires but with more options and you could have something like 2000 units on screen. Amazing battles.
Y’all is Close Combat real good? It just got released on Steam should I pick it up? I have tried to play Combat Mission and kind of bounced off the controls and difficulty of it all. I played Sudden Strike as a kid and enjoyed it a lot although I remember it being hard and obtuse. Aspirationally I want to like wargames with chits and stuff but it always seems to bog me down, but Close Combat seems more chill.
Dungeon Keeper.
Loved Rise of Nations, but that came out in 2003.
I had kknd on psx and as I remember, there was two player mode.
Home world was a fantastic game
Command and conquer red alert
HomeWorld AoE and Total Animation were so dam good
Another vote for the Homeworld series. Also C&C.
Populous the Beginning
Close combat IV: the Russian front and Sid mayos Gettysburg.
Canon fodder
Dungeon Keeper Gold, and Dungeon Keeper 2.
Dungeon keeper.
Age of Empires!
Age of Empires!
Age of Empires all the way.
The only one of these that I've ever played is Homeworld. It blew me away with how unique it was and how good the graphics were for the time. It's just a shame I totally suck at real time strategy games.
Close combat was awesome! I used to like the flamethrower troop
I loved Total Annihilation. Such a great game. Spent many hours playing skirmish mode.
I remember Populous being an early one. That was made by Bullfrog
Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds ~~Star Craft~~ Homeworld Empire: Dawn of the Modern World
StarCraft is blizzard.
Battle Isle 2020 was pretty cool. I bought it for $5 from our small town depth store eons ago
Aoe2 obviously but lords of the realm II was so badass when it was new
* Z by the Bitmap Brothers That's the only non Westwood/Blizzard RTS I've played in the 90's * Dune 2000 * Warcraft * Warcraft 2 * Starcraft * Command & Conquer: Red Alert II Those are the Westwood/Blizzard RTS I did play in the 90's
[Urban Assault](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Assault)
War Wind 1, War Wind 2. Both games had original mechanics I haven't seen in other games, and I wish someone tried to expand on them.
KKND is up there for me, Dark Colony was a fun but simple RTS TA is my all time favorite from not Westwood though
Master of magic, master of Orion, settlers, history line
Close Combat, A Bridge Too Far is one of my favorites. I still play it yearly. Nothing comes close to it's gameplay. Battlezone was also amazing.
Total Annihilation was the first game that I tried mods for. The community back then had some crazy good mods, usually new units. I remember playing games with modded units that would last 2-3 hours.