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What are the best RTS games on PC for a complete beginner to the genre?

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4 Games Considered

4 Options ConsideredPriceGenreSteam Rating
Age of Empires II HD
RTSVery Positive
Starcraft
RTS–
Company of Heroes
RTSMixed
Total War: Warhammer
Turn-based StrategyMostly Positive
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Age of Empires II HD

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Patricia Q
Top Pro

Facilitates the user's preferred pace

•••
This game neither gives the impression of being thrown to the wolves nor that of being left stranded on an island. Whether you want to move slowing and steadily through the game or take things at a more heightened pace, Age of Empires 2 will allow for both (with some minor planning).
Patricia Q
Top Pro

Runs on very old computers

•••
As this game is quite old, requiring only a 1.2GHZ processor and 1 Gigabyte of RAM, this title will run on older PC's and laptops alike without issue.
Belle
Patryk Padus
Top Pro

Easy to start, hard to master

•••
It doesn't have a giant technology tree, but there is some variation of this tree by nations. Overall, it has simple rules that are easy to follow. It can be hard to master because of the impressive number of special troops and variety of maps.
Patricia Q
Top Pro

Awesome ambiance with a great finish

•••
While the graphics are slightly outdated, they were very well done for their time. And when combined with the history behind the game and its wonderful soundtrack, the game comes across as extremely polished.
Patricia Q
Top Con

Age of Empires II HD is an unsuccessful remaster due to its outdated graphics

•••
With the only notable upgrade being high resolution options, Age of Empires II HD fails at being a proper remaster. While higher resolutions give the game a slight face lift, the rest of the engine is left largely unchanged. This means the graphics we see in this remaster are nearly the same in its...
Patricia Q
Top Con

A lack of proper User Interface scaling makes a clunky UI worse

•••
While this is a remastered edition of a classic Real-Time Strategy title, the UI was left largely unchanged. Selecting workers still prompts you to click buttons to bring up both economic and military buildings, then choosing whichever building you wish to construct. This is uninteresting design a...
Specs
Steam Rating:Very Positive
Genre:RTS
Controller Support:No
Co-Op:No
See 5 more Pros & ConsSee 5 more Pros & Cons

Starcraft

Patricia Q
Top Pro

Well balanced race selection keeps the gameplay fair

•••
The game is fairly well balanced, so nobody gets an advantage by choosing a certain race. While each race will have their own unique abilities, the balancing of these abilities allows the game to play even handed, with no real advantage to any race.
Patricia Q
Top Pro

Tons of personality that keeps the story and gameplay interesting and entertaining

•••
There are three selectable races in the game, Terrans, Protoss and the Zerg. The Terrans being human, while the other two are alien races. What makes the game stand out is that each race feels exceptionally different from one another, each with their own personalities. This makes for a different ex...
Patricia Q
Top Pro

Built-in offline LAN support

•••
Being an older game, Starcraft suports offline LAN due to not as many people having internet back when it was released. This is something that many games (including Starcraft 2) regrettably do not feature anymore.
Patricia Q
Top Con

Lacks widescreen support

•••
Starcraft is only available in a 4:3 resolution. However, a hack to make it work in widescreen can be found here.
Patricia Q
Top Con

Old and outdated

•••
With the original release dating back to 1998, the game is quite old now and its graphics are not on par with current game offerings.
Specs
Genre:RTS
Controller Support:No
Co-Op:No
See 4 more Pros & ConsSee 4 more Pros & Cons

Company of Heroes

Patricia Q
Top Pro

A smart and challenging AI creates a lot of unpredictable gameplay

•••
The AI in the game is actually quite smart in that they tend to be unpredictable enough to offer a good bit of challenge without making obvious bad choices. This keeps the game fresh, being that the games can be unpredictable.
Patricia Q
Top Pro

Just about anyone can run the game as it an older title that can be easily ran on older PCs

•••
Company of Heroes can run quite well on less powerful PCs as it is an older game with minimum specs that are considered quite low for todays standards.
Patricia Q
Top Pro

Large online matches thanks to the 8 player multiplayer

•••
Up to 8 players can play in one online game, making for very large matches.
Patricia Q
Top Pro

Easily adjustble difficulties

•••
In the settings of the game the player can change the difficulty settings which allow for any skill level player a method to enjoy the game without it being too difficult.
Patricia Q
Top Pro

Enjoyable co-op play for those not interested in the competitive gameplay of the normal player vs. player multiplayer

•••
There is a co-op skirmish mode where players can work together in order to defeat an imposing force. This easily changes up the online gameplay since that is competition based, which may not always appeal to those that would rather work with their friends rather than compete against them.
Patricia Q
Top Con

Difficult to tell teammates apart

•••
There is no way to tell ones teammates apart, as they are all the same color. It would have been nice to see different color options for different players on the same team.
Specs
Steam Rating:Mixed
Genre:RTS
Controller Support:No
Co-Op:4 Player Online / 4 Player Couch
See 5 more Pros & ConsSee 5 more Pros & Cons

Total War: Warhammer

Krrny
Top Pro

Tons of replayability

•••
Thanks to the different factions available in the game, the player has a lot of choice as to how they would like to play, which gives a lot of replayability. There are five different campaigns available (four in the game and one as DLC) that each has its own faction to control and set story, which...
Krrny
Top Pro

Gives players the ability to customize their generals and heroes

•••
TW:W gives players the chance to customize the abilities of their chosen legendary lord, generals and even heroes through a detailed skill tree. Skills vary from individual character skills usable in battles (such as spells) to passive skills which influence army movement in the campaign map.
Weston Thayne Jenson
Top Pro

Large Upgrade Trees to customize factions

•••
TW:W gives players the ability to customize each faction with unique upgrade trees that can change the way you approach the game.
Krrny
Top Pro

Great setting

•••
Being based around the Warhammer tabletop fantasy world allows for an in depth game with tons lore behind it. Fighting off vampires and zombies are just some of the things to be found in the game.
Krrny
Top Con

Only four factions are available in the base game

•••
There are only four factions are available without DLCs (The Empire, Vampire Counts, Greenskins and Dwarfes). Other playable races and factions are currently being released periodically as DLCs.
Krrny
Top Con

Maps can feel constrained

•••
Due to the compartmentalizing of factions and which land they can take over means that the games maps can feel smaller than they appear since only certain sections can be played on.
Specs
Steam Rating:Mostly Positive
Genre:Turn-based Strategy
See 5 more Pros & ConsSee 5 more Pros & Cons

16 Community Recommendations

Dave Howson
Weston Thayne Jenson
Endi Sukaj
Anže Sršen
Joriko
Patryk Padus
Patricia Q
Harvey Rose
Krrny
SuccessfulRyujin
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