Recommend Me a Multiplayer RTS to Replace Age of Empires HD

serapax on 11/11/2016 - 14:46

Hey all, ages ago, I purchased a multi-pack of AoE HD edition for bugger-all.

The kids and I have a great time playing multiplayer, as it will run on even our low-spec Win10 laptops and desktops. However the games are very long, and saving just does not work (a known issue - the application just crashes for people who try to join a restored game).

Can anyone recommend a decent alternative? Red Alert or Starcraft came to mind, but they are very old and buggy on Win10 (if it runs at all), far from high-res, and come with their own problems….

Cheers!

Gaming

Comments

  • trustnoone on 11/11/2016 - 14:52

    Maybe Civilization I've heard good things about, theres also empire earth if thats still around? Maybe Age of Mythology as well, and dawn of war games.

    • WillRay92 on 11/11/2016 - 14:54

      You can still get Empire Earth on gog.com and yes, still fun.

  • the cheeky dropbear on 11/11/2016 - 15:46

    Company of Heroes, best RTS of all time, even better than AOE and all the rest.

  • DingoBilly on 11/11/2016 - 17:22

    I think you're going to struggle with this one. The closest I've found to it is Red Alert, but others like Starcraft etc. just don't come close to what Age of Empires is.

    Have you explored all the series? Age of Empires 1 + 2, Age of Mythology, Age of Titans?

    If so, you may just be out of luck. Civilization is an entirely different game, it's turn-based and painfully slow. It might work, but I really didn't enjoy it, lacks the real-time strategy aspect and the games can go on for more than 5 hours easily, (although saving is easy at least…).

    Starcraft has the advantage of generally being shorter games though if you are looking for that, it's just not as deep in terms of strategy as Age of Empires. Less things to think about. However, this is all coming from a professional/highly competitive perspective (winning international tournaments etc.), so maybe someone who plays more casually can comment on their experiences. But I really haven't found anything that's the same unfortunately.

  • iridiumstem on 11/11/2016 - 17:38

    Starcraft, because I need to flaunt my nationality sometimes. I've heard rumours of Starcraft 1 HD remaster version, which might be interesting.
    If you don't go into strategies that Koreans go for (which in my opinion is very formulaic), a game of starcraft can last fairly long.
    So when me and my brother didn't know anything about SC1, games would last fairly long because it tend to end with whoever owns most end game units.
    About SC1 bugging out, there are ways to stop it from doing that as well if you want to play it (like tweaking compatiablity settings and getting widescreen mode etc).

    That said I think Starcraft 2 would be better. More user friendly (APM (actions per minute) I think was less important in SC2?) and it'd not freak out with Windows 10 much without tweaking.

    Other than that Warcraft 3 comes to my mind, though I only played custom maps on those.

  • jaybo on 15/11/2016 - 10:57

    total annihilation :)
    runs on basically anything, pretty sure still works on win10, can support higher resolutions, despite being a 19yo game

    or if you've got the GPU/CPU power to do it, supreme commander

    we (my mates and i) actually play AOE 3 rather than AOE 2 HD so it might be worth looking at that?

  • scrimshaw on 16/11/2016 - 23:57

    8-Bit armies anyone?
    http://store.steampowered.com/app/427250/

    It's like Red Alert but with modern-retro voxel graphics.

  • FrankMcFuzz on 17/11/2016 - 08:24

    WarHammer 40K: Dawn of War if you HATE HERETICS and love to WAAAGH

    Pretty sure Dawn of War 3 is coming sometime next year, but you might wanna pick up 1 or 2 for cheap. I heard 2 has shorter, more concise games than the first. Dawn of War 1 plays like Sci-fi AoE but 2 plays more similarly to the Tabletop it's based on, but I haven't played the second to be sure of that.

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