Hello and welcome from Eastern Europe, my name is ColdBeerHD and this is the first part
of Best RTS Strategy Games Ever Made.
This list has no particular order, games are not put by year, publisher or a place, so
it’s more diverse and fun to watch that way, because you will have no idea what’s
coming next.
Let’s start with Homeworld 1 & 2 Remastered.
When I tried the original Homeworld for the first time in a year 1999 I was truly amazed
by its beauty.
And I mean it.
At that time I was 15 years old and I was completely in love with one of my classmates.
She was a beautiful girl with blonde hair, slim figure and dreamy eyes.
That’s because she had big boobies.
Yeah, you got me.
Anyway, for my teenage brain there was nothing more beautiful in the entire world than she
was.
And then I installed Homeworld.
Yeap.
Only then I realised what true beauty looks like.
Homeworld was 10 times more beautiful than my love from school and I realized that I
and Homeworld will have real nice long relationship together.
So, let’s talk about game itself.
This is an RTS in space.
Here you make your tiny spaceships, then you make slightly bigger spaceships then you make
huge spaceships and send them to the battle.
That’s quite simple and standard but it’s really fun to play, because game is easy to
master, nothing very weird is in there and while you play, you can listen to wonderful
soundtrack.
Actually score of Homeworld is one of the best I ever heard.
It’s really diverse: It has notes of eastern music, something that makes you imagine long
camel caravans in a desert, incorporated opera and dark electronic sounds that creates wonderful
atmosphere while you play.
Age of Empires II: HD Edition
This is one of the greatest RTS games ever made and I don’t think that I’m gonna
find a lot of people who doesn’t agree with this statement.
In Age of Empires II: HD you can explore single player campaigns from both Age of Kings and
The Conquerors expansions, chose from 18 civilizations and of course participate in a online battles
where you can prove you domination by challenging other people.
I can tell you from my own experience, that I was determined to crush any puny human player
like a filthy bug, but it so happened that I’m not that good of a player.
Weakling!
Oh come on!
So I’ve lost everything I played, but instead of crying in the corner I opened fresh bottle
of delicious vodka and drank my pain away.
There is a great chance that you’re not that good of a player too, so don’t forget
to keep your vodka nearby.
Keep in mind Age of Empires II: HD edition doesn’t have all the expansions included,
so The Forgotten, The African Kingdoms and Rise of the Rajas are sold separately.
All the expansions have very positive reviews on Steam, so if you like the game itself I
do recommend getting the expansions and prolonging the experience.
That’s what she said.
Northgard
Game is based on Norse mythology where in a mysterious newfound continent you control
a clan of Vikings.
Graphics are a bit cartoonish, but it’s not a bad thing in this kind of indie game.
By the way, I know that many people doesn’t even know what the definition of indie game
is.
They often think that indie games are those without a huge budget, made by a few people
and basically it’s true, but the main characteristic of an indie game is when the developer publish
their game by themselves, without a help of a huge publishing company.
So, Northgard is made and published by a Shiro games, small gaming company, which is now
creating a game similar to Diablo, named Darksburg.
Seems like zombies gonna be the main point of it.
Ok, back to Northgard.
People say that famous game Settlers was the main influence for Northgard and I do agree
with that, but be careful, don’t buy this game automatically just because you liked
Settlers, because game is different and may not meet your expectations.
It’s when you like vodka, but don’t necessarily like gin or tequila.
Oh, I like all of those, but you know, there are many different people.
(Some people are just crazy) Exactly!
Game has 3 DLC packages.
It’s a good thing in one hand, because you can prolong your fun of playing, and also
it’s a bad thing, because you feel that they could put all those DLC things, mostly
new clans, in the main game and do not charge additional money from you.
As an indie game, with all DLC’s it’s very costly, more than 40 euros for the whole
thing.
Anyway, this is a great game, wait for a sale and grab it.
It has 80 points on Metacritic and in my opinion that kinda proves it’s goodness.
Armies of Exigo
Oh my.
I can bet that many of you have never even heard of this game.
Somehow it slipped though our radars, but it’s a great title, so let’s talk about
it.
Armies of Exigo looks and plays like if Age of Empires and Warcraft or Starcraft had a
baby.
And this crossbreed is not an ugly one, like in example when you crossbreed house with
a giraffe or bottle of vodka with hedgehog.
No, it feels right, looks really beautiful and is fun to play.
Game looks more like Warcraft, but it plays more like Starcraft, because you can control
up to 200 units at one time and they are not that important when you lose one or two of
them.
Game also has nice differences from Blizzard games: most of the maps have subterranean
level that gives more 3D feeling to the game, also you can use automatic unit formations,
where, in example, archers walk behind melee units and doesn’t die instantly because
you were eating delicious potato salad and had no spare hands to save them at the time.
Now it’s time for a bad news: you can’t buy Armies of Exigo on Steam or on GoG (PICARD),
I’ve only seen some hard copies sold on Amazon and maybe this is the main reason,
so few people even know about this game.
Starcraft: Brood War
When I was a young lad I had a rich friend who had computer in a year 1998, so I was
spending a lot of time at the friends house where his father tend to play Starcraft from
time to time.
He often allowed us to stay and watch his gameplay with a condition that we keep our
mouths shut.
So, it was literally the first experience of something like Twitch.tv for me.
To go to a friends house and watch his father play Starcraft.
When I got my own PC, actually it was only a year later, I played the heck out of this
game.
Endless possibilities and amazing multiplayer made Starcraft one of the best, not only Strategy
games, but one of the best games of all time overall.
And you can play it for free.
Just go to the Blizzard’s website, download it and do as I do with my friends now - just
beat the shit out of your buddies.
And then do the same in multiplayer.
Blizzard released Remastered version of the game, with beautiful graphics, but I personally
don’t need any upgrades.
If I want fancy graphics I just play Starcraft 2.
So, anyway, try the game: it has wonderful campaign and even to this day it’s really
playable and fun.
Knights of Honor
There is a slight chance that you have never heard of this game, but this is actually one
of the best strategy games ever made.
If on an addiction scale from 1 to 10 heroin was 9, then Knights of Honor would be 11.
And it’s not that hard to believe.
When I tried the game for the first time I spend 7 hours on it.
At first I was like “oh these graphics suck”, but after a while I was so immersed that I
forgot to eat and I died from starvation.
Ok, almost died.
Knights of Honor has a random start for every playthrough, there are many kingdoms to choose
from and literally infinite amount of starting possibilities.
Campaign is all real time and if you liked Rome: Total War for its detailed kingdom management,
you'll also love this game.
C&C Red Alert
Though I was never a fan of Red Alert I have to agree that this is a masterpiece.
Its graphics are still relevant to this day, especially if you can manage to play Red Alert
on high resolution.
If this game was released now, let’s say with and indie game flag, everyone would play
it and nobody would say that this is outdated.
Sprite graphics doesn’t get old.
You can say the same about Starcraft, or about games in other genres, like Diablo 2.
And of course, the core of the RTS games is similar for every single one of them - you
build your units and you send them to the battle, usually for raping and pillaging,
also to raze enemy buildings and win the game in that way.
So if you’re thinking that Red Alert is old news, think again, maybe you should give
it a chance.
Bannermen
One of the newest strategies, released in 2019, and also one of the weakest games of
this list, Bannermen is still a great game.
It feels like Starcraft, it has almost the same control system so units are really easy
to command.
Sadly there is only one race – humans.
Here you will find no orcs, elves, trolls, dragons or any similar stuff.
I don’t know why is that, probably developers just lacked imagination.
Because game is not realistic anyway, there are fantasy elements, like huge scorpions,
talking toads, magic swords, but that’s it.
So, why this game is in the list?
Because it’s campaign is really fun to play.
If you’re experienced RTS player, choose hard difficulty and you will not be disappointed,
game will prove itself to you if you can handle it.
I played in normal difficulty and still had to replay some missions over and over again.
And I’m not complete RTS noob, I’m in platinum league in Starcraft 2 in example.
Not that that great, but it’s not that bad either.
So, campaign of Bannermen will bring you lots of joy.
Afterwards you can even try multiplayer, but I doubt you will find people to play you and
even if you do, it’s not that fun.
Play this game for a campaign.
Ok, that’s it.
First part is over.
There will be many more parts, I have more that 50 titles in my mind.
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Thank you for watching, have a nice day, bye.