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Tallima: I'm a huge fan of Empire Earth. The first one is the best.

Stronghold is the most "realistic" I've ever played.

And European Escalation had the neatest scale and was quite realistic with its units.
Shit, how could I forget EE!?

I'm so stoooopid.
European Escalation does look good, as does TA. Stronghold might be my next purchase though.
Here you can find a list with strategy genre games, rated between 4.9 and 4.0 quality stars:
[url=http://www.an-ovel.com/cgi-bin/magog.cgi?ver=701&scp=gdspuri&dsp=ipgfsorlcmbaxyzXhDFGHTP0512348&ord=s9&flt=gan~str~snm~4.9~sat~4~&opt=n&myf=SunJan310959472016_empty_ApFe0NrLuvkDH]http://www.an-ovel.com/cgi-bin/magog.cgi?ver=701&scp=gdspuri&dsp=ipgfsorlcmbaxyzXhDFGHTP0512348&ord=s9&flt=gan~str~snm~4.9~sat~4~&opt=n&myf=SunJan310959472016_empty_ApFe0NrLuvkDH[/url]

good luck!
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Tallima: I'm a huge fan of Empire Earth. The first one is the best.

Stronghold is the most "realistic" I've ever played.

And European Escalation had the neatest scale and was quite realistic with its units.
Empire Earth 3 is the best. For gamers that want their clickfest RTS as simple as possible that is.
I'll go with the C&C early games, namely Red Alert 1 and 2, Tiberian Sun and the original Command & Conquer, aside from Red Alert 2 the others can be downloaded for free.
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tinyE: That's a toughie.

For me probably AOE 2.
No AOE 1.
No Act of War.
No Tiberium Sun.
Yes; you're correct.
Earth 2150 is a personal favorite of mine, but it has some widesceen issues. What I like about it is that the 3 factions play out differently and the game is structured in a way that your performance in missions count later in the game in the way what things you researched, resources you collected and experience your troops gained instead of the beginning from scratch approach most RTS games use. Also this game has a lot of basebuilding which is pretty deep as well as to which defenses you can kit it out with and you can dig tunnels and surprise attack your enemy from underground.

Another RTS I like a lot is Conquest: Frontier Wars. Somewhat of a StarCraft clone with spaceships, but....... you can play on several maps at once at which it becomes critical to control chokepoints. I also found this a very easy game to get into and gameplay never got too overwhelming, which can happen in E:2150, TA or Cossacks for instance. Also works in Windows 8-10 now, check the subforum.
A lot of games mentioned here I also own on gog, and I greatly seccond most of them (Warlords Battlecry, Wargame, Act of War, World in Conflict, Cossacks and TA are a few of my favourites)

And Empire earth is wonderful! I own 1 and 2 here on gog, and 3 on disc.

I am one of those people who prefer 2 with a mod or two (I've got "realistic mod" installed now which greatly overhauls a few economic aspects and late game warfare), but 1 is just ... there is nothing quite like it, although it doesn't scratch all my itches :)

And stay clear of 3 ... I had some remotely enjoyable moments with it, but overall it's just bug infected junk.

I'm going to be that bastard who derails the thread a bit, but I feel I must recommend the Kohan and Sudden strike games, which aren't currently available on GOG but which you should be able to find on amazon. They are rather old, and nothing has come out quite like them, certainly as far as kohan is concerned.

And I seriously think Kohan is the best RTS of all times, but that might be me and my niche interest.

If Empire earth interests you, you might be able to grab hold of an old Rise of Nations copy too, that's a fine game as well. And Rise of legends is totally underrated, and totally worth your time and money.

As said, they are not available on GOG (yet), but they are very fine RTS games and I really think you ought to try them out sometimes :)
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Vnlr: ...
I'm going to be that bastard who derails the thread a bit, but I feel I must recommend the Kohan and Sudden strike games, which aren't currently available on GOG but which you should be able to find on amazon. They are rather old, and nothing has come out quite like them, certainly as far as kohan is concerned.
...
Sudden Strike is incredible, and I'd love to see any of the games on gog:
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games#search=sudden
However, the first Blitzkrieg game is quite a bit like it: http://www.gog.com/game/blitzkrieg_anthology
There are lots of good ones. Here is one more: Fragile Allegience. There are also many good trading sims and such that behave very RTSish.
There are lots of amazing RTS, some on GOG and some not.

Of course, the Command & Conquer series is amazing. The older ones are a bit archaic in design but still are very playable despite their quirks. The only C&C I suggest you absolutely stay away from is C&C 4.

The same can be said for Red Alert, the 3 games in the series are all entertaining, with RA 2 probably being the best. Generals is also a really good, solidly made RTS as long as you have the expansion for it.

As for RTS on GOG, Battle Realms is criminally under appreciated, Total Annihilation is a bit slow to start but really fun and massive in scale, KKND is a decent early C&C clone, Earth 2140 is okay, 2150 and 2160 I find pretty meh, although 2150 had tons of cool ideas.

Dark Reign is another decent RTS but I find it way to fast sometimes for its own good. Act of War kinda feels like Generals and is pretty solid. Empire Earth is enjoyable, though I find the first one's graphics aged like hell. Also Empire Earth 3 sucked.

If you don't mind an absence of base building, Blitzkrieg and World in Conflict are very, very good.

Unfortunately I've always found GOG to be lacking in the traditional RTS department. I hope one day they can bring the C&C series here, or even the DUNE RTS games made by the same people, Westwood Studios.
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Vnlr: I'm going to be that bastard who derails the thread a bit, but I feel I must recommend the Kohan and Sudden strike games, which aren't currently available on GOG but which you should be able to find on amazon. They are rather old, and nothing has come out quite like them, certainly as far as kohan is concerned.

And I seriously think Kohan is the best RTS of all times, but that might be me and my niche interest.

If Empire earth interests you, you might be able to grab hold of an old Rise of Nations copy too, that's a fine game as well. And Rise of legends is totally underrated, and totally worth your time and money.

As said, they are not available on GOG (yet), but they are very fine RTS games and I really think you ought to try them out sometimes :)
Dude you're not being a bastard. The Kohan games ARE the best RTS games ever only rivaled by Sins of a Solar Empire. For me at least. :)

I agree on Rise of Legends. A very undervalued game that unjustifiable got crap because it wasn't what the Rise of Nations die hard fans wanted. It's a great game in its own right.
Come to think of it, and since people are recommending Sins of a solar empire left and right, you might also want to try out the Star Ruler games. 2 is here on GOG and is magnificent. You can find boxed copies of star ruler 1, but I don't know wether they come with mandatory steam or without (I have the regular steam version from my pre-gog days).

They are fantastic games. 1 somehow reminded me a bit of Supreme commander in space, rather than a fully fledged 4x rts, but star ruler 2 is quite another beastie in that regard. I believe there are demo's for both :)

Star ruler one

and star ruler 2

(rather long videos, just skip through them a bit)

While I think that sins of a solar empire is a good game, it just never managed to captivate me somehow ... but it's well worth a try.

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Tarm: Dude you're not being a bastard. The Kohan games ARE the best RTS games ever only rivaled by Sins of a Solar Empire. For me at least. :)

I agree on Rise of Legends. A very undervalued game that unjustifiable got crap because it wasn't what the Rise of Nations die hard fans wanted. It's a great game in its own right.
Nice to see a likeminded person :)

Also, if you can find them somewhere, the Myth games ... so much ...
Hands down world in conflict and homeworld

sins of solar empire would have been good too, it they ever bother having a story, without plot the game is a barren as space itself
Age of Mythology is my favourite RTS. Great combo of fairly "realistic" units but also fantasy units and superpowers that can only be used a limited amount per match.

Runner ups: Battle for Middle-Earth 1, Starcraft 2, CnC 3.