Am sure there is multiplayer, but the active refers to being actively developed or added to,

Oh, I see... Still, I don't feel that a single player game needs much "active development". I don't care for game mechanics to be "radically" altered every couple of months. (and usually, that happens with multiplayer in mind)

Yes, it's quite sad to see how much video game AI has deteriorated, especially given how much advancement there has been in that area of technology in recent years. Video game AI seems almost like a 'lost art'.

I'm not sure I agree with those that say 'the best RTSs have already been made' though (implying that no further improvement in the genre is possible), because AI in games seems to have such huge potential for improvement. More recent advances in AI technology (as far as I know) haven't made their way into the RTS video game genre, so it seems like there must be significant room for improvement in that area.

I would think at some point, some bright developer will put a serious modern AI into one of those games, which will incorporate machine learning to be able to learn and adapt to the players' strategies, which might spark a resurgence in the genre. It would probably take that sort of innovation to spark an RTS resurgence, though.

Although, on the other hand, as far as video game AI goes, it is usually not very difficult to make an AI that can easily beat a human player. The real challenge is in making an AI that is just challenging enough, but that can be beaten. So, I don't know, perhaps I'm being a bit naive and improved machine learning wouldn't really help?

One thing that doesn't help is that "competitive multiplayer" RTS players is a *very* different audience than "story campaign" RTS players with a little side-dash of "cooperative or casual multiplayer".

But such a heavy focus on multiplayer is what killed RTS. There's an extremely high skill barrier to entry.

Exactly the same thing happened with fighting games. They were super popular and widespread even among "casuals", but then they started focusing only on the competitive crowd, and last the mass appeal that made money. (Another genre I enjoy the side-modes and story modes and casual more-than-button-mashing-but-we-never-practice-combos couch playing, but all the devs and most of the remaining audience are all the hardcore competitive types. I mean, there's "sorta still" Smash for those Nintendo-system-users, but it's also not the same as at peaks.)

Yup, which is very unfortunate, too. I just never got the point of grinding through the same map over and over again. Not to mention the extremely toxic communities that surround this genre. No, thanks.

Yes. And how many popular, I mean really popular shooters can you name in like five years?

The thing is you don't need "true" innovations, but still, you need something that would elevate a game above all former RTS titles. Making a "good rehash" is not as easy as you think.

I don't know. I think a familiar universe would boost the sales pretty good.

Yeah me neither. I tried it once, but I didn't find it enjoyable in the slightest.

Well, don't rule out the AOE dudes either ;)

and i do belief there will be always a portion of young bro's that are very interested in strategy and will find their picks. Total War and civilization are not for nothing 2 games that can be usually found in the top 20 games of played on steam

https://steamcharts.com/top

Civ on place XIII
and Warhammer 2 on place XXIII

Some extra searching give away Company of Heroes 2 on place 123 uhm CXXIII ? not so sure anymore

but yea co"ops and the shooter genre/3d action scene is really where all the money is.. which in its self is not all to weird considering the consoles limitations regarding real time strategy titles ( though i belief stellaris did actually a fine job of transitioning to the controller )

And you know... the figures might even be relative, these days there are millions more gaming then in the 90's and 00's .

( see how i'm not saying how a lot of participants in this topic don't seem to be really up to date about what is really happening in the rts landscape ;) )

yea agreed, i passed for the first remaster but if they do a tib sun remaster that will be an insta buy

the originals are btw pretty much enjoyable, together with the community patches that add a couple of more resolutions and your good to go .... ( or stick with cnc 3 and red alert 3 )

Command & Conquer 1:

Nyerguds' C&C95 v1.06c revision 3 patch - http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cnc95upd/cc95p106/

(which also adds bonus missions originally exclusive to the Playstation and Nintendo 64 versions of the game)
Note that this patch fixes two quite common and completely fatal game crashes (top-of-map reconnaissance crash, stealth crash), so installing it is strongly advised.


Red Alert 1:

Funkyfr3sh's automatic Red Alert 1 patcher/installer - https://forums.cncnet.org/topic/1165-how-to-install-red-alert-1-on-windows-xp-vista-7-8-10-linux-mac-32-64bit/
(The thread also has briefing videos for the expansion missions, converted from the Playstation version of the game)

Nyerguds' main.mix cleanup for TFD/TUC - http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cncstuff/0_files.html#tfd_ramaincleanup
(Not really needed, but cleans up about a gigabyte of unnecessary files in the RA1 folder. Unpack in the game folder, run "patch_main.bat", let it finish, and then delete the files you extracted.)


Tiberian Sun:

Funkyfr3sh's Tiberian Sun patch - https://forums.cncnet.org/topic/2606-tiberian-sun-patches-fix-for-the-windows-8-10-menu-problems-and-more/


Red Alert 2:

The graphics system patch DDWrapper is known to solve a multitude of graphics problems, including the "black screen" issue.
Download the zip file and extract "ddraw.dll" and "aqrit.cfg" into your game folder. Then, open the configuration file "aqrit.cfg" in Notepad, change the "ForceDirectDrawEmulation" option to 1, save the file, and try running the game again.
If you still have problems with RA2 even after this, I advise installing the CnCNet online play installer for RA2/YR. Even if you're not interested in online play, it comes with a bunch of automatic fixes, and has a configuration tool which offers more choices in graphics fixes than just DDWrapper, so if one doesn't work you can just try if some of the other options do the trick.

What are you even talking about? MOBAs have been around for way longer but I guess you haven't heard of a game called "Starcraft" before.

It did definitely cannibalize the RTS genre. As someone whose favorite one actually was RTS from the 90s to mid 00s, I, along with a lot of friends, switched away from it. For some of us it was then DotA for many years but for others, they abandoned the genre forever, and that's despite it having been played on LAN a lot. Still vividly remember some LAN sessions with my best friend in Age of Empires II, Empire Earth, Cossacks, Battle Realms, Spellfore, Stronghold: Crusader etc. And in 2005, while the custom maps in Warcraft III were brimming with players and would instantly fill up (I used to host them and it would take like 5 seconds to get another nine players for a DotA match), the RTS games that got released that year were basically disappointments (Age of Empires III, Cossacks II, Empire Earth II, Stronghold 2). Almost none of us bought them since we did have custom maps and those kicked ass. The next RTS that would garner attention was Company of Heroes in 2006 and after that one, it was pretty much dead. Supreme Commander got some side-glances, I guess.

I also agree with mqstout in a way. Competitive RTS players and story campaign players are different. While both may play the campaign, only for the latter is it really important while the former pays more attention to multiplayer balance etc. Ignoring the latter and solely targeting the former is definitely not the right move.

First time I see people blaming controller controls for the death of the RTS genre. Never experienced it and I don't even know when that supposedly happened. The death of the RTS genre was pretty much a heavy decline in quality of games (they got rather restrictive in ways, smaller maps which annoyed me etc) as well as DotA just straight up crushing it (millions of players which eventually resulted in the backstab of the community to create casual LoL with stolen ideas, HoN which was an exact copy and DotA 2 which was also an exact copy). Another aspect is the emergence of the MMORPG genre. After all, gamers generally don't stick to only one genre and MMORPGs tend to monopolize all the available free time. I'm pretty sure it did have some effect on the genre, just like it did on all the other ones on the PC. Of course, next to MMORPGs there were also browser games which had millions of players as well...and they required a lot of free time too.

Well if you look context wise, and follow the path of the easy money the controller aspect, in conjunction with the console aspect might be easier to understand. I do agree with what you have to say about the multiplayer aspect and the single player aspect of life. RTSing and certainly the multiplayer part is just not for everyone... and there are only so much college kids to go around with and a whole lot of games that lend themselves easier for money fame and girls

and you link a 12+ year old game ... hmm what kind of logic is that?

A good option for playing the originals is the "Vanilla Conquer" project which is a project that takes the released source code for the games (that came out with the remasters) and makes them function stand-alone with the original game data (no remasters needed).