I love Age of Empires (especially 1, 2 is ok too), but I ended up hating Rise of Nations, due to its 90 minute time limit for battles.

I didn't like it because there was no campaign.

Well, my personal favorite wld be the Command & Conquer (C&C) series especially C&C Generals & it's expansion C&C Generals: Zero Hour (ZH). Unfortunately they r not available over here on GOG but u can buy the whole C&C series on Origin. :)

I wrote to the GOG support. ;)

There are loads of great RTS games on gog. Of those I've played here I'd say my favorite traditional one is Act of War.

Big thanks to you ;)

I'm not a big fan of RTS games for the exact reasons timppu mentioned earlier in this thread. I don't think RTS games have much strategy in them, mass your biggest unit and steamroll the enemy isn't strategy. There are a few games that stand out of me

AI War - Trying to play this game like a standard RTS will get you killed
Constructor - Sure, it's a city builder but it is a lot of fun. Controls do take getting used to though
KKND Xtreme - Mostly nostalgia for me. I liked the setting and the briefings a lot though
Original War - Sadly, not on GOG anymore :(
Star Wars:Empire at War - Mixed it up with space and land battles
Total Annihilation - Mentioned in this thread already
Warhammer: Shadow of the horned rat - I had no problems getting this game running but others have to purchase at your own risk

In a way I even expect RTS to have something like that, but in e.g. Dark Reign it seems to be (at least in the early missions) so glaringly obvious, as if there isn't even any choice.

Maybe the reason the KKND Extreme "Hand of God" mission felt so hard to me because there my normal "first make a turtle defense, build a big attack army, and retaliate" didn't work there. If you did that, the enemy bases would have to time to become too powerful themselves so that you had no chance to beat them anymore.

Instead you had to expand outside your base ASAP, and try to attack the enemy bases (especially their supply lines) as soon as possible.

Also KKND Extreme specifically was good at making sure that just building the biggest units and attacking with them didn't work, as those units would be very cumbersome and even couldn't get through many narrow passages. Also the infantry units had the benefit also that if they became veteran units (ie. survived long enough), they'd auto-heal over time, while the vehicle units (tanks etc.) had to be brought back to repair station for repairs.

Dark Reign has a bit of that too (ie. infantry units can get to some places or go through areas tanks can't), but it doesn't matter enough to make it worth the effort. At first I started building both infantry units and tanks and attack with them at the same time, but after awhile I'd stop making infantry units anymore because they'd just die very fast in battle, while the tanks were which did the major damage and survived the longest.

At the fantastic price of Free!

http://wz2100.net/

That was only for the "Conquer the world" campaigns. You can also play the Skirmish mode (random map), with no time limit.


Fair enough. Replacing the traditional campaigns with the "Conquer the world" Risk-style mode was a risky move. I wasn't too keen about the idea at first, although I ended up enjoying the new playstile. However, the expansion added more campaigns which included some narrative events and immersive gameplay features.

That's just my personal taste, some people love that conquer the map, and that's cool. I actually enjoyed that in Warlords Battlecry 2, but for whatever reason it just didn't work for me with RON.

Here on GoG.com

The Act of War games are worth getting and playing.

Also Ground Control 2 is worth mentioning too...
(Not sure if the first Ground Control will work in win10.).

*update* I have successfully installed and ran the first Ground Control on my win10 system.
Intel graphics and hdmi cable to monitor (some old games might have issues with hdmi).

Check out Warlords Battlecry 3: The protectors mod. Have a discord for the mod as well. Its a good one kinda like AOE series, but with a lot more depth and fantasy setting.

Any game where this can be your hero is aces with me. :D