Supreme Commander (Forged Alliance)

This. You beat me by two minutes, I was about to post just the same!

Supreme Commander is the supreme (so much pun!) RTS game, imo. I enjoyed it more than any other, the scale of the battles is insane and if you go for multiplayer it is almost crazy.
Perfectly balanced, it always keeps you on your toes, intense, very simple to learn but not quite to master.

This.
Or its predecessor Total Annihilation.

True, although I felt that TA focused more on more intense battles, slightly smaller scaled. They both represent the one of the best RTS experiences.

They were the sequel, engine update of Take Command: Second Manassas In its core it is basically the same game and principle. Huge battles where you lead divisions armies or brigades but very focused in delegate in your officers and sending orders manually with the time delay it involves in the big picture. All filled with a bit of chaos.

Scourge of War series are a bit expensive but Take Command is much cheaper now to try the thing and see if it is tour cup of tea.

Other game I have not tried but looks massive and interesting is Grand Tactician.

And of course, as it's been reccomended,.Close Combat. Some of my favourites

Warhammer 2

My personal favs are:

- Mount & Blade (From the first one to Warband)
- Samurai Warriors series
- Oriental Empires (I prefer this "turn based combat")

+1

I really miss playing the original Rome: Total War, which is safely archived on an old laptop and therefore beyond use. (I suppose I could install it on this computer, since it actually has an optical drive. Hmmm ….)