What beginner friendly RTS game can you recommend?

As a quick background, RTS is completely new to me. I spend majority of my time in FPS type games but want to branch out a bit and try out something different/new (to me).

Requirements:

  • Somewhat casual (if that’s possible)
  • Somewhat easy to learn
  • Relatively modern with decent graphics (something that looks nice)
  • Runs on Linux (of course) and Steam
  • hitagiEnglish
    15•1 year ago

    StarCraft II. It’s on Battle.Net though so you’ll have to download it through Lutris.

    The first campaign is free and there’s a coop mode for casual players. Entirely free except for cosmetics, some coop commanders, and the other campaign episodes. It’s easy to pick up IMO but VERY HARD to master. Graphics still hold up better than a lot of games despite being 13 years old. Despite its age, I believe it’s the peak of the RTS genre. There’s are a lot of community-made mods/maps that you can play for free. You can even play a remake of the WarCraft III campaign there.

    Other RTS games that I like:

    • Age of Empires II (Steam). Graphics look decent enough for the remastered version on Steam. Complex economy system and slow rock-paper-scissors combat. Very slow-paced.
    • StarCraft Broodwar (Battle.Net). Remastered graphics also look decent enough. Unit pathing might still have annoying quirks like the original. Slightly slower-paced than StarCraft II.
    • Northgard (Steam). Beautiful game with a unique event-type economy system. Slower-paced than StarCraft II with some colony-building elements.

    Not really an RTS game but I’ve been putting so many hours into RimWorld (Steam, native) this year. At its core, it’s a colony-building game but it does have some RTS elements to it (economy, combat, and unit management). Lots of mods available.

    • @Broken_MonitorEnglish
      9•1 year ago

      Upvote for SC2. People always talk about it being difficult, but that’s only the competitive ladder. There’s so much single player campaign, challenges, co op, and arcade custom map modes that you can play for ages and never even feel the need to touch competitive play.

    • @SaezherEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      +1 for Northgard. Dune from the same studio (shiro games) is really nice, but quite hard to master.