ThomasPaineTrain: Don't get me wrong, I played the shiat out of AoE2, but the genre has made some dramatic improvements since then.

Such as?

The isometric perspective is probably the main thing that is out of date for AOE2. The rest of the changes tend to be more special abilities for units (such as SC2 giving almost all units one) or hero units (like WC3 and AOE3).

The traditional RTS seems to have moved into three distinct genres by heavily focusing on one aspect and gutting or dropping others:

- Single unit control (DOTA)
- Tactical army control with base building and economy massively simplified (COH)
- City building/resource management with minimal unit control (Anno)

IdentInvalid: I think the last console RTS that I felt worked was Dune on Genesis.  It at least benefitted from being reworked from Dune II specifically for console.  Red Alert wasn't fun on PS1, and it bogged down hardcore when we tried Vs. over system link.  Thankfully, that little experiment didn't last long after my friend ended up with 3 or 4 networked PCs...which leads back to AOE2.  Our multiplayer battles were basically just "Let him pick Persians and wipe us all out, so we can get back to Red Alert, Dwango5 deathmatches in Doom 2, or Quake 1 Teamfortress."

I have been told that Halo Wars was pretty good, but it was designed from the ground up for consoles.

phimuskapsi: dywed88: ThomasPaineTrain: Don't get me wrong, I played the shiat out of AoE2, but the genre has made some dramatic improvements since then.

Such as?

The isometric perspective is probably the main thing that is out of date for AOE2. The rest of the changes tend to be more special abilities for units (such as SC2 giving almost all units one) or hero units (like WC3 and AOE3).

The traditional RTS seems to have moved into three distinct genres by heavily focusing on one aspect and gutting or dropping others:

- Single unit control (DOTA)
- Tactical army control with base building and economy massively simplified (COH)
- City building/resource management with minimal unit control (Anno)

The isometric perspective is still the default in most of these games, you can just change it to be whatever as well. I think unit numbers have also greatly increased and tactics are a bit different.

Dota isn't RTS, it's MoBA. RTS is Command and Conquer, Total War, Stronghold, AoE 4, Warhammer, etc.

The hallmarks of RTS are unit control, base building/unit production, tactical resource hunting/production, combat with other units, and tier based research, almost always in isometric view or top down "god view", you can often pause time to issue orders (unless in multiplayer).

I would put city building/resource management under 'simulation' not strategy, and it's arguable if "Tactics" games are RPG's depending on context, e.g. COH vs. Jagged Alliance, and turn-based squad based tactics are a form of strategy but different, and really started with Myth by Bungie IIRC.

Modern games are generally 3D generally with a movable camera (like AOE4) versus the fixed isometric 2D of AOE2. That isn't to say it isn't used but it is the biggest giveaway that ti is an old game.

I also didn't say those are RTS, but RTS games developed into them by focusing on certain aspects.

DOTA  came from taking a very small segment of RTS, control of one unit, and dumping everything else. It was literally WarCraft 3 where all you control is a hero unit.

RTS games focused on the base building side merged into city-builders. Fundamentally, Anno 1800 meets the criteria to be an RTS, explore the map, build your base, secure resources, build a military and defense, and control your military to fight your enemy all in real time. It is just heavily focused on the base building and resource gathering.

Meanwhile games like Company of Heroes go the opposite direction and make base building and resource gathering much simpler while unit control is heavily emphasized arguably becoming RTT games.