That line about “only 20% stick around for the multiplayer” isn’t exclusive to RTS. Usually I hear a number like 30%, even for other RTS games, but that’s the case across every genre, even for games like fighting games that you think are only there for multiplayer. Only about 30% of people of any game’s player base will stick around to play online matches against other people.

StarCraft II is one of my favorite games, but to get back into RTSes, for me personally, I’m looking for two solutions: I want it to work well with a controller, and I think I want to get rid of the fog of war. The controller thing, done well, solves the APM complaint already, since there’s usually a speed limit on it. Tooth & Tail, Cannon Brawl, Brutal Legend, etc. give you a “cursor” character such that it doesn’t matter what input device you’re on, since that character can only move at a set speed. This isn’t the only way to do it though; it isn’t coded to use controllers, but Northgard operates on distinct tiles and things move at a slower pace such that a game like it could work on a controller without compromise. One of those compromises that games like Halo Wars or Battle Aces have made is that you can’t really place buildings strategically, and that feels like they’ve gone too far. As for the fog of war, I recognize its strategic value, but it wrecks me mentally and emotionally. It’s just so stress-inducing, even when I understand how to thoroughly scout. Cannon Brawl does without it entirely, and I can enjoy that game in a way that I can’t other RTSes. You still have to split your attention paying attention to all of the different attacks in motion that your opponent has thrown at you, and so it doesn’t feel like it’s missing something. I’m the star of my own story, so these things definitely feel important to me, but I do feel like both of these things would do wonders for making the genre feel more approachable.

And of course, for me, it’s a non-starter if the game is online-only. The two big RTS revivals with the most marketing right now are Stormforge and Battle Aces, and both are online-only, as is that Beyond All Reason game right now. These games have been cooking for a long time, and they’re going to be launching into a live service game crash. Their lead developers may take away the lesson that the genre can’t be saved when I hope that the actual reason is that customers hate putting time and money into a game that will likely be deleted off the face of the earth in a matter of months, not even years.

I loved the old Blizzard RTSs as a kid. I think it was SC2: Heart of the Swarm when I got a bunch of coworkers to get the game and we played together quite a bit over a month. But it reached a point where I could take them all 4v1 (we only did that once though, I didn’t want to scare them off or be a gloating asshole) and win without really breaking a sweat. I learned my build orders and my keyboard shortcuts.

I could not for the life of me break out of bronze in multiplayer.

A couple years later one of my best friends was talking shit about whooping me in SC1, and I destroyed him. But that game gave me some ideas.

I think people really enjoy the base building aspect, like all of my friends treated building bases on some level as being like Sim City.

And back in the SC1 days, battle.net was rife with “No Rush” games where you build yourself up for whatever agreed upon time limit and then go at it. Games would often be labeled as NR15 or NR20, for example.

I think one possible resolution for increasing the popularity of RTS is to take a hybrid real time approach. You can build and do things in real time, but under the hood battles and the economy operate in discrete chunks of at least several seconds. You can do something similar to Sim City where every minute or two or whatever, you get all your resources to spend, and can then spend the rest of the time focusing elsewhere.

You can make a Base Building RTS where No Rush rules are baked into the game.

There is room for RTS games to be chill and more relaxed, as opposed to the game long manic feeling that you can never do anything fast enough, and that I think is the avenue to giving RTSs some mainstream limelight.

I loved RTS games back in the day, played through all the Command & Conquers, Warcrafts, Starcrafts and all that, but then gradually it felt like the genre starting morphing into DotA and other games and I just sort of moved on. I was mostly single-player, though got into multiplayer later, but remember it being so fucking nerve-wracking and having to click hundreds of times a minute and trying to optimize everything, I’d be so worn out after playing. My best game I ever remembered playing was Starcraft 2, there was one match where multiple players tried ganging up on me in a FFA match, it was obvious they were coordinating, and I somehow fended them off and took the game. It wasn’t an important game or anything, but that was one of the fond memories I have from that time in my gaming life.

I think I eventually just shifted over to turn-based strategy instead and I don’t know if the genre ever really returned from DotA.

I’m not disagreeing, although I will say that as I have aged, I started to prefer either of:

• Turn-based
• Real-time-with-pause (granted, this is mostly RPGs)
• Pre-submitted concurrent turns (ala Frozen Synapse)

I don’t know. I just no longer find the extra stress from the real-time element engaging. I used to love it, but preferences shift of course, and now I prefer the relaxation of taking my own time to figure out what I want to do, then checking whether I “solved the puzzle”, basically.

Removed by mod

I used to play defensively either by myself or with a friend against the computer. Most people seemed to play a rush strategy. I didn’t find much fun in that. The games were over too quick. Instead I’d simply find a difficulty where I’d last anywhere from 1-2 hours in a game, beating back the cpu while building up more defenses and progressing through the ages and technology, in the early stages of the game. Eventually I could tell I was overpowered and then moved to defeat the enemy. There was a challenge in the beginning half of the game, then just crushing! And none of that rush stuff!

An actual rush is a very all in strategy, just don’t fall too far behind on making combat units and you’ll be fine.

Its as true in AoE2 as it is in Starcraft(pick one).

Great fun games, tickle me in a different way to slower, absolutely no rush, 4X games.