Love battle realms and played the hell out of it when I was a kid. The game has a lot of unique game mechanics that aren't even seen on other rts games. Like training peasant to be fighters, units having stamina meter, units having both melee and ranged attacks, battle gears, catching mounts first before you can ride them, needing to douse water first on a burning structure before you can fix them, etc. The game was certainly ahead of it's time.
If you wanna have a nostalgic talk about the game and play some 2v5 against Ai - just awnser to the comment lol German here - i can speak english np thoe.
Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Simulator. This game totally changed my life. I was a child when it came out and it blew my mind. Its gameplay that made me feel my units truly alive, its humor, its graphic and sounds... everything was perfect for me at that time and I still love and play it today. It's the game that made me love fantasy in all its shades and RTS games aswell.
@@ComissarYarrick as a player of both the original and the sequel, does have plenty of charm, the problem is that the sequel wasn't fully fleshed out with its version of the original's Northern Expansions.
Warlords Battlecry is the biggest late discovery for me - I love this game and I would pay a lot to see remaster or IV. Awesome blend of RPG and RTS. LOVE IT! (and I played most of games listed here)
@@Laneous14 I still like playing this game from time to time, and it's always somewhat fun because of sheer number of hero combinations you can make. Out of curiosity, which was your favorite race\class?
OMG the games are so nostalgic. LotR battle for middle earth, Battle Realms, Red Alert, and others. Remembering the old big monitor used to be the most advance in those days.
In Age of Mythology there aren't 9 civilizations, there are 3, or 4 with the "Titans" expansion (Greeks, Egyptians, Vikings + Atlantis in the expansion). For each faction/player there is a choice of a main deity out of 3 (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades for Greeks - Isis, Ra, Seth for Egyptians - Thor, Odin, Loki for Vikings - Gaia, Uranus, Chronos for Atlateans), that give some different buffs, a couple of unique units, a unique power, but nothing massive. And in terms of specific playstyles and tactics every choice even for minor deities for every age progression matters. But the main differences are on the "culture" choice
@@Proveedor878 uh, right!! t The expansion that add the chinese culture and campaign!! I played so few times with that in comparison to the main game/titans that I always forgot about it.
Metal Fatigue was an enjoyable gem. It's a mecha rts, where you start on land, but may expand underground and to the sky for resources. You are one of three factions with graphically distinct designs, and your mechas are built in parts. When mechas battle, they often drop those parts, which can be picked up by workers and rebuilt into a frankenstein of cross faction robots.
Man that RTS was amazing one of my favorites of all time, i finished the campaign probably 15 times and i still play it to this day, too bad not many people know about the game.
Nice to shine a light on these forgotten Gems. You could easily do another two videos. I remembered at least 10 RTS Games in my mind right now that are missing here.
This video is 11 month and yet I'm going to say... Thank you so much!!! You have no idea how much time I been waiting to remember Dragonshard Game. I played a little bit through my childhood but never finished it. It got engraved in my mind but for some reason i never remembered his name ❤ I'm going to have a blast now if i can find it 😅
Thank you for reminding me about Battle Realms - it has unique way of recruiting soldiers as well as upgrading them to higher tiered ones. Even till now No RTS has it and its such a shame.
Besieger worked liked that. Vikings v Cimmerians. Start with a small cadre of workers, build a hall, resource conversion facilities (quarry, mine, lumber yards, etc.), houses so more workers "breed" (up to a maximum/house), build specialised training facilities, train your workers to be archers, infantry, weapons operators, or cavalry, then decommission them back to economic duties during times of ..., less fighting ... Work and fighting gave experience in that field. Keeping your units confined to one civilian and one martial discipline made them better at both. Heroes, magic, trolls who were good guys, flying dragonboats, formation tactics, build friggin' walled and towered fortess cities with defended gates, seige weapons, wall mounted ballistae defenses that required manning to work, enjoyed the hell out of it. Still got a copy (2cds), just no old computer with compatible plug ins, although I've got OS' from windows 7 back to DOS 6.22. Wish I still remembered all the shit I used to know about DOS. Anyhow, it was gone like that
@@thehellyousay wow I slept on that game, I would also have burn 10s--100s of hours into it. I'm not a fan of AoE and Stronghold, but I'm pretty sure Besieger is my jam... Talking about dos, I still have a vivid memory of copying missing dll files using the prompt ☺️
Warlords battlecry 3 is such an unique game, not only through its unmatched number of playable races (though there is some unit overlap and balance is shaky at times) but also bor being maybe the one true RTS/RPG hybrid out there, with units gaining experience and becoming stronger (and you being able to carry some of those stronger troops between missions provided they dont get killed, allowing you to carry with you a few units from races other than the one you play) and of course the hero also gaining levels from mission to mission with a point allocation system that's really meaningful and classes that really matter. Your hero could end up as a good old warrior, strong and durable, a frail oneshotting machine (based on RNG) that creates gold every time it kills something in a single hit, a mage with very potent spells for both offense, support, or other purposes such as summonning, dispensing random buffs/debuffs or even creating items and trading one ressource for another, or a weak economic powerhouse that is pretty worthless in a fight but bolsters your economy just by existing on the map, and everything in-between including classes that are hybrids of those archetypes. It's really a great game and one of my RTS classics to this day.
Shaky balance is an understatement, lol. I remember playing online back in the day and if you wanted a fair, serious match, it had to be same race, no heroes. Or, at most, same race with a temporary level 3 hero. Because the differences between the races are huge and the heroes are OP. Still, such a massively fun game. It has so many concepts that... just make sense. One thing I kind of hate, other than WBC being so unknown (and unpolished) is that because WBC3 exists, nobody talks/cares about WBC 2. It had less stuff, but on the hero side, I kind of liked the leveling system more. It is much more strict, max level 50, no in-combat levelups, but it's... just better. And I do like the endless leveling in WBC3, but the attribute and skill leveling took some of the charm out. I wish a blend of the two exist, WBC2 style, but with infinite leveling. And that spell upgrading is awesome, I wish it was per spell, that is, so you can choose what spell to upgrade, not always go through all of them.
@@Winnetou17 oh yeah the absence of a level cap in 3 made heroes outrageous in the long run, though at lower levels some classes are damn useless (mainly the economy-oriented ones, though they may be the most horribly OP at very high level if you fail to get the hero killed as the game starts). But overall I never played online, i was just happy between the campaign and skirmishes :p Though note there is STILL active modders out there for 3 that work of nothing short of a big rework of every single race as well as a lot of core mechanics, and they are doing a damn good job of it (look up The Protectors, hell they even have a page on steam)
@@Winnetou17 WBC2 also keeps the race fantasy by locking the classes and specialisations. WBC3 is not a WBC to me and is an objectively worse game in all aspects.
YES, PARAWORLD. This is still my favorite RTS of all time, I albolutely loved it and basically played the entire campaign in one go. At the end, they even have a massive "to be continued" cliffhanger so I was very exited to get more of it, but that never happened... Such a great game, I highly encourage everyone to give it a go.
Age of mythology is still in my heart. I started to paly it when I was 11, played it on every LAN party, played it solo, I LOVED IT. First, it looked much better in graphics than AoE, second, I love mythology so it gave me so much knowledge. It's a shame that this game was so underrated in its own brothers shadow - the Age of Empires...
Beautiful games... I have played 15 of them and they are some of the best games of the strategy genre. Good to know that there are people with good taste.
hi. I know that a lot of time has passed today but how pleasant it is to remember everything from that time. I remember so much a game that is very similar to Dune, it is or rather to almost all the video games that you have uploaded in these videos. only this one was about aliens fighting soldiers. In order to generate soldiers, bases, machines, one had to go look for energy sources which were prostrate on the ground, the aliens had to do the same. Likewise, one had to get to know the terrain so that it became clearer because it was all dark. As you passed levels, you unlocked machines and tanks. As for the aliens, it was the same, even they had yellow shirts and were white with big eyes. The soldiers were dressed in black special suits. In the soldiers' team, a captain was differentiated, I think a cursor differentiated him. The game had cinematics that were saved in the PC folder, I even remember one of those videos because of how a deceased alien was. I played this game in 2003/2004. It was a very good game, at that time I was a little kid. If you have any idea how to find it or what it's called, I would be totally grateful, you made me remember all those games, very good video. By the way, this text is translated
I did not expect to see Armies of Exigo as most people do not know about it. Glad to see it here. It was an undeniable Warcraft clone but it had fine graphics and a nice story. I still remember some quotes of units from that game.
We are going to get Age of Mythology: Retold though. As far as I understand the original is getting pretty much the same treatment as AOE2 and AOE3 with their definitive editions. It's in good hands and at a minimum we will get greatly improved graphics and a new civ out of it.
Rising Kingdoms stands out for me in my memories regarding old RTS games. I was enamoured of its visual style at first sight. So outlandish... Good memories
Some of these are my childhood and they were absolutely amazing. Cossacks was just on another level, and the LotR was so epic! I overbuilt every map in Age of Mythology, Ancient Wars: Sparta was quite unique and challenging and I never understood Tzar hahaha.
Gosh, it's been a few years since we hear that RTS are coming back but all the games are always pushed back to the following year... At this point, I don't even hope for 2024 ! So many of these games deserve to be remade, we need a new golden age of RTS !
Just fire up Generals: Zero Hour once more. You know you want to. Come on. Do it. That and Dawn of War 1 (+ DLCs). These games aged fine despite their graphic being on the simpler side.
@@iglidor I never played Zero Hour and I've never been too motivated to... It's the only C&C I've never played 'cause I've never been attracted by the setting. And even if I want to, it looks quite dated right now, better go back on C&C 3 or Red Alert 3. Dawn of War 1 is still the best but you need those mods which are a pain to configure sometimes.
@@samuel1289 Yup, played that one quite a bit but always playing alone (I love a good co-op in a RTS) + ultimate apocalypse becomes a bit too crazy once you reach end game, it gets really colorful with it's large explosion (the engine can't handle that very well)
wow battle realms!! immediately recognized it from the thumbnail god i loved that game it was my childhood most of my family played and we all favored different clans~
9:52 AoX (Armies of Exigo) has orcs as a neutral, non playable faction, appears in their alterego faction, the Beasts' campaign as enemies, and in the first cinematic only. Though this game is a hidden diamond, I still play it nowadays.❤
Netstorm - quite an unusual RTS, where most of your attacking units are fixed towers. It has a unique setting, progression and gameplay. Sacrifice - not sure if you could call this an RTS, because you play from the 3rd person view centered on your main character. And even though your main character can cast spells, they are really just support for your main army. Creating a well balanced army with the limited resources you have is key.
Sacrifice is stilld eifntively a RTS, I would argue, despite it's very usunusual POV. (Brutal Legend did something similar except givin the POV character flight thus allowing things to be a bit similar to a more tradiotnal top down view). But th idea of gathering reource, controlling points in the map, creating units and controlling them in real time is still all there.
The game that got me into RTS games was a demo that I found on a computer that was donated to me back in 2003 after I moved to the USA. The game was called Tsar the Burden of the Crown, and oh boy did I play the hell out of that demo, staying up playing up to 6 or 7 am. Unfortunately that is computer crashed and I forgot the name of the game because I could barely read English back then but about 5 years ago I recognized the game on GOG and without hesitation bought it right away, I still play it to this day.
Here's my dream game - a soft reboot of the entire Command & Conquer series into a single game featuting all factions with 3 Generals each: USA (Airforce, Laser, EMP) Europe (Chrono, Cryo, Sonic) Russia (Radiation, Tesla, Magnetism) China (Napalm, Miniguns, Tanks) Japan (Psionic, Mech, Naval) GLA (Toxin, Demolition, Stealth) Scrin (IonStorm, Phase, Spacecraft) NOD (Prism, Tiberium, Plasma) Yuri (Mind Control, Genetics, Robotics)
I still remember when Para World came out and all critics said, this was the future of RTS! It was great and the army control box on the left was great. I wish it would have made it into the rest of the RTS world. This is a feature i really miss!
Awesome list! It is nice that I know every game from it and played in most of them :) 13:48 it is funny that we use stone and wood to build nuclear bombers and futuristic mechs ;P But game was very fun and epic nothenless.
My favourite RTS Game when I started playing on PC was Defcon 1 War Games PC edition, 2 factions (NORAD (Humans) vs WOPR(AI/Machines)). It had 30 missions (15 on each faction), and you were always in disadvantage on each mission by 1 or 2 unlockable units. It was a challenging game. Rise of Nations was very good, they should remake this one. Other RTS that is not mentioned is Real War(Air, Land, Sea). Very good for a modern tech war game.
Some of those are hardly forgotten (AoM, LotR, star wars EaW) but love to see a mention of Warlords battlecry, Paraworld and Dragon-shard (not dragons-hard !). I remember all those games at least by name, except the submarine one, never heard of that ever.
The last game shown in the outro is Tzar: The Burden of the Crown It's playable in a browser (except campaing) vs AI or other players. Browser version is known as Tzared.
Talking about interesting forgotten strategies, you should mentioned: 1) Majesty: the fantasy kingdom sym. Unique strategy with undirect control. Each mission is a puzzle. The sequel is not so good because of poor AI. 2) Metal Fatigue. Had real-time battle robots constructor. 3 layers of action: ground, air, and undeground, where robots can not be used, only regular technique. Very innovative game. 3) Universe at war, Earth assault. Classic rts with very assimetric gameplay: there was race with a mobile battle base or race with 2 modes, which allows you to transform all your units at once. And all races get resources by deconstruct buildings.
Castle Strike has been too very interesting strategy game and then Celtic Kings has been quite good too, remember spending days on these games in the past. :D
I don't want to repeat games you already mentioned, but I would like to IMPOSSIBLE CREATURES, it was Microsoft RTS game where you go around collecting animals on the map, extracting their DNA and then making HYBRID animals which served as your units. For game which released in like 2002-3 this was such novelty, we never had RTS game where you could basically make your own custom units as you like. Really wish this game gets more love and descent remake or remaster.
I chuckled at the Empire Earth's competent AI comment. That AI wasn't competent. It just cheated. Literally! Still one of my favorite RTS games of all time though and I would love to see a remastered version.
esp once you get to nuclear powered cars/tanks :D . hated the way some of your people were unable to crawl unless if they switch professions to soldier....
@@ApocGuy Or KI Controlled Cars :D actually the Community is so great of this Game... since i was a boy this game has no Skirmish mode because of the lack of a KI Code in the game... now the own Community make a mode where you can play against Bots!!
Yoooo warrior kings Battles. I remember starting a modding community some years ago but had to leave due to personal stuff. Good times though. Sin is a legend
grew up on some of these like Praetorians, Cossacks Back to War, Settlers 5: Heritage of Kings, Age of Mythology later in life i tried Rise of Nations, American Conquest, and bought Tzar
Thanks for the List! There were 2 games i never herd of before! But calling Age of Mythology and Empire at War forgotten, or Aarklash a RTS is a stretch and not a bit of it!
Yeah it's not been forgotten actually there's an unofficial remaster of it presently in development, the one that's actually been forgotten is the Lord of the Rings war of the Ring RTS.
Star Wars Empire at War, cheap, but the modding community which has been going basically from launch, have really kept the game alive. I often go back to it, to AOTR or Remake, Clone wars, FOTR. Tons of genuinely great mods foe the game
Thanks for this video. I've played a game in an internet cafee like 20 years ago but I've never remembered its title. I've tried to find it several times but without luck. I think that game was Battle Realms (it looks and sounds familiar despite of the fact that it was long ago and I played it just once... weird).
I would like to add The History Channel: Alamo - Fight for Independence. The game take place during the Mexican-American War. The game is quite short and only have campaign mode. You gather resource by sending engineers to the mine or buildings then carry the resource back into the HQ. There are walls that can be destroyed by cannon and be rebuild overnight by soldiers. Engineer can main the cannon. Gate can be grenaded by enemy troop although the playable troop can't use grenade. Gate can also be destroyed by cannon but the player must force fire it. All rifles and pistols are muskets, thus the fire rate is slow. The game have day and night cycle where the enemy come attack during the day and everyone go back to the flag to rest during the night. The game objective are either dominate the flag, siege, defense against siege or kill the final boss. The game is now abandon ware and can be downloaded for free.
I kinda question Age of Mythology and Empire at Wars inclusion on this list. I'd hardly call either forgotten. Hell AOM got an expansion pack in 2016, 14 years since its release... It wasn't a good expansion pack, but it shows its hardly been forgotten. Even if its slept on a bit compared to the Series front runner Age of Empires II, it is still fondly regarded. And I'm pretty sure Empire at War is considered a Classic. The rest I'll agree is pretty obscure, I play a lot of RTS, and the only other ones I recognised Was Rise of Nations, Empire Earth (never played the first one though), and Battle for Middle Earth.
You forgot the EARTH 2140 .. it was one of the best strategy game at that time , the graphic was crisp, the battles fast and the soundtrack was perfect .. I recommend to add it in another list of old games
I wish you had metal fatigue in there. One of the absolute peak of the games that had insane potential but lacked polish. A high quality remake of the game could become one of the literal best RTS games of all time.
Шикарный список! Последняя игра - TZAR, в русской локализации звучала как "огнем и мечом", не знаю почему о ней ни слова, но отличная вещь! Автору респект!
По мне такой себе списочек... много однотипных игр. Зачем мне видеть клоны одной и тойже игры а об уникальных таких как например "black & white" или "populous" не слова.
If anyone remembers some kind of RTS I think from the 90 to early 2000s that was kinda Gothic and had some kind of fireball shooting placeable caged hellhounds and a lich unit that strutted kinda like Bigfoot and was fairly powerful I'd appreciate knowing the name. It was so long ago I can't remember much more than that but has been bugging me for decades now. It could have been shown in some of these old strategy game videos but I probably wouldn't recognize it at this point unless I saw a picture of the lich or those caged fire ball shooters that I still have a decent picture left in my mind of. The guy that introduced me to a lot of games back then was playing like StarCraft, Stronghold, Netstorm, Shogun Total War and that Impossible creatures game so it had to be around and before then I don't think Stronghold 2 was out yet.
one thing I still don't understand in cossacks is that it's always easier for the enemy to turn your cannons into their. I mean when they approach your cannons, they immediately turn to their color, while if you try to do the same, their cannons will break down ???
Battle Realms and Praetorians were my favorite RTS games. Followed by CnC Yuri's Revenge and Generals: Zero hour. Just plain simple and easy to understand RTS games.
Don't miss part 2 of this clip "22 more Forgotten Real-Time Strategy Games" - ruclips.net/video/VIs58LRgrHs/видео.html
What is the tilte of the thumbnail/image of the video? as i played almost all of them im pretty sure is not in this list.
The thumbnail :buildings from Battle realms
@@bogdanlipan6917 Thank you.
Love battle realms and played the hell out of it when I was a kid. The game has a lot of unique game mechanics that aren't even seen on other rts games. Like training peasant to be fighters, units having stamina meter, units having both melee and ranged attacks, battle gears, catching mounts first before you can ride them, needing to douse water first on a burning structure before you can fix them, etc. The game was certainly ahead of it's time.
Same! Lovely game, only some balance problems, as Lotus clan was soo strong. :)
Zen Edition is on steam.
If you wanna have a nostalgic talk about the game and play some 2v5 against Ai - just awnser to the comment lol
German here - i can speak english np thoe.
childhood nostalgia 2001/2002
I still remember the mission where you throw a giants rock into the enemy. After 20 years 😂
Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Simulator. This game totally changed my life. I was a child when it came out and it blew my mind. Its gameplay that made me feel my units truly alive, its humor, its graphic and sounds... everything was perfect for me at that time and I still love and play it today. It's the game that made me love fantasy in all its shades and RTS games aswell.
Oh, I love this game too. Sadly sequel doesn't have half the charm of orginal...
@@ComissarYarrick I totally agree with you. I hope somebody will "clone it" for a sequel (obviously with another name) with the same charm.
@@ComissarYarrick as a player of both the original and the sequel, does have plenty of charm, the problem is that the sequel wasn't fully fleshed out with its version of the original's Northern Expansions.
I still have a copy of majesty: gold.
More gold your majesty.
Warlords Battlecry is the biggest late discovery for me - I love this game and I would pay a lot to see remaster or IV.
Awesome blend of RPG and RTS. LOVE IT!
(and I played most of games listed here)
I probably sank 1000 hours into Battlecry 3. The amount of unique heroes and playstyles you can have is amazing
Sadly it has 4, but its more tbs
It is a good frickin game. It's too repetitive in it's later maps tho.
@@Laneous14 I still like playing this game from time to time, and it's always somewhat fun because of sheer number of hero combinations you can make. Out of curiosity, which was your favorite race\class?
Closest we will get is the protectors mod. It rolls all three games into one.
OMG the games are so nostalgic. LotR battle for middle earth, Battle Realms, Red Alert, and others. Remembering the old big monitor used to be the most advance in those days.
These games was when gaming was prospered by gamers, back when the Golden Age of Gaming was at it's prime.
Back when companies like Blizzard cared. * nostalgia *
There are still great games tho!
Most of them are not AAA ;-)
exactly this @@igorthelight
In Age of Mythology there aren't 9 civilizations, there are 3, or 4 with the "Titans" expansion (Greeks, Egyptians, Vikings + Atlantis in the expansion).
For each faction/player there is a choice of a main deity out of 3 (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades for Greeks - Isis, Ra, Seth for Egyptians - Thor, Odin, Loki for Vikings - Gaia, Uranus, Chronos for Atlateans), that give some different buffs, a couple of unique units, a unique power, but nothing massive. And in terms of specific playstyles and tactics every choice even for minor deities for every age progression matters. But the main differences are on the "culture" choice
5 with the DLC.
@@Proveedor878 uh, right!! t
The expansion that add the chinese culture and campaign!! I played so few times with that in comparison to the main game/titans that I always forgot about it.
@@Proveedor878 Do not even dare talk of the Chinese faction DLC. That piece of garbage cashgrab dumpster fire belongs in the recycle bin.
Metal Fatigue was an enjoyable gem. It's a mecha rts, where you start on land, but may expand underground and to the sky for resources. You are one of three factions with graphically distinct designs, and your mechas are built in parts. When mechas battle, they often drop those parts, which can be picked up by workers and rebuilt into a frankenstein of cross faction robots.
Fully expected Metal Fatigue to be on this list! A solid RTS but not sure if it has aged well cause I haven't played it in years
PERIMETER
Armies of Exigo was.. pure fucking gem. I remember me and my friends playing the hell out of it on daily basis
it was incredibly fun even though it was a copy (bordering on plagiarism) of blizzard rts's
Man that RTS was amazing one of my favorites of all time, i finished the campaign probably 15 times and i still play it to this day, too bad not many people know about the game.
I think it was uniq with the ranking units and with auras and with the underground bases@@misster490
I am still playing Rise of Nations from time to time. One of the best. And still exiting.
And what about rise of legends?
Nice to shine a light on these forgotten Gems. You could easily do another two videos. I remembered at least 10 RTS Games in my mind right now that are missing here.
This video is 11 month and yet I'm going to say... Thank you so much!!! You have no idea how much time I been waiting to remember Dragonshard Game. I played a little bit through my childhood but never finished it. It got engraved in my mind but for some reason i never remembered his name ❤ I'm going to have a blast now if i can find it 😅
Thank you for reminding me about Battle Realms - it has unique way of recruiting soldiers as well as upgrading them to higher tiered ones. Even till now No RTS has it and its such a shame.
With each melee and ranged attack animations, morale(not following orders)
And each unit has different type of dmg (6 types in total) and personalized resistances/weaknesses.
@@GenJuhru @skorpionex87 exactly
Besieger worked liked that. Vikings v Cimmerians. Start with a small cadre of workers, build a hall, resource conversion facilities (quarry, mine, lumber yards, etc.), houses so more workers "breed" (up to a maximum/house), build specialised training facilities, train your workers to be archers, infantry, weapons operators, or cavalry, then decommission them back to economic duties during times of ..., less fighting ... Work and fighting gave experience in that field. Keeping your units confined to one civilian and one martial discipline made them better at both. Heroes, magic, trolls who were good guys, flying dragonboats, formation tactics, build friggin' walled and towered fortess cities with defended gates, seige weapons, wall mounted ballistae defenses that required manning to work, enjoyed the hell out of it.
Still got a copy (2cds), just no old computer with compatible plug ins, although I've got OS' from windows 7 back to DOS 6.22.
Wish I still remembered all the shit I used to know about DOS.
Anyhow, it was gone like that
@@thehellyousay wow I slept on that game, I would also have burn 10s--100s of hours into it. I'm not a fan of AoE and Stronghold, but I'm pretty sure Besieger is my jam...
Talking about dos, I still have a vivid memory of copying missing dll files using the prompt ☺️
Warlords battlecry 3 is such an unique game, not only through its unmatched number of playable races (though there is some unit overlap and balance is shaky at times) but also bor being maybe the one true RTS/RPG hybrid out there, with units gaining experience and becoming stronger (and you being able to carry some of those stronger troops between missions provided they dont get killed, allowing you to carry with you a few units from races other than the one you play) and of course the hero also gaining levels from mission to mission with a point allocation system that's really meaningful and classes that really matter. Your hero could end up as a good old warrior, strong and durable, a frail oneshotting machine (based on RNG) that creates gold every time it kills something in a single hit, a mage with very potent spells for both offense, support, or other purposes such as summonning, dispensing random buffs/debuffs or even creating items and trading one ressource for another, or a weak economic powerhouse that is pretty worthless in a fight but bolsters your economy just by existing on the map, and everything in-between including classes that are hybrids of those archetypes.
It's really a great game and one of my RTS classics to this day.
Shaky balance is an understatement, lol. I remember playing online back in the day and if you wanted a fair, serious match, it had to be same race, no heroes. Or, at most, same race with a temporary level 3 hero. Because the differences between the races are huge and the heroes are OP. Still, such a massively fun game. It has so many concepts that... just make sense.
One thing I kind of hate, other than WBC being so unknown (and unpolished) is that because WBC3 exists, nobody talks/cares about WBC 2. It had less stuff, but on the hero side, I kind of liked the leveling system more. It is much more strict, max level 50, no in-combat levelups, but it's... just better. And I do like the endless leveling in WBC3, but the attribute and skill leveling took some of the charm out. I wish a blend of the two exist, WBC2 style, but with infinite leveling. And that spell upgrading is awesome, I wish it was per spell, that is, so you can choose what spell to upgrade, not always go through all of them.
@@Winnetou17 oh yeah the absence of a level cap in 3 made heroes outrageous in the long run, though at lower levels some classes are damn useless (mainly the economy-oriented ones, though they may be the most horribly OP at very high level if you fail to get the hero killed as the game starts). But overall I never played online, i was just happy between the campaign and skirmishes :p
Though note there is STILL active modders out there for 3 that work of nothing short of a big rework of every single race as well as a lot of core mechanics, and they are doing a damn good job of it (look up The Protectors, hell they even have a page on steam)
@@thorveim1174 Yeah, I tried to check that, but it crashes so easily, I can barely play it :(
@@Winnetou17 really? Weird for me its been stable (the latest release so far)
@@Winnetou17 WBC2 also keeps the race fantasy by locking the classes and specialisations. WBC3 is not a WBC to me and is an objectively worse game in all aspects.
YES, PARAWORLD.
This is still my favorite RTS of all time, I albolutely loved it and basically played the entire campaign in one go.
At the end, they even have a massive "to be continued" cliffhanger so I was very exited to get more of it, but that never happened...
Such a great game, I highly encourage everyone to give it a go.
Age of mythology is still in my heart. I started to paly it when I was 11, played it on every LAN party, played it solo, I LOVED IT. First, it looked much better in graphics than AoE, second, I love mythology so it gave me so much knowledge. It's a shame that this game was so underrated in its own brothers shadow - the Age of Empires...
Beautiful games... I have played 15 of them and they are some of the best games of the strategy genre. Good to know that there are people with good taste.
This is peak quality content.
I went to hit the subscribe button and it turns out I was already subscribed.
Ohh Submarine titans, love it
Honorary mentions should go to:
-Universe at War: Earth Assault
-Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far
-Extreme Tactics
-Dark Reign
hi. I know that a lot of time has passed today but how pleasant it is to remember everything from that time.
I remember so much a game that is very similar to Dune, it is or rather to almost all the video games that you have uploaded in these videos.
only this one was about aliens fighting soldiers.
In order to generate soldiers, bases, machines, one had to go look for energy sources which were prostrate on the ground, the aliens had to do the same.
Likewise, one had to get to know the terrain so that it became clearer because it was all dark.
As you passed levels, you unlocked machines and tanks. As for the aliens, it was the same, even they had yellow shirts and were white with big eyes. The soldiers were dressed in black special suits.
In the soldiers' team, a captain was differentiated, I think a cursor differentiated him.
The game had cinematics that were saved in the PC folder, I even remember one of those videos because of how a deceased alien was.
I played this game in 2003/2004. It was a very good game, at that time I was a little kid.
If you have any idea how to find it or what it's called, I would be totally grateful, you made me remember all those games, very good video. By the way, this text is translated
I recall a few other great rts games:
Populous: The Beginning
Z game
7 kingdom
I did not expect to see Armies of Exigo as most people do not know about it. Glad to see it here. It was an undeniable Warcraft clone but it had fine graphics and a nice story. I still remember some quotes of units from that game.
Probably the most underrated RTS ever, i finished the campaign probably 15 times and i still play it to this day.
Battle realms and Age of Mythology was enough for me back then, I spent countless nights playing with my brother for so many battles.
Same things 🥲
How amazing would an Age of Mythology 2 be. Great vid
We are going to get Age of Mythology: Retold though. As far as I understand the original is getting pretty much the same treatment as AOE2 and AOE3 with their definitive editions.
It's in good hands and at a minimum we will get greatly improved graphics and a new civ out of it.
Submarine titans , imo a very hidden gem , thanks for featuring!
Submarine Titans was the first game I actually owned. Great memories.
i used to love playing praetorians. the music of the menu was dope
Man, you brought back Kohan 2 and Battle Realms into my mind
Rising Kingdoms stands out for me in my memories regarding old RTS games. I was enamoured of its visual style at first sight. So outlandish... Good memories
The aesthetic was a dream to behold.
I was so happy to see Tzar on your list, this game was very important from my childhood till now....but i was sad cause u said no word to this game :(
Ya I was excited too but he just skipped it..
I'm still playing some of these, these games give a feeling that modern titles often miss.
THX Man this a real good ideas for forgotten RTS!!!
Some of these are my childhood and they were absolutely amazing. Cossacks was just on another level, and the LotR was so epic! I overbuilt every map in Age of Mythology, Ancient Wars: Sparta was quite unique and challenging and I never understood Tzar hahaha.
Gosh, it's been a few years since we hear that RTS are coming back but all the games are always pushed back to the following year... At this point, I don't even hope for 2024 !
So many of these games deserve to be remade, we need a new golden age of RTS !
Just fire up Generals: Zero Hour once more. You know you want to. Come on. Do it.
That and Dawn of War 1 (+ DLCs). These games aged fine despite their graphic being on the simpler side.
Go for mods like ultimate apocalypse
@@iglidor I never played Zero Hour and I've never been too motivated to... It's the only C&C I've never played 'cause I've never been attracted by the setting. And even if I want to, it looks quite dated right now, better go back on C&C 3 or Red Alert 3.
Dawn of War 1 is still the best but you need those mods which are a pain to configure sometimes.
@@samuel1289 Yup, played that one quite a bit but always playing alone (I love a good co-op in a RTS) + ultimate apocalypse becomes a bit too crazy once you reach end game, it gets really colorful with it's large explosion (the engine can't handle that very well)
I remember playing Submarine Titans when I was a kid. Great game, will probably play it again one day. :)
Man, you forgot to mention Metal Fatigue. That game was so exciting.
Yeah, clashing combots were so cool. Very underrated game.
Three layers of combat/battlefield
its not that bad but ok
@@2.mursilihititogullar411 I like the idea of how you could basically customize your own units & reusing enemies' parts.
FINALLY! Someone has mention a true epic classic - Warrior King's!
Hahaha, jokes on you! I never forgot about Warlords Battlecry 3 :)
Damn, i loved this game as a kid.
wow battle realms!! immediately recognized it from the thumbnail god i loved that game it was my childhood most of my family played and we all favored different clans~
This is an absolute gem!
9:52 AoX (Armies of Exigo) has orcs as a neutral, non playable faction, appears in their alterego faction, the Beasts' campaign as enemies, and in the first cinematic only.
Though this game is a hidden diamond, I still play it nowadays.❤
Netstorm - quite an unusual RTS, where most of your attacking units are fixed towers. It has a unique setting, progression and gameplay.
Sacrifice - not sure if you could call this an RTS, because you play from the 3rd person view centered on your main character. And even though your main character can cast spells, they are really just support for your main army. Creating a well balanced army with the limited resources you have is key.
Sacrifice is stilld eifntively a RTS, I would argue, despite it's very usunusual POV. (Brutal Legend did something similar except givin the POV character flight thus allowing things to be a bit similar to a more tradiotnal top down view). But th idea of gathering reource, controlling points in the map, creating units and controlling them in real time is still all there.
i remember impossible creatures which was a very interesting concept for rts and had whacky story. i used play that game a lot in my younger days
what an amazing list. wow. have to play a lot of these. armies of exigo sounds fascinating and age of mythology.
Ground Control 2. Also, Rise Of Legends - although it's a direct sequel to Rise Of Nations it is still so unique and very, very genuine.
Ground Control is an RTT (i.e. Sudden Strike series), not an RTS. RTS have resource collection and base/unit building as requirement.
The game that got me into RTS games was a demo that I found on a computer that was donated to me back in 2003 after I moved to the USA. The game was called Tsar the Burden of the Crown, and oh boy did I play the hell out of that demo, staying up playing up to 6 or 7 am. Unfortunately that is computer crashed and I forgot the name of the game because I could barely read English back then but about 5 years ago I recognized the game on GOG and without hesitation bought it right away, I still play it to this day.
It's crazy how submarines titans and galactic battlegrounds 2 look alike x)
Almost all of my favourite games ❤ . Thank you.
Here's my dream game - a soft reboot of the entire Command & Conquer series into a single game featuting all factions with 3 Generals each:
USA (Airforce, Laser, EMP)
Europe (Chrono, Cryo, Sonic)
Russia
(Radiation, Tesla, Magnetism)
China (Napalm, Miniguns, Tanks)
Japan (Psionic, Mech, Naval)
GLA (Toxin, Demolition, Stealth)
Scrin (IonStorm, Phase, Spacecraft)
NOD (Prism, Tiberium, Plasma)
Yuri
(Mind Control, Genetics, Robotics)
It's hard to be because
If NOD exist isn't a GLA
Because GLA is part of NOD
@@pongel7447 They would be allies
Like what USA and Europe would be to each other
❤ I still play worlords battlecry, rise of nations (and rise of nations rise of legends), Battle for Middle Earth, and Age of Mithology ❤ great video
Tzar Burden of a Crown is a great AoE inspired RTS. Cool campaign!
I still remember when Para World came out and all critics said, this was the future of RTS! It was great and the army control box on the left was great. I wish it would have made it into the rest of the RTS world. This is a feature i really miss!
Awesome list! It is nice that I know every game from it and played in most of them :)
13:48 it is funny that we use stone and wood to build nuclear bombers and futuristic mechs ;P But game was very fun and epic nothenless.
Praetorians should be included. It's an underated game back in the days
My favourite RTS Game when I started playing on PC was Defcon 1 War Games PC edition, 2 factions (NORAD (Humans) vs WOPR(AI/Machines)). It had 30 missions (15 on each faction), and you were always in disadvantage on each mission by 1 or 2 unlockable units. It was a challenging game.
Rise of Nations was very good, they should remake this one.
Other RTS that is not mentioned is Real War(Air, Land, Sea). Very good for a modern tech war game.
I can't believe you forgot about one of the most iconic RTS games. Total Annihilation. You know, that game still has a very small community.
I've played the total annihilation fantasy realm version. Nuts.
I think TA is not completely forgotten, since Supreme Commander and Forged Alliance keeps mentioning TA.
However, TA Kingdoms should be on this list.
Some of those are hardly forgotten (AoM, LotR, star wars EaW) but love to see a mention of Warlords battlecry, Paraworld and Dragon-shard (not dragons-hard !).
I remember all those games at least by name, except the submarine one, never heard of that ever.
Was looking for this comment about "dragons-hard" 😹
Glad I didn't need to duplicate it.
Age of Mythology was the best for sure, very deep game lore wise.
Lord of the rings both parts also were amazing
I'd argue that some of those RTS games are forgotten. Age of Mythology not only is very fondly remembered but it's getting a remaster.
Yeah. I watch the video and some of the choices are weird.
The last game shown in the outro is Tzar: The Burden of the Crown
It's playable in a browser (except campaing) vs AI or other players. Browser version is known as Tzared.
Battlezone II was an amazing game. We need more games like those.
Talking about interesting forgotten strategies, you should mentioned:
1) Majesty: the fantasy kingdom sym. Unique strategy with undirect control. Each mission is a puzzle. The sequel is not so good because of poor AI.
2) Metal Fatigue. Had real-time battle robots constructor. 3 layers of action: ground, air, and undeground, where robots can not be used, only regular technique. Very innovative game.
3) Universe at war, Earth assault. Classic rts with very assimetric gameplay: there was race with a mobile battle base or race with 2 modes, which allows you to transform all your units at once. And all races get resources by deconstruct buildings.
Castle Strike has been too very interesting strategy game and then Celtic Kings has been quite good too, remember spending days on these games in the past. :D
man Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth 2 was so awesome , Battle Realms and Empire Earth was nice too
4:55 I’ve searched everywhere for the game but I couldn’t find it anywhere, it really was fun to play.
KKND and Fallen Haven 🙌
I don't want to repeat games you already mentioned, but I would like to IMPOSSIBLE CREATURES, it was Microsoft RTS game where you go around collecting animals on the map, extracting their DNA and then making HYBRID animals which served as your units. For game which released in like 2002-3 this was such novelty, we never had RTS game where you could basically make your own custom units as you like. Really wish this game gets more love and descent remake or remaster.
Хорошая подборка,сохраню чтоб не забыть)
I chuckled at the Empire Earth's competent AI comment. That AI wasn't competent. It just cheated. Literally! Still one of my favorite RTS games of all time though and I would love to see a remastered version.
Orignial War
Trust me ....its my beloved game from childhood
with mod "Sands of Siberia"
esp once you get to nuclear powered cars/tanks :D . hated the way some of your people were unable to crawl unless if they switch professions to soldier....
@@ApocGuy Or KI Controlled Cars :D actually the Community is so great of this Game... since i was a boy this game has no Skirmish mode because of the lack of a KI Code in the game... now the own Community make a mode where you can play against Bots!!
Rise of Legends, sequel of Rise of Nations, is a forgotten masterpiece. One of the best RTS I've ever played
Star Wars Empire a War has still very active modding community.
'Dominion: Storm Over Gift III' was a wild & weird R.T.S. of Sorts!
Yoooo warrior kings Battles. I remember starting a modding community some years ago but had to leave due to personal stuff. Good times though. Sin is a legend
grew up on some of these
like Praetorians, Cossacks Back to War, Settlers 5: Heritage of Kings, Age of Mythology
later in life i tried Rise of Nations, American Conquest, and bought Tzar
Thanks for the List! There were 2 games i never herd of before! But calling Age of Mythology and Empire at War forgotten, or Aarklash a RTS is a stretch and not a bit of it!
Very good. I have a few of those. I really need to learn DOSbox.
Bruh the Lord of the Rings the Battle of Middle Earth HUNGERS for a remaster.
Honestly I thought he would talk about the book lord of the rings rts that was forgotten
Jaaaa! Absolut richtig! 👍👍👍👍
Yeah it's not been forgotten actually there's an unofficial remaster of it presently in development, the one that's actually been forgotten is the Lord of the Rings war of the Ring RTS.
god i loved warrior kings and warlords battlecry, its a pity we dont have any modern analogues for them :(
Warrior Kings was a blast! I still play campaign from time to time. When I played it for the first time I was super engaged in Arthos story.
Warlord battle cry 3 - omg! This game was soooo good
Star Wars Empire at War, cheap, but the modding community which has been going basically from launch, have really kept the game alive.
I often go back to it, to AOTR or Remake, Clone wars, FOTR. Tons of genuinely great mods foe the game
Lords of Magic was a GOAT. Incredible ambient music, one of best that I heard. Great atmosphere and very hard :)
Thanks for this video. I've played a game in an internet cafee like 20 years ago but I've never remembered its title. I've tried to find it several times
but without luck. I think that game was Battle Realms (it looks and sounds familiar despite of the fact that it was long ago and I played it just once... weird).
Empire Earth was so much fun. My friends and I played it for years on lan parties
Star wars empire at war was never forgotten tho
Can have Stargate and Star Trek expansion pack in Modb ^^👍
Empire at war was great!
I would like to add The History Channel: Alamo - Fight for Independence. The game take place during the Mexican-American War.
The game is quite short and only have campaign mode. You gather resource by sending engineers to the mine or buildings then carry the resource back into the HQ. There are walls that can be destroyed by cannon and be rebuild overnight by soldiers. Engineer can main the cannon. Gate can be grenaded by enemy troop although the playable troop can't use grenade. Gate can also be destroyed by cannon but the player must force fire it. All rifles and pistols are muskets, thus the fire rate is slow. The game have day and night cycle where the enemy come attack during the day and everyone go back to the flag to rest during the night. The game objective are either dominate the flag, siege, defense against siege or kill the final boss.
The game is now abandon ware and can be downloaded for free.
I kinda question Age of Mythology and Empire at Wars inclusion on this list. I'd hardly call either forgotten. Hell AOM got an expansion pack in 2016, 14 years since its release...
It wasn't a good expansion pack, but it shows its hardly been forgotten. Even if its slept on a bit compared to the Series front runner Age of Empires II, it is still fondly regarded.
And I'm pretty sure Empire at War is considered a Classic.
The rest I'll agree is pretty obscure, I play a lot of RTS, and the only other ones I recognised Was Rise of Nations, Empire Earth (never played the first one though), and Battle for Middle Earth.
Thanks....Aarklash was a nice discovery
You forgot the EARTH 2140 .. it was one of the best strategy game at that time , the graphic was crisp, the battles fast and the soundtrack was perfect .. I recommend to add it in another list of old games
Thanks for not allowing them to be forgotten...
I wish you had metal fatigue in there. One of the absolute peak of the games that had insane potential but lacked polish. A high quality remake of the game could become one of the literal best RTS games of all time.
Шикарный список! Последняя игра - TZAR, в русской локализации звучала как "огнем и мечом", не знаю почему о ней ни слова, но отличная вещь! Автору респект!
По мне такой себе списочек... много однотипных игр. Зачем мне видеть клоны одной и тойже игры а об уникальных таких как например "black & white" или "populous" не слова.
If anyone remembers some kind of RTS I think from the 90 to early 2000s that was kinda Gothic and had some kind of fireball shooting placeable caged hellhounds and a lich unit that strutted kinda like Bigfoot and was fairly powerful I'd appreciate knowing the name. It was so long ago I can't remember much more than that but has been bugging me for decades now. It could have been shown in some of these old strategy game videos but I probably wouldn't recognize it at this point unless I saw a picture of the lich or those caged fire ball shooters that I still have a decent picture left in my mind of. The guy that introduced me to a lot of games back then was playing like StarCraft, Stronghold, Netstorm, Shogun Total War and that Impossible creatures game so it had to be around and before then I don't think Stronghold 2 was out yet.
one thing I still don't understand in cossacks is that it's always easier for the enemy to turn your cannons into their. I mean when they approach your cannons, they immediately turn to their color, while if you try to do the same, their cannons will break down ???
Battle Realms and Praetorians were my favorite RTS games. Followed by CnC Yuri's Revenge and Generals: Zero hour. Just plain simple and easy to understand RTS games.
Half of these game are part of my childhood, good times...
🤔
- Kingdom under Fire: The Crusaders & Heroes (but also what came before that)
- Kessen 2
- Earth 2140 (and the sequels)
Had to check to see if sub titans was on it, loved playing the siliconians or w.e they were called
I remember them all and still play a few of them