RTS Games That Challenge Conventional Strategies

Key Takeaways

• Some RTS games combine 4X & tower defense for intricate gameplay.
• Certain games mix genres like survival, base building, and tower defense.
• Best RTS games blend grand strategy, tactical mechanics, & genres for fun.

The real-time strategy genre has always been popular. In its simplest form, these games rely on the player building a military force, often by harvesting resources, and then wiping out their enemies. And whilst this format works, there are some games that go above and beyond this simple yet proven template.

Some games add an additional strategy layer, incorporating 4X of grand strategy-style gameplay. Others mix in genres, such as tower defense, base building and survival. And then there are the subgenres, such as tower defense, that can also be mined as a source of additional gameplay features. Often, the best RTS games combine all of these aspects into a single, unified whole that can provide many hours of fun.

9 Total War: Shogun 2

Grand Strategy Meets RTS

Total War: Shogun 2 is recognized as one of the definitive games in the Total War franchise. It was this game that added the final polish to the gameplay mechanics that were originally part of the first title in the franchise; Shogun: Total War.

The game combines a grand strategy layer with a turn-based style map control system, with all of the battles taking place in real-time. The RTS aspects introduced advanced tactical mechanics, requiring the player to consider troop positioning, and also the impact of the terrain of the battlefield. Overall, a great game that deserves a place on this list.

8 Homeworld

RTS In Three Dimensions

When the original Homeworld game was released in 1999, few strategy games had made the shift to a fully 3D-rendered game world. Isometric projection was the norm back then, a kind of 2.5D. But Homeworld didn’t just render the game in full 3D, the gameplay took place in a 3D environment.

There is no up or down in space, and Homeworld did a fantastic job of helping the player overcome their baked-in propensity for viewing the game map as a plane. Ship and fleet movement took place on the full X, Y, and Z axes available in space, which was quite a challenge.

7 Northgard

A Mix Of Genres

Northgard has a pretty unique take on strategy gaming in many ways. The premise of the game, is that the player is tasked with building and maintaining a sustainable Viking colony in a hard and dangerous land. The game mechanics make this quite a challenge.

Dynamic events such as a detailed weather system and events that take place in certain seasons add their own challenges as well. But what makes Northgard really stand out, is the melding of other genres, such as survival and base building into a strategy title.

6 They Are Billions

RTS Meets Tower Defense

They Are Billions, is, as the name suggests, a game set in a zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic game world. From a strategy viewpoint, the player has the task of building a successful company, which they must then defend against the never-ending tide of the undead.

What sets They Are Billions apart, is the sheer scale of the the waves of zombies the player must defend against. This is where the tower defense mechanics come in, as the player must design a settlement with layered defenses, that will keep away even the largest zombie horde.

5 Supreme Commander

Supreme Commander is often seen as the spiritual successor to the widely acclaimed RTS game Total Annihilation. A game that raised the bar when it came to the sheer volume of units in play, and the chaos of the large-scale battles.

Supreme Commander took this template and ran with it, adding additional levels of tactical play, with the player being able to shift from the macro level, controlling a single unit, to an entirely strategic map overview. The individual unit progression system was also ahead of its time.

4 Rise Of Nations

Balancing Warfare With Diplomacy And Economic Power

Rise of Nations combines the standard RTS style of battles with a deep and rewarding strategy layer. Unlike many other RTS games, it is entirely possible to dominate in Rise Of Nations without resorting to all-out conflict with the neighbors.

The game blends detailed political and diplomatic gameplay, with economic growth and power, to provide non-violent means for achieving goals. The result is what was a quite unique game on release. An RTS that didn’t revolve solely around combat. Instead, players needed to balance their military might, with economic power and political influence to win the game.

3 Stronghold

Castle Building As Tower Defense

When it was released, Stronghold wasn’t touted as a tower defense game, as the genre had yet to be defined. However, looking back, this is exactly what it was, and an exceptional tower defense game at that. The game revolves around establishing a flow of resources and building a castle. The castle becomes the target of the opposing forces, and needs capable defenses.

The focus on defensive RTS gameplay is what made Stronghold special. It is great fun to build a castle and sit back and watch how well it defends against enemy attacks. And of course, there is always the option of sallying against the enemy to wipe them out once the castle has weakened them.

2 Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines

Stealth And Tactics Are Key

As RTS games go, Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines brings something new to the table. This is a strategy game that doesn’t generally rely on the player building an overwhelming force to steamroll their enemies. Instead, the focus is on quality rather than quantity.

Towards this end, a Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines player needs to focus on stealth gameplay, with many missions requiring subtle sabotage and infiltration of enemy installations, rather than outright destruction of them. Units have specialized skills to help fulfill these goals, and using the right tool for the job is very important.

1 Battle Realms

Inspired By Asian Mythology

• Platforms: Microsoft Windows
• Released: November 7, 2001
• Developer: Liquid Entertainment
• Genre: Real-time strategy

Some readers might consider Battle Realms an odd choice for the top spot on this list, but it takes the top spot for some clear reasons. Not least of all the way the game requires the player to grow a population base of peasants, that are then trained into military units.

However, it is the clever unit progression system that is the main reason that Battle Realms made this list. The player has to often make harsh choices about how to develop units, and losing a highly trained unit can be a real blow at times.