Re: Prime Gaming 02 May 2025

On Sat, 03 May 2025 09:16:31 -0400, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:

On Fri, 02 May 2025 18:04:06 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>

(The Number thanks you too!)
>
There were just so many RTS games from that era that I'd have a hard
time pointing to a favorite. I think I always leaned more towards the
"Command & Conquer" side of things over "Warcraft"; the first two
games especially were my favorite.
>
But I've fond memories of a number of RTS games from back then;
anything from the "Army Men" games, to "Act of War", to "Ground
Control" to the "Myth" games; "Cossacks", "Empire Earth", "Rise of
Nations", "Homeworld", "World in Conflict", "Hostile Waters", "Nexus:
The Jupiter Incident", "World in Conflict", "Battlezone",
"Stratosphere", "Dawn of War"... and oh so many, many more.
>
There were a lot of losers too ("Frontier Wars", "Original War",
Sacrifice", "Cave Wars", "Black & White", "Submarine Titans", etc.)
but the biggest problem of the genre was the sheer flood of games; it
was just too much to keep up with, and it wore out the market. But for
a while it was a really exciting time to be a gamer. ;-)

>
Wow, that is a lot of RTS games. I never heard of many of those. I did
play C&C and Red Alert back in the day. I also played Total
Annihilation and I think another one called Dark Reign.
>
I think what happened in my case, is that where strategy games are
concerned, I prefer them turn based. Any RTS I am going to play now,
one of the first things I am going to do is find the speed slider and
turn it down. Maybe all the way down. :-P

I don't blame you. Despite the sheer number of them that I played, I
was never really into the mechanics of the games either. My strategies
tended to revolve around

       a) creating a really neat LOOKING base
       b) building up a giant army, selecting all of them, and
          sending them off to die against the enemy.

Basically, it was a chance to play SimCity with new building types,
and to play with cool-looking army-men. But I never truly engaged with
the strategy element of many of those games. It was more for the
spectacle of it all.

That said, with some games in the genre --the games that aligned more
along the 'real time tactical combat' axis, like "Myth" or "Ground
Control"-- I dug a bit deeper into the mechanics. But the unit AI was
usually a bit better, so you COULD do thinks like flanking and
ambushes and defilade fire, whereas in games like "Starcraft" actual
tactics took a back-seat to click-per-minute rates.

But games like Civilization and other 'real' strategy games always
were my favorites and I spent a lot more time on any one 4X game that
ever I did with any individual RTS. The real-time strategy genre was
the McDonalds of strategy gaming; cheap, quick, and --even if not very
good-- still enjoyable enough that you didn't completely regret the
purchase. But for a proper 'meal', it was Civilization or MOO or
whatever.