February 1st, 2008
Dune II
Considered the first RTS game ever (circa 1992)
Command and Conquer
Considered the first RTS game ever (circa 1992)
Warcraft
The story for Warcraft influenced by JRR Tolkein's world building literature. We are given a brief history of how the conflict between the Orcs and Humans arose. Blizzard keeps the story in the background so the player can focus on the task at hand. As the player progresses in the game, more of the story is revealed and the player is rewarded with more responsibilies for the next mission. A person can choose whether to play as the Humans or the Orcs, each with their own story line and goals and units.
Being an early experiment with the RTS genre most of the units from both factions are similar in function. The orc spearmen have the same attributes as the human archer, the orc grunt is a counterpart to the human footman. The only unique units are the cleric, conjurer, warlock, necrolyte, water elemental and daemon. The Humans have clerics which can heal and conjurers that summon water elementals. Orcs use necrolytes and warlocks which can raise dead and summon daemons. The water elemental is able to use powerful range attacks and become invisible to enemy units. Meanwhile the counterpart, Daemon, is a brute using melee combat and even more powerful attacks.
In order to get these units to annihilate your opponent, a player needs to build an economy and construct buildings to train units or upgrade armor and abilities. Initially a player starts with peasants(human) or peons(orc) in true medieval fashion. These low level units are the backbone of the war machine. They harvest gold and wood which they use to build farms to feed troops and create barracks to train soldiers. Managing a good, steady growing economy is key to victory in this game. Every gold mine on the map has a terminal amount of gold so expanding to other territories becomes necessary and also dangerous because the enemy is vying for the same territory. In such a situation, Real-Time Strategy gets it's name since the game is a rat race to build a bigger, better army, expand, and manage your troops in combat. The switching in and out of micro-macro-management defines the genre in popular culture and is what makes the game even more engaging when playing online against a human opponent.
Total Annihilation/Homeworld
Considered the first 3D RTS game ever (circa 197)
Warcraft 3
Considered the first RTS game ever (circa 1992)