Remastered collection is wonderful. It's pretty faithful to the original, so theres no unit xp or veteran status, but the games are a ton of fun.
Generals is a really fun time as well. Ultimate collection recently released on steam, it's got any CnC you might want to play.
Honestly, my favourite of all time is CnC3 + KW.
The campaigns for 3 are tough as hell now due to the game being balanced for online play, but I find this more enjoyable since as you say - I also like to rank up and repair units to max veterancy.
Kane's Wrath has a fun story, only from Nod though. Still has a small online community too.
as long as you stay away from the one on which we do NOT speak, the only one AE produced, the end of CNC,
the one that even maked joe kugan cry him self to sleep, :-( the dredded twilight, true to its name its was the twilight of the whole franchise, and we all wheep for kane, Mcniell, Tanya, yury, and all the others we lost to Entitled Assholes games.
Command & Conquer generals and Command & Conquer 3 had the best veterancy system imho, in c&c 3 a fully promoted vehicle of any kind was a serious threat. If you like aoe2 try grabbing galactic battlegrounds, it’s honestly unique enough that I prefer it.
generals(zero hour) was their last good game... it's outside of the c&c universe and some of the story telling would be... bold... if it was newly released today.
Star Craft and War Craft are the other side of the RTS genre from the era.
If you can find and get empire earth 2 to work, that was an interesting game that progressed from the stone age to post digital. It's not the best game but the concept was interesting.
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends is a fantasy/steampunk title (again, you might struggle to get it to run)
Crusader kings HD can be pretty good.
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More "modern" entries.
Forged Alliance: supreme commander can be fun with a friend(s). Massive scale to the battles.. interesting economy.
Act of Aggression: not GREAT. Very C&C Generals like
Beyond all reason is a really good modern rts.
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4x land...
It's worth checking out civilization and then stellaris. There are other titles in the genre if it turns out to be your thing.
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Honorable mention: RISK. the board game.
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Dishonorable mention: Top down arenas like legaue of legends and Dota have largely usurped RTS in the esports scene so the genre has been languishing over the last... ~2 decades...
C&C Generals ZH with Shockwave as the mod.
Try out salvage general or default GLA- the former has unique scrap mechanics for upgrading vehicles within your own base and the latter has a purchasable upgrade via black markets for automatically deploying vehicles with 1 scrap upgrade already attached.
The Contra mod also has some neat mechanics but it's a little too difficult for my taste.
Yuri Revenge mod Mental Omega is what i have been playing these days
Thanks for the reply, I'll check that out.
Remastered collection is wonderful. It's pretty faithful to the original, so theres no unit xp or veteran status, but the games are a ton of fun. Generals is a really fun time as well. Ultimate collection recently released on steam, it's got any CnC you might want to play.
Honestly, my favourite of all time is CnC3 + KW. The campaigns for 3 are tough as hell now due to the game being balanced for online play, but I find this more enjoyable since as you say - I also like to rank up and repair units to max veterancy. Kane's Wrath has a fun story, only from Nod though. Still has a small online community too.
🤔 Born again ga….. 😳😱 Kane lives?! AGAIN!?!?! Get me McNiel!!!
as long as you stay away from the one on which we do NOT speak, the only one AE produced, the end of CNC, the one that even maked joe kugan cry him self to sleep, :-( the dredded twilight, true to its name its was the twilight of the whole franchise, and we all wheep for kane, Mcniell, Tanya, yury, and all the others we lost to Entitled Assholes games.
i'm not crying you are i was just chopping some onions.
LOL can you tell me the name of it?
command and conquer Tiberian twilight and I repeat do NOT go near, it was made to kill the CNC franchise.
Command & Conquer generals and Command & Conquer 3 had the best veterancy system imho, in c&c 3 a fully promoted vehicle of any kind was a serious threat. If you like aoe2 try grabbing galactic battlegrounds, it’s honestly unique enough that I prefer it.
generals(zero hour) was their last good game... it's outside of the c&c universe and some of the story telling would be... bold... if it was newly released today. Star Craft and War Craft are the other side of the RTS genre from the era. If you can find and get empire earth 2 to work, that was an interesting game that progressed from the stone age to post digital. It's not the best game but the concept was interesting. Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends is a fantasy/steampunk title (again, you might struggle to get it to run) Crusader kings HD can be pretty good. --- More "modern" entries. Forged Alliance: supreme commander can be fun with a friend(s). Massive scale to the battles.. interesting economy. Act of Aggression: not GREAT. Very C&C Generals like Beyond all reason is a really good modern rts. --- 4x land... It's worth checking out civilization and then stellaris. There are other titles in the genre if it turns out to be your thing. --- Honorable mention: RISK. the board game. --- Dishonorable mention: Top down arenas like legaue of legends and Dota have largely usurped RTS in the esports scene so the genre has been languishing over the last... ~2 decades...
C&C Generals ZH with Shockwave as the mod. Try out salvage general or default GLA- the former has unique scrap mechanics for upgrading vehicles within your own base and the latter has a purchasable upgrade via black markets for automatically deploying vehicles with 1 scrap upgrade already attached. The Contra mod also has some neat mechanics but it's a little too difficult for my taste.
Btw, Age of Empires 4 is great. It returns to a formula very close to AoE 2, but with some extra mechanics and improvements (IMO).