One of my favorite gaming genres is RTS. Action in real time where you need to be quick with your thinking. Players that can do more APM (actions per minute) are clearly the best in this type of games. Great example is very popular Esport Starcraft 2 in South Korea where olympic stadiums can be filled with fans wanting to see the action live. Some of this games are in my previous lists, but they must be included again cause they are simply the best. Also I'm considering to expand this lists to top 20.
1. Starcraft
When Starcraft came out it was so new and strange with three completely different races. Those 3 races played so differently that you had a feeling that you are playing completely different game. Protoss, Terran and Zerg with different tactics could create hours, days, months of fun strategy gaming. Startraft 2 expanded the universe and concluded the story, but the original will always be the best.
2. Dawn of War
This RTS game introduced me to crazy and lore rich Warhammer 40k universe. Imagine fantasy races in far future, Orks with space ships and guns, Elves with anti gravity tanks but with same speed and grace as the elf race, in this universe they are called Eldar. Brutal universe where there is only war. Ultimate Apocalypse mode expanded this game so much and is still greatly played today.
3. Warcraft 3
Another RTS from Blizzard, that company did make the best games back then. Warcraft 3 introduced a hero gameplay with your standard rts format, you could level those heroes by killing creeps on the map and finding items. That lead to deeper strategy and tactic maneuvers with 4 different races each having 4 heroes. Game i used to play competitevely and even participated in some tournaments.
4. Total Annihilation: Kindoms
One of the first RTS's where I've spend many many hours in. It is a spiritual successor of original Total Annihilation which i also loved, this one was more fantasy orientated and that made it more fun for me at the time. Four races, fun maps, fun combat and that was it.
5. Age of Mythology
Age of empire with Egyptian, Norse and Greek gods. You could summon any mythological beast from those mythos and some of the heroes who could do more dmg to the beasts. Nice change of paste from classic civilizations of Age of Empires.
6. Red alert 2
If i had to name one Command & Conquer game that i found to be the best that one would be Red alert 2, there are literally 20 C&C games with expansions and i liked them all. But this lists are tough, I have to chose only one. C&C games had real acted sequences that made them different from the competition. Remember Yuri and Kane? One day i will probably write a history of Command & Conquer. So many great games i that franchise.
7. Star Trek: Armada
Real time strategy game in Star Trek universe, this one was surprisingly fun. You could pick between Federation, Romulan, Borg and Klingons fighting for dominance.
8. Homeworld
This game was spectacular, first ever full 3d space real time strategy game. You could choose from few class ships and doing rock paper scissors tactical combat. Great space graphics and those engine lights made this game great. Relic Entertainment started with their RTS journey with this game, later they made Company of Heroes and Dawn of War games.
9. Dune 2000
One of the C&C games look a like. So it was essentially a clone from those games, but clone in one of the most interesting universes of Dune. Great worms could come up from sands and eat your harvesters. Harkonen, Atreides and Ordos battle for supremacy. Fun fun game.
10. Supreme Commander
This one had the largest scale of battles ever. You could zoom out entire battlefield and give your units orders from outer space. From small vehicles to huge robots 20 times larger. This game screamed of perfection. Any fan of real time strategies enjoyed this game.
