It's kinda sad for me - someone who grew up with a father who played Real-Time Strategy games with me as a kid, and who played the early years of World of Warcraft and had the most unadulterated fun imaginable in Alterac Valley when it lasted a REALLY long time - to see people complain when a strategy game takes too long.

Nowadays, games like AirMech, Alterac Valley in WoW, Starcraft, pretty much any strategy or RTS game is all about "FINISH AS FAST AS POSSIBLE". Or "STOP TURTLING NOOB".

My playstyle is, and has always been defensive/late-game mastery. Not only because I'm better at it, but because it's just more fun! Truth be told, I'm not in it to win, I like the excitement and immense pleasure that comes from reaching the bottom of your tech tree and whipping out the big-boy guns, while everyone else seems insistent on zerg-rushing or steamrolling with hundreds of little guys to finish faster.

Your thoughts, fellow commanders? Please tell me I'm not the only one who enjoys Sins of a Solar Empire's 4 hour games, or late-game Protoss in Starcraft etc.

I've always loved RTS games, I played the crap out of Warcraft 3 and Age of Empires as a kid, and more recently Starcraft 2 (haven't played Heart of the Swarm yet though) I always liked gathering up lots of supplies and building massive armies before sending them out, never did get the hang of killing the other person in the first 5 minutes of the game. I've also recently realized my enjoyment of turn based strategy games like Civ 5. As for WoW, Alterac Valley was always confusing to me :P I would just follow the group or my friends around and do what they were doing lol. I enjoyed Arathi Basin and Tol Barad/the one in Northrend when that was a thing the most probably.

I haven't played Sins of a Solar Empire but my boyfriend has spoken very highly of it.

It's a lot of fun, especially if you enjoy huge space battles, but the major critique towards it is that even the shortest games are a minimum of 30 minutes to an hour, and that's if you really press for an early win.

I never enjoyed Turn Based Strategy as much as Real-Time, but Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri actually had a pretty big place in my heart, too. That was another game that was a fun timesink.

Alterac Valley, if you remember it from back-in-the-day or ever saw the mechanics, is like a giant RTS. Looting other players gives you supplies that you can use to upgrade your guards, or upgrade your towers. Did you know freeing the wing commanders (if they're even still around) would allow you to call in air strikes? Or that each side can summon a huge Elite elemental to storm the enemy base? There was so many cool things you could do in AV, but I fear they're all but gone now, with the imposed time limit, reinforcement limit, and both sides bum-rushing the other side's general in a DPS race :(

Thank you for the reply though, it's good to know I'm not the odd-man-out for liking the bigger, meatier armies.

All of that is pretty much the exact reason I hate playing online games with people most times. I absolutely detest being rushed, and doing so just ends in me finding every way to screw you over so you get even more mad. :| That being said, I kind of suck at strategy in the MMO sense, but I still love it. There is nothing that quite beats the rush and satisfaction of plotting things out, being meticulous, and succeeding. I have been lamenting the fact that puzzle/mental skill games have been coming so much fewer and far between these days.

I think brainless buttonmashers/shooters are kind of taking over the gaming scene these days, so that's what gaming companies cater to. That might be judgmental on my part, but considering what you're saying about MMOs and the fact that I scarcely see any games coming out for consoles that aren't shooters or hack-and-slash, I think it's pretty true.

Personally, I have been getting a lot of joy out of finding new ways to challenge myself with older games, especially my SNES ones, like seeing if I can get away with a minimum amount of energy tanks in Super Metroid . It's still strategy! Not the same you're talking about, but that was originally what I thought this thread was about so... haha. I try not to lose hope, though. There may yet be something for the rest of us in the future!

Ugh, I hear you there. I'm always gonna stick to my high-defense strategy before dropping the hammer on them after they're sufficiently annoyed. The up-side to it all is that if they're equipped for fast games, they're not prepared to drag it out, which upps your chances considerably.

And yes, I miss the puzzle/mental games. Ever play The Neverhood? That game kicked my ass. And the Metroid Prime series? My damn completionist nature has never finished any of those games once because I get so sucked into the 100% aspect. It would definitely appear the quick-finished fast-paced games are what's hot on the market right now, rather than outwitting your opponent in a mental match. It's a bummer :c LUCKILY! I have a gaming family, and they understand what it's like to enjoy long games, so I can play with them.

I get a lot of joy out of old games period :)! Tyrian 2000 is a favorite, SimCity 2000, everything with "2000" in it's name that actually came out in the 90s. I'm glad that you're still finding ways to dive into those old gems; some people just throw em out after they're done.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri looks really interesting but I never played it. Have you played any of the Anno games? I have Anno 1404 and it's kind of in the same genre as RTS's but with more focus on economics and keeping your citizens happy. I haven't played it too much but this topic reminded me of it.

I must not have been playing WoW, or not interested in pvp during that stage of Alterac Valley as it doesn't sound familiar at all :P If you like older PC games, I'd definitely recommend checking out gog.com if you haven't heard of it! I've gotten a few games that I used to love or always wanted to play when I was younger there and they have great sales sometimes, along with the games already being rather cheap. Plus they're all patched up to work on newer PCs already.

I'm actually an active player of Anno 2070 :) I dunno if that would really be an RTS game, it definitely feels more like a city-builder/resource-manager. I do love it muchly though <3

And don't worry, I have an account at gog.com and have made a couple nice purchases :)

Yeah I couldn't figure out what genre it would be xD I was going to describe it as sort of a mix between an RTS and SimCity haha. I'm so disappointed about the new SimCity, stupid required internet connection :|

Oh awesome! I don't know many people who know of gog so I try to recommend it to people who are into older PC games.

Exactly! See, clearly the three of us need to be a team.

I haven't heard of that one, no, but I'll go look it up! And lord yes, I own (almost) every Metroid game in existence and I actually just finished my 100% run on Corruption. I had finished Prime 1 and Echoes a long time ago, but Corruption seemed to up the scans where you only had ONE SHOT IN THE WHOLE GAME to get them, which ended in me deleting my file and starting over more times than I can count. I'm a completionist too, so it made me a little frothy at the mouth sometimes. But that's the kind of challenge I like. Or like, one of the things I will always be very proud of is when I accidentally didn't pick up the infrared scope on Resident Evil 4 and I ended up having to outsmart the Degenerators and the Iron Maidens because I couldn't kill them. That game in general did not require much strategy, so when I ended up having to do that, especially in a room with two Iron Maidens and where I had Ashley with me, it took some planning and brain-power to actually pull it off! It was a rush and I loved it. I wish more games would do that, as opposed to... accidentally stumbling into it.

That is so lucky, though! I grow up in a gaming family, but they are anything but patient. My dad prefers shooters, my oldest brother is one of those MMOers that likes to slaughter everything in two seconds, and my other older brother likes fighting games and had to have me coach him through Silent Hill because he tried to kill everything in sight and was running out of ammo and health items within an hour lmao. And yeah, older games are awesome! I could never imagine throwing them out. Hell, I was heartbroken when I played my old NES so much that I busted it.

I could never really get into the Sim games, but I do enjoy seeing what other people come up with. The things people can do with those games are astounding! Yet... it's ironic that I love things like Minecraft and Terraria. It's kind of like... the same idea, but idk. Maybe I like those two because I can actually kill and fight things? lmao I will always be an action/platformer gamer at heart, I confess.

I don't think I'd classify Minecraft or Terraria as sims, I call them Sandbox games, and those are simply addicting as hell anyway. People who don't even usually like them lose hours on them. I think for the older generation, there's a little platformer or strategist in all of us :)

I just think that, to most people, playing offensively is more fun to them. So, they become used to very quick paced low defense games. Then when they get on a team with someone who wants to play a very defensive game, they tend to ignore or push that person to the offensive style. I think a lot of game companies have realized that and kind of reoriented things like AV to be much faster, much more of a zergfest.

I actually really dislike it. I'm a more defensive, "play the long game" sort of player and I really wish people would slow down, enjoy, get a good strategy down. You'll tend to win a bit more....

I have no problem falling back to the classics, Civilization series, Lords of the Realm, FF tactics...

But you're right, its really hard to find good games like this. I always enjoy Starcraft though...playing by myself against the NPC. WC3 is always fun too...

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