Mac RTSs (preferably universal) for a n00b

[wmmk]

hello and happy new year!
As I mentioned in another thread, I recently bought cIV, and I totally love it. I don't play many games, because I'm too busy being the only kid at school who actually likes school. Anyway, if I really must have leisure time, I might as well spend it doing stuff that has to do with history an politics. Eventually, I'm sure cIV will feel old, and I'll want to play new games that are somewhat but not too similar. I looked at the apple games site, but it's really badly organized. There was no RTS category and it was hard to see what was universal and what wasn't. Anyway, what RTS games can you recommend that won't be boring after playing cIV (that have more options than just blowing people up; diplomacy takes more skill and is therefore more fun to work for, IMO)?
Thanks,
wmmk

[Fearless Leader]

starcraft/warcraft series is fun. It's not universal but old enough to where it doesn't matter.

[wmmk]

starcraft/warcraft series is fun. It's not universal but old enough to where it doesn't matter.

interesting. I had something that was a little more realistic and wasn't all about war in mind.

[SpankyPenzaanz]

AOE series is pretty solid. I thought 2 was better than 3. 3 is universal and 2 is not. However, 2 is old enough that when ran under rosetta your should not see any significant performance hit

[SpankyPenzaanz]

just to add 2 more cents : I think the best stratey series right now is the Total War line from creative assembly/sega. Unfortuneately it isn't coming to mac anytime soon. I have medieval2 under bootcamp and it truly is amazing - not as slow and drawn out as civ but not a mindless resource gather/ build up largets armies and destroy opposition. This games has finnesse and truly an impressive game. I have kept boot camp for this games

[eXan]

interesting. I had something that was a little more realistic and wasn't all about war in mind.

Are there any RTS with no war in mind?!

Personally, I think that the best RTS is Starcraft. It is the most balanced and interesting to play real-time strategy game of all times. Also, its almost 9 years old, so it would run like a champ. So many strategies and always something new to learn. Incredibly hard to master! :eek: I played this game for over 3-4 years and am still considered "lame"...

[aidanpendragon]

I think RTS is by definition a "war" game - otherwise, what's "RT" about it? Write treaties in real-time? Civ is not an RTS, it's a strategy game.

That said, Rise of Nations is an excellent, hybrid "Civ-as-RTS" game, with a fair amount of research, civilization progression, Risk-elements, etc.

Don't know if Tropico 2 is universal or not, but that's strategy/management without actual bloodshed (lots of plundering, however). From an earlier thread, I don't know if any of those Caesar/Rome/Britannia-type games ever made it to OS X, let alone universal.

[apfhex]

Myth II! If you have the original game disc, you can download the Universal Binary update (they list it at MacUpdate). Also, I believe there's a mod out there somewhere to play the original Myth single player campaign within the UB Myth II engine.

There's no such thing as a "realistic" RTS that doesn't deal with war, at least that I know of. The Myth series is fantasy war, more akin to say Lord of the Rings, rather than World War II or something. But if you're expecting to be using Unicorns to attack Puppy Dogs with Giant Hugs, then you're out of luck I'm afraid. :p ;)

[risc]

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/games/role_strategy/ could be worth a look.

[Chone]

Without war, you simply just couldn't not lose in an RTS, hell in Civ without war the game would be pointless as there would be no way to lose.

I can't think of any rts or even strategy game where war or combat was not a part of the game...

Maybe by war he means like historic war? Like WWII or AoE which would fall into "historical" wars, maybe he wants a fantasy RTS l ike Warcraft or Starcraft.

[Mackilroy]

I'm suprised no one has mentioned Command and Conquer: Generals and the Zero Hour expansion pack. They're both Universal and run very well on my 2 GHz MacBook.

[dan-o-mac]

AOE series is pretty solid. I thought 2 was better than 3. 3 is universal and 2 is not. However, 2 is old enough that when ran under rosetta your should not see any significant performance hit

AoE 2 Gets my vote. Easy to learn, hard to master.

[Chone]

Warcraft III would be my pick, its a pretty fun game and I saw the expansion going for 4.99 at a Target :p so thats a bargain, the disc is a PC/Mac hybrid so just go to any store and pick it up.

Very nice game and you can always mess around on custom games (which will not be strategy but rather RPG, minigame or action maps, wonders can be done with the editor, even a kart game) on Battle.net when the strategy aspect has got you bored.

Hell of a value, especially since its so cheap nowadays.

[wmmk]

sorry. suppose I didn't express myself well. all I want is enough realism, some aspect of diplomacy, and preferably cool graphics. war is fine, just not first-person shooters. hope this specified more.

[Striderdm1]

Myth II
There's no such thing as a "realistic" RTS that doesn't deal with war, at least that I know of. The Myth series is fantasy war, more akin to say Lord of the Rings, rather than World War II or something. But if you're expecting to be using Unicorns to attack Puppy Dogs with Giant Hugs, then you're out of luck I'm afraid. :p ;)

Hi apfhex,
after reading your reply above, I thought you'd appreciate this download:

http://files.filefront.com/Myth_AvonsHope_moviezip/;5539444;;/fileinfo.html

Avons Hope is something else. A real treat for Myth fans imho :D

Thx, Strider.