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Blair230

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 17, 2009
156
0
Near Philly
Afternoon All. I was wondering if I could get some good RTS games similar to Age of Empires 3? Please list the Mac Native games only...it's more for my Dad and he doesn't really Bootcamp...

Thanks!:apple:
 
um...

then get him to bootcamp.

immediately makes 1000's of games available, including hundreds of RTS.

"i don't really do that" isn't much of an excuse... that's just old people being scared. get him hooked up and it's easy as pie.

i think he can probably invest 45 minutes to get a perfectly good pc gaming system... :)
 
WCIII is an awesome choice, as is Starcraft.

then get him to bootcamp.

immediately makes 1000's of games available, including hundreds of RTS.

"i don't really do that" isn't much of an excuse... that's just old people being scared. get him hooked up and it's easy as pie.

i think he can probably invest 45 minutes to get a perfectly good pc gaming system... :)

If he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to. Why push something on him? That will make him want to install BC even less.
 
WCIII is an awesome choice, as is Starcraft.



If he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to. Why push something on him? That will make him want to install BC even less.


well people don't WANT to do lots of things, for a wide variety reasons.... in this case, it seems like mostly fear and/or ignorance.

so... is FUD a good reason to not do something?

there's pushing, and then there is educating. if it's something this easy, quick, and painless... what is the push?

i get the "live your own life" thing, but sometimes that's just a weak excuse to be irrationally scared of something. do you really feel the need to enable every stubborn, ignorant thing people do just because that's what they want to do?

"no.. the leeches will work just fine for this heart attack. i don't want none of that fancy new technology stuff... i'm just not into modern medicine."
 
well people don't WANT to do lots of things, for a wide variety reasons.... in this case, it seems like mostly fear and/or ignorance.

so... is FUD a good reason to not do something?

there's pushing, and then there is educating. if it's something this easy, quick, and painless... what is the push?

i get the "live your own life" thing, but sometimes that's just a weak excuse to be irrationally scared of something. do you really feel the need to enable every stubborn, ignorant thing people do just because that's what they want to do?

"no.. the leeches will work just fine for this heart attack. i don't want none of that fancy new technology stuff... i'm just not into modern medicine."

I agree, bootcamp is like fackin easy but whatever.

For native you have a few choices..

Warcraft III, Starcraft, and um turnbased RTS is Civilization series. That's all I know. I'm playing Dawn of War II right now and it's an RTS, very different but awesome. But that's Windows only.
 
Thanks all for the replys so far. He has played both Warcraft and Starcraft as well. As far as the Bootcamp thing...well its not that he couldn't learn how...its the simple fact that he really doesn't want to.

He probably will end up learning how to do it and yes I know it opens up a whole new world as far as gaming goes (I bootcamp myself). I was just trying to stay specifically on the Mac platform.

That Empire total War that is coming out from Feral looks interesting too...also did anyone try Imperial Glory (also from them?)
 
If he had a PPC Mac, Total Annihilation is arguably the best RTS ever. However I don't think they made a OS X version, and trying to get it to run on an Intel Mac might be harder than just using Bootcamp... if you can even find a copy of the Mac version.
 
howsabout...

CnC Generals/Zero Hour? I know it's not strictly native, but speaking as a heavy RTS player, it's the one I always go back to - the port is near-flawless, the mods are AWESOME, and there's still tons of fan based support out there. Plus the gameplay and tactics can't be matched IMO - I know everyone seems to love Starcraft, but...I always thought it was very shallow in gameplay when compared to Generals/ZH.

Right now my buddies and I have the Contra 005 mod loaded, and I've never seen an AI do what this one does - nothing like getting your ass kicked legitimately to give hours of endless fun.

On LAN, when we play an 8player comp stomp, a big map and Hard Enemy can lag a bit, so when you max out all the graphics, have a ton of enemies and a large detailed map, what can you expect? But it plays nice, looks nice, and after you take out one or two enemies, the lag lets up. For an RTS, it's unmatched. And I've played 'em ALL.
 
Age of Empires II > the rest

@muskratboy
Assuming makes you look like an idiot. If he has a good reason not to bootcamp then maybe you can learn to respect that.
 
AoE II, but already suggested.

Rise of Nations also, but it lacks the plot of AoE.

My two favourites were Caesar III (but OS9 so no chance on Intel) and Majesty (quite hard to find and not sure about Intel / Leopard compatability).

Is muskratboy having a bad day ?
I hate BootCamp too, I have it set up, but I have no desire to reboot just to play a game, it would interfere with all the other apps I have running all the time, across three accounts. It's also my ATV server, iTunes server, web server with PHP and MySQL and Oracle databases. Backup server too, so BootCamp isn't going to cut it unless it's well planned and for a very good reason.
What's all that twaddle about fearing technology ? Do you have any idea what people use their Macs for ?
 
Hey SMacky - we have Generals/Zero hour but have never looked into any mods. Are you talking the Mac port can do mods or bootcamp? Any site to check out?

To the other self important folks: many of us have NO interest in boot camp to run games. I got rid of my PCs after 20 years of using them for a reason. It's bad enough to have to run parallels for a few legacy aps, but there is no WAY I'm shutting down my entire OS and all the apps I've got running just to play a game and then restart.
 
Age of Empires 2 with Age of Conquers expansion runs real well on my old mac mini.
 
Red Alert 3 is being ported at the moment, and CnC3 is out.

Multiwinia is pretty cool, as well as Defcon

Black and White 2 has been ported, which is really fun. but sadly it's sorely lacking a skirmish mode and multiplayer. In my opinion it'd have been nearly perfect with these ;)

If you want something open source Warzone 2100 is free and fun if a little dated graphically, and there is TA3D which unfortunately is a little slow when it comes to the OS X releases,

I can't think of any other major RTS releases on the Mac. it would be nice if someone ported SupCom.
 
Thanks for all the feedback guys. I think I am going to look into CnC3. I played (and enjoyed) the original way way back when. He did as well.

Caesar 3 brings back memories. I still have the CD. Its a shame a lot of my old old games (Mac user from the Plus on up) wont run. Maybe I will put it on my imac g5 with Tiger. Anyone try it under classic?

Also I had installed Sid Meier's Pirates a while back and he started playing that yesterday.

Not necessarily a RTS but go figure... I guess he likes being a pirate!
 
Thanks for all the feedback guys. I think I am going to look into CnC3. I played (and enjoyed) the original way way back when. He did as well.

Caesar 3 brings back memories. I still have the CD. Its a shame a lot of my old old games (Mac user from the Plus on up) wont run. Maybe I will put it on my imac g5 with Tiger. Anyone try it under classic?

Also I had installed Sid Meier's Pirates a while back and he started playing that yesterday.

Not necessarily a RTS but go figure... I guess he likes being a pirate!

what is that pirates game btw? I've heard about it
 
In Pirates you get to play a Pirate (obviously). It is hard to describe the type of game, althought I guess I would say action. You sail for a particular country traveling to different ports (attacking and plundering other ships along the way).

There are a bunch of mini games as well (dancing with governors daughters, swordfighting, etc.)

It actually is fun although it can get a little repetitive after a while. Check out the site http://www.feralinteractive.com/game/pirates

The controls are all done with the number keypad. Takes a little bit to get used to but works well.
 
Smacky - can that contra mod be added to the mac version or is it just for windows played in boot camp?
 
i think he can probably invest 45 minutes to get a perfectly good pc gaming system... :)

Setting up Boot Camp takes a hell of a lot longer than 45 minutes. The first install of Windows, 45 mins yes. Then you've got to go through all the MS updates, which take about 20 to 30 restarts (seriously, no joke), and set up the anti-virus, and update the AV databases etc etc.

This takes at least several hours.

Installing the game of your choice and going through the updates takes a while too.

Then if you happen to go for a month or two without booting Windows, you've got yet more rounds of Windows updates and AV updates and several restarts before the OS is all up to date.

Finally, to learn to play any game well, takes at least several dozen goes at it. That's several dozen rounds of closing all your mac apps, rebooting to windows, playing, then rebooting to mac, and reopening apps.

I have an up to date boot camp, (for work) and it's just a pain. I prefer to go through a separate virtual image in VMWare even tho it's slower.
 
Starcraft is THE best RTS ever made, be it for Mac or for PC. If anyone's doubting, they just don't know enough about the game.

... and um turnbased RTS is Civilization series. ...

What's "turn based real time strategy"? :eek:
 
Caesar 3 brings back memories. I still have the CD. Its a shame a lot of my old old games (Mac user from the Plus on up) wont run. Maybe I will put it on my imac g5 with Tiger. Anyone try it under classic?

I'm sure it ran fine under OSX 10.3 Classic last time I tried. I remember setting the monitor colours to less than the millions it was currently on.

PC Caesar III, available for no more than $5 from bargain PC game shops will run like a dream in Parallels etc. PC Caesar IV does require BootCamp though.
 
Yes!

Hey SMacky - we have Generals/Zero hour but have never looked into any mods. Are you talking the Mac port can do mods or bootcamp? Any site to check out?
OMG, yes! A million times YES! Once you get going, you'll be so glad you did! Sorry for the late response (RL) and all teh tedious info below (but you'll see it's worth it if you make it all the way thru!)

What you want to do is go to moddb.com - look up Zero Hour, find teh 'Mods' tab, and peruse to your hearts content.

Some of our favorites include Contra (005 - i heard 006 is still buggy - 005 has some bugs, but they're mostly unnoticeable), Rise of the Reds, Retarded, and Project Raptor (i think i'm missing one or two, but can't recall right now).

Some important things to remember:

1. Almost all mods require Generals 1.04/ZH 1.02 patch.

2. Make sure that ALL copies (in mulitplayer) of ZH have the EXACT same file structure - there can be NO file differntial, otw the mod/game will crash.

3. Not all mods are packaged for OS X (they are, after all, mostly created by PC folks) - in part. Vietnam:Glory Obscured (after 1.0 for Mac - IDT they or SuperKev have packaged the latest v. yet for OS X) and All-Stars (altho I *think* the latter is inactive). For mods that are .exe, just boot into bootcamp (or use a borrowed PC) and 'install' the mod .exe (usually you can choose just teh desktop to install it to - otw, just create a CnC:G Zero Hour folder in Program Files, i think) - when this happens, it extracts all the mod files you need - take those and follow the next step...

4. Take mod files and replace them in your Zero Hour Data folder - (Apps>CnC>Zero Hour>Zero Hour Data) - you want to be careful here; sometimes you have to replace just a few files, sometimes all) the best way is to move not the folders but the actual files themselves into the corresponding folders. For each player (mp), this must be done EXACTLY, again otw it will CRASH while playing. No extraneous files - the two (or more) diff. comp. ZH Data folder/files should look EXACT all the way thru.

5. Fiddle w/your graphic settings (dep. on what v. of a Mac you have) to get the smoothest gameplay. Usually, LAN we* can play at least 5 and get some lag, but not much (it gets WAY intense sometimes), but not all mods are created equal in this respect - again, if a mod runs slow, check the file structures first, then change the graphic settings - if that doesn't change things, then it's just a poorly coded mod)

6. You can load custom maps too! (altho', again, here YMMV from map to map) - they go in your User folder in the Zero Hour folder.

Visit SuperKev's MacMods and you can DL some Mac packaged mods to install. Another thing to note is that usually, it's best to only have one mod loaded at a time. Also, some mods will have their own launcher - ignore this if you have moved the mod files into your Zero Hour folder (in the PC world, you can have diff. folders w/diff. mods and you can load w/e you want; mods or vanilla.) You can in Mac, too, but I've found it's best (and easiest) to have only one - just click your reg. ZH icon and the mod will load in place of ZH.

7. Removing mods - best to just reinstall ZH (it's fairly easy, if time consuming - just make an archive of ZH and copy it to disc; that way, if you ever lose your disc, you can still play!) and keep a copy of the patch handy in your docs folder.

*(i have a MBP CD2.16. ATI x1600, my two buddies have iMacs w/the same cards, 1g RAM)

I hope you take the time to do it - the expanded hours of gameplay, the graphics, the tactics...it's all TOTALLY worth it, and is what (in IMHO) makes it the tops in RTS gameplay/games. Campaigns are ok, but for my money, i like playing against human opps more than anything. BTW, most of the mods don't have campaigns, so...

if you ever have any ?'s PM me and I'll do what i can! i'm by no means an expert, but i have learned a lot, mostly thru research and trial and error, so if anyone out there has other tips/tricks i didn't mention, by all means don't keep it to yourself!)
 
i dig it, but...

Starcraft is THE best RTS ever made, be it for Mac or for PC. If anyone's doubting, they just don't know enough about the game.



What's "turn based real time strategy"? :eek:

if you're into STORY, then yes - if you're into pure strategy/gameplay/mods, then no - by far, Zero Hour is the hands down winner in that category...but just my op.

TB/RTS is like some of teh newer games...i think like Europa U? IDK, TB is ok, but just not intense enough IMO. I like CIV, but it too, is kinda slow.
 
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