Any RTS games for someone who is HORRIBLE at them?

[Naniyue]

In action roguelikes, such as Diablo, I'm only working with one character, but in an RTS like Starcraft, I simply can't keep my eye on ten places at once. All that micromanagement while being overrun by zealous enemies is not fun for me. I would like to try other entries in this genre, but are there any for people who can't multitask? Thanks!

[Dancso]

Maybe squad-based RTSes will suit you, such as Warhammer: Mark of Chaos.
Fewer units to handle at once, no building. Often you won't even have to move the camera to control everything.

[Nevander]

I liked Halo Wars on the Xbox, and it was my first RTS.

[kodi]

Tiberian Sun could be a pretty good starting point. Fairly easy mechanics, great SP campaign and a very nice mood.
If you enjoy games more on the tactics than strategy side, I'd really recommend Ground Control. Also has a nice campaign, and graphics that still look great to me. I believe they made it freeware even.

[darkhaven3]

I am extremely bad at RTSes and I find Age of Empires 2 to be reasonably accessible. You can get the HD version (which has some stupid differences from vanilla unfortunately, but is the only way you can play the game on Win10 properly) on Steam for relatively cheap, and it is a combination of city-building and economic management in real time (micromanagement included, but lower level players need not micro that much and things will be fine mostly) and military strategy. The focus is on military conquest, but there are a lot of different approaches you can take with human opponents: imagine you have a friend who is your ally. Your allegiance is controlled by a list of radio buttons, and your enemy may have you still set on "Ally" while you have him set to "Enemy", leading to a surprise attack! Or perhaps you both Ally together until the end of the game, and he provides military strength to help defend your Wonder which has to stand for a certain length of time to win the game.

Here are the important parts:

1) This game is similar to StarCraft in a number of ways. Yes, I read your FP, just hear me out. If you are familiar with the general interface of StarCraft (even if you don't like the game itself), you may find AoE2 to be a game you adapt quickly to. There is a high skill ceiling in multiplayer, but a less skilled player like me or you can jump on a game on Standard difficulty and, maybe with a little struggling, eventually beat the vanilla bot or ResonanceBot, which I also highly suggest getting on the Steam Workshop as a replacement for the vanilla bot AI.

2) The combat is pretty much a complex game of rock-paper-scissors between a couple of different classes of unit: Infantry, Cavalry, Archer, and a couple of others I can't remember right this second. Each different class of unit has a strength against a particular type or several types of other units, but they also have equivalent weaknesses to other class(es) of unit. To complicate the matter, there are several buildings you can construct that will allow you to upgrade these units' attack, defense, hit points, range, etc. Of course, this doesn't mean a fully upgraded Militia can take on a naked Paladin (absolutely not), but maybe with a little guerilla tactics and two more cheap Militia...

3) Civ bonuses. There are a lot of civs to choose from, and each will have its own list of pluses and minuses (for example, the Huns never have to build houses and instantly can spawn as many villagers as they have food without hitting the population limit; on the other hand, there is a race that lets you build farms 33% cheaper, another that generates gold per second for your team, at least two races I can think of that are highly Naval-oriented and are almost unbeatable in water battles, and finally, the Goths let you spawn the Goth unique unit at ordinary Barracks structures 300% faster than anyone can spawn regular Champions which is really overpowered).

4) There is like, infinity billion really good custom maps for this game, and the random generator is also pretty acceptably playable.

[Trance]

Company of Heroes is slower-paced than your C&C or Starcraft fare and is better for those that don't have caffeine-amped precision-clicking reflexes. Compared to your typical RTS, you juggle significantly fewer units at once in CoH. And it is a DAMN good RTS that really shakes up the typical experience. If you've not played it or seen it played, you really ought to give it a whirl just to experience how CoH plays.

Here's the Steam review I gave for it a few years ago.

And if you do decide to buy it on Steam, add me to your friends list and you and me (plus any of my dozen friends who also have it) can play against AI opponents. Or against each other, if that's what you're after.

(EDIT: Btw I'm talking about the 1st game, not the 2nd. Few of us have the 2nd one and prefer to play the 1st. Not that Company of Heroes 2 isn't a good game, but me and my friends all feel it lacks some intangible quality that the 1st game had.)

[Marinelol]

Age of anything as long as you don't pick highest difficulty. any C&C game as long as it isn't on extreme difficulty. Warcraft when not on highest difficulties (And becomes easy once you play a bit more). The AI in those games tries to be fun to play against instead of like in starcraft where it enjoys rushing you and then loses if you survive their first onslaught and quickly killed them afterward.

Most of those games are beat with the same technique which you might not like, but this works in most rts games. Rushing the AI as soon as you can and killing them off. Most of them CHEAT and get insanely more resources\boosts at higher difficulties so they win a drawn out battle. Rushing is mandatory in some games at highest difficulties.

[Caligari87]

Auralux is RTS simplified to purest form. Plays great on mobile if you prefer phone/tablet, I haven't tried it on PC though. It really helps teach you to concentrate on large-scale strategy, instead of microing tons of little things.

[Project Shadowcat]

In action roguelikes, such as Diablo, I'm only working with one character, but in an RTS like Starcraft, I simply can't keep my eye on ten places at once. All that micromanagement while being overrun by zealous enemies is not fun for me. I would like to try other entries in this genre, but are there any for people who can't multitask? Thanks!

I'm gonna go a little old-school, but I liked the mechanics of MechCommander and MechCommander 2. You didn't need to manage any more than 12 'Mechs, and usually 4-8 was the norm.
Customizing your units was not just allowed, but encouraged, and there's a slew of tactical options at your disposal, such as minelayers and artillery.

[Hellser]

I'm a big fan of StarCraft. But if you're looking for a game with good story telling and at a slower pace than most RTS games.. I have to throw a vote for Company of Heroes as well. Mind you, that's the single player campaign. For 2v2, 3v3 - or even 4v4 against either players or the AI - CoH becomes insanely fun. Even one squad defending a choke point can become the turning point for the battle for not only you - but for your friends as well.

Poster's Note: Not much for 1v1 games. I like having someone do the main attack and I play as support.

[Naniyue]

Looks like a have a LOT more options than I thought! Thanks for the input! May just finally be able to add this genre more permanently to my collection.

EDIT: Auralux reminds me of an old flash game I liked, so I think that's gonna work for me.

Yes, the first Ground Control is freeware, so I'm going to try it as well.

[Jeimuzu73]

I've played the original Empire Earth back then, and by "playing" I mean cheating in the campaigns and pitting robots against cavemen.

[Naitguolf]

Maybe you can try Z. Old game, but was fun and easy to understand....

[DoomRater]

Some harder to understand RTS's include Metal Fatigue, which has you manage three battlefields at once, and Planetary Annihilation, which has an orbital layer allowing interplanetary transport on large systems. However...

Planetary Annihilation is meant to give you enough controls where singular units aren't so much an issue as assigning your factories what to do. It's supposed to be far more about macro management than micro management. There are times I'm not really sure this is the case, but it's kinda this way any time you're using a lot of builders. The factories pumping out units at heavy rates are almost always better about the whole concept since it's easy to set them to continuous build and have them march until they reach their battlefield.

Then there are the more puzzle based RTS's on Newgrounds which are simple enough to grasp, like Tentacle Wars (may not seem like an RTS but it sure seems tactical enough to fit to me) and SolarMax. The space Game is more tower defense than actual RTS, but it's kinda close. They're stupid simple.

[demo_the_man]

Red Alert 1 is pretty good at being single focus, plus its completely free too play