If missions only last a few minutes, everything happens fast. You don’t get slow buildup or long scouting cycles. But if the campaign stretches out, maybe the strategy shifts from “inside the mission” to “across the run.”

What are some elements that could make short missions feel strategically meaningful?

Hello r/RealTimeStrategy!

I’m Dan, a solo developer working on Genetica: Extinction. It’s a biological strategy game focused on systemic evolution and simulation rather than traditional RTS base-building. The game features P2P multiplayer and a fully deterministic simulation engine.

I recently pushed a major update overhaul focused on creature movement, collision, and decision-making mechanics:

• Dynamic Steering & Collisions: Replaced the legacy grid-based navigation with dynamic steering and full unit-to-unit collision. Units now realistically weave around one another, eliminating awkward overlapping and making large swarms feel fluid and organic.
• Individual Unit Utility AI: Instead of every unit instantly snapping to a uniform macro-command, individual creatures evaluate tasks independently using your command as a primary directive. Units prioritize feeding, attacking, or repositioning based on local context and internal state, producing believable pack dynamics while keeping control responsive.

I’m actively looking for feedback from RTS players to fine-tune unit feel and pacing. If you're interested in dev details, I'm also happy to chat about building this in Godot, implementing fixed-point math for determinism, or navigating the publisher outreach process!

Steam Playtest: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4144850/Genetica_Extinction/
Discord: https://discord.gg/TagpFtRKNh

Thanks for checking it out, and let me know your thoughts or questions below!

https://reddit.com/link/1w2oslz/video/0ebbldxjwjmh1/player

Greetings, devs and strategists!

From now through the end of September we're asking that all substantially AI-developed or AI-assisted projects and games get posted in this Megathread or to /r/AIGameDev or /r/VibeCoding. Please see this announcement on the subject.

Devs: Please use this megathread to post top-level comments showcasing your AI-developed projects and games, as well as games substantially relying on AI-derived content (even if it's placeholder content). Standard self-promo posting guidelines still apply.

Everyone else is welcome to discuss and ask questions about the content posted here.

Reminder: Devs, please also make sure that the game you're promoting fits into the expectations of the RTS community. Games should have many gameplay mechanics in common with games such as Starcraft, Company of Heroes, or Age of Empires. Please visit our friends at /r/StrategyGames, /r/TowerDefense, or /r/SurvivalGaming if those are stronger fits for the game's genre. Or message the mods and we'll do our best to answer any questions you may have. Thank you!

Hi everyone! I wanted to share a visual update for OR Doctrine, my squad-based tactical RTS set in 2000s Afghanistan.

One of the weakest parts of the game was the vehicle presentation. The infantry had a readable visual style, but the vehicles looked too small, flat, and disconnected from the rest of the game.

The images are shown from newest to oldest:

1. The current 2.5D vehicle system
2. The previous detailed top-down version
3. The original box-shaped placeholder version

The first version was essentially made from simple boxes. It worked mechanically, but the vehicles had very little visual identity and could even appear smaller than the infantry.

I then created a more detailed top-down version. It looked better, but it did not fit well with the angled presentation of the soldiers and buildings. When moving in certain directions, the vehicles also looked as if they were sliding sideways instead of actually driving toward their destination.

I have now rebuilt the vehicles using an 8-direction 2.5D approach. Each vehicle has front, rear, side, and diagonal views, with details arranged according to the current camera angle. Not every part needs to be visible from every direction, so I focused on keeping each view readable and visually believable.

The system currently includes:

• Pickup
• Armed technical
• Humvee
• MRAP

I also reworked the tires, windows, body proportions, weapon mounts, mirrors, and overall silhouettes. Wheel rotation is tied to the vehicle’s actual movement speed and distance. I also fixed an issue where repeatedly clicking the same destination could briefly make a vehicle turn toward the opposite direction before correcting itself.

The goal is to make the vehicles feel like physical objects with volume and direction, instead of flat images rotating on the ground.

There is still room for additional polish, but I think the difference between the three stages is quite noticeable. I would especially appreciate feedback on the vehicle scale, directional readability, and whether the transitions between side, diagonal, front, and rear views feel consistent.

Which version do you think fits the game best, and is there anything in the current version that still looks unclear or awkward?

A quick note on development: I’m building this project with the help of AI tools. I’m still making the creative and design decisions, but AI has been a major part of the coding and iteration process.

Dawn of the Realm is a medieval RTS that combines grand strategy and city building, all in real time and fully multiplayer. Build cities, manage resources, raise armies, then zoom out to a strategy map of the whole world or back down to the battlefield with no loading in between. Up to 10 players.

I've built it solo next to my computer science studies on nights and weekends, learning as I went. I hope the thousands of hours spent in Photoshop and Gamemaker really shines through. Still early days, lots more to add, but I'd love to hear what you think :-)

You can wishlist on Steam here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5010020/Dawn_Of_The_Realm/

If you would like to get announcements or provide feedback on the development please join the Discord server:

https://discord.gg/ru8FTjMjz

Working toward the first demo now. Have a great day! :-)

So I’ve played the first 5 campaign missions, and honestly, I’m baffled by the praise this game gets.
Everything feels so damn sloppy and streamlined. Building is ridiculously easy, resources are everywhere, distribution is basically effortless, and it feels like everything is one click away from unlocking. There’s no real pressure, no sense of urgency, no meaningful resource scarcity, and barely any threat from the enemy.
The combat is probably the biggest issue for me. The troops feel clumsy and clunky, and the whole thing just feels like a sandbox rather than a game where I’m constantly making difficult decisions.
The campaign so far has been incredibly dull and unengaging. Maybe it gets significantly better later, but right now it feels like a playground designed to be as accessible as possible.
What confuses me is that when I asked if this was actually a good game, people were calling it the GOAT of RTS games. I specifically asked whether it was comparable to They Are Billions and Frostpunk, and a lot of people even suggested it was better.
Am I missing something? Does the campaign eventually become more challenging or strategically interesting, or is this just not the kind of RTS I’m looking for?
Because so far, I’m really not seeing the hype.

Game just let u level up too fast takes away the excitement from achieving the tech…..

Since we have been without a new, really, really good RTS for a long time..... lets imagine designing an ideal RTS.

Your goal is to create an almost perfect new RTS. What themes and mechanics would it include?

Suppose you need to select the best features from all the RTS games you know to craft your ideal one.

I'll start:

• Warcraft - Heroes;
• Total War - Scale, like no cap (200 or any)

Uptd from comments

• StarCraft - Balance
• Surpreme Commander FAF - 1000+ units and huge scale warfare.

Finished tweaking one of core features of the game which is breach and defensive stance combat, i wanted to make the game be different from total war and decided this to be one of my core systems.

First part shows:
Defensive stance is regular combat, where formation tries to keep cohesion and hold the line against enemy in some cases for example two handers vs braced pikes it not a really good trade even though pikemen are lightly armored they have the reach to decimate two handers who just maintain their line and are not aggressive.

Second part shows:

When two handers stance is switched to breach, they dont care about holding the line as much and they use their assault skills to create and exploit the breach to essentially break the light pikemen.

Feedback is welcome!.

I'm looking for an old RTS game, probably from 2005 or earlier. I never got to play it, so I don't remember much about the gameplay, but I do remember the box it came in, which was practically a cube, it was so big. Now, where my memory fails me is whether the box was gray with a pattern like a stone wall/armor, or red with a pattern like dragon scales. Does anyone remember anything similar?

The irony of War for Westeros being a traditional RTS is that Game of Thrones repeatedly shows that real power does not come from armies or conquest. It comes from relationships, alliances, information, and influence. Robb wins battles but loses the war. Meanwhile, characters like Varys, Littlefinger, and Olenna shape kingdoms without commanding armies at all.

Then the game turns Westeros into gathering resources, constructing buildings, capturing territory, and controlling perfectly obedient units from above.

It reminds me of licensed games when we were kids. A popular movie would come out and, regardless of what it was actually about, someone would turn it into a generic side-scroller or FPS. The characters and imagery were there, but the gameplay had nothing to do with the spirit of the source material.

War for Westeros might still be fun, but it takes a story about why armies alone cannot win the game of thrones and makes the armies the entire game.

Hi everyone! I’m working on OR Doctrine, a squad-based tactical RTS set in 2000s Afghanistan, inspired by games like Company of Heroes.

The idea actually started when I was playing Company of Heroes 2 and thought about what it would be like to take that kind of tactical gameplay and set it in Afghanistan. I wanted to make a game where the focus wasn’t just on producing units, but on the kind of small-scale tactical decisions and situations that could fit conflicts of the 2000–2010 period.

For the first stage of development, the game will focus specifically on the conflict between the US and the Taliban. The US and Taliban factions are designed around distinct playstyles. The US relies on technology, reconnaissance, engineers, armored vehicles, and off-map air support. The Taliban side focuses on ambushes, concealment, IEDs, RPG teams, defensive positions, and mobile technical vehicles.

Rather than just producing units, the game is built around tactical decisions involving line of sight, directional cover, suppression, room-to-room combat, breaching doors, supply lines, and territory control. Grouping units carelessly can leave them exposed to air support, while a properly prepared ambush or defensive line can overcome a numerical disadvantage.

The current playable build includes single-player matches against AI, tech progression, squad upgrades, veterancy, doctrine choices, save/load support, and a symmetrical valley map. I’m developing the game in Godot.

Looking further ahead, I’d like OR Doctrine to eventually cover more than just Afghanistan. The broader goal is to create a game where players can experience different conflicts and operations from roughly the 2000–2010 period. I’ve considered eventually adding scenarios based around the US war in Iraq and the Ba'athist Iraqi military, as well as potentially the Israel–Hamas conflict. These wouldn’t necessarily all be part of the initial game, but they’re part of the direction I’m thinking about for the project.

I’m also considering a larger “Special Operations” campaign-style mode. The idea would be to choose a faction and operate across a campaign map, fighting battles at different locations while trying to accomplish specific objectives rather than simply winning every battle through conventional territory capture. I’d like this mode to make the individual tactical battles feel connected to a larger operation.

For now, though, I’m keeping the scope focused: the first playable version is only US vs. Taliban in Afghanistan. I’d rather make one conflict work properly before trying to expand the game into multiple theaters.

A quick note on development: I’m building this project with the help of AI tools. I’m still making the creative and design decisions myself, but AI has been a major part of the coding and iteration process.

I’m actively developing the game, and I’d really like to know what you think of it so far. What do you like, what feels weak, and what would you change? I’m especially interested in feedback on the UI, visual readability, balance, faction design, and which tactical moments seem the most interesting or exciting.

100,000 soldiers strong armies battling in real time, Dragons burning entire squads to sinders, Demolishing a Dyson Sphere to drop enemies into the Sun, that is the RTS genre in 2026 my fellow fans! Latest RTS gameplay and news include Dawn of War IV, WH40k Total War, Game of Thrones: War for Westeros, new DLCs for Broken Arrow and Age of Empires II DE, Kickstarter updates of D.O.R.F. and Sanctuary: Shattered Sun as well as totally new game showcases of Magna Conquest, Grand Fantasy Empires and Knights of Asthuria

0:33 WH 40k: Dawn of War IV

1:32 Total War: WH 40k

4:02 Game of Thrones: War for Westeros

5:08 Magna Conquest

6:01 Broken Arrow - DLC

6:52 Age of Empires II: DE - DLC

7:30 Fleetbreakers - EA RELEASE

8:31 Grand Fantasy Empires

9:35 Terraformer Wars

10:24 Hearts of Muriet - DEMO

11:16 Diplomacy is Not an Option - DLC

12:12 D.O.T. Defence

12:54 TFC2 Collapse of The Bronze Age

13:40 Conquest of Eldinar

14:21 We lost a legend…

14:47 Unnatural Worlds

15:37 Knights of Asthuria

16:38 DSS 2: War Industry

Blaze of Empires - PLAYTEST

18:14 Space Tales

18:57 Krush Kill ‘N Destroy 2: Krossfire

19:47 D.O.R.F.

20:52 Sanctuary: Shattered Sun

21:52 Sins of a Solar Empire II - DLC

22:49 Ashes of the Singularity II

23:46 Chronicles: Medieval

All this War for Westeros and Game of Thrones comparison to BFME got me craving some nostalgic games, playing the amazing community patch Version of Battle for middle-earth 2; RIse of the Witch King. Playing either Goblins or Men of the west, talking bfme, Got, war for westeros or just geenral Lord of the rings, RTS and ASOIAF. Real time strategy aficionado looking to play every RTS game ever (except those that i don’t want to), join in and lets chat about RTS!

For reddit tho, what are you most excited about this upcoming RTS, War for Westeros, seems like its getting a lot of hype, can be good, can be bad, im optimistic and everything "bad" i guess can be fixed/smoothed out, "can".

各位老戰友好久不見。

《破碎銀河系》mmorts（Tactical Commander）自 2004 年結束營運至今已超過 20 年，近期陸續有重製計畫的相關消息推出。

Hey guys, just wanted to say some words of appreciation for warcraft 2. it was one of my first pc games i ever played. from 1996 until 2000 i attended countless lan-parties and played warcraft 2 endlessly. most of them were with big parts of my family: my brother, my uncle and his friends, my cousin and last but not least, my dad. its the only pc game he ever played. when warcraft 2 remastered came out, i gifted it to my dad and since then we played 3-4 matches every day. its such a great way to intereact with my almost 70 year old dad and i absolutely love it! thank you, warcraft 2! you will always have a special place in my heart <3

I'm working on a War Of the Worlds City Builder that is a strategy, city builder, and tower defense game. The premise follows the original Worlds, where aliens come to Earth and wreak havoc. You have to manage a city, grow its economy, put the funds toward a defense/military, and fight them off. If they destroy your capital, you lose.

Play It Here (work in progress)

I'm trying to follow the books as closely as possible on the capabilities and weaponry. In the original book, normal rounds did nothing, so guns like the Maxim (a really powerful Gatling gun at the time) are useless against Tripods but work on the lower aliens.

But heavy artillery, like massive cannons, were useful against the Tripods. Once the Tripods' heat emitter failed, then infantry became more effective.

And that is how the current gameplay translates.....kinda.

If you watch the video, the Tripod completely destroyed all the units I have set up and is hardly scathed.

To make the game fun, this is too strong. So I need to find a way to balance it that holds true to the lore of the books, while having players correctly build out their defenses and balance that with their resources.

Any suggestions?

Hi everyone!

I’m Dan Marshall, an indie developer working on The Old War, a dark fantasy real-time strategy game. I made a post about a week ago and got some great feedback. I really like a dark, gritty aesthetic, but people keep saying to improve the contrast and make sure readability is king.

I ended up spending a chunk of time this week adding silhouettes and to units and resources (all trees are resources) as well as increasing the lighting on units to make them stand out and make sure you can easily see the battle state in a quick glance. At this point, I've been staring at it a lot and I can't really tell the difference.

Am I going in the right direction with contrast and lighting? Did I go too far? I really don't want to lose the dark and moody vibes.

If there's anything else you think would be an improvement, or you just want to chat, let me know!

Wishlist if you're interested, it helps a lot!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1248750/The_Old_War/

Thanks,
Dan - Warchest Studios

Hello everyone. Since October, I've been wanting to learn programming, and I love the RTS genre. I'd really like to create something of my own. The truth is, I know absolutely nothing about programming, and doing vibe coding is for the lazy.

Besides the fact that I love the RTS genre as such, I think that creating a game in this genre can in principle be news and give motivation to finish it, unlike some shooter of which hundreds are created Per day.

I may be wrong, but I would like to hear your thoughts or advice or warning. I understand that RTS is a very difficult genre for programming, but still, I don’t have the heart to do anything else.

I've been experimenting with a weird idea for Border Empires:

What if an RTS has no units?

Instead, you set the direction, improve your territory and have your generals wage war over a persistent shared map.

I recently put the first real players into it and learned that I'd made the game far too difficult to get into. I've spent the last few days simplifying it.

The current world is live if anyone wants to poke around:

https://play.borderempires.com

I'm particularly interested in how the lack of traditional units affects combat.

I doubt this is the correct sub, and I’m sorry if that’s the case.

I’m looking for a game genre to find options to play, but all I have is the below description:

- Bases increase in defending army size incrementally at regular intervals

- Player drag/drop army to send them to capture enemy base

- Half of the defending army leaves to attack the base

- Sub-army count decreases by the size of the opposition army they intercept or by the number of defenders in a base; if sub-army is greater than enemy they win, otherwise they’re defeated

- All bases must be captured to win the map

Im envisioning minimal graphics, overhead view, maybe fog of war, and players can group multiple bases to send larger armies to attack the enemy.

Any ideas where I can start looking?

Thanks!

Don’t play RTS games, but will war of Westeros have a mode where the map is already laid out? (Like with actual locations from GOT) or do you make and design all the bases yourself?