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MOBAs were a plague that killed off just about the entire RTS genre that birthed them, but even before that, yeah, esports bullshit like "clicks per minute" fixations removed a lot of the strategy possibilities in RTS games in favor of "click really fast and outproduce the enemy to win."
RTS games with unit limits helped a bit with that.
APM was a big deal in Starcraft 1 back in 1998
Back then I wanted to like it but the "pro" scene drained the joy out of me. It was unavoidable because even casual battle.net play had that attitude creeping in.
Yeah, I could never handle online play in Starcraft, I'm just saying this is not a new phenomenon. I played the hell out of the campaign though.
That's part of why I hated what Starcraft 2 eventually did to Kerrigan: the character from the first game (while already questionable and likely some sort of "dare ye enter my magical realm" writer spankbank material, villain origin story and all). I did enjoy the campaign at the time and got into the music and the vibes (and ignored the "Confederacy" and other really sus shit until later) and even the story until the sequel shat the bed with "corruption" cliches sort of overwriting every previous character motive.
Same shit ruined World of Warcraft for me with Wish Dot Com Cthulu.
I loved those late 90s cg cutscenes and was a small child so all the "confederacy" shit flew right over my head at the time.
I got yer Zerg right here, heh heh. 
'at's a zergling, Lester, smaller type of zerg. Needn't be out this far unless... Aw shit.
Hey, to be fair the space Confederacy gets fucked on and owned by every other faction including the protagonist Terrans.
I actually kinda fw the "deep south in space" aesthetic, and the portrayal of the Confederates as deeply incompetent morally bankrupt assholes makes it a bit more palatable imo.
Yeah, it does, I do remember that.
The manual art did seem to glorify them a bit with cool space motorcycle poses and so on, though.
Spent a short time trying to battle.net the custom maps (which many were absolutely amazing looking) but no rando's would ever want to play them.
Back in the "good ol' days" when RTS's weren't expected to be competitive spectator sports.
Every modern RTS wants to be the new starcraft which includes the fast pace gameplay, they dont want the slow dark age gameplay that may bore spectators
I think the trend predates esports, so it's probably overreliance on community feedback. I imagine people motivated to post were more likely to be obsessed over their click rate or whatever, and that became a metric to evaluate gameplay for companies developing RTSes.
It'd make sense if Starcraft is patient zero, this video encapsulates everything I dislike about RTS and in my mind is antithetical to what a strategy game should be.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I play tons of the old Starcraft, X-Com Apocalypse, Jagged Alliance 1.13, Alpha Centauri Alien Crossfire, Faster Than Light, Company of Heroes 1, etc. Maybe Transport Tycoon Deluxe could be sort-of decribed as a RTS also?
Older games from the 90s-early 2000s have this certain enjoyment factor that many (but not all) newer games lack. Being able to also cheat in an old game is amazing, like absolutely dicking down an enemy with a squad of 12 Terran Battlecruisers. Or modifying weapons like the early-game laser cannons in X-Com: Apocalypse to fire extremely fast and at longer ranges, to then subsequently level 90% of the city in a constant maelstrom of piss because a UFO spawned in. Oh and also there's so much piss onscreen that a modern gaming PC with a Ryzen 7 starts to dry-heave on a game released when Nelson Mandela was still president.
Death to AmeriKKKa
i used to love RTS as well but have the same complaints. can't do tactics it just feels like the games are designed for twitchy fast paced multiplayer e-sports.
WARNO (latest in the Cold war era Wargame series) seems pretty slow paced. it even has a way to give commands while paused in single player (or virtually paused, i think it's at like 1/100 speed) also unlike the others it seems to be designed around single player
no resource gathering though i think you just secure objectives to gain more points to spend for units. plus side you can use cool Soviet tanks and troops
sure, but I think I'm not into the fast paced games because I'm getting old, but I also don't like the trend in general. I think there's an untapped market for good turn based strategy games, which I'm currently working on a crappy indie game to address.
Hell yeah, always good to meet another indie dev who's trying to help revive dead genres.
think there's an untapped market for good turn based strategy games
BG3 proved this. Turn-based strategic combat is not a dealbreaker.
I only like RTS games where you can pause and issue orders for this reason. Like Kenshi puts you in brutal situations all the time, but it rarely feels unfair (or at least unfair in a way that's different from what you expect) because you basically play as a hivemind where at any point you can stop time and do everybody's thinking for them.
And if I'm playing something larger scale it's even more important, because you're telling me that I, the person commanding all this, wouldn't be constantly delegating and being briefed on shit? I have to check up on all the resources, keep track of all the units and equipment, build all the buildings, and personally schedule every troop movement from paratrooper assaults to scouting parties? Fuck you, give me time powers! I understand it's boring to realistically say "destroy this point" and then have a bunch of your underlings make a plan and carry it out with their underlings, but in their effort to avoid that boring layer of disengagement, they've added the anxiety of having to do the work of a general and their lieutenants. I just think the way most RTS games simulate total control without a chain of command sets them up for this pitfall.
Also I just want my little infantry squads to mean something, you know?
RA3 is slower than RA2, which is one thing that people complained about with regards to the former.
RA3 was specifically designed to make the game slower, with fewer resources in order to promote more thoughtful military compositions and strategy.
If anything, I find the 90s RTS games, played at high speed (which is seemingly the standard for them) seem to be much 'faster' than the more modern ones.
I played Tiberian Dawn/Tiberian Sun at medium speed because maxing out the speed felt like activating Yakety Sax mode, lol
Well, that's kind of your answer why the old games feel slower to you.
It seems that the standard is setting these games to high speed. I don't think there is an argument to be made that newer RTS games are faster than that.
Who decides what "the standard" is and why should I care? Speeding up the older games is an option I don't have to use and one that is not set by default. I don't get the option to slow down the newer games.
RA2 selling your yard for the rush is perfect
There's no combat (it's more of a resource manager), but you would probably like "against the storm".
Great game. Less of an RTS though, more of a city builder/colony management game. I'd put it in the category of Timberborn, Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress, etc. although it does have shorter, more challenging games.
I also like how it's pretty unique in the genre for not being a thinly veiled colonization simulator, as canonically in universe a massive storm wipes out every structure and living thing every cycle that isn't inside the main tower. So you actually are starting from scratch with no people there, not "nobody lives here do not mind the raids by the savages" you get out of Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, etc.
This is probably why my favourite rts's are also the slowest, supreme commander and Homeworld 1
supreme commander and Homeworld 1
Good times, good times.
What the fuck happened to the story/setting of Homeworld 3? 
Made me sad. It was one of the few examples of fiction where the main protagonist was a collective, not an individual, without losing emotion. And they gave it up for a mother-daughter plotline.
MandaloreGaming did a pretty funny takedown of the plot and how it ignores or just outright retcons the previous games without going the chud route (but don't read the comments). He says "no, I will not feel sympathy for Security Blanket Adolf Hitler after she murdered billions because she was lonely."
Me playing Total Warhammer battles at 0.5x speed so I have anything even approaching a chance to do the necessary micro for using chariots (I still can't) 
I'm a huge RTS enjoyer but never could get too into the faster modern RTS games so let me recommend Dune: Spice Wars or Northgard, both are made by the same devs and go for a very relaxed and tactical pace, there are still moments where you might have to react to something happening fast, especially in Dune (sand worm might be about to eat your army, if you aren't paying attention they will all die within like 10 seconds) but they are both pretty fun. Sins of a Solar Empire also has a pretty deliberate pace, I haven't tried the new one yet though.