i just tried men of war, ill have to get back to it again, there was a shit ton too do, it talked about reloading manually. sounds cool but i just need to try again(there was no formal tutorial which is fine). i think ill try again in a bit

Well this RTS is WAY OUT there, actually if you search you can download it legally, as EDIOS has released the code to the GP, and the game is being actively modded, to improve the graphics and AI.

Warzone 2100

I have it, and still play it.

Two games that haven't been mentioned yet. First is Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain. It's a LOT like sins really, being a 4xRTS. It has it's flaws, but it's still pretty good (It's old too, going on 10 years).

The other series I *HIGHLY* recomend is the Kohan games, both the first and 2nd one. It's also sort of a 4xRTS, but it's a fantasy setting rather than scifi.

Unfortunately the multiplayer on both of these is pretty much dead AFAIK, but they're still great games!

I believe P.U.R.E sucks Titan I have yet to download and try the demo / free full game but it can be found here if you want to check it out. 

Demo / free game (ad supported)

I loved company of heroes, don't know how active the community is though.  One of the best rts games I have ever played (I've only played the base game).

It is not for you if you like to turtle, it is purely offensive.

I have no idea why you guys like C&C so much.  I find them so lacking for some reason.

I liked the first empire earth---lots of fun.

Judging by the list, your preference is somewhere inbetween braindead and less traditional RTS games.  DoW is probably the best choice.  It's one of the better recent additions.

If SC and WC weren't on that list, I'd recommend Kohan, but it may be a little slow for your preferences.  It requires far more thinking and little to no reflexes.  If it didn't bore you, it would be a big hit.  It's almost as slow as Black and White 2, but without the playing god aspect that takes up so much time.

The Rise of X series is also very good, very similar to Age of Empires in mechanics.

Black and white 2 isn't a game.

thankyou for your worthless incorrect comment. if supreme commander isnt a typical rts, the follow up to TA which is in many cases argued to be the best rts right up there with starcraft, then idk what is

i would not consider supreme commander braindead. i would actually consider it the opposite of braid dead, it's very micro heavy and takes a lot

starcraft speaks for itself, and now adays the traditional rts could be seen as company of heroes, where capturing points is key (dow 2 uses this in mp and world in conflict does as well)

so essentially, i think my list has no games which could be described as braindead, and i also think my list has a lot of traditional games, old and new

You're welcome.  I'm confident my suggestion was accurate, since you've reinforced the view.  You'll have loads of fun with DoW.

Micro != thinking.

Not sure why quotes aren't working for me. But I thought Empire Earth was pretty good. The first one had the best sounding cannons. The second one wasn't really popular with fans of the first one but was still a pretty decent game on its own right. Has one of the most challenging AI in any game. You could probably find EE2 for a bargain now. I got it for free when I bought Spore(yes I got Spore, I don't want to talk about it).

Men of War is really good but I wouldn't compare it to CoH. CoH is very traditional RTS while Men of War is more tactical. Oh it has some of the most funniest voice acting in a game ever(they are bad). 

By the way I should mention, don't play DoW 1 single player skirmish without the AI improvement mod "Skirmish AI".  The campaign can't really be played with the Skirmish AI mod unfortunately.

PS. Dark Crusade was a great expansion, the game was at it's best in them days.  Soulstorm was made by some third party and was a tiny fraction of the quality of the game that come before it.

Played a lot of rts games. probably rate Rise Of Nations as the the most durable

Dawn of War 1 (Winter Assault, Dark Crusade   + that other expansion...)   nice games

imho,  a tad imbalanced,  specially online that necron lord = just bug abusing

been o nthis campaign map 4ever, i have no idea how much i killed, but im stil @ my basedoor tagging hundres..  thousands of eldar (3 cpu's)  i think they overdid something, cuase after 5 hours of tagging i just stopepd trying

Supreme Commander (and Forged Alliance expansion)

great game,  forged alliance = a must really,  it's a whole different game compared 2 supcom vanilla,  economy and buildtimes etc. have been redone resulting in much more epic battles,

what homeworld games do you have?

Homeworld (1)  Homeworld Cataclysm (my fav.) and Homeworld 2 like how that turned out... nut stil prefer 1 over 2

Could someone please explain to me, why so many people think Supreme Commander is so great? This is not meant as an offence, I just get the impression I missed some points. I played it a whole while ago (vanilla) and to me it alway was turteling and then being the first to build the really big artillery and the tec 4 (5?) units. All other units were completely pointless and the artillery even made the big ones questionable. In my memory SupCom was a graphic-heavy new edition of Canonhill.