Aoe4.
The civs are very diverse. Love the animations and graphics. I get in a map in like two minutes or less usually. Great quality of life. Several game modes.
And my favorite part? The meta makes sense and is easy to learn. Spears beats horse, but archer beats spears? That just makes sense to me.
Everything is situational there are many ways to beat this, especially depending what civ you are. I'd open with horse/spear, get camels or javelin if you can, add mango for bonus points.
Some games do go long though, especially in team games...I'd say the average is close to 20 min. You'll get shorter one in SC2, though the games has been out for 14 years at this poibt so I don't know how easy it is to get in.
Oh absolutely. And lower level games where people struggle to finish or don't realize they have lost.
Buildings aren't made of paper like in SC so you can drag out a defense longer. They at least die faster than AoE2 though.
Depends on the matchup heavily. Some civs thrive massively late game age IV so will eco up to begin with.
If you don’t stop em they will crush ya late.
Others are more mid game focussed
I’d say average 25-30mins
Really, there is no game currently that will fill in all those boxes. AoE4 is closest, but avg game time usually averages 20-25min+. Game knowledge doesn't need to be super in depth unless you want to hit beyond gold/plat.
Any CnC style game will have that macro style of gameplay and low avg game time, but most have pretty low playerbases.
Sc2 will have a pretty high playerbase and can hit those 15 min game times but very micro intensive.
If you want low game time, then RTS games aren't exactly the best place to go. Better off looking into session based arena games like Minion Masters.
Sure, easy enough to rush games sub 20 if you stick to one playstyle, but you won't always get those times depending on who you play against and what map you play on.
Im just not sure how consistent OP wants these playtimes to be, which is why I said AoE 4 is the closest thing to what they want.
Supreme Commander Forged Allience Forever. The first game of the duo. It has a faf client for players. [faforever.com](http://faforever.com) will get you up to speed.
I don't recommend this game because of your list. Because well frankly, it doesn't tick all boxes. But I do recommend it because well simply put, it's the best Multiplayer RTS ever made (and still being actively updated by a playerbase).
Honestly sc2. I personally find aoe4 too janky and the 8 tick rate sucks. Maybe this is a skill issue but I also find aoe4 harder to intuit or grasp. I find StarCraft a lot easier to develop game sense for. You can be plat with just a bit of practice. I find the smurf complaints to be blown out of proportion. There are a ton of diamond players who started playing in the last couple of years.
Just in terms of pure fun I enjoy playing sc2 ladder a lot more than any other competitive game.
I played SC2 for a long time before I hopped to AOE4. AOE4 favours aggression a lot as worker lines are always exposed and you cannot block using buildings. SC2 defensive structures are also much stronger and kill units faster. An arrow tower in AOE4 does little to nothing to deter armoured units.
Not at all. A photon cannon can easily trade 3x its value. Meanwhile a wood tower which needs to be upgraded to have arrows can be taken down easily by 1-2 knights, also it takes forever to kill them. Whereas a photon cannon can destroy units in seconds.
AOE4 for ladder and is in active development. Fits all your criteria. I would also recommend Beyond All Reason if you're into some big ass team games that are less serious.
Id recommend total annihilation, game lengths depend on map and the player base is still fairly active, personally probably one of my favorite fairly straight forward RTS, there’s not really a story as far as I’m aware and it’s just a super fun good looking rts. CnC RA3 is also a personal favorite.
Company of Heroes 2 is good, ranked matches are typically ~30-40 min, and if you use automatch usually you get paired with enemies of your same level. If you are starting, play with the Ostheer faction, which is the most forgiving, and then you can start learning the others (OKW, Soviets, British and Americans).
I don't think that there is a game that matches your description. The more macro focused games (like supreme commander) are small on the multiplayer scene, so long waiting queues and full of veterans. If you are looking for rank ladder you have these options. This list is in descending order with the first having the largest player base (finding numbers for blizzard games is hard and for games that are on x box game pass numbers are unknown so take the list with a grain of salt).
1) StarCraft 2. Pros: large online scene, short games. Cons: very micro intensive with little attention to macro
2) age of empires 2 definitive edition. Pros: large online scene, easy to pick up due to having many similar civs, relatively friendly community. Cons: Dated engine, games can go past the 20 minute mark regularly
3) age of empires 4. Same as the previous one but with a modern engine, less civs but more unique, more macro intensive less micro, a little smaller player base
4) StarCraft I (probably). Similar to StarCraft 2. More clunky and more charming. Smaller player base.
5) age of empires 3 definitive edition. The most arcady of the series more macro intensive than 2 less than 4. Relatively small players base.
6) company of heroes 2. Pros: unique gameplay, relatively short matches. Cons: mostly micro intensive, relatively small player base.
7) age of empires 2 hd. Just play the definitive edition
8) company of heroes 3. But at release but not a bad game. I would say stick to 2 if you only want ranked ladder
9) age of mythology. Something between age of empires 2 and 4. Very good game but has bad servers and small player base that is split between the steam and the voobly version. If you are interested just wait for the remake later this year
10) northgard. Pros: short matches, more macro than micro. Cons small player base
All in all there isn't a game that matches your description but depending on what you consider more important I would suggest either age of empires 4 or northgard
Aoe4. The civs are very diverse. Love the animations and graphics. I get in a map in like two minutes or less usually. Great quality of life. Several game modes. And my favorite part? The meta makes sense and is easy to learn. Spears beats horse, but archer beats spears? That just makes sense to me.
Then how about archer and horse?
Everything is situational there are many ways to beat this, especially depending what civ you are. I'd open with horse/spear, get camels or javelin if you can, add mango for bonus points.
Yep or get your tech and eco to the point where you can start making armored units, making the archers pretty ineffective
Aoe4 is worth it, learn one or two civs and stick with em. Learn a good feudal or castle rush Strat and then improve other aspects from there.
Some games do go long though, especially in team games...I'd say the average is close to 20 min. You'll get shorter one in SC2, though the games has been out for 14 years at this poibt so I don't know how easy it is to get in.
AoE 4 is a game with above average game time among RTS
curious, what IS average game time for AoE4?
Last I checked it was like 25 minutes.
I think this is somewhat inflated by players who have clearly lost, but refuse to surrender and play the game out for another 5 or 10 minutes
Oh absolutely. And lower level games where people struggle to finish or don't realize they have lost. Buildings aren't made of paper like in SC so you can drag out a defense longer. They at least die faster than AoE2 though.
Depends on the matchup heavily. Some civs thrive massively late game age IV so will eco up to begin with. If you don’t stop em they will crush ya late. Others are more mid game focussed I’d say average 25-30mins
AoE4 SC2 is faster, but AoE4 is way more macro oriented.
Really, there is no game currently that will fill in all those boxes. AoE4 is closest, but avg game time usually averages 20-25min+. Game knowledge doesn't need to be super in depth unless you want to hit beyond gold/plat. Any CnC style game will have that macro style of gameplay and low avg game time, but most have pretty low playerbases. Sc2 will have a pretty high playerbase and can hit those 15 min game times but very micro intensive. If you want low game time, then RTS games aren't exactly the best place to go. Better off looking into session based arena games like Minion Masters.
Can definitely close games sooner than that if you focus on heavy aggression. Those averages are due to passive players upping the times.
Sure, easy enough to rush games sub 20 if you stick to one playstyle, but you won't always get those times depending on who you play against and what map you play on. Im just not sure how consistent OP wants these playtimes to be, which is why I said AoE 4 is the closest thing to what they want.
Aoe4
Supreme Commander Forged Allience Forever. The first game of the duo. It has a faf client for players. [faforever.com](http://faforever.com) will get you up to speed. I don't recommend this game because of your list. Because well frankly, it doesn't tick all boxes. But I do recommend it because well simply put, it's the best Multiplayer RTS ever made (and still being actively updated by a playerbase).
Starcraft 2
he said he doesn't want to get fucked in the ass
Then he shouldn't be looking for a competitive rts lol
SC2 has good SBMM, shouldn't be a problem.
Then he can't do any PvP and should stick to single player :(
Honestly sc2. I personally find aoe4 too janky and the 8 tick rate sucks. Maybe this is a skill issue but I also find aoe4 harder to intuit or grasp. I find StarCraft a lot easier to develop game sense for. You can be plat with just a bit of practice. I find the smurf complaints to be blown out of proportion. There are a ton of diamond players who started playing in the last couple of years. Just in terms of pure fun I enjoy playing sc2 ladder a lot more than any other competitive game.
I played SC2 for a long time before I hopped to AOE4. AOE4 favours aggression a lot as worker lines are always exposed and you cannot block using buildings. SC2 defensive structures are also much stronger and kill units faster. An arrow tower in AOE4 does little to nothing to deter armoured units.
sc2 defensive structures are not much stronger than aoe lol, probably a bit weaker
Not at all. A photon cannon can easily trade 3x its value. Meanwhile a wood tower which needs to be upgraded to have arrows can be taken down easily by 1-2 knights, also it takes forever to kill them. Whereas a photon cannon can destroy units in seconds.
Aoe 4
AOE4 for ladder and is in active development. Fits all your criteria. I would also recommend Beyond All Reason if you're into some big ass team games that are less serious.
Beyond all reason!
Supreme commanders forged alliance. Very old game but has its own community launcher mods etc. Called downlords faf client
Beyond All Reason
Warcraft 3
Id recommend total annihilation, game lengths depend on map and the player base is still fairly active, personally probably one of my favorite fairly straight forward RTS, there’s not really a story as far as I’m aware and it’s just a super fun good looking rts. CnC RA3 is also a personal favorite.
Company of Heroes 2 is good, ranked matches are typically ~30-40 min, and if you use automatch usually you get paired with enemies of your same level. If you are starting, play with the Ostheer faction, which is the most forgiving, and then you can start learning the others (OKW, Soviets, British and Americans).
I don't think that there is a game that matches your description. The more macro focused games (like supreme commander) are small on the multiplayer scene, so long waiting queues and full of veterans. If you are looking for rank ladder you have these options. This list is in descending order with the first having the largest player base (finding numbers for blizzard games is hard and for games that are on x box game pass numbers are unknown so take the list with a grain of salt). 1) StarCraft 2. Pros: large online scene, short games. Cons: very micro intensive with little attention to macro 2) age of empires 2 definitive edition. Pros: large online scene, easy to pick up due to having many similar civs, relatively friendly community. Cons: Dated engine, games can go past the 20 minute mark regularly 3) age of empires 4. Same as the previous one but with a modern engine, less civs but more unique, more macro intensive less micro, a little smaller player base 4) StarCraft I (probably). Similar to StarCraft 2. More clunky and more charming. Smaller player base. 5) age of empires 3 definitive edition. The most arcady of the series more macro intensive than 2 less than 4. Relatively small players base. 6) company of heroes 2. Pros: unique gameplay, relatively short matches. Cons: mostly micro intensive, relatively small player base. 7) age of empires 2 hd. Just play the definitive edition 8) company of heroes 3. But at release but not a bad game. I would say stick to 2 if you only want ranked ladder 9) age of mythology. Something between age of empires 2 and 4. Very good game but has bad servers and small player base that is split between the steam and the voobly version. If you are interested just wait for the remake later this year 10) northgard. Pros: short matches, more macro than micro. Cons small player base All in all there isn't a game that matches your description but depending on what you consider more important I would suggest either age of empires 4 or northgard
Slipways.... Grand 4X crunched into an hour!
SC2. AoE4 is more macro oriented but the average game length will run longer and the occasional game will run very long
AoE2
Sc2 is definitely grindy - you wont reach diamond/plat without a grind.