I'm sure most of your have known about this for decades now, but I just discovered Age of Empires III---and it looks quite amicable. Nice screen shots---just where The Age of Kings left off, only now you're the British, French, etc., and you're conquering the new continent. Sounds promising.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/ageo...15619.html
AoE was pretty good, but while AoE2 was fun it felt too much like 'more of the same' to me... and I only played the demo of Age of Mythology. But it is a fun series so this one will probably be good too. I think the main problem with RTSes is that I compare them all to Blizzard ones and they all come up lacking, so I just play my Blizzard RTS and don't buy too many other ones. :)
For instance, Blizzard put a fantastic map creator in Starcraft and then improved it in Warcraft III. You have a huge amount of power... and that's not even talking about (user-created) StarDraft... after Starcraft, I was expecting more RTSes to include map creators that allowed you to do such things (in WC3 you can change the interface graphics, add 3d models into the game to replace current unit graphics, add music, and pretty much make your game into a game in another genre... action, racing, puzzle, RPG, etc... the map editor can do it.) in other games.
That didn't happen.
I got Age of Mythology , To be honnest I was desapointed ,It ran alot like the other games even in appearence, It was just age of empires with god powers and myth units.Now the god customization was a nice thing but it made the game imbalaced alot of times myth unitss were so good people would just skip making regular units, Some of the myths are too good like the medousas which if you mass can petrify everything killing instantly. Single player player campaign was crap.I had loved those historical campaigns before in the other games because it was so educational.
I found Age of Mythology sorely lacking, and barely gave it more than a moment's interest. But this seems like it (could) be as much fun as AoE2, only take place during the colonial era, which could be tons of musket-firing fun. Here's hoping.
Age of Mythology... the demo bored me quickly. Age of Empires was fun. AoE2 was alright, a bit too similar to the first but a fun game at heart. Yes, it's lacking in variety (AoE games are ALWAYS long and very slow), but no one else can be Blizzard so for non-Blizz games you have to accept that they will not be as great or as varied and just take what you can get. :)
AoE2 owned me for like three years, 1999-2001... and AoE did in 1998---but since I discovered Cossacks and its subsequent add-ons, there's been no comparison in the field of RTS. I mean, AOE was nore colorful; but Cossacks is more realistic... and offers more opportunity for real strategy and not just "my army is bigger so I win", as in AoE.
Warcraft I was the first RTS I played. I've played plenty of other RTSes, but nothing compares to Blizzard. Cossacks? Tried it a little. Didn't really like it that much. Seemed like a somewhat bland AoE knockoff with a larger unit count... I know some people like it, but it doesn't come close to comparing with Blizz RTSes... AoE? I played AoE and AoEII some each, but never really got too far in the single player (kind of boring) and, while the multiplayer is fun once in a while, the sheer length of every single game gets old...
If I was to make a list of my favorite RTSes, it'd probably include Warcraft II, Warcraft III, Starcraft, Netstorm, and Conquest... though those last two are more debatable. Red Alert is a good game too. Age of Empires competes... so does Rise of Nations...