(By the "paused mode", I mean that you can pause the game and give commands there.)

RTS games (real-time strategy) games, mainly the resource-gathering type like Starcraft, Command&Conquer etc., have always been one of my favorite genres. I guess nowadays there are less and less RTS games produced, but still some time to time.

However, what I generally don't like in newer RTS games have been that quite often they seem to lock gamespeed so you can't slow it down when things get too hectic and you need to micromanage several things at the same time around the map. I presume this is because of online multiplayer, where it is understandable because you are playing against another human with the same impediment, but I only play single-player (campaigns).

This frustrates me because I feel those games are testing more of my eye-hand coordination and how fast I can do several things at the same time in realtime, rather than whether I have the right tactics, optimized my resource gathering and unit production well, etc.

However, only recently it dawned to me that many of these games, like Age of Empires 3, have that paused mode, which makes the problem with gamespeed mostly irrelevant. So could people list some RTS games which have this kind of paused mode? Can be either GOG or elsewhere, even if not digitally available.

Note: I am not talking about turn-based games, so you don't need to point out that in turn-based tactics/strategy games like Fallout Tactics or Jagged Alliance games you can give orders in a paused mode. Also a paused mode is not a requirement for me as long as the game can be slowed down easily, if needed (like e.g. the first Starcraft game, Dark Reign, Dune 2, Rise of Nations Gold, Total Annihilation etc.).

Also my interest is mainly with "Command&Conquer clones" heavy with combat and possibly resource gathering, not so much managerial simulations or such.

Two RTS games I am aware for now (with a paused mode):

Age of Empires 3
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (not sure if the GOG version has already received the "paused mode"-update?)

Original War has "active pause", but it's a bit unusual RTS (in big shortcut - you've got your crew, sometimes someone will join during mission, you can build vehicles, turrets, buildings etc, but when someone amongst your crew is dying, he's gone forever). But it's focusing on battles and gathering resources (+researches), so it's fullfilling this aspect.

Black Moon Chronicles also has it, again it's not usual RTS, since there is no base building (aside from campaign, but there building have a bit different role than in standard RTS), only battles of armies, really cool game, worth to play!

If you're doing multiplayer having a 'paused mode' is unlikely. Single player, yeah all of them should have a paused mode of some sort, or like Starcraft where you can slow/speed the game as appropriate, since you can't be in 100 places at once.

Nothing quite worse than having a perfect counter defense to something, but you can't give your guys orders that would make it useful. Like having 20 ghosts and 10 carriers are coming and you're like 'lock them all down' but you can only lock 1-2 down before all your guys get killed because you can't select them individually to select a different carrier to lock down... Such BS... Hmm ditto. Divinity Dragon Commander would be far more fun if i could have the AI deal with bases and defenses and i could just be a dragon and f*** up stuff, and give a few requests like 'get a platoon and bring it over here' without having to switch back and forth and manage it... Having the AI turn off entirely and needing to micromanage things where i had 97% success dwindled down to less than 10% because the hybrid system is more RTS and less being able to manage a few things well. Makes me not even want to play anything but the world map and politics...


Actually you might want more turn based rather than RTS, King's Bounty perhaps...

Or, Gratuitous Space Battles 2 might be more your speed.

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident has an active pause. But there's no resource gathering whatsoever.

Yeah it makes sense that in online multiplayer against humans, you can't pause nor change the gamespeed because that would affect other human players too. So it could just as well be that those options are disabled in the multiplayer component, but enabled in single-player.

Sometimes it is a bit odd, like in Age of Empires 3: I understood that in the skirmish (single-player) games you can slow the gamespeed down, but for some reason not in the single-player campaign. Huh, that doesn't make sense to me. Anyway, thankfully "active pause" was available in the campaign, albeit it is implemented oddly, like that big pause dialog box in the middle of your play area...

When you say that most single-player RTS games should have active pause, do you mean also e.g. Starcraft 2 (single-player campaign), and Warcraft 3? I have played many turn-based strategy games too (like Fallout Tactics, Gorky 17 etc.), but generally for some reason I prefer RTS games. It is probably because:

- I just like how the game flows constantly in RTS games, making the game feel like a real combat situation which I try to command. In general there is less micro-management in RTS games, you don't necessarily have to give exact orders each round to all your units, one by one (like in many TBS games).

- In some TBS games, it becomes too gimmicky in how you try to preserve action points so that you can instantly counter an incoming enemy attack on their turn, try to move just out of enemy unit's reach in your move etc. Too much pre-calculation of action points that somehow feels a bit fake.

- Turn-based games seem to quite often concentrate on small squad tactics, rather than building bases, resource gathering, sending expendable units to destroy the enemy base (rather than carefully try to keep all your squad members alive by tiptoeing or crawling slowly to enemy base from the back entrance; yeah Fallout Tactics all over...) etc.

The first point (flow of the game) is also why I actually prefer the ability to slow down the gamespeed, rather than having to use active pause. In AoE3 it did feel that having to constantly use the active pause kinda broke the flow of the game, and in the paused mode I couldn't always remember which units had already received orders from me, and which orders, until I exited the paused mode to see where units were heading etc. I'd prefer the ability to e.g. slow the game down to crawl with the - button, constantly seeing what units in general were doing and optimizing it on the fly etc.

As long as I can slow it down enough, then I feel I have enough time to do lots of stuff at the same time. This was true for e.g. Total Annihilation, Starcraft 1 and Rise of Nations Gold, at least. While e.g. Warcraft 3 did allow me to slow the game down, it still felt somewhat speedy even in the slowest setting; same for Age of Empires 1-2 IIRC, in case they even allowed slowing the game down (I don't remember).

Star Ruler 2 lets you slow down/speed up the game or just "active pause" while you plan. There's so much shit going on that you'll need the pause function anyway

Since you mentioned this, Rise of Legends has active pause, and it was the only way I could play it on the hardest difficulty.

Interesting, I never realized it. Then again it also let me slow the game down to crawl that I didn't really feel I needed it either, but it is a plus it has it as well, just in case. Things sure did get hectic on it, with several enemy forces pushing your cities constantly while you try to conquer elsewhere, and at the same time doing dozens of different research and resource gathering at the same time...

Unfortunately RoLG got into my shitlist due to another reason, the 90 minute timer (for apparently all battles?). I just hated it that I was finally progressing in a big battle, keeping my conquered cities and slowly pushing all enemy forces away... only to lose because of the timer. Shit. I haven't played it since, and apparently I accidentally started playing some advanced campaign in the beginning anyway, the Gold version was a bit hard to figure out where to start, it just throws several campaigns to select from, I took the first from the list but apparently that is not really the first (easiest, most basic) campaign...



Let's cut to the chase: does Starcraft 2 have active pause? :) How about Warcraft 3? Those are currently my top two RTS games where I'd need it the most (or the ability to seriously slow down the gamespeed).

AI War has both pause and speed settings.

I don't understand RTS, personally. Who wants to be rushed when making decisions? TBS is better by default imo. Just allows for more depth. Strategy games should not be about how quickly you can wear down a keyboard.

I played it in proper order, and still I abandoned it due to its flaws. First the difficulty. On easy, the AI is brain dead, never rebuilding the units it looses. On normal, it only rebuilds the units it looses and occasionally. On hard it has unlimited resources and instantaneously rebuilds everything. I couldn't believe it when I stupidly fought him near his factories and as soon as I killed any of his units he immediately pop out a replacement. I completely decimated my attack force. Secondly, on the overworld if you loose any of your territories, when you try to reconquer it, the map randomly changes to one of the multiplayer maps. It doesn't matter how the original campaign map looked, the new one is randomly selected each time you try to fight on it. And lastly, like Age of Empires/Mythology, Rise of Nations, The game was meant to have an expansion, which would have introduced a new civilization and the ending to the overall story. Unfortunately the studio went out of business, and we're left with a broken, unbalanced and unfinished game. Unfortunately you'll notice how every announcement for any turn-based game is swamped by comments about how the game would be better if it were real time. Apparently 99.99% of the gaming market being real time isn't enough for these people.

Well, that is exactly why I am wishing for either (slowing down the gamespeed, or active pause), so that I don't have to rush. :)

I mentioned my preferences to RTS (over TBS) in earlier messages. RTS usually just flows nicer with less micromanagement, and RTS games are more often about resource gathering/base building/destroying enemy base, rather than small-squad tactics with a fixed number of units which you have to babysit very carefully so that they don't get a cut to a finger and I have to blow it, poor things.

TBS missions sometimes just take too long, just because you are slowly moving your crawling units around the map one by one, telling them exactly what to do where. Sure RTS missions can sometimes take a long time too, but quite often it is about waiting, e.g. resource gathering, research to be completed, enough units produced etc.

I somehow just like the basic premise in C&C clones, the kind of "build a strong base with good defenses fending off enemy attacks, build a huge offensive army, and go smash the enemy base into small pieces". It is the similar feeling one gets from building a big castle out of LEGO bricks, and then go smashing your friend's LEGO castle down with a hammer. Yeah! Take that!

I haven't played a RTS in ages. I'm winging this: Appears that some of the Seven Kingdom games allow this:

https://www.gog.com/forum/seven_kingdoms_series/can_i_pause_and_issue_orders_at_the_same_time

Rise of Nations as well:

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/would_you_play_this_sort_of_rts_with_pause/post12

I don't know if either one of those are End of Turn pause or in play. Sorry.

edit: Does seem to be a popular question:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agog.com+rts+pause

That's exactly how I like to play RTS, but funnily enough there seems to be a move away from these types of games, and more towards base-less/highly mobile strategy. I'll never forget the turrets in good old CnC 1.

Yeah I've become to feel the same way, the little I know about more modern RTS games. Quite often they appear to be war games with a fixed number of units or something.

So it is like instead of trying to destroy your friend's LEGO castle with a hammer, you are actually fighting your friend directly, mano a mano (but with hammers, so maybe the correct term is "martillo a martillo").