God cant believe how many of you havent included company of heroes. /shocked

@ Deepjay,

That's because to some of us, un-limited ammo and fuel (etc.) are bullshit tactics, and something like Men of War with inventories for each and every single battlefield unit is a much more fulfilling experience!    

It just feels too much like a children's version of a real tactical game. As an RTS I suppose it's fine, but because of the subject matter and because it brushes so close to some of the ideas from games like Close Combat or Men or War it just seems... shallow. It's ALMOST more than an RTS, and that kind of colors my perception of it.

/\/\

hahaha burrn!

Mine have to be:

5. Tiberian Sun (Mammoth walker ftw!)

4. Red Alert 2/Yuri's Revenge (awesomely over the top, elite Apocolypse tanks own everything)

3. Sins of a Solar Empire + Entrenchment (amazing scale, huge fleet battles, beautiful game)

2. World in Conflict (not a true RTS but close, and its a ridiculous amount of fun plus the explosions and dust effects are spectacular)

1. Supreme Commander (this game has made me basically unable to play any RTS or RTS equivalent that doesnt include strategic zoom...also, a naval destroyer that can sprout legs...I swear the Cybrans are geniuses)

SoaSE might have made my list had it fulfilled my hopes of giving me a new Pax Imperia; plus, like Pax Imperia, I consider SoaSE more of a hybrid between RTS and 4x.

removed

I can't really have an order since I can't decide which one is best, so assemble them how you like.

Total Annihilation.  From Kbots to submarines to massive artillery platforms that can fire halfway across the map and blow up fusion power plants in two shots to Flash/Peewee spam, this game is just so over the top with its gameplay you can't beat it for awesome.  Supreme Commander and Forged Alliance were massive steps backwards from what TA offered in terms of unit variety.

WarCraft 2.  I had this massive WarCraft addiction the moment I played this game.  It lasted until WoW came out.

Homeworld.  3d combat, awesome story and awesome units, plus the sense of atmosphere this game had was breathtaking.  Cataclysm only improved it.  HW2 was a step back in terms of both story and atmosphere.  It just never felt as desperate as HW or HW:C.

Starcraft.  I played it a lot when I was a kid.  Some of the novels are actually fairly decent, and there hasn't been a crappy MMO made of it.  I'm looking forwards to SC2, and I really hope Blizzard does not make a World of Starcraft.

Dawn of War, specifically the mod DoW40: Firestorm over Kronus (a.k.a. FoK).  DoW was a nice game that got me into the WH40K universe, but as I got deeper into the universe, I realized that Relic's interpretation of things sucked.  Marines weren't that good, lascannons sucked due to its hard-counter system, and it just never felt epic, most especially due to the crappy camera and low squad sizes.  Then I found FoK, which totally changed DoW for the better.  Its a closer-to-codex mod, which means it modifies the units to be closer to their codex stats.  So Marines got awesome, lascannons raped anything they touched, and fighting Orks becomes hard when they have 30 expendable boyz per mob to your squads of 10 expensive Marines.  Plus FoK raised the camera up by a lot, making it a hell of a lot easier to see the battlefield.  Not to mention the various resource-eating graphical updates like specular maps and higher-res textures and higher-poly models that put the Relic ones to shame.  If you have Dark Crusade, grab FoK.  If you have Soulstorm, wait a few months while the team ports over from DC.

1) Dune II (Since then I've been addicted to RTSs)

2) C&C

3) Warcraft 2

4) Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts

5) Dawn of War/ Sins of a solar empire

5.Command & Conquer 3 (up until the 1.07 patch)

It was actually a pretty good game upon release, then EA over patched it to crap.  The Nod were given the be-all end-all unit (Avatar walker), the GDI were reduced to early-game hit-and-runners, and the Scrin were just made waaaay to OP.  But before that, it was actually all right.

4.StarCraft

Given. Fun gameplay, and a bunch of my friends played it too, which made it that much better.

3.SoaSE

Lots of really cool stuff was put into this game.  I like the empire-building aspect, something that wasn't present in other games I've played.  If more of my friends start playing this, I'll probably boost this to the #2 slot.

2.RA2

Another fun game I played with a bunch of my friends.  It was loads of fun.

1. Homeworld

Probably my favorite game of all time.  Stunning visuals, especially for its time, great soundtrack, online community was really fun to be a part of, and the storyline was sooo good.  I cried manly tears when Kharak burned (Agnus Dei playing in my head...).

LOL the chance of me seeing someone refer to Agnus Dei here had to be smaller than winning the lotery twice in a row. I would have preferred the lotery though

@soasertsus

You can get a jewel case version online quite easily (and quite cheaply) but I'll warn you, it hasn't aged well.

LOL the chance of me seeing someone refer to Agnus Dei here had to be smaller than winning the lotery twice in a row. I would have preferred the lotery though 

If you knew me you'd realize that Agnus Dei is perhaps my favorite part of HW.  I dl'ed the RelicNews community soundtrack for both HW and HW2.  It's really good stuff.

@Vinraith: I think the HW games have aged rather well, myself.  Sure, there aren't as many bells and whistles as are present in modern games, but the general visual aesthetic is still very successful.

1. Sins of a Solar Empire + Entrenchment (first one I ever got myself fully into. This RTS purely rocks.)

2. WH40K DoW: Dark Crusade (faction variety plus demigods!)

3. WH40K DoW II + Chaos Rising (while limited in factions, the gameplay is AWESOME! More expansions please, Relic!)

4. Rise of Nations + Thrones and Patriots (more faction variety, but "realism" sucked.)

5. Act of War - Direct Action (Generals on STEROIDS)

Honorable mention: C+C Red Alert 3 and Uprising (fun game, though I felt it wasn't satisfying enough as an RTS), MechCommanders 1 and 2 (these were the games that got me involved in the RTS genre, although both are actually more like tactical games than anything)...

Men of War? Gee, buggy and with a tough control system.
Soldiers: Heroes of World War 2 - now we're talking! (Except the voice acting, that's rubbish...)

And my list:

1. Command & Conquer (Tiberian Dawn, for those that will) - the game that got me into RTS, humor, great music, great action and one of the first real RTS' games ever.

2. Homeworld / Cataclysm - Epic, there isn't much more to say. The campaign, the music... the atmosphere (no pun intended) is just breath-taking. (I still get shivers down my spine when I think of Kharak burning... And the soundtrack... The Yes song is pretty darn good to be honest, 29.AIF in the game's music BIG file.)

3. Company of Heroes - one of the best modern RTS's, nuffsaid. Awesome music, graphics and feeling. No it's not a Men of War - but hell, Supreme Commander... Tiberian Sun...? I think those lack more realism than CoH does. The expansions and patches have kinda changed the game (back to CoH) in a way I don't appreciate to 100% though. 1.71 was a gem.

4. Warcraft II - Blizzard. Do I have to say more? Ok then, in one word; "hilarious". Awesome and really huge game. (If you haven't played it, you should. Especially if you've been playing WoW - I've heard there are people that actually do that - you'll learn a lot about the Warcraft lore. (Which is really interesting.))

5. Dune II - Almost the first real RTS, and I remember playing this on my good ol' Amiga. There's some things that really, REALLY stand out in this game; the music (almost nothing gets your blood pumping as Frank Klepacki's masterpieces), the Dune universe and the very well balanced missions. (Not too easy, but not too hard.

Notable mentions: Age of Empires series (lacking in advanced strategies though, even in AoE III - as there's no cover, no defensive positions, no bonuses etc. etc.) - still good games.
Dawn of War series - really good games, not really standing out in any areas though, unfortunately.
C&C3 - surprisingly good, considering it's an EA piece.
SoaSE of course! - little too long games and no real missions. With the perfection of those two it'd climb the ratings really fast...
Soldiers: Heroes of World War 2 - one of the few really good RTMSS (Real Time Military Sim Strategy) games, realism to a relatively high degree and awesome graphics and physics at that time. Big minus for using Starforce though.
Act of War w. expansion High Treason - after beta testing those puppies for a loong time they finally hit the shelves, and they were really good! Also had the problem with not really standing out in any way though. Still good games.
Settlers II - Blue Byte's brainchild, small cute pixel built persons running along roads with materials, really good, and a true classic.