Age Of Empires II or III - Which to Play?

[Smack2k]

Hey all,

Newer to the site and havent posted much until now...

I am going to try and get into some RTS gaming, never played them before...out of these below, which would be the best for me to play to get into it, understand it, and start enjoying it, before playing more:

Dune
Dune II
Command and Conquer (with expansions)
Command and Conquer - Red Alert (with expansions)
Command and Conquer - Red Alert 2 (with expansions)
Age of Empires II
Age of Empires III
Total Annihilation (with expansions)

Also, between Age II and Age III, which would you suggest I play for the better RTS experience?

I could get Starcraft to.

Thanks!

[Alianger]

I'd say start with AoE II, Warcraft II or Red Alert. These games are modern enough to be easy to get into without an archaic interface or poor unit AI getting in the way too much, and sort of make up the peak of the first 'golden era' of the genre.
Which one to try first depends mostly on your preference in terms of the setting and aesthetics. Warcraft II is very fast, and feels very tight due to everything being tile-based, but it's also the most demanding on your reflexes. AoE II is the most complex and modern, and has a lengthy single player campaign mode. Red Alert feels more large scale, lets you choose between diferent paths in the campaign, and has a fun, cheesy story played by live actors in between the missions.

If you really want to see the beginning stages of the genre, you could try Dune II, but in that case I'd recommend looking for mods that update the interface and allow for a higher resolution.

[Guyra]

I would suggest playing C&C, and then C&C:RA. Those, along with C&C: Tiberian Sun, are the best C&C games to date, in my opinion.

And as for AoEII vs AoEIII, go for AoEII. They even made a version with updated graphics available on Steam earlier this year. It's a fantastic game - highly recommended for multiplayer!

Also, don't forget to try out Starcraft.

[Daltone]

Hang on, isn't this also in the Classic Computer Gaming bit?

[Smack2k]

Yes,

Was tryign to find a way to remove it from here as it was really for the Computer thread....