RTS/4X Games Recommendations?

[Ryoku]

Lately I've been playing a lot of RTS, or 4x games.

For those of you, who don't know, RTS means Real-Time Strategy. So you're issuing out commands, and dealing with the consequences and spoils of your actions, on the fly, and strategize to win.

As far as games go,

I've played -

Sins of a Solar Empire (Gifted)
Civ 5
Supreme Commander 2
Tropico 3 (I think)

Anyway,

I'm looking for recommendations. I know Endless Legend is a highly touted RTS game, so I'm looking to get that whenever it goes on sale, somewhere.

(Have not tried any of the Warhammer games)

[Splat]

There's always Starcraft c:

[Rha'az]

Dawn of War. Try it as well as its expansions.

Total War series is a good one. Try Shogun 2 but not Rome 2, the latter is an utter dissappointment.

Company of Heroes.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert

[Ryoku]

Starcraft's ehhhhh.

If it was on steam, maybe, but we all know that won't happen with Blizzard keeping their own stuff to themselves.

[Ryoku]

Dawn of War. Try it as well as its expansions.

Total War series is a good one. Try Shogun 2 but not Rome 2, the latter is an utter dissappointment.

Company of Heroes.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert

I just bought Dawn of War II: Retribution (hopefully you were talking about the Warhammer franchise.)

[Rha'az]

Yes. It was part of the WH40k universe.

[Eddren]

Both Star-Drives were good.
The first one had some very in-depth ship engineering, the second one was more streamlined and less in-depth, but had fewer abusable mechanics.
Polaris Sector, awesome game, features massive galaxies, some kind of meh politics, a unique look at resources, and less disadvantages for actually expanding (once you know what you're doing.)
Distant Worlds: Universe. Super duper in-depth, more freedom building ships and such, massive tech trees, intelligent AI, interesting interactions, varieties of strategy depending on the size of the galaxy and difficulty.
Endless Legend: Fantasy setting. Streamlined, but also very deep gameplay. Features an interesting concept for city expansion, factions that completely alter gameplay.
Endless Space: Like Endless Legend, but in space and also super cool.
Crusader Kings 2: Technically NOT 4X, but sort of RTS, very much a deep medieval political/military simulator, where your moves might not always be waging war, but could be centuries of building alliances and assassinating foes.

[Jarms48]

Command & Conquer: Tiberium Universe - don't play Tiberium Twilight it is notorious for ruining the franchise.

Command & Conquer Red Alert Universe - the wacky, alternate Cold War goes hot setting.

Command & Conquer: Generals Universe - only the single game and single expansion, but solid mechanics and fun gameplay, it also has some great mods Shockwave is the first that comes to mind.

Age of Empires Series: II & III were my personal favourites. II added and improved upon the mechanics of the first. Whilst III brought the setting into the Enlightenment era, with Colonial powers and Native nations fighting over the New World.

Rise of Nations: An excellent combination of Age of Empires and Civilization. Every nation has a unique ability and unique units, but instead of the turn based gameplay they've moved it into real time. There's unique resources that offer buffs (similar to luxury/strategic resources), Nations maintain borders which dictate were your citizens can build buildings and also debuffs enemy units in later eras (this can be negated by some units). Overall it's a very full game. It's expansion adds numerous "Conqueror the World" scenarios.

DOW: Offering base building and an alternative economy to many RTS games at the time. You build bases, have to capture and hold points to maintain your economy, and the story is alright for 40K beginners.

DOW II: This removes the base building aspect of the first, instead focusing more on combat and more RPG mechanics (though this one mainly applies to the campaign). Still a great game, though its final expansion Retribution was pretty lackluster.

Total War Series: It has two types of gameplay, a global map (similar to Civ) and real time engagements. The main selling point of the series is its historical settings and the scale of battle. Where you control hundreds to thousands of soldiers. The best games of the series, in my opinion, are Shogun 2 with all expansions, Medieval 2, and Napoleon.

Starcraft I & II: One of the grandfathers of RTS. Good mechanics and a decent sci-fi story.

Company of Heroes I & II: The original is probably my favourite of the two, it has several compelling stories and very well thought out, alternate mechanics to the RTS genre. It takes place in WWII with American, British and German campaigns. One of the only times I've ever really scene a German campaign and it was portrayed very well, these were merely German soldiers fighting for their country. Its sequel brings the Russians into the mix, but its campaign and game mechanics have taken a step back, not forward.

Tom Clancy's End War: A very paper-rock-scissors RTS game. It doesn't have much in the way of story, basically the EU, US and Russian start WWIII and you choose of the sides to fight for.

That's all I can really think of for now, I have dozens of them, but I don't think they're all on Steam. Some of them I'd consider Relics, haha.

[Kaptain Panty]

Sword of the stars is real good I hear, if you can get it working. You'll have to use mods I believe, as the base game is a horrible mess of bugs since the publishers never got the chance to finish it before the rights were whisked away.

Warcraft 3's + the expansion is pretty decent. It's pretty easy to find and doesn't cost much of anything in stores, base games pretty good and theirs a crapton of custom maps that get played, and are still supported and being made to this day. Some of them are real impressive too, saw a map that a guy had managed to basically make top-down Dark souls.

Spell force: Order of dawn is another sort of meh RTS, but it still had the cool thing of making your own hero guy who fought along with the dudes you could make, so it was kinda cool.

All I can think of off the top of my head.

[Ryoku]

I've looked around, and I've bought

Dawn of War II
Endless Space: Emperor Edition

And after a closer look, I also own Total War: Shogun 2.

Will definitely buy more RTS games, thanks to these recommends.

[Jarms48]

Total War Shogun II & its expansion Fall of the Samurai are my favourite games of the Total War series.