MP RTS games

[DrSpike]

Most reviews of games still just tack on a quick statement about how the game fares in MP. It seems to me that with boradband becoming more prevalent all over the world (and players getting increasingly disullsioned with playing the AI) MP capabilities will increasingly become a bigger criterion on which games will be judged. I'm posting this thread because I've just got broadband and want to start playing more MP games. I am a hardcore strategy gamer, but more TBS than RTS. However RTS is more suitable for MP gaming, and against humans most of my reasons for disliking RTS apply less.

So, I would like to get some opinions from gamers here about the best (ie most balanced, most need for skill) MP RTS games. Of the older games I see from browsing forums in gamespy that TA, Starcraft and Sudden Strike still have quite a few active players. Of more recent games I see that Stronghold and Cossacks have a fair few players. I also have AOE2, which seems to be really popular.

Any comments on any of these games? How do they compare in gameplay? Which offer the best strategic challenges?

 

[damunzy]

Well, I am a Starcraft/Broodwar devotee, so if you ever want to play and you are up my weird hours, let's get it on! I feel that broodwar has a great balance between the 3 races, has a lot of troops, while at the same time doesn't have too many kinds of troops. Games such as TA had way to way troops, and most of them became useless.

 

[Dell19]

I would play you at Age of empires 2 but it will be difficult to arrange a time and I no longer have the latest patches. Also I only have a 56k modem.