Nice to hear from someone who played it back then! If you try the remake, tell us how it compares to your memories.

they had also win 95 version for Z.. later it was also ported to mobiles and modern pc on steam

I had a look at the wiki page for the Bitmap Brothers, and it looks like Z was only released on MS-DOS, and I probably still had an Atari ST or Amiga at that point, which might explain the gap.

z (first one) was really a masterpiece rts for its time, very original concept of flags and terrirotires and great humor

level 16 is featured in Openz.. the trick is to win the early heavy tank vs heavy tank duel on the road between two forts

I remember it fondly for the funny cutscenes and the game's difficulty. Even though I always liked RTS games, I was never good at them. I never passed Z's damn 16th level.

I played it loads back in the day and loved it, I also picked it up recently with intent to play it but havent properly got around to it yet.

I didn't realise there was a fan remake though, I'll definitely be checking that out at some point!

For some reason, I seem to have totally missed this one - I remember the Bitmap Brothers of course, the "Rock stars of the Computer Game world".

I played a tonne of Xenon 1&2, Speedball 1&2 and Chaos Engine, but seem to have completely missed this one!

What do you mean? No it's not. And the original WC3 automatically downloads a > 30GB patch (for a < 3GB game) when connecting to Battlenet and doesn't run as smooth as the original, despite still showing original graphics.

If you don’t like the updates, the classic game is still available on Battle.Net. Though I will say I’m not a huge fan of the always online requirement for single player.

Let's not normalize shoving an unsolicited update down people's throat that only degrades their previous game and ups hardware requirements by 1000% in an attempt to sell you their shitty new product, their worst RTS yet.

Yea sorry to disappoint you, I put that in the body text but I guess I should put it in the title

Not a RTS.

I shouldn’t really have an opinion on this game yet as I’m only on the last mission of the prologue, but I’m having a lot of fun with the new campaign in Reforged. The updated “updated” graphics are great. I’m really loving the elf priest hero, though I don’t think he is available in a standard game.

I do wish the game didn’t require you to be online to play.

Cozy + RTS feels incompatible considering the entire genre is known for being constant pressure. But:

• Creeper World only requires setting up an initial defensive position, and everything else after can be done at a leisurely pace. (Might have changed with CW4, because some maps may have threat-increasing stacks, and because the creep can splash over some fortifications.
• Dungeon Keeper, which has more focus on building a lair rather than dealing with constant enemy attacks.

Cozy since you can probably let these games run for a bit without having to worry about getting your progress lost.

Command and Conquer, any up to RA3

If we considering city building games as RTS then its would be TheoTown (pc version). Its also has mods and multiplayer

Eh, after the reforged fiasco, and wanting to give more spotlight to fucking Mary Suelvanas, I'm not even cautiously optimistic, I'm just expecting stuff to be bad.

I'm more interested in WoW forever and whatever they might be planning for Starcraft, that trailer was fucking awesome

Being always online is a hard nope from me. Which is a shame, because a lot of the other stuff they're doing seems good.

This actually sounds fantastic. If the worst thing about the game is the risk that it might be concentrating too much on competitive play at the expense of casual and single-player, that could be a problem for the game's longevity, but it is still so much worse than some other problems with the game could have been.

The tournament calendar he mentions.

Which first time?

I find none of the developments surprising because it's basically the same rollercoaster as the first time around.

Those madlads actually did it.

For context: back in early 2024 at the "New Year, New Age" event, World's Edge had big announcements across the franchise, including announcing two new aoe3 civs would be coming at the end of that year. They didn't name them, but showed the Danish flag and an old Polish-Lituanian Commonwealth flag.

Then in early 2025 they said "sorry, that was overly ambitious". And said that actually no, the announced DLC had been cancelled, and in fact so had future development for aoe3. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

But for the past few months, Steam DB watchers have seen updates coming to aoe3: DE. Within the last 48 hours, one of the devs was even spotted on Discord playing the game. There's been much speculation, with some suggesting it's hopium.

Well today, those who kept faith have been rewarded!

This is cool but I think it needs to have cloud saves to compare it to Plex.

I'd consider something like this if it also had the ability to keep track of and update game versions. Although I don't think that's realistic to consider at the moment.