actual RTS

1. Supreme Commander Forged Alliance

2. Demigod

3. Empire Total War

4. Red Alert 3

5. Battleforge

lgendary RTS

1. Star Craft

2. Total Annihilation

3. WarCraft3 TFT

4. C&C Tiberium Conflict

5. C&C Generals

I like the sequels of these because they are the ones I have, if anyone wants an online game in either of them im up for it

For me:

1. Starcraft (Best and most strategic RTS ever made).

2. Supreme Commander Forged Alliance (Wouldn't have died if GPG decided to support it).

3. Demigod (Great game, I have a ton of fun playing it).

4. Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment (The only problem with this franchise is that games take WAY TOO LONG).

5. Company of Heroes (Revolutionary for it's time).

1. Dawn Of War (with expansions)

2. Demigod

3. Supreme Commander Forged Alliance

4. StarCraft

5. maybe Rise of Legends

1. Rise of Nations/Thrones & Patriots

I love this game I still play it often, this is what the age of empires games should have been, great depth, excellent meld of turn based meta on the map and real time.  So many features like the unit time with change the different bonuses per country, cards with bonuses, etc...a great game.

2. Star Trek Armada II

ONe of the few times I like the sequel more than the original, in particular the simplification of the crew/officer reasource, there was just a bit too much complexity in the economy of the first one for my personal tatstes.  One of the only 3D rts out there, an excellent map creation / mod tool allowing for even full mission/senario creation, some of the best unit AI I have ever had the joy of playing with/against, and  a good mix of varied races.

3. Dawn of War up to Dark Crusade

Brutality, brought gratuitous violence from fps to rts as well as introduced many new features to the rts market, varible cover, moral ( a favorite mechanic), and a fast paced almost twitch style of forced expanison with its innovative reasource system.  Unfortunatly the cameras low ceiling can be frustrating, THQ's support for it (patches, extra content) sux/ non existent, and its sequel took a great start and dumbed it down while slappoing prety graphics on it.

4.  Star Wars Empire at War & Forces of Coruption

A veyr fun game to play if a bit exausting with the amount of well managmet involoved; the main thing that drags this lower on the list is the ground portion of the game, maps are very repetive, units not as dynamic as for the space battles.

5. Sins of A solar Empire

Innovative, massive scale

however it does have some major cons that drag ti down for me and I hope to see improved in the future as I beleivce the engine has a lot of potential: Very long game times for the most part, can be a drag would like to see jsut a straight up fleet combat option added like in EOW where you can skip empire building and just smash some heads if in a less patient mood, NO CAMPAGIN AND SHALLOW STORY LINE, a real bummer for me becuase I like immersion in my games, low production value on intro and avatars, fell kinda tacked on and out of place in a game with 3d models to have 2d avatars slaped on, and last but by no means least, the lack of a true 3d implementation for combat and building.  A good start, and a good company, but the game fell short for me.

Honorable mentions

Supreme Commander

a good prrof of concept of seemless zoom and various managment tools, but its bugs on relese, lack of difference between factions (there basically all te same with diff paint jobs), and run of the mill storyline ruin what could have been a great succesor to total anhilation.

Starcraft

Good Campaign, fairly good balance, seriously overhyped though

Command and Counquer (entire franchise)

I really enjoy its slick interface and its a good pary game but wish some more depth and strategy would be mixed in

In no particualar order, some of my favorites:

• The original C&C and Red Alert. Great games .
• Red Alert 3 - kinda. It's a bit over the top with the superweapons, though. There are too many things that there is really no defense against. I feel more like it's a rush to nuke everything first than a real strategy game.
  
• Sins of a Solar Empire, although it takes too long to play.
• Age of Empires games in general are of very good quality .
• Homeworld games . Some of the best space RTS games, with outstanding visuals that really give you a huge sense of scale. Although they could've done without the "you carry your old fleet into the next level" stuff, which can sometimes kill you in the next level .
• Starcraft, of course.

1. Act of War

2. Dawn of War

3. Homeworld 2

4. Sins of a Solar Empire

5. Company of Heroes

I still remember the first mission where the Taiidan destroyer first shows up.. capturing it was a huge pain, but so worth it

1. Medieval II: Total War. Annoyances aside, this is awesome RTS. I personally don't like to have to constantly deal with units streaming from factories. You have what you have, and you have to be a tactician instead of a spammer.

2. Sins of a Solar Empire. Yes, this is more of a spam game, but it is still amazing and very well done.

3. Star Wars: Empire at War. The land battles sucked, but the space battles were awesome and a lot of fun. All the Star Wars action without the annoying breaks for talking.

4. Command and Conquer 3 and the Battle for Middle Earth games. I put these into one number because they are basically the same game in different shells. You can tell by the gameplay and skirmish set-ups. I haven't played C&C 3 in ages because the big jump in difficulty between AI levels is really annoying.

5. Can't think of a fifth RTS, though I should try one. I might get Company of Heroes or something like that. I am also "trying" Homeworld 2.

That is true, but the RTS elements are great, even though the AI is lame.

1 - Total Annihilation - It broke onto the RTS scene as the zenith of perfection, and is still pretty much at the very top of the pile. It introduced so many new things that completely shaped modern RTS games...and they all worked!

2 - Supreme Commander - Ok mister Taylor, you are the RTS god. Any game that doesn't have strategic zoom just doesn't feel good enough to me now. Thousands of units for the closest true strategy game around.

3 - Dune 2 - Not the first, but definately the most memorable of all early RTS's laying the foundation for what was to come (eep, Sandworm, harversters to the rocks!!!).

4 - Sins - great graphics, large scale (with a strategic zoom!), all the best elements of 4x games such as research and tech trees etc but at a slower pace so you could actually think and strategize rather than spam clicking.

5 - Dawn of War - Took RTS games into the POC era. If only for the sync-kills this game deserves a place.

Honourable mention for the RTS cousins the RTT games. Mech Commander and World in Conflict especially. And Dark Reign... a forgotten RTS gem.

And death to Starcraft. It was imbalanced on release, offered nothing new to the genre and took years to get working well...by which time it was out of date. Fun sure, but popularity doesn't equate to all time greatness.

here's mine-

1. Sins

2. Dune 2000 (it's old and the campaign is short for all 3 factions, but it's great fun)

3. DoW/- DK (demo, as I've only played that and the Space Marines/Tau are awesome)

4. I have to say that I enjoyed the CnC3 demo, so I think that it would certainly be a good skirmish game.

5. probably additional CnC titles, as I haven't played much RTS, mostly just FPS like the Battlefield series (Vietnam was the best if you ask me), and CoD4 (which I thought was scanty for the SP), and a couple of others, like the OLD Quake 2 (DIE STROGG!! LOL), and then I've played a couple of arcadish-style space flight sims that were fun.