One of my best experiences with the RTS genre was Age of Empires 2 and one of the more entertaining aspects of AoE 2 (in my opinion) was building ginormous walls all over the place. Admittedly I haven't kept 100% up to date with RTS's in the last year but I can't remember the last time you could build walls, roads, or defenses of any kind besides the occasional point defense (ok, Supreme Commander but I barely count those walls because they were like building a tissue paper fortress).

This brings me to my wish: I'd like to see an RTS where you can change the environment to a greater degree. Walls are great, ditches would be fun, roads to speed up travel movement, I dunno, anything. I was a big Soulstorm player up until a couple months ago and the one constant with my gameplay was how bored I got with the different maps because after a while you find the perfect cap order, attack from the optimum angle, attack the same resource point for the 200th time and it just gets old. If you could plop a wall around it, close up an opening in a hill that is used for a path or blow a new opening through an existing hill to attack through it would put a little more challenge into maps that have gotten stale.

Destructible environments are possible in FPS's, why not RTS's?

Medieval II: Total War is more of a CIV/Tactical RTS hybrid but you can build walls...

That's probably not what you're looking for though...

There's a US south border sim, but your walls don't work...

RA3 has some walls in it.

You can build walls in AoE3 too, but elastic defense works better than static defense. It's the difference between blitzkrieg and the Maginot Line.

Log Dropper M.D.:
Medieval II: Total War is more of a CIV/Tactical RTS hybrid but you can build walls...

That's probably not what you're looking for though...

You're more focused on bringing down the walls when you are seeing them up close anyway.

In Age of Mythology you could build walls and guards towers and such. Said walls were little more than a way to slow down enemy troops as you could not man the walls in the way of Medieval 2 Total War. Siege combat was mostly just "Knock down walls, bash in structures, slaughter populace". That old chestnut.

Strong Hold is what your looking for me thinks.

Now I want to go play Age of Mythology, build the Great Wall.

Lord of the Rings : Battle for Middle Earth 2 (I didn't play one, but it may apply as well) also has some fantastic walls, the game plays decently too.

Company of Heroes anyone? You get sandbags, tank traps and barbed wire in that bad boy.

I think you're right though, especially in RTS with large melee components static defense can be quite interesting and useful without tying up troops. Thats what annoyed me about WC3, you could put your towers in the best choke points, but unless you had troops backing them up against any moderate size group of enemies they just got taken down. Suppose I was playing it the wrong way.

Age of Empires 3 had nice walls. I liked the feature of building non-isometrically.

I agree with Baron ash. Stronghold is excellent when it comes to walls.

Armitage Shanks:
Company of Heroes anyone? You get sandbags, tank traps and barbed wire in that bad boy.

I think you're right though, especially in RTS with large melee components static defense can be quite interesting and useful without tying up troops. Thats what annoyed me about WC3, you could put your towers in the best choke points, but unless you had troops backing them up against any moderate size group of enemies they just got taken down. Suppose I was playing it the wrong way.

I was gonna say CoH too, nothing is funner than building a great defensive line of sandbags, barbed wire, bunkers, and anti-tank obstacles just to have a King Tiger roll through them all.

Funny how as soon as someone mentions RTSs I immediately think CoH. Probably because its my favorite RTS ever?

Funny: I would have posted a few seconds ago but my cat walked over my keyboard and next think I knew I was typing in Russian...Good thing my internet connection is fast so I could get back since I had to close explorer to fix it. And if anyone knows what my cat pressed to start typing in Russian I'd like to know...

Arma, were u can, with a little patience, build your own entire base from lots of differant things...and then forget to save it.

Count_de_Monet:
This brings me to my wish: I'd like to see an RTS where you can change the environment to a greater degree. Walls are great, ditches would be fun, roads to speed up travel movement, I dunno, anything. I was a big Soulstorm player up until a couple months ago and the one constant with my gameplay was how bored I got with the different maps because after a while you find the perfect cap order, attack from the optimum angle, attack the same resource point for the 200th time and it just gets old. If you could plop a wall around it, close up an opening in a hill that is used for a path or blow a new opening through an existing hill to attack through it would put a little more challenge into maps that have gotten stale.

Destructible environments are possible in FPS's, why not RTS's?

Company of Heroes has destructable environments. Mortar bombs, grenades, tank shells, artillery and satchel charges can all create ditches and hidey holes for your soldiers, and often do. Vehicles move noticbly faster on roads and closed surfaces than grass or mud. Sandbags, tank traps, land mines and barbed wire can all be put up on the fly. Really cool thing is that tank shells and gunfire don't move over raises in elevation. They just fire staight into the hill.

Clearly the game you are looking for is Company of Heroes

And I totally am not wearing an "I *heart* Company of Heroes" T-shirt right now. Nor an obsession with the Crocodile Tank.

Novajam:

Count_de_Monet:
This brings me to my wish: I'd like to see an RTS where you can change the environment to a greater degree. Walls are great, ditches would be fun, roads to speed up travel movement, I dunno, anything. I was a big Soulstorm player up until a couple months ago and the one constant with my gameplay was how bored I got with the different maps because after a while you find the perfect cap order, attack from the optimum angle, attack the same resource point for the 200th time and it just gets old. If you could plop a wall around it, close up an opening in a hill that is used for a path or blow a new opening through an existing hill to attack through it would put a little more challenge into maps that have gotten stale.

Destructible environments are possible in FPS's, why not RTS's?

Company of Heroes has destructable environments. Mortar bombs, grenades, tank shells, artillery and satchel charges can all create ditches and hidey holes for your soldiers, and often do. Vehicles move noticbly faster on roads and closed surfaces than grass or mud. Sandbags, tank traps, land mines and barbed wire can all be put up on the fly. Really cool thing is that tank shells and gunfire don't move over raises in elevation. They just fire staight into the hill.

Clearly the game you are looking for is Company of Heroes

And I totally am not wearing an "I *heart* Company of Heroes" T-shirt right now. Nor an obsession with the Crocodile Tank.

Oh my god I must have that shirt. And have I mentioned how I won that one game having built only Marders for the last 3/4 of the game? Well, except for 2 kettenkrads to capture CPs. It was pretty sick.

The destructable environments in CoH were absolutely fantastic. I loved playing long games where the centre of the map invariably turned into a flat, scorched scar littered with tank husks.

The tactical possibilities it opened up were immense, too. Enemy base too heavily defended? MAKE ANOTHER ROUTE.

Pure love.

Stronghold was very good at this.
Walls, moats, hidden pitch you could light with fire arrows, hidden traps, towers, tower defenses, wall mounted defenses, boiling oil...
Never buy Stronghold 2 though, the game was broken.
Walls were as strong as cardboard, the AI was stupid but psychic so if there was a tiny hole in the back of your stronghold because of a tree you didn't know about, then the entire invading army would just walk around and squeeze through it, killing your lord anyway.

World in Conflict.

While the enviroments wernt 100% destructable they gave a lovely sence of war ripping up the countryside.

The Iron Ninja:
I agree with Baron ash. Stronghold is excellent when it comes to walls.

Oh yes, now thats a good game.

Hmmmmm I think I'll re-install it to my laptop.

Fist the spearmen then mace men to get rid of pit and clear a parth for pikemen, now the knights for the castle walls.......