Warcraft 3
Pros:
High production value in pretty much everything (in classic) still unmatched to this day in terms of macro/micro composite skill complexity. Units have usable skills but only the heros level up - and can buy items. In terms of feature rich depth this is still the king imo. Before reforged the custom game lobby was home to the original DOTA ALLSTARS (those were the days)
Cons:
Armies are real smol, like 10 units most of the time. so this never really gets that grand battle feeling of other games, obviously this could be a pro if you prefer an army which has like a quarter of the units in other RTS games which field larger battles. Reforged is unfortunately a downgrade from battle.net and has abysmal matchmaking algorithms.
BFME2 Return Of The Witch King
Pros:
Extraordinary production value is almost on par with warcraft 3 - they got all the voice actors from the movies! Nothing leading urakai into battle with soroman or raising the army of the dead with aragorn. The counter system is straightfoward and every single unit/squad gains experience and levels up with kills. Field relatively large armies of around 100- 200 troops at a time AND use god-ish powers upon the field of battle (such as shining down “the eye” or starting an earthquake. Features the same creep mechanics as WC3 minus items/inventories. For team games this is hands down the best overall RTS experience. Plus you only need 2-4 workers which is refreshing (income comes from buildings). And most importantly, you can zoom way out and see more than in most other RTS games.
Cons:
The competetive online multiplayer community is somewhat small and underground, the platform used to host held up entirely by crowdfunding so off-hours may have just a handful of games going at any given time. There are certain aspects cough such as the infamous high elf great eagle which seem a little out of place are arent fun to play against - but thankfully people know this and just avoid picking high elf in team games for more fun or ban it outright.
Starcraft 2
Pros:
The most heavily tuned competitive RTS on the market with 3 entirely unique species to play as which have almost nothing in common. Gameplay is smooth, crisp and optimized. The competitive scene is unmatched in the RTS realm so if youve got the patience to get really great you can be a grand champion in Esports some day. Custom game lobbies are poppin with all sorts of unique ways to play, and theres a co-op mode!
For people who dislike the unit complexities of other games, such as leveling up and item inventories, this game offers a far more simplistic and polished approach.
Cons:
It may be a con for some as to the simplicity of the game on its surface and armies are relatively small within 10-40 units typically. the camera is very zoomed in and requires so much panning that people have come up with a hotkey system to jump to areas of the map which could honestly be taken as a whole if the camera was zoomed out, which would have alleviated the need for arthritis-inducing APM to even play the game normally. Many of the systems in Sc2 are meant to challenge speed similar to how a typing test challenges words per miniute albeit there are indeed some people who prefer this sort of thing over more mechanically optimized RTS games such as C&C Kanes Wrath.
C&C Kanes Wrath
Pros:
The king of micro-heavy gameplay. An entirely unique take on RTS resource management which -indebts- you to the units you purchase as theyre built instead of the lump sum cost of every other RTS game,and requires far fewer workers to macro only a single resourse type, allowing you to spend your focus on the ultra-high speed battles where early/mid game units die almost instantly to their counters with only the slow moving hunky endgame units with any staying power. Features two highly unique human factions and a third alien faction, all with several subfactions. Battles can feel grand when fielding armies of 60-100 units ranging from infantry squads, tanks, and even swarms of alien insects which are all firing rockets/lasers/railguns ect to create the coolest looking battlescape of any RTS to date.
Cons:
Very tiny underground online community of players to play with on a platform held up entirely by crowdfunding. Extremely unforgiving for new players who may never even last longer than 4 mins since the game is extremely fast paced and micro heavy. Team games are poorly optimized unfortunately as the game recieved very little polish over time, but hey im glad i got to play this on the 360 back in its hayday!
Age of Empires 2&4
Pros:
This is the macro kingpin with four resource types to manage. Lots of thematic variety and quirky (in a good way) audio production. To me it is a pro that this RTS does not feature Flying units, which means walls actually play a larger part than any other RTS game. The micro is very slow paced and games are much longer and in many cases more satisfying than other RTS games when taking into account most matches will last around 10-30 mins on average with lots of oppertunity to outhink your opponent - youll find an older crowd here even in the e-sport scene where the top player is a 34 year old dudebro in aoe4. amies in 4 are large enough to feel massive at times (up to like 120 units-ish) especially in team games or FFA. Has the best FFA gameplay hands down (actualy thought put into it).
Cons:
Suffers the same camera zoom symptom of starcraft 2 in a game which would greatly benefit from a more zoomed out camera angle, leading to copius amounts of panning or hotkeying map sections. Some RNG based maps, while refreshing, can be a huge bane if you get a “bad spawn”, these are also featured on ladder and tournements beleive it or not. Armies in 2 are small but that game is ancient, armies in 4 are large enough to feel massive at times (up to like 120 units-ish) especially in team games or FFA. Has the best FFA gameplay hands down (actualy thought put into it). Team games are typically a steamroll and 1v1 leans on whatever FOTM meta is which can be a pro depending on how you look at it (slowly and ever evolving meta) which can at times be very bad like someothing being absolutely overpowered.