Post
Build the base, manage the economy, control the army, and do all of it faster than the other person can think.
RTS games turn strategy into real-time pressure by combining economy, production, scouting, map control, and combat without waiting for turns. They are mechanically demanding because decision-making and execution are inseparable. Great RTS play looks like a human running six departments at once.
Example
StarCraft, Warcraft, Age of Empires, Company of Heroes, and Supreme Commander all capture different scales and textures of RTS design.
Why it matters
RTS helped define competitive PC gaming and gave the industry a vocabulary for macro versus micro, build orders, and information control that still shapes multiplayer design elsewhere.
Related concepts