well Empire Earth II was mediocre and Empire Earth III was garbage so let's just pretend they never existed

Oh hell yes. Empire Earth is the real deal.

NO FUCKING TOTAL WAR????????

I love Dune II. It's still my most favourite RTS game until today and that's mainly because I played it in 1993, soon after its release. As Dune II was one of the first RTS games ever created, I hadn't played anything like it before. The game mechanics felt so fresh and different from anything else, it blew me away and the new RTS genre became one of my favourites.

For me the Dune franchise doesn't count as RTS series though, as only Dune II became a classic (the first Dune wasn't a RTS game, Dune 2000 was just a Dune II remake, Emperor: Battle for Dune seems to be a game not only I haven't played).

So from the franchises listed my vote goes to Age of Empires as like the series a bit more than Warcraft and much more than C&C.

For some reason I never really liked Starcraft and never finished it. There, I said it.

I want to mention one series though (if we can call the two games a series), which I like even more than AoE and Warcraft and which comes very close to Dune II in my RTS ranking: Dungeon Keeper.

I played Dune II back in 1993 as well. Good times.
I agree with what you said about Dune II feeling 'fresh'. It was a revolutionary concept!

Thank you VGChartz for voting Age of Empires.

That franchise must be revived as soon as possible.

Age of Empires IV will logically take place in the 19th and 20th century, but that's too modern for me. My big hope is that they revisit the ancient times and the Middle Ages.

How about "Age of Empires IV - Dinosour Kingdoms" ?

I'd buy it!

I dunno, it wouldn't involve any humans?

But it would really be ancient times lol, so yeah I'd buy it!

^ humans and dinosaurs co-existed you know. What do they learn kids at school today? :p

Age of Empires.