Maximum PC

Alright, so I've dedicated major time to Starcraft 2 since it's release last July. Lately though, I've had the desire to try out many more RTS games over the summer and see if any other major titles interest me, especially Tactical style RTS. I've played the Starcraft series, Age of Empires 2, and the C&C Generals series. However I've never played any of Relic's RTS games, and I'm debating whether I should try out CoH or DoW2 (I may just end up getting both).

The biggest thing I'm looking for though is a break from the traditional RTS basebuild and try out more of a tactical experience. It seems that all of Relic's games fit that bill, but between their most recent titles, which game do you prefer for overall quality? I am most interested in a casual experience where I can play large-scale 4v4 type multiplayer modes or something like a survival mode. Dawn of War 2 seems to have a much larger fan-base these days since it's more recent, but all I really care about is gameplay and the abilty to find a few matches online.

Any suggestions based on experience? Thanks

Go with CoH first to give you a break away from the scifi part of it, and then later play DoW, otherwise you're not as likely to enjoy DoW so much. Both are great though.

I honestly say that Relics best RTS were the homeworld franchise. Getting games in those now is a bit difficult though.....

Can't get much less of a base game though. All you had was a mothership, resource collectors, and maybe some carriers later on. Everything else was individual units, a true 3D map, and the infinite usefulness of hyperspace. How I wish relic would go back to their roots and make a 3rd one (without broken net code when it ships, like HW2 had...)

I have never had the chance to experience Homeworld sadly. It looks fun from what I've seen though. What confuses me though is how, in 2006, magazines declared Company of Heroes a masterpiece and the future of RTS games. Yet with the release of SC2, everybody seemed to totally forget about Tactical RTS and sing praises to basebuilding. Did people suddenly decide they liked traditional RTS better afterall? I can't speak from experience though...yet.

I will say Starcraft 2 is amazingly fun but a bit too addicting, very frustrating and tends to lose its luster when you get caught up in perfecting build orders, advancing through ladder, etc. I think Starcraft 2 is much better and more noob-friendly then Brood War was though. Lots of pros in SC2 now complain about SC2 requiring less macro/micro skills, but I'm sorry... Brood War's design screamed disaster and felt incredibly stupid when I first played it. The fact that I had to babysit my base and assign each SCV to a different mineral once they were produced seemed redundant. Pro's need to realize if Blizzard totally made the game to their standards and made macro require a master's degree in APM reflexes, it wouldn't be worth average joe's like you and me wasting our time to simply win ladder matches.

I still enjoy Starcraft 2 for those reasons mentioned, but am really interested to see if totally throwing out basebuilding would be more to my liking. I wish Dawn of War and Company of Heroes had bigger fanbases and competition, but I guess eliminating basebuilding does close the gap between the very best pro's and the noobs. I would like to see somemore innovation down the road ala Homeworld and CoH.

I'm also going to have to say that the two Homeworld games were their best RTS games, and one of the best RTS overall. I can't get HW2 to work with my Vista though

If you don't want base-build, then DoW2.

Personally, I find that limiting, but to each their own.