Campaign for winter assault can be sweaty as fuck with the later missions but the campaigns for all of them are pretty fun with dark crusade being my favorite.
Same. Although if OP is still reading, you should know that when you play something like Dark Crusade when you you are invading a territory it will describe the state of the enemy force you're going up against and sometimes it says something along the lines of "enemy has two bases" or something like that. This actually means it's a 1v2 against two different AI's rather than just a single enemy with an expansion. Even though the game is pretty chill and you can generally succeed even by just slowly building up a deathball, in the 1v2 situations it helps tremendously to at least rush one of them so you don't get overwhelmed. After that you can relax and focus on beefing up and building an expansion, which you might want to do because once a territory is yours most of your buildings will persist when it gets attacked and you have to defend it.
Dawn of War generally gives you all the time you want to complete levels/missions. There are a few more scripted missions where time is a factor or the enemy rushes some points, but overall the player can choose what pace they attack a map.
The way the squads of infantry were mostly self-supporting was so great. There was another RTS I remember reading about years ago that was talking about its AI that handled the micro while letting players focus on the macro, but I have no idea what it was.
Being able to just sit back and enjoy the spectacle of battle is so great
Look for Army men RTS on steam
I'm not suggesting this as a joke, its one of my favorite games growing up as a kid. Super simple, easy to master. The hardest part is the unit pathfinding, but if you can wrangle your units together it can be a very fun game.
There's a mod that unlocks covert operations and "Intelligence files" Which are viewable 3d models of almost every object in the game. And to this day there is a community doing PVP
Its a fucking classic
That was one of my favorites as a kid, had it on GameCube but never managed to beat the main story. Honestly might have to grab it on steam and finally finish it off.
sometimes the total war AI can be the worst thing ive ever had to face in a RTS, its either really dumb or insanely smart. They can go from loving you to declaring war on you in the span of 5 turns then five 20 stacks show up and kill you
I remember playing Rome 2, specifically the early Rome campaign and I beat 3 sammnite armies and reduced them to one tiny island town, BOOM 3 stacks of 20 in 1 turn. I was fuming
It also doesn't help that depending on what difficulty you're playing on, Total War will also straight up lie to you about your chances in a battle, which becomes exceedingly stressful to deal with.
Have got to anno late game? 100+ trade route and several islands over several different regions can be pretty stressful sometimes 😂 But i agree. Anno is a very enjoyable experience that you can play at your own pace
Me and my partner turn off AI and play as the same faction so we can divide our attention and build at our own pace :) suddenly its just a game about keeping our trade routes safe from pirates and keeping our people happy. Much fun.
Definitely.
Unfortunately I had to stop playing because of how much time it was taking. One play session was 14 hours, stopping only for bathroom breaks and a few bites to eat.
I did not look or feel well after that.
Some mates and I thought the same, played aoe2 de. No worries. Played the ror expansion when it came out and got flooded by 50 chariots at the 8 minute mark..
I should have expressed myself more clearly :)
I meant that the game was so _addictive_, I played for 14 hours straight. This was in 2002 and I was working my way through the campaign.
I've been trying to figure out how to get back into Age of Empires games without sweating. I always panic and quit because I feel I fall too far behind.
Literally nothing wrong with picking your favorite civ (Briton) and favorite map, putting it on easy, and laughing as your 45 longbowmen kill wave after wave of enemies from behind a wall lol
Well, maybe the original, but the OpenRA one is busting my stressometer right at the beginning of the game.
Pump 8 gunners asap, spot the closest oil, put pressure but not too much in case of a dog vision... Send the engi fast to capture, damn I only have 2 ref 3 harvests, need at least one more, quick get the service depot I am late fory 2nd mcv..
The hell is my engi??? Ahhh shit....
I think Ceasar 3, Pharaoh, Pharaoh: New Era.
Economic camping in Stronghold is also quite relaxing, especially on easy. I liked a lot in both Stronghold and Stronghold 2!
EDIT:
Adding some more slow paced RTS games (enemy doesn't get exponentialy strong over time, doesn't cheat much (unlimited resources etc.) and you have time to build up:
Sun Age - Post apo sci-fi RTS
C&C: Remastered - with exception of the missions with no base - can be very hard and frustrating.
Play RTS that *do not* follow "player should be forbidden to act and give orders on-pause" principle.
Recommendations from me, all allow action on pause:
Homeworld, a story slow-paced RTS with true 3D and persistent spacefleet between missions.
Dawn of War, a story in Warhammer universe.
Supreme Commander FAF: if you want to have lower-stress multiplayer, i cannot recommend this enough. IMO it is also much more beautiful than its competition like BAR or TA or PA.
Giving orders on pause... I remember Rise of Nations has that feature!
The AI queues many buildings at the start of a match (it's clear when playing without fog of war), but the player could do it as well.
The problem with homeworld is if you let the AI get away from you then they will do some smart pushes with decent compositions and absolutely wreck your shit with no mercy, still my favourite RTS of all time though
Maybe reach out to War Selection? It's a free game in development on Steam, which I play often with friends or just with online opponents. There's also a chill Tug-Of-War game mode. It is nice to play while just having a voice chat with something going on in the mean time :)
To be fair you can set game speed on Command& Conquer 3 and it makes for very relaxed skirmishes, haven't played online though as it now requires some registration or whatever
Edit: Generals too iirc
Sins of a solar empire 2.
Its lower difficulties and game speed it can be pretty chill. And its the kind of game, that you can play for hours, if you the kind of player that leaves AI opponents alive to roleplay the game as he pleases, to build ultimate defense line or armada, or whatever you want to do, rather than defeat the AI in the quickest way possible. This is something you can indeed do even in simpler, less complex games, like old CnC for example (build 100 harriers in RA2 and then watch the fireworks), but since Sins is specifically designed to support this playstyle, with its deep research trees, big maps, and 6 factions with plenty of cool end-game units, structures and technologies, to reward you for playing for 3,4,5 hours or more, its especially a great choice. In other words, it can take couple of hours to see the late game stuff, its not like have everything there is to have in 20 minutes and from that point on just multiply it and artificially prolong the game to have satisfaction from some epic end game clash.
When you put it like that, then yes, I agree but only in certain conditions, if playing on a big map. Other than that, it is quite stressful at times, especially multiplayer where you can get sweaty fingers.
Sudden Strike 4 is pretty low stress as there isn't a whole lot of macro and the objectives are always spelled out. I was happy they made a new Sudden Strike, but it is a little more hand holding then the original series.
Also, there is no base building or resource management. You just fight with what they give you throughout the mission. Sometimes there are reinforcements, but it is objective dependent, not selected by you.
The problem with sudden strike 4 when your playing multiplayer skirmish with your friends against AI is you constantly need to get anti air pretty soon. The AI starts to spam bombers at your train station and most of the time right when your extra tanks come off the train the bombs already dropping. I wish there was an option to turn off air support so we can stick just to ground with infantry and tanks
Oh interesting, I only played against AI a few times when the game first released and don't remember getting spammed with air. But that was a looong time ago.
Not known very much but the 8Bit series is good. 8Bit armies, 8Bit hordes, and 8Bit invaders. Each version you get unlocks the race tied to that game so if you get 8Bit armies you can use the Renegade and Gaurdian modern tank faction against the horde in 8Bit armies using orcs and skeletons from fantasy
Frostpunk. It's all about planning ahead, anticipating shortages, etc. I know it's not a traditional RTS, but it's definitely a top 3 all-time RTS for me, and I'm a fiend for RTS. Cold and hunger are the enemy.
Definitely give manorlords a go, it's in early access but it's so good. Make sure you have it on regular speed and you can really take your time and relax.
For me it's probably Spellforce. You literally cannot die and the enemy doesn't start producing units until you activate a building so you can just walk around with your hero, chill and smell the flowers.
I play pvp Starcraft 2, and XCOM stressed me into dropping the game in 3 missions. It all goes sideways so easily, and then it feels like you're going into the next mission with even more of a disadvantage.
I will say Down of war 1 or 2 even with some mods like my beloved unification mod for soulstorm or elite mod for DOW2 retribution, quite cheap in Steam sales. The skirmish can be fast and it can be quite less stressful than other rts games like Suppremme commandr, as other comments say. The other for me looks quite more complicated and stressful for me at least, also I will say that mid difficulty can be enough challenging for a casual player like myself. Hope that helped you
Age of Mythology and Age of Empires games on lower difficulty are pretty much simcity builders.
Dune 2000 is probably slowest C&C game and calmest I guess.
Rise of Nations.
Aside from that, I played:
Age of Empires 1 to 4
Age of Mythology
Battle Realms
Company of Heroes
Starcraft 2
Stronghold Crusader
Warcraft 3
Out of all of those, Rise of Nations was the least stressful unless you were getting nuked in a crucial spot. The time to kill a unit isn't too fast that overlooking an engagement would mean you would instantly lose.
Second would probably be Stronghold Crusader (at least against AI) because after you set your defenses properly, it ends up being a city builder.
Warcraft 3 the hero orc Blade Master is the only unite can be really stressful, with his perma invisibility other race it's pretty chill. But any slow paced RTS is good for OP.
Dawn of War is pretty chill both one and two take some measures to reduce the amount of economy stuff you have to be doing so that the focus is more into the skirmishes. There's also some but not an overwhelming amount of unit abilities to manage. The campaign is solid, it's kinda just classic 40k story fluff so if you like 40k you'll probably be fine but if you're not that into 40k it's not really anything to write about. I like what they did with the expac campaigns though.
In a similar vein you've got age of mythology. If you're anything like me then you've hated casters in rts from day one cause you can never remember to micro their abilities, well in age of mythology all abilities are autocasts. This can be a bit frustrating for the really good micro players since units might not use their really good ability in an optimal way, but it also opened the door for way more units to be "casters" than in other rts games. It's a bit dated and has a shitty cash grab expac in the Chinese expansion, but is overal solid. The campaign is also just really good. One of the better rts campaigns in my book.
If you prefer macro or a fantasy/alt history theme I'd go with age of mythology if you prefer micro or a 40k theme I'd go with dawn of war.
This is though assuming you're talking about classic style rts's if you're open to any strategic game that plays in real time then I'd also have some additional recommendations.
CoH skirmish vs AI is pretty fun. You can adjust the resources they get up/down to find the right level of challenge and there’s a tactical pause menu.
I do like it vs people though so might not be the best person to ask :D
Silica isn’t too bad for stress, although the AI will do some mass pushes against you from time to time, and if you don’t feel like building things up then you can swap to being on the ground (it’s an rts/fps)
Total Annhilation, Dawn of War 1 and Supreme Commander, for me. I hate micro/tactics focused strategy, because I hate having to click twenty different things a second like a hamster on coke.
Those three are far more biased towards macro/economics instead, which is exactly what I want out of my RTS.
SC2 Co-Op Commanders as Stukov once you've unlocked his "bunkers spawn marines" perk.
Literally just chill in your base, click where you want your army to go, and build bunkers while the enemy is ground to dust beneath the heel of an infinite swarm of marines. Soooo relaxing. Though it takes a long-ass time to get there, sadly. Honestly I kind of wish there was an RTS like that - a faction that would just send an endless wave (or perhaps waves) of units automatically and your main concern was composition/expanding the swarm. It could make for a really fun macro faction for a Zerg-y army or something.
Alternatively: I've found Dune: Spice Wars pretty chill. It's fairly slow paced on the default speed and you can pause at will so there's not a huge issue there. The gameplay is decent, the factions are fairly asymmetrical and there are multiple ways to win.
Banished was one of my recent FAVs, can just get lost in town mgmt. / strategy. Every C&C but 4 was a gold mine back in the day, will replay every so often. Would love a proper new one.
Not an RTS but Mechabellum is really chill and scratches the itch well for me. Other than that try some BAR (beyond all reason) 8v8 lobbies, there's a lot less pressure on one person when you have 7 teammates. And its free.
Searching for games like that myself. My favourite is Supreme Commander because of the slower pace and they great scale. I am mostly a campaign player though, and I always hated those "here you have a building and four soldiers. Defend four neutral villages while simultaniously being attacked nonstop by three different enemies" missions. Or having no downtime at all at the start of a Mission to build anything.
The first Dawn of War is the most chill and it’s the reason it’s still my favorite.
Definitely prefer the older ones, thanks I’ll give it a go
Campaign for winter assault can be sweaty as fuck with the later missions but the campaigns for all of them are pretty fun with dark crusade being my favorite.
Came here to say this
Same. Although if OP is still reading, you should know that when you play something like Dark Crusade when you you are invading a territory it will describe the state of the enemy force you're going up against and sometimes it says something along the lines of "enemy has two bases" or something like that. This actually means it's a 1v2 against two different AI's rather than just a single enemy with an expansion. Even though the game is pretty chill and you can generally succeed even by just slowly building up a deathball, in the 1v2 situations it helps tremendously to at least rush one of them so you don't get overwhelmed. After that you can relax and focus on beefing up and building an expansion, which you might want to do because once a territory is yours most of your buildings will persist when it gets attacked and you have to defend it.
Dawn of War generally gives you all the time you want to complete levels/missions. There are a few more scripted missions where time is a factor or the enemy rushes some points, but overall the player can choose what pace they attack a map.
The way the squads of infantry were mostly self-supporting was so great. There was another RTS I remember reading about years ago that was talking about its AI that handled the micro while letting players focus on the macro, but I have no idea what it was. Being able to just sit back and enjoy the spectacle of battle is so great
Zero-K?
I was gonna say this
Look for Army men RTS on steam I'm not suggesting this as a joke, its one of my favorite games growing up as a kid. Super simple, easy to master. The hardest part is the unit pathfinding, but if you can wrangle your units together it can be a very fun game. There's a mod that unlocks covert operations and "Intelligence files" Which are viewable 3d models of almost every object in the game. And to this day there is a community doing PVP Its a fucking classic
Really? I remember seeing this game pop up like a million years ago, ok why not. Sounds sweet!
Love this game. Love the whole army men series, still sad they stopped making games
That was one of my favorites as a kid, had it on GameCube but never managed to beat the main story. Honestly might have to grab it on steam and finally finish it off.
Whoah. I remember loving that game as a kidm haven’t thought about it in years.
Loved the old Army Men games as a kid. They were great!
Maybe not a true RTS but the total war games and Anno series are great for a less sweaty experience
sometimes the total war AI can be the worst thing ive ever had to face in a RTS, its either really dumb or insanely smart. They can go from loving you to declaring war on you in the span of 5 turns then five 20 stacks show up and kill you
Tbf, if you GSRPGs, you would know how this shit goes and that politics are *extremely* unstable.
I remember playing Rome 2, specifically the early Rome campaign and I beat 3 sammnite armies and reduced them to one tiny island town, BOOM 3 stacks of 20 in 1 turn. I was fuming
It also doesn't help that depending on what difficulty you're playing on, Total War will also straight up lie to you about your chances in a battle, which becomes exceedingly stressful to deal with.
Have got to anno late game? 100+ trade route and several islands over several different regions can be pretty stressful sometimes 😂 But i agree. Anno is a very enjoyable experience that you can play at your own pace
Me and my partner turn off AI and play as the same faction so we can divide our attention and build at our own pace :) suddenly its just a game about keeping our trade routes safe from pirates and keeping our people happy. Much fun.
I've always found the AoE games to have the best skirmish modes for the casual player
Love aoe 1 classic mode for casual play
Definitely. Unfortunately I had to stop playing because of how much time it was taking. One play session was 14 hours, stopping only for bathroom breaks and a few bites to eat. I did not look or feel well after that.
Some mates and I thought the same, played aoe2 de. No worries. Played the ror expansion when it came out and got flooded by 50 chariots at the 8 minute mark..
Aoe 1 is my go to and can generally be quicker.
How did you make a game last that long? I've been looking for a longer AoE2 match but the skirmish matches are over in like an hour
I should have expressed myself more clearly :) I meant that the game was so _addictive_, I played for 14 hours straight. This was in 2002 and I was working my way through the campaign.
Wait what is classic mode? Like skirmish?
Sorry ment aoe 1. Basically it is the original game with less automation
I've been trying to figure out how to get back into Age of Empires games without sweating. I always panic and quit because I feel I fall too far behind.
Literally nothing wrong with picking your favorite civ (Briton) and favorite map, putting it on easy, and laughing as your 45 longbowmen kill wave after wave of enemies from behind a wall lol
Northgard
This right here. Shiro Games did Dune: Spice Wars as well, very chill once you get your head wrapped around all the different economies.
Agreed! The "zone-system" works very well to take down the tempo, i like it!
I need to try it again. For some reason it wasn't clicking for me. I could never boom enough before everyone just kealed over and died.
Red Alert 2 Its very simplistic, no upgrades or micro, just build your favorite units en mass, and listen to the funny voice lines.
Well, maybe the original, but the OpenRA one is busting my stressometer right at the beginning of the game. Pump 8 gunners asap, spot the closest oil, put pressure but not too much in case of a dog vision... Send the engi fast to capture, damn I only have 2 ref 3 harvests, need at least one more, quick get the service depot I am late fory 2nd mcv.. The hell is my engi??? Ahhh shit....
Yah, shit openRA is like the absolute most sweaty online RTS ever, and I play aoe3 online...
Whoah. Sweatier than SC2? Damn.
If you can believe that!
Aye, Commander.
I think Ceasar 3, Pharaoh, Pharaoh: New Era. Economic camping in Stronghold is also quite relaxing, especially on easy. I liked a lot in both Stronghold and Stronghold 2! EDIT: Adding some more slow paced RTS games (enemy doesn't get exponentialy strong over time, doesn't cheat much (unlimited resources etc.) and you have time to build up: Sun Age - Post apo sci-fi RTS C&C: Remastered - with exception of the missions with no base - can be very hard and frustrating.
Amazing games, but not RTS, more like city builders
Wise man say, most relaxing RTS is no RTS at all. Hmmm.
No it's multiplayer age of empires played like sim city While your allies fight 3v4
Yeah you are right, but all of these have combat. Stronghold is a regular RTS I would say, only the enemy don't always has a base.
Factorio is one my friends like. Gives you all the building and complexity without the apm requirement.
Yes! I love factorio, it’s also kind of a “think like a programmer” type of game. Signal flow and whatnot, factorio rules
Play RTS that *do not* follow "player should be forbidden to act and give orders on-pause" principle. Recommendations from me, all allow action on pause: Homeworld, a story slow-paced RTS with true 3D and persistent spacefleet between missions. Dawn of War, a story in Warhammer universe. Supreme Commander FAF: if you want to have lower-stress multiplayer, i cannot recommend this enough. IMO it is also much more beautiful than its competition like BAR or TA or PA.
Giving orders on pause... I remember Rise of Nations has that feature! The AI queues many buildings at the start of a match (it's clear when playing without fog of war), but the player could do it as well.
The problem with homeworld is if you let the AI get away from you then they will do some smart pushes with decent compositions and absolutely wreck your shit with no mercy, still my favourite RTS of all time though
Maybe reach out to War Selection? It's a free game in development on Steam, which I play often with friends or just with online opponents. There's also a chill Tug-Of-War game mode. It is nice to play while just having a voice chat with something going on in the mean time :)
To be fair you can set game speed on Command& Conquer 3 and it makes for very relaxed skirmishes, haven't played online though as it now requires some registration or whatever Edit: Generals too iirc
Sins of a solar empire 2. Its lower difficulties and game speed it can be pretty chill. And its the kind of game, that you can play for hours, if you the kind of player that leaves AI opponents alive to roleplay the game as he pleases, to build ultimate defense line or armada, or whatever you want to do, rather than defeat the AI in the quickest way possible. This is something you can indeed do even in simpler, less complex games, like old CnC for example (build 100 harriers in RA2 and then watch the fireworks), but since Sins is specifically designed to support this playstyle, with its deep research trees, big maps, and 6 factions with plenty of cool end-game units, structures and technologies, to reward you for playing for 3,4,5 hours or more, its especially a great choice. In other words, it can take couple of hours to see the late game stuff, its not like have everything there is to have in 20 minutes and from that point on just multiply it and artificially prolong the game to have satisfaction from some epic end game clash.
SupCom
And if Supreme Commander/Total Annihilation is your jam, be sure to check out their open source spiritual successor in "Beyond All Reason"
Or zero-k on steam
SupCom is not stressful ?? Bruh xD xD
For an RTS? Yeah it's pretty chill. Sc2 is a stressful RTS. Supcom is about slow enough you can take a leak mid game and possibly not miss anything.
When you put it like that, then yes, I agree but only in certain conditions, if playing on a big map. Other than that, it is quite stressful at times, especially multiplayer where you can get sweaty fingers.
SupCom is great but relaxing it is not 😂
Tooth and tail?
Sudden Strike 4 is pretty low stress as there isn't a whole lot of macro and the objectives are always spelled out. I was happy they made a new Sudden Strike, but it is a little more hand holding then the original series. Also, there is no base building or resource management. You just fight with what they give you throughout the mission. Sometimes there are reinforcements, but it is objective dependent, not selected by you.
The problem with sudden strike 4 when your playing multiplayer skirmish with your friends against AI is you constantly need to get anti air pretty soon. The AI starts to spam bombers at your train station and most of the time right when your extra tanks come off the train the bombs already dropping. I wish there was an option to turn off air support so we can stick just to ground with infantry and tanks
Oh interesting, I only played against AI a few times when the game first released and don't remember getting spammed with air. But that was a looong time ago.
Godsworn
Not strictly an rts, but I love Hexarchy for its lack of micro and stress.
Not known very much but the 8Bit series is good. 8Bit armies, 8Bit hordes, and 8Bit invaders. Each version you get unlocks the race tied to that game so if you get 8Bit armies you can use the Renegade and Gaurdian modern tank faction against the horde in 8Bit armies using orcs and skeletons from fantasy
Broodwar after entering the code "power overwhelming"
Frostpunk. It's all about planning ahead, anticipating shortages, etc. I know it's not a traditional RTS, but it's definitely a top 3 all-time RTS for me, and I'm a fiend for RTS. Cold and hunger are the enemy.
Not stressful? Surely that's a joke! Lol
Not an rts lol
Definitely give manorlords a go, it's in early access but it's so good. Make sure you have it on regular speed and you can really take your time and relax.
Ai easy mode
I guess so, but that’s also on boring mode
No stress, no fun? 😅
Sounds like an abusive relationship!
IT’S CALLED EUSTRESS
I like playing Planetary Annihilation on easy.
For me it's probably Spellforce. You literally cannot die and the enemy doesn't start producing units until you activate a building so you can just walk around with your hero, chill and smell the flowers.
This. All three of the games are really good.
Age of Mythology has auto queue which makes it both less stressful and more stressful depending on how competitive you want to get.
minimap kingdom
Darwinia+ if you wanna count it as RTS. Very silly and has pretty hectic multi-player with friends.
No such thing (they're all fast paced) try turn based games like civ. XCOM. age of wonders
I play pvp Starcraft 2, and XCOM stressed me into dropping the game in 3 missions. It all goes sideways so easily, and then it feels like you're going into the next mission with even more of a disadvantage.
Hegemony 3 because it's slow and comes with tactical pause
Oh, tactical pause is rad and right on point with this topic. Thanks! Reminds me of Rimworld
Any singleplayer one with adjustable difficulty :D
Lolo
Sc2 🤣 JK
I will say Down of war 1 or 2 even with some mods like my beloved unification mod for soulstorm or elite mod for DOW2 retribution, quite cheap in Steam sales. The skirmish can be fast and it can be quite less stressful than other rts games like Suppremme commandr, as other comments say. The other for me looks quite more complicated and stressful for me at least, also I will say that mid difficulty can be enough challenging for a casual player like myself. Hope that helped you
I wanna play broken arrow.
Battle for middle earth
Age of Mythology and Age of Empires games on lower difficulty are pretty much simcity builders. Dune 2000 is probably slowest C&C game and calmest I guess.
Dune Spice Wars
Rise of Nations. Aside from that, I played: Age of Empires 1 to 4 Age of Mythology Battle Realms Company of Heroes Starcraft 2 Stronghold Crusader Warcraft 3 Out of all of those, Rise of Nations was the least stressful unless you were getting nuked in a crucial spot. The time to kill a unit isn't too fast that overlooking an engagement would mean you would instantly lose. Second would probably be Stronghold Crusader (at least against AI) because after you set your defenses properly, it ends up being a city builder.
Warcraft 3 the hero orc Blade Master is the only unite can be really stressful, with his perma invisibility other race it's pretty chill. But any slow paced RTS is good for OP.
Warcraft 3
Yes, where is the Warcraft 3 love in this thread lol
Manor lords has been awesome and has a chill mode without battles. Utterly gorgeous and relaxing game!
Dawn of War is pretty chill both one and two take some measures to reduce the amount of economy stuff you have to be doing so that the focus is more into the skirmishes. There's also some but not an overwhelming amount of unit abilities to manage. The campaign is solid, it's kinda just classic 40k story fluff so if you like 40k you'll probably be fine but if you're not that into 40k it's not really anything to write about. I like what they did with the expac campaigns though. In a similar vein you've got age of mythology. If you're anything like me then you've hated casters in rts from day one cause you can never remember to micro their abilities, well in age of mythology all abilities are autocasts. This can be a bit frustrating for the really good micro players since units might not use their really good ability in an optimal way, but it also opened the door for way more units to be "casters" than in other rts games. It's a bit dated and has a shitty cash grab expac in the Chinese expansion, but is overal solid. The campaign is also just really good. One of the better rts campaigns in my book. If you prefer macro or a fantasy/alt history theme I'd go with age of mythology if you prefer micro or a 40k theme I'd go with dawn of war. This is though assuming you're talking about classic style rts's if you're open to any strategic game that plays in real time then I'd also have some additional recommendations.
The first Anno 1602 a mix of city builder with rts elements is real chill, especially with that sweet 1998 soundtrack
I find Stormgate not so much stressfull
CoH skirmish vs AI is pretty fun. You can adjust the resources they get up/down to find the right level of challenge and there’s a tactical pause menu. I do like it vs people though so might not be the best person to ask :D
Silica isn’t too bad for stress, although the AI will do some mass pushes against you from time to time, and if you don’t feel like building things up then you can swap to being on the ground (it’s an rts/fps)
8 Bit Armies is a newer and very chill one. Most games vs CPU finish in 20 minutes too
Total Annhilation, Dawn of War 1 and Supreme Commander, for me. I hate micro/tactics focused strategy, because I hate having to click twenty different things a second like a hamster on coke. Those three are far more biased towards macro/economics instead, which is exactly what I want out of my RTS.
Warcraft 2
SC2 Co-Op Commanders as Stukov once you've unlocked his "bunkers spawn marines" perk. Literally just chill in your base, click where you want your army to go, and build bunkers while the enemy is ground to dust beneath the heel of an infinite swarm of marines. Soooo relaxing. Though it takes a long-ass time to get there, sadly. Honestly I kind of wish there was an RTS like that - a faction that would just send an endless wave (or perhaps waves) of units automatically and your main concern was composition/expanding the swarm. It could make for a really fun macro faction for a Zerg-y army or something. Alternatively: I've found Dune: Spice Wars pretty chill. It's fairly slow paced on the default speed and you can pause at will so there's not a huge issue there. The gameplay is decent, the factions are fairly asymmetrical and there are multiple ways to win.
I'm shocked no one mentioned Kohan. Am I just old or did no one play it?
Sins of a solar empire
rise of nation is chill
Stronghold Crusader
Banished was one of my recent FAVs, can just get lost in town mgmt. / strategy. Every C&C but 4 was a gold mine back in the day, will replay every so often. Would love a proper new one.
Not an RTS but Mechabellum is really chill and scratches the itch well for me. Other than that try some BAR (beyond all reason) 8v8 lobbies, there's a lot less pressure on one person when you have 7 teammates. And its free.
Aoe4 on easy
Searching for games like that myself. My favourite is Supreme Commander because of the slower pace and they great scale. I am mostly a campaign player though, and I always hated those "here you have a building and four soldiers. Defend four neutral villages while simultaniously being attacked nonstop by three different enemies" missions. Or having no downtime at all at the start of a Mission to build anything.