I''ve played lots of AoE and TA and a bit of SC and WC. (too many acronyms) I''ve also played Clost Combat.

I do have a suggestion for RTS games. It was said earlier that RTS games should be who is a better strategist and not "who can build what fastest." Clost combat was all about strategy. You had fixed units to start with and you had to use them the correct way to defeat the other team. There was no magical portal or building that somehow pumped out people or tanks. Oh and they also had personallities too. If you sent in a group where the leader and all but one guy died... there is a really good chance that that one guy will get scared and not fight... just stay hidden or even surrender. a very nice realistic game.

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Anyway.... my one solution is this.
1. Starting resources are medium to high.
2. The game starts paused for setup time.
3. When both bases are built and the teams agree they are done, the game is unpaused and the fighting starts.

Both teams start with a limited amount of resources... enough to build a decent base and some offensive units OR build a great base and very little offense OR a LOT of offense and a small base. But here''s the catch. You have unlimited time to build it but can''t attack as the game is "paused" while you set up your base. Since it''s paused, you can''t gather resources either. You can advance in your tech tree but that means that the resources used to advance can''t be used to build anything. And when both teams decide that they have the base they want... they click the "ready" button and the game starts.

This gets rid of the weak beginning base problem. And also allows the teams to advance to the spot they want so they can focus on attacking.

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As far as TA goes, I''ve never had a stalemate. I''ve had really long games but I''ve always won. I was at a LAN party not to long ago and played a 4 vs 1 game ... i was the 1. It was really long, I didn''t have my metal map, it was the red triangle one. They also disabled nukes... another attack i used. There was also a limit of 250 and not the 500 unit patch limit which also stopped me from annihilating them. It was a close game but it wasn''t stalemate. I eventually picked them off one by one.

There was at least 3 or 4 times where they could have wiped me out if only they knew i was so weak. But they let me go cause they felt weak as well. Then I got my defenses back. The big bertha was a pain to me as I had to fly my airforce which was currently defending the base to now find and attack their long range cannon. most would die but eventually I knocked it out. Mainly cause they wouldn''t do the same with my long range cannon as it was nicely hidden among the small rocket towers i had.

They had a good strategy though, one was concentrating on defending the large island, while the other 3 would build and attack.

The trick is to knowing how to bring down their defenses and quickly going after something crucial. I would gladly leave their defenses if it means I can at least take out a fusion reactor.

If you can far outplay others, your tactic is usually send in an invasion force so overwhelming, that you might not even lose a unit before they are wiped out. BUt if you are fairly evenly matched and the invasion force is destroyed by their defenses and their invasion force does the same... then you need to rethink your strategy. One of my tactics is to cripple them. If i attack just any building then they can rebuild it... but what if I attack his resource buildings and leave everything else. At least in TA, that would mean his construction buildings would go to a crawl and practically stop. His long range cannons wouldn''t work, any unit that used energy would stop working... he''s now vulnerable.

The problem with stalemates is that u usually have a method that works well for you and you don''t change it which causes the stalemate.

I started playing civilization 3 a short while ago, and i think the idea of using perishable and unperishable resources on the map for different units is a great idea. I think that if they implement these in a RTS, it could make it more of a strategic game. Rise of Nations partially does this, they added extra resources on the map that do various things for your people, but they aren''t imperative to unit or building creation. If someone goes off of this idea, i think it might draw some "non-believers" back to the RTS genre.