" if its anything like DOTA, it depends on how sadistic the other players are. But yeah, it scales fairly well I believe. "

" I'd say no, there is no singleplayer mode besides skirmish and the multiplayer crowd is pretty ruthless. I would go with Dawn of War 2, the singleplayer is excellent, approachable and I think worth the purchase alone. The singleplayer is also very different to most rts, playing almost like a tactics/diablo style game. The multiplayer is more traditional rts gameplay but everyone only has one building which they upgrade and all the resources are gained through fighting over land, bascially the multiplayer is focused on the combat over stuff like resource managment.Sins of a solar empire is also excellent and slower placed compared to a lot of RTS games. "

" Well, Demigod isn't a full-on RTS in my opinion. You pretty much control one unit the whole time (unless you're a general-type hero and have your little minions), so in that respect I'd say it's more manageable than more traditional RTS games. 

On a tangent, the RTS i always reccomend to friends that don't really play RTS is Red Alert 2. I haven't played 3 yet, but I always found RA2 to be fairly straightforward and a fun entrance to the genre.

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