The only RTS that I can recommend from personal experience is StarCraft. Other than that, I've heard that Rome: Total War is good.

One of my buddies absolutely loved Age of Empires III.

Perhaps, if you can not decide, go over to www.gamespot.com and look at the RTS ratings that other players have given.

<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/games.html?type=games&category=Real-Time%20Strategy&platform=5&page=games&dlx_type=all>Click Here to go to GameSpot RTS

Get the original 'Commander & Conquer'. You won't regret it. (If you can get its DOS-based goodness running on your machine :P)

Admittedly I too am not very good at RTS games, because I get too attached to all the little soldiers and don't like seeing them die. And being a single-player fan I don't play a lot of RTS games anyway due to their multiplayer focus, but there's a few I've tried that were okay.

If you haven't played Starcraft, you should. Must be dirt cheap these days, even with the Brood Wars expansion pack.

Then there's Rise of Nations, which I liked for the Civilization elements.

Finally, if you're into more strategy, I liked Medieval: Total War, although the game drags on forever. I've also heard that Rome: Total War is good too, but I've only played the demo.

I enjoyed the Lord of the Rings: Battle For Middle Earth II game, but it's a far cry from WarCraft :P

Did you try WarCraft III by chance? ;-)

Ground Control, it's more RTT than RTS, but it's still one of my favorite strategy games of all time, and you can get it free (legally) from here

Wow, thanks for the replies. It looks like I'll be blowing a fair amount of money at the game store tomorrow [smile].

Dude, Advance Wars. It roxxors my soxxors, and then I blow the crap out of my friend's forces. Hur hur hur!

AoE III drove me up the wall. Bugs, a not-very-interesting plot, and a very weak multiplayer mode. I expected a lot more from the guys who made Empire Earth.

You should get Advance Wars, or just play it over the web.