Hello VOGONS members. I stumbled across this website some many, many months back and ended up losing some hours just browsing it, so I bookmarked it and would occasionally return to do it again. While I currently lack any "retro" hardware and don't really play older games on newer systems, there's a lot here that captivates me. I think part of it is the website appearance as well as the website being forums (which themselves have fallen out of favor, which saddens me), and the fact that the early 2000s, which was my gateway time to the online web, is increasingly feeling more retro. I first experienced PCs in the late 1990s/turn of the century, but my online experience started in the early 2000s, with forums at the center of it. I guess this place is a nostalgic reminder of that.

Anyway, enough about me. I just wanted to drop a greeting in there to as not be rude on my first post see, as it's a request. I'm trying to discover a game I very briefly experienced around two decades ago. Unfortunately, my time spent with this game was VERY short (one or two sessions only totaling less than maybe half an hour) so I have little to go off, and worse might have some things wrong.

Many years ago, I had a very short experience with an RTS game. It was holiday season around the turn of the century, and my friend at the time was likely getting either a PlayStation 2 (released late 2000 in NA) or a new PC. They ended up getting both! I don't remember a whole lot about the PC, but it had Windows ME and I would guess was likely latter era Pentium III-based (did Windows ME systems come with early Pentium 4s?). I remember he had a family member (uncle?) or friend who bestowed upon him a lot of games shortly after getting it (maybe sometime up to the summer after being gifted the PC). I never experienced most of them, as the "big thing" we were into was the Command & Conquer series, which he got earlier when getting the PC, after having fallen in love with the original on the PlayStation console, and another friend of mine got me into the newer iterations Red Alert 2/Tiberian Sun so I had to get it as well (despite having a seriously under-powered PC for it at the time), so seeing it was a big reason he wanted a PC to begin with so most of our time was spent there. So to get that out of the way, it is NOT a Command & Conquer title (I also know it's also not an Age of Empires, War Craft, Dune, or Star Craft title). Two other games I do remember from that big batch of other games though were both RTS games, one of which was Stronghold and I sunk hours and hours into playing, and another I only tried once or twice and is the one I'm trying to remember. Stronghold appears to have released in October 2001, so it's possibly as late as (or a bit later than) that, but probably not much later. His system came with Windows ME remember, and Windows XP released late 2001 as well, so I pin holiday 2001 as the year he got the system and the game was maybe a bit newer at most. Of course, it's possibly older.

So, the factors to narrow it down are...

1. It was an RTS game. Furthermore, it was "real-world"-based I believe. I could wrong but I remember countries rather than wildly fictitious factions, but these could have been fictitious countries, but they felt real world inspired. It had real world things like tanks, soldiers, ships, and planes etc. rather than either medieval or future/space/magic based things.
2. It was likely between the late 1990s and very early 2000s that it was released. I explained above why 2001 or maybe 2002 is likely the absolutely latest possible release date for it, but unless it was brand new it was possibly even a few years older. It felt isometric or 3D in appearance (going on memory at the time) similar to Tiberium Sun and Red Alert 2 would have looked rather than how the earlier Command & Conquer titles looked so I doubt it was from as far back as the mid 1990s.
3. I remember using an infantry to shoot a building (either an airfield or sea port?) and it felt "more realistic" to me at the time than Command & Conquer where infantry would actual pose damage threats to structures; here this guy was doing almost nothing. So again, more on the "realistic"-based concept.
4. I recall little about the setting, but I do recall a snow theatre on one map, and what i believe was either a pacific island or temperate one in another. All I remember there.
5. Very unsure but I recall the UI/build interface along the bottom of the screen, like in Ages of Empires or Star Craft, as opposed to either side, like in say Command & Conquer or War Craft titles.

Apologies for post length and scarce details but I have very little time spent with it as well as two decades or time having passed. Was trying to research it and remembered I had this forum bookmarked so I figured here might be a good place to ask (and apologies if this question is in the wrong forum). Thanks for any attempts to advise.