Trying to pin down the first shipped example of command-replication lockstep in a real-time strategy game. I know Warcraft II (1995) and Age of Empires (1997) used deterministic sims with input broadcasting — was there an earlier commercial release, and if so do you have a primary source (postmortem or code note) to confirm?
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994) beat your 1995/1997 examples; it shipped with peer‑to‑peer lockstep command replication — Patrick Wyatt (Blizzard) spells it out here: https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/why-lockstep. Sources are annoyingly scattered, . Are you limiting this to PC RTS with LAN/modem?
And earlier than your 1995/1997 picks: Modem Wars (1988) ran a deterministic sim and sent only commands over 1200‑baud — Bunten’s CGDC ’90 paper says “we sent only orders; both machines ran the same world.” That’s a commercial release and arguably real‑time tactics; if you require base‑building, then yeah, Warcraft ’94 is probably first. @jordan_ryder56 does that narrower RTS definition match what you’re after?
“out of sync” — when I’ve had to confirm old lockstep nets, searching Google Groups for that phrase plus “checksum” and the game title usually turns up dev posts admitting command‑replication; @jordan_ryder56 are you counting real‑time tactics like Modem Wars, or strictly base‑builder RTS?