Dune II

Westwood Studios brought together in one program what had existed separately before: resource gathering, base building, unit production and real-time combat. The player moves the mouse over the map and gives orders by pointing directly, without typing commands on the keyboard and without a separate control screen. Harvesters collect the spice, haul it to a refinery and turn it into credits, credits build structures, and structures unlock the next structures and units. This loop became the standard for the genre for a decade to come.

The map is covered by a shroud and opens only where your own troops have been, so scouting stops being a formality. The three houses differ in vehicles and special weapons, so the same map plays out differently. Much is still missing: you can select only one unit at a time, and production queues barely exist. Much of the genre's later history consists of fixing these spots.