MilesHypnoPrower said:
Oh boy, RTS. My worst genre. I'm TERRIBLE at these. But I can go ahead and recommend a few things anyway...
First, if you have a GameCube, Wii, or Wii U, I can recommend the Pikmin series. I've often heard them described as "gateway RTS games", being basically RTS games genre-wise yet with very little real macro, being mostly micro to varying degrees based on game. Pikmin 1 and 2 are both GameCube games, with cheaper New Play Control versions on Wii that turn the whole thing into Wiimote controls (no real opinion on which is better); Pikmin 3 is on Wii U (personally my least favorite of the bunch, but then again lots of people disagree with me on 2 being the best so take my recommendations with a grain of salt). The only real downside to this is that it doesn't have much multiplayer at all -- it's mostly singleplayer. But it's a good starting place if you like Nintendo games.
Then, for a PC RTS...well, I've gotta recommend StarCraft 2. It's basically THE RTS game. It's also the hardest, but if you're patient, you can learn a lot from the story mode at varying difficulty levels, the co-op mode (which is unbelievably fun), and possibly get into some proper multiplayer once you're done with the utter bullshit that is league placement. Just keep in mind that the three races lead to VASTLY different playstyles, so don't give up just because you tried Zerg and found it nigh on impossible (like me), just keep in mind that it doesn't play much at all like Protoss or Terran.
And on a related note, somebody above has already recommended Brood War (aka StarCraft 1 with all the DLC, as I understand it). This is...even harder than SC2, and has largely fallen out of the scene due to SC2 hitting mainstream, or at least that's how I understand it. But eh, if you want StarCraft but don't want SC2...why not? Just keep the above advice for SC2 in mind here too (use story mode to learn the races and get a feel for what you're good at before delving into multiplayer).
Brood War is still huge in Korea, where Starcraft play the iconic national sport. However, in the global scene, starcraft 1 has been dead for some time, and 2 is (sadly) following. That's thanks to Blizzard making some... well, frankly, shitty design and balance choices in HotS between WoL and LotV.
Spectating competitive play is boring as hell now, since most of the players with real personality have left, and the commentators/shoutcasters just have no life left in them.
As for Pikmin, I wouldn't call it an RTS per se. It's got some shared basic elements, but does not fit the genre at all. It's amazing regardless, definitely a favorite of mine.
