Have you looked into Sins of a Solar Empire, Warcraft III, or Supreme Commander?  Given the list of games you've provided, I think any (or all three) of these would work well for him.

supreme commander forged alliance.

Never played battlefield heroes.  I wonder if you might have meant Company of Heroes (A rts similar to age of empires with less emphasis on base building).  This is my genre of choice and something I might be able to make a recommendation on.  I've been playing Dawn of War lately the soulstorm expansion and it's pretty similar to battlefield heroes.  Matter of fact it's micromanagement is virtually the same and from the same company.  He should be able to play it pretty much right off the bat CoH is what you were referring to.  It's a standalone expansion with such over the top action (picture guys with heavy machineguns, flamethrowers,  and chainsaws made into swords.  8 playable races.  Not to be confused with the full fledged sequel DOW 2 which places far less emphasis on strategy and more on tactics.  Really a drastically different game. 

Please let him know that his service is appreciated.

- If you do a little recon, you can find the open source version of Transport Tycoon, which has multiplayer (as well as loads of mods you can use).

- Dawn of War 2 has a great Co-op RTS campaign.  It does have some RPG elements, but should be manageable.

- Altitude is a fun multiplayer game with 2D dogfighting that you can play for free to some extent.  Not sure how fast his ping is, but it should be fun to play against the computer (or each other).

Starcraft 2. 

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance.

Greatest game of all time IMO.

I would agree. Even if he doesn't like extra competitive multiplayer like on ladder, there's so many possibilities for user map settings games that I'm sure there would be plenty he likes.

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

Hmm I think he thought Warcraft III was a little strange. I don't think he quite got the RPG aspects of it and it was too different from Warcraft II for his tastes.

Other than that, I'm downloading the Supreme Commander demo for him to try out... and for me to try out too, I guess.

I passed along your message and he appreciates your appreciation. I have a copy of Dawn of War and I'm going to install it onto his computer for him to try it out. He's getting a little old so I'm not sure he can quite keep up with that level of micromanagement, but we'll see.

And yes, I meant Battlefield Heroes. He loves that game. Funny he was originally awful at Battlefield Heroes but just got better and better to the point where he puts the folks who buy the super-weapons to shame. He's a slow learner but once he gets it down he becomes a real smart player.

He played the original Starcraft and he wasn't a big fan of it. Too different from Warcraft II I guess. Although if there's a demo out soon it shouldn't hurt him to try it out.

Dad fiddles around with Open TTD already. Altitude, however, looks really interesting. I'll have to check it out. Thanks!

Supreme Commander isn't anything compared to Supreme Commander:Forged Alliance. I recommend that FAR more then the original Sup Com. The pace has been quickened a LOT and MassFab farms aren't the only way to go.

Another game he enjoyed was the original Starflight, back in the 1980's. I know very little about Starflight, but he played it quite a bit in the day.

Good to know, thanks.

My vote is Company of Heroes  - It's my favorite RTS game ever. I never want to play another RTS game where I have to micro manage peons or resource gathering units ever again. Capturing and defending strategic resource points makes more sense to me then managing peon trains.

It has (imo), BY FAR, the best resource system of any RTS I've played. It's complex as hell, but the more complex it is, the more flexible it is. The fact that you can divy your resources however you like gives you a LOT of control over how long something takes to build.

Plus strategic zoom is the greatest RTS advancement since...strategy.

Also on my previous suggestion I forgot you were looking for a multiplayer game.  I don't know if there is much of a multiplayer community cause I'm more of a single player sort.  Still fun though. 

I don't think it'll be a problem.  They play virtually the same.  The only thing he's gonna have to learn is the different strengths and weaknesses of the different factions but all the mechanics are handled the same.

The campaign is like this for sure, but multiplayer less so.  The RPG component is basically restricted to heroes, which are little more than customizable super-units.  I'd still recommend Supreme Commander (Forged Alliance; I definitely agree with the other guys here) and Sins of a Solar Empire, however.

Spectromancer