The first and one of the few RTS I ever played was Bitmap Brothers' Z. The Command & Conquer series was relatively obscure to me for a long time, until it was 2009, when I became more involved with PC gaming, I found my brother's old copy of RA2 and tried it out, quickly becoming addicted to it. I usually played the skirmish mode, and it was fun although I couldn't play online, as it was no longer supported. I used to look for Red Alert related videos on YouTube, and remember seeing development footage of AR there.
During Summer in 2013, I was bored and decided to find out if you could still somehow play RA2 online. While searching for C&C related stuff online, I came across the A Path Beyond project on ModDb or something, and downloaded the BHP launcher. I began playing the games more avidly in 2014-2015 (as part of escapism caused by some life issues), and developed a passion for a simple game with a small community, losing interest in mainstream games.