As far as I was aware, don't most RTS games you simply have one person host it on a "basic" rig then connect? Warcraft 3, Starcraft, etc is what Im thinking about.
I've never heard of an RTS needing a 3rd party dedicated server besides Freeciv IIRC, how many RTSs with dedicated servers are there? Seriously, please correct me on this if this is a wrong assumption.