I see RTS games as an evolutionary dead-end. They barely evolve at all. Starcraft in particular is closer to an arcade game than to strategy. I used to like C&C a lot before EA bought it and made a mockery of it.
In Starcraft and Warcraft3:
- units are very fast, vision range very short. By the time you discover enemy units you're already fighting them.
- ranged units are distinguished by having arbitrary damage modifiers, not by dealing damage before enemy reaches them ! This kind of thing is true for many other units. Unit relations are rarely organic. Usually it's some sort of made up mechanic and arbitrary damage modifiers. How do you beat artillery ? Why, with big, slow, easy to spot vehicles (Immortal) ! How do you beat ranged units ? Why, with melee units (zealot sprint abiility) ! Abandon common sense if you plan to play Starcraft.
- no formations. Formations don't matter, units just clump together, and you can disengage from enemy at any time without consequences as long as you're not slower.
- what kind of strategy community prefers to play on 'fastest' setting ?
- what kind of strategy community argues in favour of worse interface ? Multiple-building select, autocast of no-brainer abilities like repair and healing. They argue that worse interface allows 'skilled' players to shine by clicking faster.
- what kind of strategy community measures performance in clicks per minute ?
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Supreme Commander tried to move things forward, unfortunately they failed probably to 1) bland setting 2) unreasonable hardware requirements,
