Somewhat of an aside, but only slightly.
People often say that RTS' are games of tactics and mechanics, not strategy. To take a Starcraft 2 example, a standard zerg vs protoss game will look like this: three fast bases into mass roach, followed by further expanding and cycling out roaches for infestor/corruptor/brood lord and turtling until you starve the protoss out and crush him in one massive battle.
Now, taking three fast bases? That's a tactic. Intentionally losing battles with your roach army to free up supply? That's a tactic. And that's often as far as people will go when looking at a game of SC (2 or Brood War) or Warcraft 3 or whatever the fuck.
Let's put that in terms of strategy: "Use a strong early economy to produce a large, cheap army, and use them to buy time for more efficient units that force the enemy to put his army where you have the advantage."
Another Starcraft example, this time from Brood War. There's a famous-ish video of the American protoss player Nony, high as a motherfuck, playing a game on Battle.net against some random guy. The random guy was being kind of a dick, so Nony wanted to beat him in as humiliating a way possible: mass arbiters (extraordinarly expensive support units). This strategy required that he delay his opponent as much as possible, so he used the tactic of a reaver drop (using a flying shuttle to unload a siege weapon right beside the enemy worker lines) to give him some breathing room while he worked on the arbiters.
Of course, there's still the mechanical side, the micro (how well you can maneuver and manipulate units) and the macro (how well you can manage your income and production).
People often say that RTS' are games of tactics and mechanics, not strategy. To take a Starcraft 2 example, a standard zerg vs protoss game will look like this: three fast bases into mass roach, followed by further expanding and cycling out roaches for infestor/corruptor/brood lord and turtling until you starve the protoss out and crush him in one massive battle.
Now, taking three fast bases? That's a tactic. Intentionally losing battles with your roach army to free up supply? That's a tactic. And that's often as far as people will go when looking at a game of SC (2 or Brood War) or Warcraft 3 or whatever the fuck.
Let's put that in terms of strategy: "Use a strong early economy to produce a large, cheap army, and use them to buy time for more efficient units that force the enemy to put his army where you have the advantage."
Another Starcraft example, this time from Brood War. There's a famous-ish video of the American protoss player Nony, high as a motherfuck, playing a game on Battle.net against some random guy. The random guy was being kind of a dick, so Nony wanted to beat him in as humiliating a way possible: mass arbiters (extraordinarly expensive support units). This strategy required that he delay his opponent as much as possible, so he used the tactic of a reaver drop (using a flying shuttle to unload a siege weapon right beside the enemy worker lines) to give him some breathing room while he worked on the arbiters.
Of course, there's still the mechanical side, the micro (how well you can maneuver and manipulate units) and the macro (how well you can manage your income and production).
. Timeline starts at the fall of Constantinople and usually ends at the napoleon wars. 4th game in the series has been announced and not that far from release.
