Campaign structure

[:1]The most important thing about any RTS campaign is that you are not a slave tightly led through disjointed scripted missions where you are in effect just an observer but that you control the overall strategy and global conquest, similar to Star Wars :Empire At War, Kane's Wrath, Dark Crusade, Soulstorm etc.
You can have both story and freedom.
For example if each map in Dark Crusade and Soulstorm were structured in such a way as the stronghold maps were, all complaints about those expansions would have been eliminated, and those games had 6-7 races so it would be much easier to do this in Kings and Castles.|||In short, you want your actions to be meaningful rather than be dragged through a story.|||Yes, but as I explained already on above mentioned examples there is no need to make a false dichotomy between story and freedom, some developers call this "directed freedom".
Also Dark Crusade missed many obvious features, like the direction at which you would attack a certain territory would play a significant role on the difficulty and disposition of the enemy, which is again directly linked on having each map/territory be structured like a stronghold map instead of just linking together skirmish maps, each stronghold map was a unique experience along with maps that granted you special abilities.
And then besides that you would have global economy management and RPG elements like in DoW2 or Starcraft 2 campaigns.|||This is the level of customization I was talking about.
It's a shame it's wasted on such a primitive game.|||Zol|||Remember Tiberium Wars campaign?
They half-assed it with medals and meaningless binary mission selection, it is obvious they tried to do something that removes the slave leash but half way they gave up for some reason...|||Dodanodo|||BCCC, meet Mass Effect.|||What about Mass Effect?|||Not linear, still good.|||Another problem with slave-campaigns is that you are also continually bullied and interrupted within the mission itself.|||I fail to see how Mass Effect was not linear. Surely you can't mean those "drop on a planet, kill stuff, get loot" sidequests you could finish in ten minutes and which had nothing to do with the story?|||I'm not saying no linear, for without it there is no story offcourse. a good combination is to do main story missions and side story missions.
an example: lets say you just conquered some city and now you are on your way to capture a stronghold for the main story. but underway you can choose to sway and take one or two other provinces. if you choose to capture these they will give you extra units and\or bonusus in the capturing of the stronghold. if you choose not to, then you will arrive quicker but with fewer men.
another example: the campaign begins with one or two linear missions to establish the basis of the main story. afterwords you must expand your empire in any way you see fit. when you have conquered lets say 3 regions (who will each have there advantages) the next story mission comes. your empire has grown and caught the attention of the enemy and he is now invading you. wich provinces you have conquered will determine where the enemy will strike. and so on.
the reason this is prefered by me and I believe many others is because a good story is great, but if its completely linear it gets repedative way to soon. by using such a "conquer the world"-like system the campaign will often stay more enjoyable for a longer period of time because it adds variation through choice.
you must also remember this is an RTS, not an RPG. in a n RTS story is often less important while replayability is more important. atleast it is to me.
PS:by adding the option of a coop campaign it increases its lifespan even more.|||Other approach would be to have a global conquest with economy, research, base building, unit management/customization and an overarching story, then in missions'map deployment which is affected by all those global factors you would have all kinds of quests and secondary mission objectives in that map. It could even be randomized for each map every time.
Of course, the most important thing would be for all units to gain experience and level up, and have various abilities either through leveling or by attaching artifacts to their squads(Fantasy Wars, DoW2).
I can't enjoy RTS that has no unit veterancy ever since Company of Heroes. Another way in which Starcraft 2 is primitive.