>>712617380
I believe modern devs are too tied up with the conveniences of the established 'meta' to really try something new. And on the other hand, the genre is relatively niche and not easy to make, so outside of hardcore enthusiasts, not many will be willing to commit to it, let alone trying to invent something new.
There were some neat ideas in the past bordering on the genre, like Settlers, Mega-lo-mania, Netstorm, even Stronghold remains fairly unique to this day. There's one unfinished old RTS I played called Dawn of War(not to be confused with 40k game) where through global magic you could turn enemy units into stone and then mine them for resources. It's a little thing but I loved it. Maybe the problem with modern RTS attempts is that their approach to gameplay is too serious and calculated.
