Unit count and "planning" were the two things that separated TA from others for me. You could build more units and you could command larger groups of them comp

Unit count and "planning" were the two things that separated TA from others for me. You could build more units and you could command larger groups of them compared to something like SC where you couldn't group more than 12 per hotkey. The sheer number of units you could crank out also had interesting strategic effects if, say, your opponent had a balanced defense but not quite enough flak cannons, say, to hold up to a giant swarm of air units. I remember having to worry more about the specifics of what they were building than in games where there was a unit cap that increased the relative value of fortifications and defensive structures. Sequencing was great too. Tell your commander to build a factory, then another factory, then a solar plant, etc, with seemingly no queue size limit. Queue up dozens of things in each of those factories too. Etc. It always felt less "clicks per minute" dominated because of these things for me - though I was not a high level player or anything, just playing for fun - while the industry went the opposite, way into the Micro side and turned into things like Warcraft 3 and then LoL. (I forget the name of Cavedog's TA sequel set in a fantasy world, but even that, IIRC, backed away from the giant armies thing.)