I taught a friend to play multiplayer Supreme Commander. And your outlining of the "on boarding" problem is spot on. They ended up getting through it because th

I taught a friend to play multiplayer Supreme Commander. And your outlining of the "on boarding" problem is spot on. They ended up getting through it because they already where a good RTS player and I 1v1ed them for a while (didn't abliterate them every match, and slowly ramped up the difficulty while providing constructism). However most new players don't have access to 1 on 1 coaching!