Satire wrote:
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The central problem with the game is the victory conditions, no doubt about it. The sole objective in any game is to kill as much of the enemy as possible, that is it. There is nothing whatsoever else to it, everything else is secondary to achieving this goal. Map control merely exists to gain more points to buy more things to kill more stuff. Flanking exists to outmaneuver your opponent so you may kill more of his units than he can yours. Supply is merely to give you the fuel, munitions and slapped on armor to keep your units functioning better than your opponents.
There is no deeper strategy to the game, what exists is putting together a unit-composition that is superior to your opponents and then out-playing him. It is sad but it is true. I wish it wasn't, I really wish that this game rewarding critical thinking and strategic maneuvering, but it does not.
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IMO your analysis is false.
You cannot summarize it only by "Beat your opponent" and claim there is no meta.
You have tons of way for win your game, since you have to kill units, and there is tons of em, tons of way to kill em, a lot of field situational tricks, and a lot of manoeuver opportunities.
Just try to compare W:EE to other RTS with others victory conditions : a lot of them turn in slugfest or clickfest. Especially thoses with vitcory points, like CoH or DoW, same in WiC. Imagine if you apply victory by zone and add no value to unit losses : you will have all zones captured expect one, where there will be a perpetual slugfest between each force. That is happening in other cap based victory game's, and they have no more strategic depth than W:EE. And I dont mention Dune II based gameplay like SC or other, everyone know their flaw points.
There are not any other RTS where you cannot claim the goal is to beat your opponent, and where all meta deserve that goal.
So maybe are you waiting for another game style ?