What is the same if I've played C&C Generals or Dawn of War: So, there is some base building and real time unit command with health, armour, ranged units/buffs etc. This part is not super deep on its own. After that, it deviates from the standard RTS fare. Timeframe is roughly Supreme Commander medium maps (slower than starcraft or C&C, faster than HoI or Stellaris). Rushing is almost impossible (if units are just moving somewhere, they run out of supply if they're not close to a friendly village). I'm slowly doing one mission per night while my meds kick in. Just setting expectations.

Multiple paths to victory!

• You can get "Hegemony", which is basically map control to win. It's quite a lot and is the "default" way of winning.
• Last man standing, which can be done through conquering the heavily armoured main base or using spies to "assassinate" the enemy general. As the tech faction, I use assassinate a bunch.
• CHOAM shares victory. Very hard to do at the best of times, but if you have half of all available CHOAM shares you win. There are some bonuses and stuff that work of CHOAM shares, but they're just a way of storing money that grows over the course of a match if you can't think of anything else to do. CHOAM doesn't pay dividends.
• Landsraad Victory. There's a particular chair on the council that if you hold for 30 days, you win. Haven't done this one, but there's a bunch of things you can also do with the Landsraad.

Each path to victory comes with a bunch of shenanigans with its associated mechanic. With CHOAM shares you can do a pump and dump, with Landsraad you can get subsidies or hand out penalties etc.

You kinda have to spec into one or two depending on your comfort levels and sometimes the mission will bar you from some or give you a different one.

Multiple factions!

• So, each faction has roughly similar buildings, roughly similar techs, and different military units. Each faction plays pretty differently. Haven't explored too much, and I chose the weird DLC faction first (Ixians, the ones rejecting the butlerian jihad, but in secret)

Diplomacy is every match! You want to win, so allying long term usually means your one AI ally will become your major rival. So pretty much every game involves some diplomancy. There's some treaties and stuff. Not as fleshed out.

Dawn of War: Dark Crusade style campaign. Each full map game comes with different little bonuses that you can invest in. Also, losing one game doesn't knock you out of the campaign. (I lost 3 games in my current campaign and am looking at victory). There's a bit of positive feedback here, but I think the AI faction does too.

You have to capture towns, which will usually have a couple of units defending. This has a 4X-but-real-time feel. To get to another faction militarily, you generally have to have friendly villages all the way up to their territory. You need to generate "Authority" resource