Hawk52: I don't like playing RTS or TBS games with random human players. The reason is pretty simple: They stop being about strategy, and how to exploit the game system for all it's worth.
A great example of that is HOMM3. I only tried that a few times in all the time I played the game due to bad experiences, but I actively followed the community to learn tips (just in case). One of the favorite techniques of players that eventually got a massive backlash was the Black Dragon Armageddon trick. Since Armageddon hits all units, and Black Dragons are immune to it, and Black Dragons were pretty much the fastest unit in the game, you could basically wipe out 70% of an army within a turn or two just by playing a keep-away game with some black dragons. Or just hit and run with them immediately surrendering/retreating after nailing the Armageddon. Then give that hero another black dragon, and do it again. And again. And Again. And Again.
That's not strategy. That's
exploitation of a game system.
It's kind of like with fighting games. I won't trap an opponent in a corner, aim for an indefinite combo loop, or spam annoying attacks. I expect my opponent to hold those same gentlemanly standards. It's just...most
don't leaving me angry when I'm done after being cheesed the entire fight.
Yeah, I did something similar when I played the Devils in HoMM3.
If I recall correctly, you had to take over a capital in a limited amount of time (or perhaps I was just impatient) and I couldn't amass the proper army buildup so I just got the hero with Chain Lightning (blue guy), get a small army and would Chain Lightning/Surrender repeatedly.
Cheap trick, but it was vs the computer, not a human :P.
Frankly though, my worst abuses in gaming have been against a computer "AI".
What I'll usually do is save a game at a crucial time, then try various things and see how the computer reacts (more often then not, it will react in a totally deterministic way or otherwise randomly choose between a very small number of predictable patterns). More often then not, it won't react to a particular strategy well and then I'll just abuse it to win under crazy underdog circumstances that I couldn't pull off when playing vs a human.
Concerning the main topic, I like both. I find TBS are REAL strategy games (you can take as much time as you want to really plan everything) while RTS are more action/strategy hybrids and I don't mind action games either (as long as they are not too mindless and RTSs aren't).