I think what differs from fighting games is the time component.
I think you have to break down the thinking in more layers in RTS.
Fighting games resets to neutral state quite fast and often after a combo has been done.
The timescales and cycles of actions and reactions are quite short and limited in scope in comparison to RTS.
Most RTSes also have a fog of war where you can't see the exact state of the game at all time. Fighting also have hidden state in the sense that humans have reaction times and will have a delayed response to their opponents input/moves in the game.
If you see a Mace coming at your base early in a game of Zero-K, there several time sensitive strategic choices you have to make.
Information from the past.
When you spot the Mace, you can gauge when the enemy made the Mace and how all-in this rush is. If you are familiar with the map, you might even be able to tell if the enemy used their commander to boost out the Mace or not.
You should also have perfect information about your buildorder and how much you resources you spent on non-fighting units such as solar collectors, mexes and buildpower.
Information in the present.
When you spot the Mace, you can access all the information in the present to gauge a proper response.
Information about the enemy position is also important, as to whether the enemy commander is joining the Mace or staying behind and building economy. How early you scout the enemy is an overall strategic decision that goes into the metagame of Zero-K.
Information about the future.
You should be able to gauge when the enemy Mace will reach your base or expansion, and whether to pull back cons or the commander to protect your base, or just keep expanding. Pulling the commander to protect the base, might be the wrong decision if this is just a slow push to try and keep you from expanding and the enemy is ecoing behind this.
If I were to try and simplify this I would divide it into 4 components.
Execution
You
The opponent
The metagame
The most important part is arguably the metagame as it feeds back into all other aspects of gameplay.
However, gauging the "actual" metagame of an RTS is one of the most difficult parts of understanding the game.
Here I imagine the metagame applying to even small micro decisions such as raiding and jiggling of Glaives and stuff.
Glaive jiggling is strong specifically against Scorchers, so how good you are at Glaive jiggling, affects the Rover viability on many maps.
I find that when I play Helwor who likes to jiggle his Glaives a lot, I cannot let him just focus on one group against my Scorchers as that will make my Scorchers lose hard.
However, if I spread my Scorchers into several groups, it forces him to spread his attention and micro, as it is almost impossible to jiggle several groups of Glaives at once against my Scorchers.
So the pregame factory choice is affected by Glaive micro, which is affected by my opponents skill and multitasking, which can be countered by spreading up my Scorchers into several groups and multitasking them to avoid single group fights against Glaives.
