Most RTS games of the 90s were about gathering: ore, gold, lumber, spice. Z threw all of that out. The map was split into sectors, you took one by getting a unit to its flag, and every sector you held made all your factories build faster. So every fight was really about ground and time, and a lost flag on the far side of the map could snowball into a lost game.

I still think that is one of the cleanest strategy ideas ever, and almost nobody copied it. Curious if anyone here played it, and whether you know any newer games that use a similar territory-drives-production system.

(There is also a free open-source 3D fan remake of Z called OpenZ, if you want to see the idea in action again: https://github.com/playopenz/OpenZ)