The sheer number of viable strategies available to all factions with the exception of USF. Also there are many different strategies specific to the different game modes. I know you don't like commanders but in my opinion it's a good system within the coh2 environment. On top of that relic is getting more creative with new commander abilities and working hard to redesign old commanders.
Bulletins are largely pointless right now, with a rework they could have a lot of strategic impact.
Tech timing and path is a super important decision in coh2 because of how expensive it is.
Anyways lunch time. Still 5 more hours in this car ride... Yay.
The problem with that is, in CoH2, "unit composition" and "strategy" are interchangeable, because your strategy is 100% unit decisions. There's a lot of variety there, but it's still just a single dimension of a strategy game. Like I said before, imagine if SC2 replaced all of its upgrades with slightly different variations of existing units. It would make the game objectively worse, because it would remove an entire dimension of strategic decision-making from the game. That's essentially what Relic did going from CoH1 to CoH2. Just building units, no matter how many units you can choose from, is not very interesting, there's really no way around it.
It's not about options, it's about decisions. The thought processes behind choosing unit A vs. unit B and choosing a unit vs. an upgrade are extremely different. CoH2 only requires that players think in terms of the former, even though the latter is equally important and oftentimes far more interesting. A unit A vs. unit B vs. upgrade 1 vs. upgrade 2 decision is far more challenging, and more interesting, than a simple unit A vs. unit B decision. It's the removal of that type of decision that I'm talking about when I say CoH2 lacks strategic depth. People underestimate how much something so seemingly simple can improve RTS games. It's a big reason why games like SC2 are so successful. Having to decide between a handful of units, higher tech, or a handful of upgrades at any given time is interesting and challenging, it's fun to play with and fun to watch. And there's really no reason why CoH2 couldn't have that same layer of decision-making, at the very least to the extent that CoH1 had it. Nothing in the game currently matches that dynamic.
I have no problem with commanders, I just don't think they should be central to strategy like they are in CoH2, because it removes a lot of player flexibility. If your commander is necessary for your strategy to succeed, once you've picked it you're locked in, and you're extremely limited in terms of modifying your gameplan since the game's variety is locked into these groups of units that you can only choose one of per game.