TBS games allow you to use your creativity and imagination when playing the game, while in RTS there is little time for that - too busy clicking.
We must not be playing the same TBS games then, because I don't find creativity and imagination to be a factor. There's a build order that works best, and you use it.
Another thing in TBS games is that there is a more intricate element of evolution of your empire in that the decision to expand in a particular direction or to invest in a particular technology can have far reaching consequences much later. If you make a mistake in RTS you can still outclick your opponent and build a new army. In TBS you are unlikely to get a second shot, you will be decimated.
The interesting thing to me is that this is cited as one of the major problems with most TBS games. Everything winds up being decided either in the first quarter of the game, or with one decisive battle where if you lose it (perhaps due to RNG fail where your tanks get taken out by spearmen) you've lost the game. Sure it'll take 50 turns before you actually lose, but a comeback is impossible.
We had a big thread on the Elemental forum about preventing just that "steamroller effect."
But having said that, one game that brings the two styles together in a great way is the Total War genre. The RTS part of the game is not at all a clicking tournament because you do not actually build anything in real time. You use what you have already built in TBS. It really uses the best of both worlds. This also points out nicely where the problem with RTS games lies - building the army. Takes the strategy out and brings the clicking tournament in.
I'm sure many people would argue that being able to handle both sides of the game quickly is a skill. Total War battles are less clicky because there's just fewer things you have to activate during battle. You can make a fleet in something like Sins that is also very non-clicky, but it's not as effective as a fleet with ships that have special abilities for you to use. And yes, using a lot of those effectively requires being able to click at a decent speed (fundamentally an outgunned fleet needs to out micro the other guy to win).
