I don't care very much about fancy 3D effects and such, but I still like beauty. E.g. if the city icon in SC would be different for Paris, Rome, London, Berlin and Moscow, this would add to the atmosphere of the game IMO.
I did not play CM, but from what I know it is not an RTS game, but turnbased! (Right?) Actually, I find the idea to make *turnbased* 3D tactical games attractive ... it's just that my system is not very powerful, so I won't give it a try soon.
Straha