Continuing from http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/04/26/case-study-1-starcraft-2/

Masters Of Orion is a 4X strategy game (Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate), and is as far away as you can get from SCII on the scale of mechanics. However, surprisingly after analyzing the game most of its core concepts boil down to what we ahve already previously established in our case study of SCII. Concepts that are added in this chapter are also present in SCII, but are simply much more obvious (I am pretty slow).

#6 Multiple paths to victory. You have your optimal path, but that’s not the only path. Your optimal path may be blocked off by your enemy, and thus no longer optimal. You may no longer be able to take advantage of you strengths, and thus be forced to exploit your enemy’s weakness. An important part to realize about strategy games, is that there is always more than one way to win; even if no one has done it before.

#7 Conflict is a must. Herp derp, I have no idea how I missed stating this directly. Strategy games are what they are because you pit your strategy against another. So  just like the player has a strategy, so must the enemy. This is demonstrated in MoO by the diplomatic systems, and the painting of a personality to the AI in the form of the avatars.

So now our list of concepts looks something like this.

1) Sequence of actions to achieve a goal.
2) Rely on Meta-Game skills/knowledge.

3) Optimization of resources.

4) Asynchronous gameplay (Different races).

5) Gather information.

6) Multiple paths to Victory.

7) Conflict.

Looks like enough to build a game from.