Thus I need smart AI to carry out orders and almost all attempts at this imo have failed. Imo the two need to be paired together RtwP with good AI, if it is definable by the user or the game does it well.
Can't agree more - and it brings me to MY main criticism of real time. If you're relying on AI to control 3/4 of your party in a party based game - then you are missing out on 3/4 of the combat experience. The only time I enjoy real time is if I can keep pauses to a minimum... which means I have to solo or run 3 beaters that I can actually trust the AI with. Personally I don't want a party based game that is tuned for solo and I would never trust an AI on a caster class. A turn based system that respects your time fixes all of those problems.
