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[Phantom]

Maybe you aren't keeping your officers away from battle or you're not giving your rangers enough AT4s?

[Giant Snowman]

After you've finished with Homeworld you might want to find the expansion: Cataclysm. It's less epic and dramatic, but more exciting and awesome. You also get to upgrade your mothership as the crew finds new ways of adapting mining equipment for warfare.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

It's also not an expansion so much as a stand alone spin off that was originally supposed to be a sequel until relic decided to pick up the series again.

[Micro102]

Stronghold 2, goes from you being a squire to you fighting for the throne.

[Pandarsenic]

Ground Control, if you don't mind that it's a bit old, is actually available for free (if with no multiplayer).

[Dohon]

Homeworld 1 and Homeworld Cataclysm are the best story-wise RTS I ever played. Homeworld 2 was a disappointment.

Ground control was nice too.

[Rakonas]

Age of Empires 2 + Conquerors had some awesome campaigns.

[Bluerobin]

Huh, didn't expect this to come back once it fell off the front page. I played through Dawn of War and it was a lot of fun. Debating whether to go through the expansions too because the first leaves you with a bit of a cliffhanger. I tried Homeworld and got whomped on one of the fairly early campaign missions... probably just doing something completely wrong, but it's gonna be a little bit before I try again.

I completely forgot about the Stronghold series though, thanks for the reminder. I played a bit of a friend's copy of the first one a bunch of years ago and I haven't even checked out the second, but I'll have a look when I get some more free time.

I could check out Ground Control too. I'm not sure how I feel about not being able to reinforce, but I imagine it's just a different style of play that I'd get used to once I tried it. More like... I guess more like the turn-based tactics style of Fire Emblem/Wesnoth although I guess you can reinforce a bit in those. hrm

[Micro102]

Don;t play DoW.....I used to play it, then realized the online community is idiotic in many ways and that their maps are pretty much pieces of paper with lines on it. Shooting through 300 feet of concrete and steel is completely unrealistic. There is no height advantage either.

[Virex]

Not being able to reinforce is pretty much the deciding factor for Ground Control's game play. Every unit counts and you'd pretty damn well keep them out of harms way (and eachothers' line of fire. On higher dificulty levels the game's got friendly fire!) or else you'll lose the mission before you can say "Great, more men into the meatgrinder". Plus, nothing screams Badass as a unit of simple marines with a shitton of meddals, especialy when they can die froma  simple mistake like not using the shadows for cover. Also, chasing down infantry with a piece of artillery makes me think of the Benny Hill theme.

If you don't like the style, there's Ground Controll 2, which does let you reinforce on specific drop-points. The story line was somewhat less then GC1's, but still better then many an other strategy game.

Hmm, this makes me want to play those games again...

[Mindmaker]

Would Real Time Tactics would also be ok?

If that's the case, I warmly recommen Nexus: The Jupiter Incident.

In each of the game's missions, the player is given a small number of large space ships (always less than 10, and sometimes just 1 or 2), along with accompanying fighters and bombers. The ships are large and cumbersome, and the battles between fleets protracted, giving the game a noted cinematic feel.

-Wikiquote

The story is quite interesting and the missions are diversified.
You start out with a single ship and start gaining temporary or permanant allies though missions.
You can upgrade ships and crews between missions with your hard earned points.
The right equipment for the right mission often proves crucial.
Optional objectives give you story details, minor bonuses and medals(for the collectors among you).

[Micro102]

Why do i have to give my ADDRESS to download ground control? Sounds like a junk mail scheme.

[Virex]

Why do i have to give my ADDRESS to download ground control? Sounds like a junk mail scheme.

Probably for data mining purposes, so they at least get some benefit from you. Not that I'd know, I picked my coppy up in a cheap games bin at a local store.

[alway]

Sins of a Solar Empire has no campaign mode nor does it have a story beyond the initial intro explaining why everyone's trying to kill each other.  It's alot of fun for the first couple games, but there just isn't enough variety in the gameplay to keep it interesting over the long term.  At least for me.

I personally enjoyed SoaSE for quite a while. As previously stated, the backstory is pretty much not there at this point (nor will it probably ever be in this iteration, but I hear they may be working on a sequel at some point in time).
The AI are pretty good, and will provide quite a challenge, especially after an update which IIRC made them smarter. But for the most part, the AI doesn't cheat (except on the highest difficulty level of "Unfair," at which point they get bonus resources). The captial ships I personally enjoyed the most;

Spoiler: spoiler for people who don't like long-winded stories (click to show/hide)

I still remember an epic game in which I had gone up against 9 "Unfair" AI on a huge map, who after the first few hours mostly made peace with one another and ganged up on me. I managed to hold my final few planets for literally hours of combat, nearly nonstop, against massive fleets consisting of hundreds of frigates at a time. As I was about to defeat the entire fleet of one AI, another would jump in and join the battle. Eventually I ended up fleeing the system, forfeiting my remaining planets. However, I managed to flee with my entire capital ship armada (which at this point were all very high level) through enemy territory and to the star in the system in which my falling empire resided. This allowed me to jump to a system in which one of the few AI I was neutral with resided. I conquered the pirate base asteroid there, only a few minutes before my final planet back in the main system fell, so I did not lose the game.

I eventually took control of the entire system I fled to, and after many more hours won the game. As a side note, that is when I really felt connected to the game's "story" for the race I was playing. According to the Vasari's lore, they were forced to flee their homeworlds in whatever ships were left to escape the utter anhialation of their empire.

To get the most out of the game, I suggest huge maps with lots of AI; games last a long time and the epic space battles are quite the sight to behold. Fleet management is a breeze due to the game's excellent UI; it is probably the best UI in a strategy game I have seen. I also find microing capital ship armadas to be much more fun than spamming large frigate fleets, as capital ships will literally never die if you aren't stupid with them. And once they are fully leveled up, they become nearly unstoppable.

[KaelGotDwarves]

If sins ever freaking goes I sale I will buy it. One of the best purchases I ever made was GalCiv2 for $2. But then I had to buy the expansion for $20 online.