head to head
vs
Dark Reign: The Future of WarvsWarcraft II: Tides of Darkness
Dark Reign: The Future of War leans Optimization (Pure Optimization); Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness leans Optimization (Practiced Mastery).
Dark Reign: The Future of WarWarcraft II: Tides of Darkness
Axis by axis
Execution5 vs 6
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness leans harder on execution: Faster micro across land, sea and air units
Reads5 vs 5
Even - both lean on reads about the same.
Variance3 vs 3
Even - both lean on variance about the same.
Optimization8 vs 7
Dark Reign: The Future of War leans harder on optimization: Build orders, terrain and unit scripts are solvable systems
Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.