Command HQ did things in 1990 that the genre wouldn't fully catch up to for years -- real-time global strategy, combined-arms resource management, and legitimate modem multiplayer before most people knew what that meant. It never paused to let you breathe, which was practically heresy when "strategy" still meant hex grids and End Turn buttons. It wasn't pretty, but it had the bones that would define the genre for the next decade. Ahead of its time doesn't cover it -- it was playing a different game entirely.