Uh, why is scale an issue with ZK? Some Maps are way larger then the biggest in TA ever were. The 1vs1 maps are generally pretty small, but that's just because players generally prefer shorter games.
All the maps I played and saw in the map selector were really small. The couple of single player campaign missions I played through seemed to be a couple of large hills and nothing more.
And scale is an issue because I hate the tacticality of small-scale RTS games. I find tactical-scale gameplay incredibly boring. That is my biggest complaint/disappointment with Starcraft, Dawn of War, C&C, etc, and why TA and SupCom are #1 in my book.
Besides, micromanagement turns these games into actions-per-second showdowns, and that misses the point of RTS games entirely. I much prefer a more relaxed pace and being able to focus on strategy.
Can you recommend a couple of large scale maps that support multiple factions duking it out with hundreds or thousands of units per side?
ZK tries to cut down on busywork and pure contests of APM. If you don't want to micro then you can do things like tell your units to fight somewhat intelligently (eg long ranged units run from approaching enemies) and set them to retreat when their health is low. It doesn't replace quick tactical decision making for more intense 1v1s, but not everyone wants to play that way anyway.
the other comment already pointed out some maps that are as large as TAs larges maps where, but it does go even bigger in ZK. you can just filter for "big" on the map browser to find more of that size [1]
the biggest issue you'll have is finding people with similar skill level to yours, as its pretty much the same design TA was back then. RTS nowadays is much more balanced so that strength of a unit correlates with its cost. this is not the case in ZK at all, as you can destroy the most expensive units in the game with just a few of the very cheapest, so trading 10_000 for 200 metal happens if you get outplayed.
its especially hard to learn the nuances in this game if you play on large maps, because it quickly becomes an economic race, and these are so much harder for people that have little experience.
/edit: disclaimer: i haven't played the game since it was released on steam, so maybe there are more newcomers now.
on a sidenote: I find it really sad that the gesture menu for buildings like you could enable in ZK hasn't really caught up. it was such a massive improvement in usability/gameplay for this genre.
