Considering what their influence did to supreme commander 2, I doubt they were ever on course to become best in the RTS genre

edit: Square that is, not Eidos Hungary

These games were really entertaining. Too bad - I would have liked to see a more modern conflict covered using their game design.

That's a shame, because the Battlestations series is something unique.
Air/Naval RTS - Command map + 3rd person control.

The comment about not being first or best in rts genre I don't quite follow.
Do all entries in a genre have to aim for the number one/mainstream, can't they carve out their own sub-genre/niche within the genre instead? Battlestations had already found it.

Even just saying a game is RTS is too broad these days as there's a couple of 'mainstream' sub genres for rts.

Anyway, as for where the Battlestations series could have gone:

The series was just two entries, based on ww2 pacific.

They could have tried a game based in the Atlantic, though I can see the reduced variety in warfare/ being mostly dominated by uboat warfare being a potential downer for that. Still there were some interesting battles, and they could have built upon what they already had.

Or maybe a shift to modern naval/air warfare might have worked, a bit of a more action oriented/looser version of Janes Fleet Command.

Noooooo! That means Mithis is gone... well.. maybe they can reform as Mithis again and continue with that Nexus 2 engine or return to Imperium Galactica..

I didn't realize the Battlestation games were supposed to be RTSes.