just a short none topic input:
but i loved to play shogun tw (yes, that single person playing this game on this continent was me )
so you would hit my taste quite good with a samurai game. especially as i think this whole topic and far east history has tons and tons of interesting stuff to show and tell.

so maybe this thing would help:
use the power of the visual and history part of your idea. For example a nice drawn main hero samurai might attract some people. tell a little bit about the story (since its unusual for an rts game this might help as well).

show a beta level (btw battle realms was a good game as well) of some nice asian landscape and building maybe with just the main samurai unit standing or running arround and i am quite sure this would help to change this post more into your expected direction.

make somehing a coder would at least look twice at and maybe say ... "gee, an army of samurai kicks ass...look the melee combat on the battlefield..... and over there some hero special unit. he is preparing for his master dragon slay move...this wavy cherry trees, the high rice grass and swampy deep green land .... this sounds like a good basement for some good rts´ing"


i like the theme a lot so i would take a very close at the game as soon as possible...

cheers