My dad told me about the times he had multiplayer matches with his buddies on Red Alert on the ps1 back in the late 90s. He said that he played the game with the d-pad..
Wow, didn't he know that there was a PlayStation mouse accessory?
He said he didn't need to use a mouse, that he was that good at the game.
Well, I guess so..
Personally, I think d-pads are for RPGs and platformers, not real-time strategy games - those are best with a mouse, of course.
But I dunno, just my personal preference I guess.
Try playing anything with this.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Intellivision-Controller.jpg/1200px-Intellivision-Controller.jpg)
Your thumbs will scream.