The zoom level in this game...

Like you said its a new Concept, and they want to make it fun of everyone so lets wait and see how the zoom all the way out will work on future updates

Remember to use Space to see the whole map.

I think a lot of people share the same opinion. Just because they are not going to support icons I do hope this does not also mean that they will not allow zooming out much further. They have said they are going to do something regarding the zoom, so as mentioned above we will have to wait and see.

If you zoom out more, we all know that it becomes difficult to see units, impossible to distinguish them. Since we are not getting icons for individual units (thank goodness) we need to see what else they can come up with to abstract the battle while still providing enough information to help us assess the situation. They haven't really said when they might get to this, so we just have to be patient.

They could try to make something that orients on Ruse. Like, whole armies get one single Icon, and the map shows with an arrow (which scales as the army, small armies small arrow etc.)  in which direction they are heading. I liked it in Ruse because i got the feeling of really classy strategy and grand scale.
However, i dont really mind with how it is like now.

SupCom 2 did a very similar thing. It is an elegant clean solution that gives you immediate useful information. I don't know why they don't employ it . Much more useful than the heat map they are suggesting. You could even combine the two potentially. Numbers/Arrows for armies, heat map for buildings and lose units.

I have never played supcom but I am not having an issue with this zoom thing so far.  I use the mini map to get around and pretty much maintain a constant zoom level that works for me so I can grab units and give orders.  When I need to order units to a destination outside of the visible map I right click the minimap to send them on their way.  I can't imagine what a full zoom out of the whole map would really accomplish unless your monitor was ginormous. 

Make sure you're hitting the space-bar to get the strategic map view (it's also a button by the mini map).

@ tatsujb

Is that supcom?  Interesting.  I can see where that would be helpful although in ashes it would be limited by radar ranges so probably a little less informative.

In Ashes you'd accomplish that through unit heat maps (which aren't in yet).

However, the biggest issue I have with zooming out so far has to do with unit speed.  Players zoom out and then want the units to move faster.  So then you make the units move faster and then players want to zoom out further and so on.

There is no way to make everyone happy.

For me i will go with slower units, and work on some kind of transportation.

People will bitch early in the game, but later when you have hundreds of units everywhere with more than 10 meta units going around, then that's when they will start asking to slow the speed of the units, to try to manage everything going on around the map.

its because people are used to a certain way..even me..zooming all the way out and in..annoys me a bit sometimes in ashes..still need to get used to the space bar..as of now..i rarely use it.i rely on the bottom left mini map and move the cursor there. i am curious to see how the finished product will be..and what other tools will be implemented..because future maps will be way bigger than this right? and with more units..if i remember correctly like 10 times more and even more than that? then i il find myself using space bar more often..if it has more valuable information off course..like a bar indicator..of force size..mine compared to them..and maybe ship type? because i can press space bar ..and see oh i have 30 dots..and he has 15-20? but yet all enemy ships counter mine...hm how about..depending how many people actually use the side tree? for now its a bit useless in my opinion..maybe implementing that when you press space..and it reflects that information there ? would look messy but maybe a different concept can be derived from that.

The Unit speed I believe is fine, you could add in faster land units though - but, I like the current speed of unit that we have. However, I think being able to zoom out, similar to Supcom or Sins, is really awesome and feels great. That is certaintly something that sets these games apart from the twitch fest like Starcraft. If you are worried that players will want faster units because they can zoom out further - then just add in more unit transportation options?

Maybe, like a Giant Land Crawler than can hold 20 Tier 1 units, or 10 Tier 2 units? It holds the units inside its hold and can move decently fast.

Or Air transports that can hold a smaller amount of units, and will be exposed to AA, but can move faster and over land obstacles.