I love that game and it’s the best RTS I’ve played. It seemed to basically rip off the CIV games heavily but simplify them and put them in an RTS context. Everything I loved about Age of Empires as a kid but much better and also spanning the ancient age to the information age.
I run an M2 max mac, which makes things complicated, but I’m open to jumping through some hoops if such hoops exist to make something that wasn’t supposed to work on Mac, work on Mac, but would need to know if it even can be done for that particular game. Also obviously direct compatibility out of the box would be great.
I really don’t want anything that’s multiplayer only, as I’m unlikely to ever play online and prefer single player games
I really hate free to play games and just want to buy the game in its finished state outright that will stay the same for as long as I own it and then just pay for any expansions or new additions at my discretion if they get released.
I’d like it to have the same all of history spanning scope for tech.
I like there to be air units and navy units.
I haven’t played rise of nations but from your description, you might like the core paradox games (crusader kings -> europa universallis-> victoria -> hearts of iron) despite their shitty dlc model. Currently, eu4 is on sale with all its dlc for ~£40, dlc isn’t very necessary for the other games. They are more grand strategy than 4x. You can use mods to convert saves and carry your campaign through the games. All together, they can cover all of human history (European, North African and West Asian medieval history and then the rest of the world from 1444 onwards). If what you like about rts is the unit micromanagement, you might want to go with victoria 2 rather than victoria 3, you will need victoria 2 dlc and it is a lot older.
If you want a 4x rts, stellaris is very good, but it isn’t based on human history.
Not the same but StarCraft 2 is available on Macs and runs acceptably on my M1 Air. It probably runs quite well on M2 Max. Even though it’s seen as predominantly multiplayer game it has a very nice single player campaign with tech tree upgrades between missions.
I know there are many Total War and Paradox games on Macs but they don’t run well for me through Rosetta. Might be worth a try in your case.
While I am not an RTS buff, depending on your internet connection from this Mac’s location, Geforce Now could greatly expand your options (basically most Windows games). You would be playing the games on a cloud server (and could switch to local saves if you ever get a Windows PC)
I’ve not played it yet but beyond all reason is a new rts that’s free and i don’t think it’s “free to play” free either but i might be wrong about that
Maybe 9 Bit Armies? I feel it’s more similar to C&C than RoN, but I loved the heck out of RoN back in the day and 9BA is pretty fun. The battleships are a hoot, they hit really hard and have range for days, which combines well with the destructible bridges.
Edit: Whoops, did not read closely enough to see you’re on a Mac. 9BA might work, this person seems to have had luck https://www.reddit.com/r/9BitArmies/comments/1azi3ow/how_to_play_9bit_armies_on_macos/?rdt=53318
There isn’t a historical element in 9BA but you do get air & naval units
