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.