For traditional RTS there's Planetary Annihilation: TITANS and Company of Heroes 2. They're both well regarded but I can't vouch for them personally because I fucking hate traditional RTS.
There's also the ANNO games if you're in the mood for something excessively German.
For something with a more HOMMy/4xy lean there's Age of Wonders III which is pretty cool. I need to play more of that.
If you're open to something a bit weird then I'd *strongly* recommend Creeper World III or its (kinda) sequel Particle Fleet: Emergence. The former is amazing and the latter is probably even better but I've not played enough to be sure yet. They're essentially RTSes where the enemy is a fluid.
Kinda stretching it for RTS, more of a management game (but in the same vein as Prison Architect), Rimworld is *very* good. It's great at generating interesting emergent situations.
Also Europa Universalis IV and Crusader Kings II (and Stellaris but it needs to be fleshed out) are *technically* RTSes so I'll mention them cos they're great.
Going to try Planetary, then look at the other non-traditionals you mentioned. Not really sure what I'm after - something between a management/economic and rts I think.
Rimworld would fit that bill. But it's fairly slow paced. Maybe XCOM? Not what you're asking for exactly but might scratch that same itch. XCOM2 (which is better) is in the current Humble Monthly for $12.
My friend had a game where everyone but the sculptor died. Sculptor literally couldn't do anything but sculpt, not even cleaning, so he was depressed, living in his own filth and making sculptures, trading them for food whenever a party passed by. Eventually a new settler arrived and... it was another sculptor who could only sculpt. Bandits attacked and he managed to capture one of them, eventually getting her to join his settlement and... yeah, turned out to be another sculptor.
Amazingly he kept them alive, in their own filth, and eventually someone useful joined and he turned it around. Was pretty cool.
Reminds me of the time Andy Black had termites living in his monitor and for the longest time thought it was a graphics problem. I *think* it was Andy, at least.
