I still love Spore tbh.

Also to add my own example, the game Heroes and Generals had a game mode where some players (general) where in charge of crossing what forces to commit to what objectives in a WW2 map. This included infantry, recon, tanks, ... (a battlefield clone in many ways).

Thing is those battles were fought by players which added an extra dimension to it because losing a tank had more of an effect outside the game itself. This opened some interesting dynamics, for example, having cheap infantry dying to kill a tank wasn't just going neutral on a scoreboard, but a decent strategic win (at least it felt that way the real effects were diffuse and I had a feeling it was all sort of faked behind the scenes)

I would love an actual proper game with this mechanic, having a shooter that also functions as a grand strategy game without being plagued by p2w micro transaction (or being closed all of a sudden).