if you want SEND MILLION DUDES type play (and carry-alls), there's Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander: it's literally impossible to care about unit survival in those because in-universe they're all just expendable robots, the only real person is the commander
Red Alert 2 is peak Command and Conquer RTS, both for live cutscenes and gameplay - Red Alert 3 went too heavy into TEEHEE FUN MAYMAYS and into unit ability micro
CnC Generals is very much... a snapshot in time of early GWOT
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 1 and successor-in-all-but-setting Company of Heroes 1 were to be really revolutionary, what with no longer building individual dudes, cover and morale mechanics, etc. They didn't become revolutionary as it was too hard to follow suit, and the Dawn of War franchise become worse (which is somewhat of a hot take with how many weirdos liked DoW2) with Dawn of War 3 being an absolute fucking turd of awful game design decisions on every level
If you want to see RTS go weird, you can check European Wars: Cossacks or the napoleonic sequel:
- you still build individual dudes
- then you corral them into units with officers and musicians
- then you go fight
The napoleonic one had fun stuff like holding fire until the enemy in the deadliest range band and units stopping firing if your faction runs out of saltpeter
If you want a basebuilder RTS that's functional but very weird, there's Perimeter. It was made by Russians, It's very weird, in setting and gameplay.
If you want base-builders that actually tried to follow Dawn of War/CoH, there's Ancestors Legacy (Viking age, a lot of focus on violence) and Iron Harvest (dieselpunk, mecha).
Now, RTS doesn't necessarily mean base builder. For ancient titles, you can try Ground Control I, it has persistent campaign armies. You could also try Blitzkrieg, but damn, it's ancient, and hard, and not that good in my view.
There's the Men of War series where they went and made WW2 RPG into basically a WW2 RTS without adjusting much. So you can control squads of infantry and tanks, and individual troopers still have inventory down to individual ammo arounds, and you can direct control in bad TPS sense. Vehicles have fairly detailed damage models. People like Assault Squad, I don't.
Another weird non-base builder is Tom Clancy's EndWar. It has Tom Clancy's name, so you know it's stupid.
RUSE is fairly important WW2 game, led to several games patterned on it.
Wargame/Steel Division series don't have base building; in skirmish, you merely build a deck of units, and that's what you get to gradually bring onto the field. I don't like them for their reliance on micro
