Set in the Neolithic- Bronze Age, roughly (but historical accuracy is not a top priority). Like Civ, you have units which can explore the map, fight, build. But the scale is smaller: there are seasons, weather, turns last <1 month instead of hundreds of years. There’s less of an emphasis on technological progress and more on training up the skills of your Units. Units have Skill Trees corresponding to their type / class / profession, and can equip different weapons and armor (produced in your cities) for further boosts, like an rpg. Learning to hunt, gather, farm etc. Competition with other civilizations exists but more so you’re trying to survive the environment— animals, weather, nomadic raiders. Resource management is more explicit— instead of tiles producing Food every Turn at a given rate they produce some lump sum Wheat only when Harvested by a unit, say, which you must then store for the winter. Etc.
I’m working on making such a game, but it’s not my full time job and I have other projects catching my interest too, so the going is slow.