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.

Not the same but StarCraft 2 is available on Macs and runs acceptably on my M1 Air. It probably runs quite well on M2 Max. Even though it’s seen as predominantly multiplayer game it has a very nice single player campaign with tech tree upgrades between missions.

I know there are many Total War and Paradox games on Macs but they don’t run well for me through Rosetta. Might be worth a try in your case.

While I am not an RTS buff, depending on your internet connection from this Mac’s location, Geforce Now could greatly expand your options (basically most Windows games). You would be playing the games on a cloud server (and could switch to local saves if you ever get a Windows PC)

I've not played it yet but beyond all reason is a new rts that's free and i don't think it's "free to play" free either but i might be wrong about that

Empire Earth or Empire Earth 2

Maybe 9 Bit Armies? I feel it’s more similar to C&C than RoN, but I loved the heck out of RoN back in the day and 9BA is pretty fun. The battleships are a hoot, they hit really hard and have range for days, which combines well with the destructible bridges.

Edit: Whoops, did not read closely enough to see you’re on a Mac. 9BA might work, this person seems to have had luck https://www.reddit.com/r/9BitArmies/comments/1azi3ow/how_to_play_9bit_armies_on_macos/?rdt=53318

There isn’t a historical element in 9BA but you do get air & naval units