Kenshi is an unorthodox pick for an RTS. The combat is very much RTS, but the game takes place in a post apocalyptic sandbox incredibly similar to Fallout with deep RPG elements and a solid building system. It really is a sandbox to it's core as every city you see can be destroyed, every faction can be annihilated or allied with and by the endgame you practically have your own nation if you choose to, with a building kit so flexible that you can create gigantic cities identical to the ones found in the world right down to where each table is placed and to an untrained eye a player's city looks like something you'd expect to see when exploring. Exploration is where the game really shines though, with a map bigger than anything I've ever seen (there are bigger game worlds but none with the packed content Kenshi has) and incredibly unique biomes which are almost like entirely different games, down to what you fight, what gear is optimal (sabers beat spiders, katanas beat cannibals/bandits, gas masks for swamps, acid protection for acid rain etc) and how you approach them. You really get immersed too, I stumbled into a gigantic crater lake that was home to giant spiders and found a band of mercenariess I hired for 2 days to join my squad. Ended up getting swarmed and chased out of the nest with 3 of the mercs slung over our shoulders and the rest being devoured alive, took them back to their camp, healed them up and left them recovering in a coma. Actually felt quite bad, the help they provided and the way they died was surreal and made them feel like more than just a tool. Each biome and sector can paint a different story based on your experiences there and you ALWAYS feel like you're on the brink, everything and everyone including yourself can die at any moment. It also has amazing mod support that is seemless and thanks to the engine and text based dialogue can easily be made to feel like it belongs.
The performance of the game is shocking though, loads more often than any game I've played in recent memory and the framerate absolutely tanks when things load in even on an SSD which is almost all the time when travelling on 3x game speed. It's not uncommon to lag into a horde of mutant bird giraffes only to get sent back to your last save.