Deadlock: Planetary Conquest was very formative for me* as a 90s Macintosh gamer. It's a sort of city-builder/4X game about seven alien empires competing to control the mysterious planet Gallius IV.
There's troops and fighting but you don't get to control the battle itself, just watch a recording of how it played out (most people seem to have hated this but I liked it).
The art used in the encyclopedia and tech tree is awesome:
Its alien races have a special place in my heart:
The Maug, whose technology is the only thing keeping their sickly species alive. They get research and production bonuses but their morale is very low. Their spies get the unique ability to sabotage production. They call the player
Maug Chief.
The Cyth, who poison whole planets in pursuit of transcendence. (That's what happened to the Maug.) They're at a constant 85% morale and can poison enemy farms. They call the player
Veil Lord.
The Uva Mosk, who live in harmony with planetary ecology, so naturally they should get all the planets. They have natural camoflage so any infantry unit can be spies, but they're hippies so they don't produce much in taxes. The player is the
Grand Hortus.
The Tarth, big dog-dinosaur(?) dudes who are great at war and farming. Being huge makes boats and spying hard for them. The player is the
Übergeneral!!!
The Re'Lu, telepaths who have a psychic link to their dog-thing companions. They can look at opponents cities from afar and their commanders can flip enemy units loyalty during combat. The player is the
Overseer.
The ChCh-t, scorpiony bug aliens whose hives contain overwhelming numbers. (My favorite as a kid because they're so easy to play.) They also have the best aircraft for some reason? The player is the
Hive Imperius.
And good ol' humanity are still just venal capitalists. They've got a sort of hi-tech Renaissance Italy vibe? Infantry units have combat stims like Starcraft space marines. The player is just the
Commander (booo).
There's also two species not directly involved in the conquest of Gallius IV: the almost extinct Tolnan, one of whom serves as advisor to the player, and their nemeses the Skirineen, who run the orbital black market.
Unfortunately the sequel, Shrine Wars, is no good.
It's a game with lots of personality that I'm surprised isn't better known, but that may be because it was one of only a few games released on Macintosh, so I guess to PC gamers it didn't stand out as much.
* I am still kind of salty about the new game Deadlock being totally unrelated.
