LoL sucks, it's like a shallow copy of DotA. I've played around 300 hours, it's very silly in comparison.

Stellaris is kinda easy once you figure out that expanding is the No1 priority for the entire game. Expand, build ships - nobody will be able to stop you.

There was always a need for a 'tall' empire - so you don't expand, but focus on your small part of the galaxy - but so far it's always crushed by the expanding ones.

Once you get stargate tech, it's 24/7 war. For even more territory.

Right now I remembered a game that never was really finished, Stardrive, where you could design your own ships down to the electrical wiring. It had layouts with sections, and you could fill it up to your liking. It was a shame that ground troops could finish the game in minutes.

Sometimes I feel like 4X games are usually more suited for roleplaying than actual challenge of micromanagement.

Anyway, I have a huge jam on my main line in OpenTTD, gotta fix my intersection again.

It's a mix of strategy and role-playing. Sure if you want to survive on higher difficulties, you probably need a build that is meta. But on medium difficulties or lower you can pretty much roleplay your empire as you like and there's many mechanics in the game that help with this. Your empire can be a democratic haven for all, a mega corporation, a machine hivemind forcefully assimilating organics into its network...and much more.

There's also a great exploration aspect of the game. Your exploration vessels regularly find anomalies that tell a neat little story and provide bonuses to your empire (which can range from a small resource bonus to making one of your leaders immortal).

Of course, there's also the power fantasy. You start with just one planet, but you will quickly expand throughout the galaxy. You can then wage war against other empires, build a federation together with them or convince the galactic community to crown you as Emperor of the entire galaxy. But the game also regularly throws adversaries at you if the AI empires are starting to become no match for you, may it be one of the space fauna suddenly becoming extremely hostile or a Great Khan uniting a marauder horde and demanding everyone to become their vassal.

It is also rare that a bad outcome leads to a straight loss. Losing a war (usually) does not doom your empire but you only lose a bit of territory or get vassalized, both giving you ample opportunities to build up your strength again or make allies to stand together against an enemy.