I started working on a similar project about a year ago, except I was doing it fully by hand in the vanilla game (journey mode in a blank world), custom 8-bit instruction set, all that. I took an extended break from the project and kept thinking “this idea is so obvious, someone else is gonna do it first and I’m gonna look like a copycat” but not getting around to finishing work on it anyways. I’ll post pictures if anyone is interested, maybe a world download if I can find somewhere to host it.
There is the Anno series of games, which are technically RTS games but if I’m honest I find them the most fun when I go out of my way to avoid combat/micromanagement. I’ve only played 1404, 2070, and 2205, 2070 being the best in my opinion, but it has a bad history with DRM so I’d suggest 1404 (known as “Dawn of Discovery” in the US because us americans are afraid of numbers apparently).
Edit: looking at the steam page it looks like they decided to take 1404 down and made a new page where the game is (mostly) unchanged besides requiring you to jump through all the BS hoops that 2070 did, so I’d say if you’re gonna spend money get 1404 on GOG, or if you are willing to do unspeakable things go with 2070.