Caesar II was good back in the day, I think it's available from GOG.

The Wandering Village might scratch that itch minus the ancient criterion.

Songs of Syx

Imagine rimworld crossed with sim city. Start with ten dudes, keep them happy, fed, healthy, and their friends will show up. And then more of their friends. And suddenly you have a city of 12,000 dudes and a complex chain of diplomacy and taxation keeping your stockpiles full.

Pharoah + Cleopatra!!!!!

Banished always gets a recommendation from me. It's a labor of love from a solo dev and it's my comfort game just about every time I'm sick. Dawn of Man was fun for a while, and Nebuchadnezzar is a modern love letter to the old Caesar/Pharaoh generation of games. Speaking of, I've loved and played Caesar 3 for decades, and it's not even $4 right now so you should 100% grab that if you have even the slightest interest in the genre.

All of the recommendations so far are great! I just also wanted to throw in Laysara: Summit Kingdom. It’s not a traditional ancient civ builder, but it’s very close and scratches a lot of those itches.

Nebuchadnezzar. Build Babylon from the ground up!

Entries from the Anno franchise maybe? Never played myself but watched a few LPs and it was fun to watch. Some games are fun to watch but a slog to play yourself though which is why I bring it up.

recommends

Off the car lot, it's still "recommendations".