Not just a general, but a military commander, as different from a a ruler.

Allowing you to plan, and execute plans. Leaving you room to decide, offering you tactical/strategic options.

Making you feel responsible for the troops at your command.

Giving you the joy of allowing you to think, not just react. Not just "solving a puzzle", but being creative with your planning, then adapting to your plan and forcing you to change it (hopefully your plan was a flexible one) in order to best succeed according to the circunstances.

Allowing the player to make the best of bad situations.

Giving the player a (fictional) taste of the unsavory charges of command.

A couple examples:

- Panzer General. In the more spacious scenarios. Like the African ones in Allied General. The crowded scenarios were too much of a puzzle (a personal appreciation).

- 101: The Airborne Invasion of Normandy. A great game that belongs in GOG (maybe one day...). You are the commander of a stick of parachutists. You can select the men that you are taking with you from those available, but the ones available will change from time to time. You are made to follow the tenet of the airborne troops: adapting with whatever you have to make do. First with the men and materiel at your disposal, then after the jump. Preparing for the mission was amazing, you could spend there a lot of time. Each soldier has a different personality and capabilities. If you enjoyed preparing in UFO: Enemy Unknown, you will have a blast with this one. Training exercises and the actual jump are very clearly diferentiated. The commander of the stick is encouraged to play several exercises before flying to Normandy.

Would the Close Combat series count?

If it worked for you, why not.

A bridge too far was a favorite of mine. The grand campaign was fun, although it provided very little strategic options, other than requesting units from a limited pallette and, if you play with the Allies, deciding where to send airborne support (easy: to Arnhem sector, for as long as you can). It was a bit of a movie where you played your part from a script that the game handed to you. Still, a great script (and game). It certainly made you deal with unsavory options sometimes (if you played with high difficulties) and where you had to make do with what you had.

I would say any SRPG would fit here, including games like Fire Emblem, Disgaea, and Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark.

(Strategy games that aren't RPGs would probably fit here as well.)

I also feel this way for non-tactical turn-based RPGs, particularly those with a battle system like Wizardry or Dragon Quest 3 where you give everyone orders, and they are then executed.

Dragon Quest 4 is an interesting example as, in Chapter 5 of the original game, your companions are all AI controlled; however, you can equip them outside of battle, choose a tactic for the AI to follow, and even change your party during battle if the wagon is present. (The remakes allow you to turn off AI control, which can change the feel of the game; if you still want something closer to the original feel, try playing the game without using the "Follow Orders" tactic for any party members. On the other hand, the remakes do let you set different AI settings per character, and I feel that still preserves the original feel while allowing the player more control.)

but.... if you have never been a general how could you know how it feels to be a general?

still i guess i felt like a general in the command and conquer series though most of the times i am still playing a game
command ops 2 does come close btw