I doubt that "each tier is it's own game" could ever really work: what about the different time scales? It's bad enough already in the Total War series where the strategy and battle compete more than complement.
What would be in it for the player extras on the tactical level? It's hard enough for level design and matchmaking to compose a match of random internet players when there are no further constraints, forcing the parameters of one players strategy session on top of that problem can only make it worse.
"RPG sim" would aim for the opposite, creating a uniform UX with consistent interaction pacing (even if on wildly different timescales) for all the off-screen sim layers.
There was a multiplayer RTS called arkaron or something that featured time travelling. The gameplay was built around building up your forces to fight at a particular point in time. As you built up you sent units back in time to battle opposing forces in waves with a limited amount of energy. The game ran on a constantly ticking timeline that implemented changes in the timeline (spawned units) at the end of each timeline section. The original idea was to be more expansive with the implementation but it had to be cut down.
What would be in it for the player extras on the tactical level? It's hard enough for level design and matchmaking to compose a match of random internet players when there are no further constraints, forcing the parameters of one players strategy session on top of that problem can only make it worse.
"RPG sim" would aim for the opposite, creating a uniform UX with consistent interaction pacing (even if on wildly different timescales) for all the off-screen sim layers.