Wat. MOO1 is the exact opposite of what he is asking. There is no automation in it at all.
Were you thinking of MOO3?
He wrote this:
Is there some kind of game where you just kind of set the general direction of development and just kick back whilst things unfold without your involvement?
Unless I'm misunderstanding him, MoO1 barely features micromanagement. There's no techs to beeline to (because they're randomized), just general techs depending on simple ideas of what you need (and some gamechanging stuff like Settle Hostile Environment, but usually, it's stuff that mostly makes your slider spending more efficient, and every time you complete a tech like Improved Eco Restoration the game asks you if you want to automatically fix your Eco spending at a global rate, for example), 90% of the stuff is controlled through sliders (which sit on balancing IND/ECO early and even once they go somewhere particular, it isn't that complicated), lots of windows where you can change production of the entire empire in just a few clicks. Like someone above said to describe EU, "set sliders and mostly sit through it". Pick a chill race like Human, Psilon, Klackon or even Sakkra on a moderate difficulty level and don't worry about anything in particular.
There are some things that take some deliberation, but then again, maybe I can't imagine anyone asking for a strategy game equivalent of Progress Quest. In that case, you can take any Civilization game and run it on Chieftain/Settler/equivalent difficulty, not even settle your first city but pop huts to get free cities and units out of, then set units to auto-explore, stumble upon enemy cities, declare war and immediately win.
You could try locking yourself on a 1x1 tile island in Civilization 4, surrounded by impassable peaks, lock yourself in a Permanent Alliance to some AI, and only nudge him on what techs he should research and what cities he should try to take in wars.
Hell, some top-tier Civ4 players (the kinda ones that effortlessly knock out wins on Immortal+ and have a consistent win rate on Deity) play by autopiloting most of their moves, mostly telling the governors what to do and beelining the right techs. I've seen full LPs of Immortal/Deity games complete in around 2 hours.
