Time Commanders - a British show from quite a few years ago where they had a group of 4 people play Rome: Total War against the AI to reenact a historic battle. With two of the contestants acting as generals and the other two “control” the army - by talking to a guy on a computer playing the game.

I think they deliberately avoided contestants who were somewhat familiar with the game but it just sounds super fun and they had an awesome screen-table with an overview of the battle. They should make a revival with a current game and just have experienced players act as generals to fight against each other with some of their friends acting as lieutenants.