OP. This has been happening to Halo Wars 2 for quite some time. I believe 343 is still trying to get to the bottom of it. If there is an update and if you pause, restart, or just do anything to disrupt it, it will download the update AND the entire game with it. You can do a search on this, but here's a post on 343's response.
https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/...28/25bf9937-f0f9-46b3-a20a-362420802b06/posts
https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/...28/25bf9937-f0f9-46b3-a20a-362420802b06/posts
IMPORTANT NOTE: Often there appears to be issues with the download going extremely slow or seemingly freezing entirely - LET IT GO. Eventually it will kick back in and usually even if it shows no progress it is actually downloading in the background. Be warned that if you interrupt the download you will almost certainly be forced to download THE ENTIRE GAME when you launch Halo Wars 2 again. This seems to be a pretty common situation so the best thing to do is just be patient and let that original patch download do it's thing