I’ve been revisiting anno 2205, infamously the ugly duckling of the Anno series of RTS games. I don’t mind so much the fact that it’s different, lacks customisation and random map generation - I’m bothered because the game is so slow to progress through on challenge settings, and it feels like a game designed just to artificially waste your time; in other anno games, you can always pull tricks to dig yourself out of economic crisis - selling off assets and surplus goods, completing quests for other parties, or taking loans. 2205 is very very confined in terms of what you can do to financially recover in the early game and forces you into a lot of military events.
I did have fun with it (for 262 hours) by setting very limited goals (i.e. forming The Netherlands as a trading empire). It helped to focus on only a few mechanics at a time and doing the same run a few times over.
I’m meaning to try out EU5 to do the same, but I haven’t had a lot of time for gaming recently, and I want to wait for the first few expansion packs first.