>>2132744
Stuff like Tamerlane or Jadwiga, where you must overcome limitations and your strategy needs to be more elaborate than "just TC boom and spam units down a corridor", which was the case in 90% of AoK campaigns.
Building an economy can be fun, but the "do these side objectives and you get X resources every few minutes" can also be enjoyable, removes the temptation to just sit back and boom; it's especially funny since when I was a kid I absolutely HATED the escort missions where you're just given some huge initial army (like Barbarossa 5) but nowadays I can appreciate them since they can be really interesting if done well.
But I think a the main issue just boils down to the AI being a pain in the cock to fight against: I don't care if you use triggers or diplomacy or whatever, but shit like pic related turns a mission from "Wow this is interesting, I wonder how I'll tackle it" to "Eh gotta cheese it with towers, what a shame"
>11th century southern Italy, Robert Guiscard has to carve himself a small barony by exploiting the feuds between nearby warring factions
>whole map is fully static, nobody actually does anything
>as soon as you get a TC, Saracens begin trickling galleys and transports in your general directions
>the pirates that supposedly "threaten all of Italy" will just make a beeline for your buildings no matter what
>Saracens, Normans, Longobards and Byzantines will all happily fight alongside each other just to fuck with the player
Yay I am truly immersed now
It's like Dos Pilas, where you're supposed to be taking part in a much greater conflict but instead everyone is allied with everyone and nobody does anything except for raiding you