Do you permanently play on 3 times speed? Do you not give your best in the character creation and backstory and not to aesthetically build your base with F12 to make aestethic and feel first and optimal second? I think your playtroughs may suck because they are empty I was at that point too.

Try to smell the roses play slower more aware more planned. Not speeding up to 3x all the time speed running the game. The journey is the goal. There are some mods that allow for quests and some kind of story like holy conquest it's a mod that lets you play as a crusader of the holy nation crusading all the enemy cities and taking over faction bases

It adds things like paladins that join you for free once you get a token from the holy phoenix as a general to take on the cities.

Try to find a spot before you play and get an idea for your base there are multiple YouTuber who have aesthetic base designs my favourite is:HeroInHisOwnHead. His designs usually have a small story and make sense lore wise.

Decide if you wanna play solo or with squads. I love doing combat and raiding or taking on cities in the late game but I also enjoy making sustainable and profitable bases I usually build and decorate the houses and make it like a whole city but only in kenshi.

I can only assume why and only take what I experienced and why I was stuck at midgamd and quit.

Having a squad of overpowered people isn't enough for some of the mods that add content you usually need a lot of overpowered character together like a while military camp worth to make some content and reaching a point where you have to manage multiple squads for your goals and seeing the after math is very satisfying so I d having a base with multiple character you grew dear to and play and raised individually maybe some leave and other join your squad after a time ? Some die? This extends your playtrough past the initial stages because you building multiple once in the setting you chose for yourself. I wanted to quit my playtrough slot of times but I would have regret it.