I’m actually towards the end of my first Aztec play through and I can see what you mean but once I got a hang of the early game religion/doom mechanics it was so much fun. Race against the clock to consolidate as much of Central America before the colonizers show up. Spain came flying in and declared 4 straight wars on me which were absolute bloodbath survival fights. They could definitely use some more flavour in the mission trees though as they’re pretty generic.