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.
Dude maybe you were going too hard, I've been playing since maybe 2018 but casually and have gotten most of the stuff in-game for free, just checked steam and I have over 2k hours. But I sometimes I would burn out and not play until the next story update. and so far not one new story quest has been a dud.
You probably started playing at the same time I did then, chains of harrow/Hydroid prime?
I will agree, the cinematic quests have been good, I haven't spent more than 2k plat on cosmetics and maybe two primes. But I've got the brain of a crack addict. It was almost the only game I played for those years, so when I burnt out it went scorched earth.