CK3 and RimWorld are my two all time favorite games, well really CK2 but it’s hard to go backwards. I was like you, enjoying them to a point but always feeling like I was missing something in my pursuit of perfection. Now they’re atop a 700+ game library/disgusting backlog and I always come back.
The trick is accepting incomplete playthroughs are the goal, and that playing perfectly for so long that you lose interest is actually not optimal. Treat each playthrough like a reckless random event generator and don’t get too attached that your interest in a single colony or dynasty grows stale.
It’s sort of like a single player battle royale rogue-lite mindset, let’s see how far I can get with the tools given to me and wiping when it’s run it’s course. There are natural conclusions if you look for them and are keen to see what’s around the next corner enough to try again.
I get it though, architecture/base layouts in RimWorld are a super nagging temptation, and sometimes you have to min/max a little to know what works for future runs. But once you’ve got it, reset and play the cards you’re dealt.
RimWorld, CK3, and Bannerlord. Heavy overlap but they’re the holy trinity for me.