I've been trying these out myself. I haven't tried SOD, but I have tried Lords and Custom Settlements. Lords is a lot more solid and has a fun end game with a lot to..while Custom Settlements is pretty hard to get into unless you use their cheat option and make yourself king and start from there. Custom settlements is pretty raw right now but it will eventually be very excellent, they have done a lot of interesting good things in it. My only problem with Lords is that the starting out in that game is incredibly difficult, many bandits and all 20+ and not the kind you can just circle them killing them on horseback either. I've still yet to figure out how to successfully start off well in the beginning of Lords..but yah they are both good..just different. You can mess with a lot in Custom settlements with the cheat thing and if you like being super *custom* you can make your own settlements and areas and soldier tree's, they have guides for it on their forum. Hope this was helpful