Custom Settlements was certainly interesting to try, but seems very unfinished. Several of the settlements have floating objects overhead (like the buildings you're supposed to access), or cause crashes as soon as you enter the local setting. At least two settlements had opponents spawn off the edge of the playable area, with no way to access it, so you couldn't finish the fight except by retreating. Others were very nicely done and very playable. There was a loooooong gap between the time you got your first settlement up and running until the various "factions" began to reach the stage of development to coalesce and expand, so it felt like your were simply wasting time until the game progressed. In general, it looked like a very promising project, 90% complete, but not likely to ever seen completion.
I tried Sword of Damocles, but it was definitely a lot harder, and I kept getting counter-attacked by massive waves of faction forces. Essentially, I couldn't hold a first castle for more than a couple of days; not enough time to gather a garrison. Fighting against uphill odds can be fun; following that fight immediately with 4 more against similar sized groups (or one giant battle at 600:60 odds - everything I had left after the siege) just obliterates your force.
I'm currently trying Rus XIII Century, which is going fairly well so far, but still very early in the game. I'm not particularly liking the huge cites, where you can spend 30 minutes hunting for the lone Goods Merchant or the Horse Trader hidden in some corner. The "life-like" size is fine, except that you can't ask for directions. The translation to English is a bit rough in places, but in general it looks very well done.
It replaces the factions of Swadia with The Roman Empire, and replaces the Nords with the Gauls. It adds new items as well.
