I know exactly what you mean, Edratman. I don't do the same work that you do, by any means-and I've only got about 10 hours of stress a day-but it's demanding of me in many different ways, and on many different levels, and if I screw up, things go badly in a widening circle around me.
More than a Pretender, I'm like one of those versatile combat mages that don't have a lot of Hp., but you send them out onto the battlefield anyway, because you need their spells.
More than the "Start New Game" button, I'm appreciative of "Break Seige" and Supercombatants
because I know what it's like to be confronted, surrounded, and confounded by a horde of gibbering demons, when you're just trying to do the magic that you do. Ofcourse, my job is to *help* the gibbering demons get where they're going safely, securely, unafraid and confident--which is a neat trick, when your Nation has an integral fear/fatigue aura.
And I think I play big huge enormous maps because they just feel more roomy. I like the idea of actually playing things out on a world-sized battlefield, where everything is possible, and there's always more going on. I get a lot of entertainment from imagining what's happening *outside* of the scope of the game. If I could, I'd play on 2500 province maps. I might never end a game, but to me it's not about winning, it's just about getting far enough ahead that I can have fun, but not so far enough ahead that my enemies can't have fun too-just not as much fun as I'm having.