Death Stranding came out in 2019. Death Stranding 2 will come out in 2025. That’s six years for two games. If these were the PS2 days Kojima would have cranked out 3 Death Stranding games by now and we’d be getting Death Stranding 3: Subsistence along with a teaser for Death Stranding 4 next year.
Remember when video game trilogies used be to a huge thing in the sixth and seventh generations? You’d typically get 3 games in about 5-7 years
See: Halo, Gears of War, Resistance, Killzone, etc
Not to be “that” guy, but Stellaris and especially Europa Universalis fall more into the Grand Strategy genre than 4X. Grand Strategy games are usually more complex than 4X games (such as Civ, Endless Legend, etc.). So if you’re looking for alternatives to Civ, maybe focus specifically on 4X games? They should offer simpler gameplay by comparison.