I designed many of the Pharaoh campaign missions and apologize if you find them obtuse. :) We had many rabid fans who spent ages figuring out how many “ticks” were in the game loop, what each one updated, and exactly how to optimize city layouts to maximize resource production. Part of the reason that some of the later missions are challenging is because we knew those people were out there and we wanted to give them something to chew on.
I also created most of the missions/adventures in Zeus and remember thinking that we were aiming more for fun than masochism. Pharaoh was more of a grand game, but Zeus was more fun, in my opinion. I do miss the hand drawn art of games like those and don’t find most modern 3D games to come anywhere close to matching the rich style of the artwork from some of the old 2D games.