If you’re pure euro gamers but need a bit more interaction maybe try Brass Birmingham, Food Chain Magnate, 1846, City of the Big Shoulders, Inis, Kemet.
When we played Arcs, we found it was much more about making short term tactical decisions, and there wasn’t as much room for that kind of deep long term planning, so the experience felt less competitive and less tense for us.
So we are looking for something that gives a similar player experience of constantly balancing short and long term strategy like that, but without going all the way to something with very very complex rules like Twilight Imperium.
Does that make sense?
The war games aspects of Root and Arcs are kinda polarising and there’s definitely a certain mind set required. Dune imperium is a lot more straight forward in that it’s clear what needs to happen and how you might do it.