Carcassonne just gets on my nerves because I just don't view selecting between so many placement options to be that interesting.

Few real decisions to make....Not in my experience, either in tile placement or in disk placement. Of possible interest is the thread:Informal experiment: how easy to find "the optimal disk placement" in various positions?wherein we see that even in the second phase, which people often complain is "automatic" or "obvious", the decisions are not necessarily obvious.

Incidentally, I like both these games more than Fjords because they offer up a wealth of decisions on each turn even if you have drawn an unlucky hand of cards.

Luck is a major factor. As discussed above, sometimes the map seems to build itself and you draw tiles which you HAVE to place even though they are aiding your opponent.

Otherwise, it plays out fairly predictably and very quickly. This is a shame because this is the point that it starts to feel like a real contest.

Sometimes it feels like the map builds itself - there is often only one viable placement, so it starts to feel like a jigsaw, searching for that available position. Surely placing a single tile shouldn't be this difficult!

I think a casual look at the game could be quick to take fault that some moves are scripted, and perhaps they are.  If play passes to you and there is a stock to be had for free…why _not_ take it? For me, it’s a distraction. The player before you likely considered the options and found the game state to be worth tempting you with that. Those free, or even cheap, stocks won’t gain you the influence in any companies that can make your personal cache more valuable.

Ultimately, I’m an “are there tough decisions?” kind of gamer, and on that matter I’m torn. There are some turns and some positions and some situations that will play themselves. Sometimes obviously so, and sometimes after you think it out.