I had no idea people still had feelings about that Kickstarter. I just figured I'll never see that money again and that the game promised too much anyway, and moved on--which is why I got excited when Shadows actually delivered some of the things it promised.
I've tried shadows a few times but always bounced off, mostly due to the sheer amount of options and numbers. It's like picking a wife in Crusader Kings, I have no idea what I want or what options are good and bad and I eventually throw up my hands.
I think that you are right on about the interface excess, but honestly, those numbers are barely relevant. With cities you only care about Infiltration 0-100%. Everything else doesn't matter except behind the scenes--not like you care who wins battles between the two mortal cities, or whose economy is booming--you just want people dying and nobles competing (unless you actually do--and then it is right there in the interface)! With people you want to know about Shadow to see how corrupt someone is and if it is at 100%, and if you decide to get into the politcs game, Prestige matters, because that=your puppet's vote share. Everything else is meh. Ignoring all the other numbers will not affect success at the game.
I just pick a location because I like the sound of it (a librarian in the far north has an unsavory dream and begins reading~create new agent), make an agent and see how long they can go before they get burned at the stake--you really can't lose, you can just be forced to try again, muttering about how human heroes stopped you this time, but in an eon you will rise again, and this time you'll make sure the entire north pole is planted with zombie trees.
I had a blast running around a Seeker, looking for forbidden lore backed by a Merchant and a Vampire who softened up cities by infiltrating them and corrupting the ruling class, until I was ready to reveal the secret-not-meant-to-be-known to the world thus collapsing three empires that stood since the dawn of time. Another time, it was all disease and zombies. Straight up loving terraforming the world to winter via battles and rotten nobles too.
You pick two "Names" at char gen, which determine your overall strategy and abilities, and if you win a game, you access a pick any-and-all Names option too.
They are (briefly described):
"Promise of Teeth"~Vampire lord type stuff: manipulate evidence and enemy agents
"Winter's Scythe"~Eternal Winter: make the climate colder when mortals fight mortals, or when you sacrifice corrupt lords
"Priest in the Deep"~Cthulhu: raise ocean armies of the deep ones but keep them hidden except with madness and in forgotten towns until you are ready
"The Wretched Birth"~Living Flesh: be a continent-sized flesh monster that wants to keep growing and eat the world
"Merchant of Nightmares"~ Fear machine: foster fear and hatred and feed off it.
Some are clearly synergetic (e.g. Fear+Winter=sit back and watch the world eat itself)
Some are a bit less so (e.g. hiding evidence via subtle manipulation is a lot less useful when the Southern continent is growing tentacles that eat cities).
You also operate via agents: some you can create yourself and some you can corrupt.
The ones you create are:
Vampire: master infiltrators that leave less evidence than anyone
Seeker: travels the world reading books and doing nothing useful until they gather 12 secrets, at which point in one action they can drive any lord mad and in three, corrupt them utterly.
Hierophant: can charm and corrupt nobles making them your pawns.
Red Death: creates and guides plagues
Plague Doctor: gathers corpses from cities and battlefields, plants them in creepy forests, raises armies of the undead.
You can also recruit people created by the AI:
Knights help lead armies, merchants can run around generating prosperity and corrupting nobles but are really fragile, investigators can accuse and banish actual witch-hunters, and nobility vote and make decisions on the level of the nation, opening up the possibility of declaring an openly evil Dark Empire.