by malloc
All 3 of Tom's suggestions are just as complicated/long as runewars.all but AGoT are good games.
As far as the light dudes on a map games go, you have not too many options that play better than nexus ops (yes i know you know that)
PerhapsQuest for the Dragon Lords, but that one has some issues.
Others that may work:
Empires of the ancient world.
Kings and Things
Wizard Kings (costly)
M