I've only played the story mode. Often times I'll be defeated with no explanation whatsoever (in fact I have yet to see any other kind of defeat). This leaves me dumbfounded and unsure how to retry the mission. What have I done wrong? Could it have been a bug? The last time this happened I was replaying the "Settlement" mission. I was defeated while in the middle of taking one of the Raven tiles. Did they achieve one of the more peaceful victories? Did I violate one of the goals/rules of the mission? I have no idea! As slow paced as the game is, it's completely unacceptable that you can lose a game and get no feedback from a proper results page.

That aside, maybe I've missed a feature somewhere. Is what I am asking for already in the game?

The Ravens are pursuing commercial victory type in this mission. I'm not sure how you missed this, the game is practically bombarding you with reminders about this throughout the mission.

The way this mission is supposed to play you're intended to go for commercial victory yourself and race the Ravens. While it's possible to win a military victory, it's much harder since the Ravens will launch huge waves of mercenary attacks at you if you invade any of their territories. You need to raise a big army (iirc I needed around a size 12 warband) to be able to beat them soundly, and it's much easier just to build a lighthouse and race them to commercial victory.

I completely agree that "git gud" is not a useful response, and I apologize if my post came across in that manner.

I don't have the game in front of me to check exactly how it plays out, but I recall that the Settlement mission opens with some dialog between Rig and Liv where she challenges him to a commercial contest, and the objective changes. You can still win by defeating them with military and destroying their outpost, but the intended way is through commercial victory.