I have dipped into Bank's "Culture" series, twice: "Matter", and "Use of Weapons". I read some very promising reviews and recommendations and was interested in following up on some fictional explorations of advanced Type II and III Kardashev civilizations. It was descriptions like yours that attracted me initially, but I found the details and implementation implausible. I gave up after the second attempt. The aliens were too humanoid in psychology, although I must admit their physiologies were cleverly rendered.

There was one concept that did intrigue me, though, which I have since incorporated into my own Weltanschaung. One of the characters is a Culture agent, and is masterminding a war between primitives which is a subroutine in a subprogram in some complex social engineering scheme the Culture is carrying out. He is questioned how he can devote himself to such a bloody and tragic conflict when the participants have no idea what the true stakes involved are, and how they are being exploited to carry out an agenda they can't even conceive of. He remarks that even if the drama we are a part of is only a side show in a much larger plot, one which we may not even be aware of, it really doesn't matter. To the participants, it is reality, it is what matters.

Dream within a dream stuff. Subjective reality is the only reality, because we have no way of knowing what objective reality is. I can grok that.

I tried some Vernor Vinge, too, one about some psychizhophrenic canids and galaxy-wide data smuggling. Similar disappointment.