I'm not a cmake user (which probably explains the next sentences), but what I can't understand is why would you not just use make? Whenever I've had to use cma

I'm not a cmake user (which probably explains the next sentences), but what I can't understand is why would you not just use make? Whenever I've had to use cmake as a user to compile a project, it never seemed to be doing anything more special than make (except, ooh, colours!). Can someone explain what I'm missing?