This might be one of the best games ever made (Edit: can confirm, one of the best games ever made). Everything from the original game has been improved upon and expanded with almost no negatives. My main two complaints about the first game were lack of map variety and Chaos invasion, and both have been resolved. Chaos now has difficulty settings or can be completely disabled. There's a completely new map with story objectives, and the Mortal Empires campaign roughly doubles the size of the previous game's map. While access to the Mortal Empire map (the main campaign) requires ownership of the original game, all games and their DLC go on sale regularly. The laundry list of DLC might seem intimidating too, but it carries over between games, including into the sequel to this.

My only complaints now are the difficulty of victory conditions and the new AI behavior. The first game's AI felt pretty aggressive, both to you and other factions equally, often wiping out a neighbor if they couldn't confederate them. Now it seems the AI is more aggressive towards humans than other AI, and AI is more apprehensive about razing another faction. I've had several games where a faction everyone hated would get down to one settlement multiple times and everyone would stop attacking them for some reason. AI also seems more aggressive towards factions ranked lower than them, and more passive against factions ranked higher than them. Certain factions tended to stay near the top of my games, with my allies refusing to attack them unless I dragged them into a war against them.

Victory conditions now are much more difficult to complete and make actually finishing a game quite an accomplishment. Most factions now have to capture (or be allied with factions who own) at least eight major cities on the map, in addition to their other victory conditions. This means you'll be painting the map and making some awkward alliances just to check off part of your win, never mind some of the more absurd condition lists like what Vampire Coast have to go through. If you have Chaos invasion enabled, you have to kill their three leaders too, and they don't spawn until turn 140-160.

These feel like small complaints compared to all the excellent content in this game but they might be frustrating deal breakers for some people. Most of my feelings about the first game still stand so check out that review for a more in-depth take on the series. For an even more in-depth take, check out Mandalore's review on YouTube. It's 1 hour 20 minutes long, but the first hour is mostly about the first game's races. It's well edited, very entertaining, and covers way more than someone like me with under 1000 hours. I highly recommend this for anyone who enjoys strategy games, but beware the steep learning curve (again). New factions, new cities and settlements, new faction technologies and interactions... even with playing the first game, it feels like starting over again. This is a proper sequel, a massive improvement over the first game, and isn't just $60 DLC.

This might be one of the best games ever made (Edit: can confirm, one of the best games ever made). Everything from the original game has been improved upon and expanded with almost no negatives. My main two complaints about the first game were lack of map variety and Chaos invasion, and both have been resolved. Chaos now has difficulty settings or can be completely disabled. There's a completely new map with story objectives, and the Mortal Empires campaign roughly doubles the size of the previous game's map. While access to the Mortal Empire map (the main campaign) requires ownership of the original game, all games and their DLC go on sale regularly. The laundry list of DLC might seem intimidating too, but it carries over between games, including into the sequel to this. My only complaints now are the difficulty of victory conditions and the new AI behavior. The first game's AI felt pretty aggressive, both to you and other factions equally, often wiping out a neighbor if they couldn't confederate them. Now it seems the AI is more aggressive towards humans than other AI, and AI is more apprehensive about razing another faction. I've had several games where a faction everyone hated would get down to one settlement multiple times and everyone would stop attacking them for some reason. AI also seems more aggressive towards factions ranked lower than them, and more passive against factions ranked higher than them. Certain factions tended to stay near the top of my games, with my allies refusing to attack them unless I dragged them into a war against them. Victory conditions now are much more difficult to complete and make actually finishing a game quite an accomplishment. Most factions now have to capture (or be allied with factions who own) at least eight major cities on the map, in addition to their other victory conditions. This means you'll be painting the map and making some awkward alliances just to check off part of your win, never mind some of the more absurd condition lists like what Vampire Coast have to go through. If you have Chaos invasion enabled, you have to kill their three leaders too, and they don't spawn until turn 140-160. These feel like small complaints compared to all the excellent content in this game but they might be frustrating deal breakers for some people. Most of my feelings about the first game still stand so check out that review for a more in-depth take on the series. For an even more in-depth take, check out Mandalore's review on YouTube. It's 1 hour 20 minutes long, but the first hour is mostly about the first game's races. It's well edited, very entertaining, and covers way more than someone like me with under 1000 hours. I highly recommend this for anyone who enjoys strategy games, but beware the steep learning curve (again). New factions, new cities and settlements, new faction technologies and interactions... even with playing the first game, it feels like starting over again. This is a proper sequel, a massive improvement over the first game, and isn't just $60 DLC.