Quoting Cruxador, reply 32This game will definitely beat the AoW:II.
It won't beat the first AoW, because it has very different goals. They can both be good without either being better, and they're not really comparable except in things unrelated to either's core goals.
Interesting, what do you view the goals of the first AoW as being? I've always viewed it as just being an incomplete version of the second game.
It was first and foremost a story game. You played it for the campaign, and everything else was secondary. I guess you could call it incomplete for that reason, but I wouldn't; it's just a different focus. Furthermore, the focus was much more large-scale. You had more cities, and moved in broader strokes, taking perhaps a small handful of towns, ans opposed to the later games' single one early on. You carved your way through existing empires, exploring and stuff. AoW II (and Shadow Magic, which is basically the same) were very different, focussing more on gameplay. It was about taking towns and building units and all that, and the story was more of a framework. It removed a lot of factions and thematic elements that contributed to story but not gameplay, or which were thematically interesting, but boring when played. It also changed your main character from a hero who could cast magic to a mage that was otherwise fairly useless, and best kept in a city all day, which changed the players mindset from "I'm a hero-king conquering anything!" to "I'm a mage, I cast spells and use minions".
