SpellForce: Conquest of Eo - strategy RPG from Fantasy General 2 devs

[Reality]

Spellforce was better at release and after it's dlc ... About unchanged TBH

AoW 4 was bad at release and after it's dlc ... It's actually worse. As in more bloated and Stellaris like, while also containing things to slow the game down like the global research increase, implementing the shadow layer as a third underground but putting absurd restrictions on it, cutting free city recruitment by about 2/3rds , etc

 

[Lacrymas]

CoE is better now because it has more spellschools and archetypes, random maps, more events and heroes, origin stories and 2 mini campaigns. Along with a bunch of QoL updates.

 

[Beowulf]

AoW4 is rather bland and your race will almost always develop the same way unless you purposefully go out of your way to try different, less beneficial things.
The tactical layer is pretty good and the AI was decent from what I remember, but in the endgame there are so many stacked buffs and debuffs that it's really easy to lose track what the units abilities are and you just stop paying attention and order a general attack knowing full well that your army should be OP at this stage anyway.

But I had more fun playing and replaying Conquest of Eo - it's fresh, has a far better designed magic system reminiscent of AoW Shadow Magic and even the one map available at the release provided a good sense of discovery and engaging exploration when I had to think creatively how to overcome some obstacles and difficulty curveballs the devs decided to throw at you.
The battles are smaller than in AoW4, but it generally translates to having better awareness and control over what's happening.
One thing that brought it down was the performance, but that has supposedly been patched (same applies for AoW4).

Personally I rate it much higher than AoW4 that I dropped and don't really intend to come back.