Finished it on max difficulty + iron man cause codex said its easy. Well idk definitely easier than the first one but there is plenty of room to lose the game.
Had to start over once because the trust debuff from "rush researchers" apparently never goes away entirely so i've rushed them too much and got exiled into the frostlands or something.
There is plenty of time to research techs for infinite resources(deep deposits, +50 food building and drug factory spam in industrial districts) in chapter 3 after the
whiteout if you go for new londoners related techs. But thats like 80% of the game done.
Not sure if its possible to get infinite resources up by the the time the food runs out everywhere if you mostly go for frostlanders related techs. They have some kind of "famine elimination" tech that i couldn't research. Though one could to still go for +50 food and drug factories anyway even with "embrace the frost".
About politics system, i'd say it works ok when you are running out of everything and need that tech and that law so that everybody wouldn't freeze to death but the fuckers want you to build coal mine even though there is no coal left on the map or repeal the law that saves a lot fuel. But you can promise it and then tell then not deliver. So relations with factions is just another resource you need to manage.
After you've got enough of everything else than yeah, not much point to these factions. Though one of the ways to win the game is for factions to compromise(available if you have high enough relations with everybody) - you pick it in chapter 5 but ofc you can't pick it if you didn't have high enough relations before the chapter 5 start.
Overall i'd say worse than the first game but not too shabby.
Also music seemed unmemorable, or at least the game decided to never play the good tracks.
I used to sometimes turn this one from frostpunk 1 on when shitfaced with my drinking companions.