Ever wanted to uncover treasures, plan your next moves on a map and find new civilizations? Ever wanted to make paper maps come alive with cartoon-level rogue-like fights? Then look no further :) this is the game for you. More replayble than might and magic 3, age of wanders 2! While curious expeditions 1 was a terrific game by itself, having wonderful 8-bit graphics, this one modernizes the graphics and makes this game an instant classic. Nothing less than 9! If there was a path to provide more meaningful interactions with the local civilizations without feeling that you are actually stealing and destroying other ppls peaceful lives, then I would give it a 10.

"Curious expedition"'s biggest strengths were a crisp rogue-lite concept and 8-bit-charm. Both have been "improved" in this sequel - the sharp, unforgiving sandbox now comes with unskippable, repeated campaign missions, and the pixelated artstyle and highly recognizable sound and music had to move for a rather generic hand-drawn style and pretty bland "modern" versions of the soundtrack. While there are some new elements, items and challenges, the original playstyle has more or less survived this renovation, but even here the new ideas are not always welcome additions, and some of the new rules - like not being able to build on your former success when you prepare a new exploration, since all your treasures and tools are just gone, and you basically have to start over - make for a worse experience. At the same time the amount of missions and mission goals is quite small, and while some tiles and events have been added to the maps, they come with balancing issues and difficulty spikes that turn what should be gaming into pure gambling. The antagonistic fog, that is the core element of the new campaign-based gameplay, seems to have seeped into the design stage of this sequel, and while it's not a bad game, it's a rather disappointing one given the momentum Maschinenmensch had with the predecessor.