If you read the thread it seems biggest addition to Warlock 2 is Exiled mode and some improvements here and there.
If you think its worth it then go for it. Its 10 euros cheaper than AoW3 but its 10 euros more expensive than Warlock 1 was on its release. I got both but I played AoW 3 for like 4 hours and Warlock 2 about 17 hours so far.
How does exiled mode compare to W1:Armageddon DLC? Would Vanilla W2 play better than W1+all relevant DLC?
I may still be learning, but Exiled mode on max difficulty seems to be significantly harder to win than Warlock 1:Armageddon. I think the basic reason is that it more tightly constrains you in terms of what tools you get to work with, which means that randomness can present you with some serious challenges. Here's what I've found:
[ - ] Enemy AI players are even less capable in Exiled mode than they were in Warlock 1. By the time you find them, most of them will ally with you shortly after meeting. After that, you can easily park one unit on their outgoing portal from their world to yours, and they will be happy to spend the rest of the game stuck in their own little worlds.
[ + ] The city cap, combined with the fact that each world is tiny, makes economic development much harder during the midgame. Basically, you are not guaranteed to find any +gold resources, nor are you guaranteed to find neutral/enemy races that are good at producing gold. And you can no longer just spam cities to boost your economy. So if the RNG is against you, you can find yourself getting increasing desperate to find wealthy city site, while your upkeep deficit eats away at your treasury.
[ + ] The above imposes limits on the size of your army, as well as on your ability to buff your units with resource perks. (Resource-based perks are now finite in number, so e.g. one adamantium refinery will only let you outfit three units.) The new economy also means you have to be choosier with your spell buffs due to limited mana. So the easiest way to win Warlock 1 (stack every buff in the game on 1-4 lords) is harder to pull off.
[ + ] The neutral enemies are reasonably challenging. If you're unlucky, you can run into a boss-tier creature in the second tier of worlds. Starting in the third tier, you will semi-reliably encounter one supreme creature per world. (E.g. a mossy troll or nightmare wolves.)
[ + ] If you have the DLC for Warlock 2, the Dragon Incarnation is a pretty cool challenge mode -- essentially, it means you don't get a starting city and instead get a moderately powerful dragon to start out with, with the caveat that you lose if he dies. I call it a challenge mode because, while the dragon is decently strong, it means you start with no other starting perks and -10 income over anyone else. So it seems right to treat it as a handicap, but it's a fun one.
[ - ] Barring that DLC, you aren't ever really in danger of losing, which is probably the worst part of Exiled mode. Midgame enemies are more about slowing or stopping your advance than about threatening your core territory. You do see some nasty lair spawns in the late game, but by then you have meta-teleport and can deal trivially with them.
Overall, it's pretty fun. Some of the new resource perks are stupid (two that you find right before the final world give +50% unit power and +50% elemental damage...), but it generally isn't the boring yolo-fest that was the endgame of Warlock 1. (I.e., bashing your way through a continent literally full of Dremer, one hex at a time, with your invulnerable demigod hero.)
