I've been revisiting anno 2205, infamously the ugly duckling of the Anno series of RTS games. I don't mind so much the fact that it's different, lacks customisation and random map generation - I'm bothered because the game is so slow to progress through on challenge settings, and it feels like a game designed just to artificially waste your time; in other anno games, you can always pull tricks to dig yourself out of economic crisis - selling off assets and surplus goods, completing quests for other parties, or taking loans. 2205 is very very confined in terms of what you can do to financially recover in the early game and forces you into a lot of military events.
What do you think makes the combat system of Divinity 2 better? I usually hear the opposite.
I dunno, been a while but faster paced while still intentional, fewer cheap deaths, more fun chain reactions, more interesting characters, more attractive effects, better abilities, no DNDisms surfaced to player level.
And I feel like they had more time to design the engagements because they're just so memorable. There are some great ones in BG3 and maybe more later on, but it starts slogging pretty quickly and the fights just become chores to get through rather things you look forward to.