While I like the game, after booting up Strive for Power for the first time in a while I just figured out what felt off (for me) in the sequel.
I am totally missing the prequels "exploration". Moving on the roads, learning the maps, the encounters while traveling and their choices added a lot of flavour and life to the world.
In Conquest the world feels nonexistent and dead. The travelling and patrolling specific "biomes" to get a slave of race "X" was
actually pretty neat.
I do doubt it will be implemented in conquest though as it feels like that would turn into a reboot.
Really sad to see those aspects gone.
I really hope that Maverick can give the different areas some kind of "character" somehow, currently it just is the same screen with different ressource icons/market content.
I think character or identity is what is missing in Conquest the most. Immersion wise Power is a lot better, customization wise Conquest beats it, only due to the classes.
The slaves also lost character compared to the prequel, now you can just max their stats rather easily, while in power you had to actually specialise your slaves OR go through a lot of effort and failures to selectively breed them/gain the traits you were aiming for etc. Giving the characters in Power more of a purpose/character as well.
Somehow I liked how they grew into their jobs more naturally as well, currently in conquest you basically can just go harlot->succubus do some prostitution and lust drain, and boom suddenly it is a valkyrie+fighter+knight+assassin whatever
due to accumulated experience being a whore.
Standalone I would rate Conquest 7/10
In comparison to power I would prolly give power a 9/10.