athineos: Also, which game gives the most variety of maps for single player skirmish? Thanks
In terms of AI difficulty DoW I isn't even on the same league as DoW II.
AI on DoW I with control point victory can be Starcraft-level difficult, annihilation victory is so-so (sometimes they are dumb af, sometimes they team up and focus on one base).
On DoW II i remember that I had to gimp my team in order to challenge myself (like 2 vs 3). That's somewhat expected though, as it's much easier to program effective AI on a purely RTS game (DoW I) than on a micromanagement-oriented game with less squads that have many active abilities (DoW II).
In terms of multiplayer DoW I has much better player representation ...on Steam.
Since GOG isn't cross compatible I doubt that there are many people online - and I believe the same applies to its sequel.
Campaign wise DoW I completely blows II out of the water.
Having said that, they are both great games - for different reasons (DoW I is pure RTS, while DoW II has many RPG elements which I like).
Buuuut if i had to pick only one, it'd be DoW I any day (especially since for whatever reason, DoW II has almost double the price of I on GOG).