I'm actually quite curious. I've played the second one- how does it compare to the first?
Well... in the second, you have armies, less miracles, less creature interaction, more town building interaction, and migration. I haven't really played the second in depth, but I have played it for a couple days before I "upgraded" my computer and it wouldn't play it any more due to a graphics problem of the game.
Basically, first game:
(spoilered due to possible spoilerish content)
You are a god. You have many miracles under your power, such as wood, food*, water*, storm**, lightning**, fireball**, megablast** (meteors), heal**, forest, physical shield, spiritual shield, creature love (makes creature nice), creature aggression, enlarge creature, weaken creature, shrink creature, strengthen creature, teleport, holy flies (irritates creature), winged creatures, pack of animals, and probably a few more that I can't remember.
Your main way of converting villages is your creature. In order to convert a village you have to generate belief in that village using your creature or by doing godly things (flinging rocks, trees, poo, villagers, using miracles, etc.). You have no armies, and villages do not come and migrate to your town if it is "impressive". You also have to use scaffolds made from a village workshop to make buildings..... it takes forever, and if your village workshop is gone, your pretty much done. You also cannot help build buildings. You can give the villagers wood to build them with, but you cannot hold the right button and build it yourself.
* means they have an increased version
** means they have an extreme version
Sidequests became a grindfest of "Create 20 Disciples" or "Build 20 Houses", as opposed to the first game where they actually made some sense in context.
Pretty sure those were just "hey you can get tribute for doing shit" things, there's still the Silver Scroll sidequests.
:edit: and yeah, B&W1 does feel a bit bland as well. Wonder what you'd get if you combined the two games, taking the better parts of each? Would be nice to not have to use scaffolding to make fields.
If you took the better parts of each game and combined them, I have a feeling that the universe would explode. Well, actually, take multi player, the creature, miracles, and quests from the first game. Combine them with the ease of city building, armies, impressiveness, and epic miracles from the second game. I smell win.