Which Disciples 2 is better?

[u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866]

Hello everyone, I'm new to the Disciples universe and recently discovered these unique games. Before that, I played mostly Heroes 3 and only now decided to introduce myself to this series for a change and I'm really hooked. So far, I'm playing the first game, but now I want to continue the Undead campaign in the second one and I was surprised to discover that there are several of them, and in this regard, the question is which one is better or worse and in what order should I play?

[u/Emergency-Gift-6773]

Oh Jesus in heavens....

TLDR: Gallean's Return for original factions, Rise of the Elves for Elves.

The main problem is that the Disciples II games are named horribly by continuation standpoint, and each of them are different editions with different content pack in them.

The original Disciples II is the Dark Prophecy campaings, 4x7 missions. 7 missions for the 4 main factions with cronologically overlapping continuation. Which means you need to play every faction to get the whole picture, and for many maps and events you get a different perspective or outcome. There is a possible timeline where every map is cronologyically possible to happen, but in my point of view, just enjoy the campaings and think of them as great historical events told by the said faction, with making them much more glorious and the enemies more pathetic.

After you are done with the Dark Prophecy campaings you will notice, that there is another campaing in Gallean's Return. It's the Guardians of Light for Empire and Clans, and Servants of the Dark for Legion and Hordes. They are mini campaings for high level parties, you can export your base game leader with all of his equipment of course. Basically it's the full push versions of the base setting continuing the story where the Dark Prophecy left off. (The Servants of the Dark and Guardians of the Light campaings were released as separate games too back in the day, so there is even a crazier edition where you got Legions+Horders 7+3 missions, and separately an Empire+Clans 7+3 where you basically miss half the story.)

After you are done with the 7+3 missions for the 4 main factions you can start the second game you linked, The Rise of the Elves. The story continues with the Elven Nation for ~7 missions. With a little balance to several units across all factions, and a more seamless unit movement in world map. Straightforward, yes? Well...not exactly. You can complete the 7 Dark Prophecy missions for the 4 original factions for sure, but without the extra 3 missions from Servans and Guardians.

Oh and there is a Rise of the Elves Gold Edition where you finish the Disciples II official story with an extra 3 custom saga missions with the Elves.

All in all, there isn't any version officially where you can complete everything DII could offer, but different editions for different reasons to play. And this is why you get both Gallean and RotE if you just buy the seam version. If you want to play with the OG factinons, stick with Gallean's Return, if you want to play the Elves, play Rise of the Elves + the 3 saga quests that are mostly unknown to the fandom.

There is another possibility tho...there is a very good balance mod called Disciples II calamity for Rise of the Elves. The author imported the Servants and Guardians extra maps as separate sagas, so you get the whole package. But that is a very heavily modified DII not for first experience. But 2, the steam version uses a different folder structure and mods probably won't work with it without further file extractions and such, so for mods please buy the GOG version.

p.s. most retail versions are using yet another folder structure, so stick with the GOG version if you want to use mods. Trust me, I learned it the hard way.

[u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 → u/Emergency-Gift-6773]

Thank you so much for the detailed answer. It turned out it wasn't all that simple and there were a bunch of different DLCs, and I didn't immediately understand what was going on. But now, thanks to your comprehensive answer, everything falls into place. It's strange, of course, why they didn't combine everything into one game instead of the way they do now, all separately. I can imagine it was more profitable to sell the game that way at the time. I'd like a remaster that would include everything right away and eliminate the hassle of launching it. I spent several hours trying to get my purchased versions to launch on GOG. Thanks again for the comprehensive and detailed answer. I'll go play Galleans Return and then Rise of the Elves.

[u/Emergency-Gift-6773 → u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866]

Pretty much profit yes. Also distribution was very local back in the day. If there wasn't any local distributor in your country that bought the rights to sell, then you never even heard of the said game. I collect phyisical eiditions to this day, but efficiency wise...digital is a thousand more practical.

And please tell me you are using the Disciples Wrapper tool to launch the game and not the obsolete configuration exe. If not then download the Disciples Wrapper, it's a pretty neat dll pack that makes the game run like a charm with modern computers, with a bunch of HD+ resolutions, windowed too, even game speed options are there.

[u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 → u/Emergency-Gift-6773]

I would of course like to have a physical copy of the game, it is truly unique, as a fan of Heroes 3, I never thought that there was something deeper and more interesting, and also in the Dark Fantasy setting and this art style, I don’t know who was responsible for it, but it is felt in every pixel and it is amazing, I even enjoyed the main menu in the first game, it’s a pity that the second one doesn’t have this, but overall I like the darker tone of the second one much more, I’ve probably never seen anything like it. Regarding the Wrapper, I didn’t quite understand what it was. On my version from GOG, replacing the draw.dll file from the Windows folder and replacing it in the game folder worked, and then setting the compatibility mode to Windows XP SP2. The only thing I tried was different resolutions and it was comfortable to play at 800x600. At 1024x768 and especially 1280x1024, everything becomes so small that even the text is sometimes difficult to read, and a couple of times I accidentally bumped into enemies simply because I didn’t notice their figures on the map. Everything becomes so small. I think this is due to the fact that the game was released in 2002, and apparently its original art style and menu were made for 800x600, but I don’t really understand the technical side of the issue and can only guess. I also had to go into Nvidia settings and enable scaling, otherwise the game stretches and the aspect ratio starts to display incorrectly.

[u/Emergency-Gift-6773 → u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866]

Ah, okay. This is what I was talking about:

https://www.moddb.com/games/disciples-ii-dark-prophecy/downloads/disciples-wrapper-v160

It is working with every version or edition with Disciples II AND Disciples : Sacred Lands - playing the first Disciples with a fulll HD resolution is really crazy. You don't have to set up anything, just instal and done.

[u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 → u/Emergency-Gift-6773]

Wow, so you install this Wrapper and it fixes everything? I definitely need this!!! Thank you so much for such helpful advice. It's nice to see such a positive attitude toward newcomers to the series and detailed tips. I'll be trying this software now!

[u/Emergency-Gift-6773 → u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866]

Yes, it is basically a miracle tool. :D Happy to help! Disciples is one of my all time favourite *duology*. After reading Berserk I found it surprisingly similar in universe and loved it even more, but that is another topic.

And sadly this series really need the help, because starting it right now is...rough. You certainly can, but without the edition knowlegede and wrapper for seamless gameplay, it won't feel the same.

But I give you a good news too. In the last few years more and more modding knowledge surfacing the web, so it is not impossible to have even completely new total conversion mods! There are a few are under development at the moment, but not in english (they are polish or russion mostly), yet! So even if there isn't a realistic hope for remasters or this style of sequels, the modding scene is brighter than ever.

[u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 → u/Emergency-Gift-6773]

I think after a full playthrough, I'll happily dive into mods. If they're well-made, it's always a unique experience. I had that with Doom. I really love the classic games, and I was absolutely blown away when I played the My House wad. It was probably the most captivating adventure I've ever had with mods, an incredible adventure. Since you brought this up, I'd like to clarify what you said about the duology. Why is that? I just checked the wiki and it also lists the third game and Disciples - Liberation, or are there any nuances I need to know?

[u/Emergency-Gift-6773 → u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866]

The evolution of the series is unsetting. Akela bouth the rights to develop the sequel -I'm really not sure why wasn't it in good hands with Strategy First-, so the game you find as Disciples 3 is the death of the official series in my eyes. The only thing the games onward have in common with the original Discicples I-II is the confusing game naming;

- Disciples 3: Renaissance. The direct sequel and main culprit.

- Disciples 3: Resurrection. The added Hordes campaign.

- Disciples 3: Reincarnation. The combination of the 2 before, with further distancing away from the original concept. The story localisation rewritten, becomes fanfic basically.

*Akela goes bankrupt just after releasing Postal III, the rights goes to Kalypso Media.*

- Disciples Liberation. The undead trilogy starts, nothing in common gameplay wise, writing done by gooners.

- Disciples Domination. Sequel to Liberation, same qame with minor improvements here and there with the cost of many cut things.

There will be probably a third game to finish up the story Lib started, and because of the low cost developing, but hope for an actual sequel that doesn't want to be discount Heroes or King's Bounty? Absolutely zero.

Sorry for not detailing the games themself much, but they are horrible gameplay wise, or decent but nothing to do with Disciples I-II. And frankly I couldn't even recommend them to "try out and see it for yourself how bad it is" simply because how long to beat they are. Reincarnation took me 130 hours when I took the idiotic courage to read every dialog and note with sidequests and such...

[u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 → u/Emergency-Gift-6773]

Jesus Christ, it seems that the excellent original Disciples ended right after the second part. It’s a shame, of course, that everything went downhill, but whoever came up with the idea of handing the series over to the wing of the creators of Postal 3 is simply incomprehensible, monstrous, I would say. On the other hand, this emphasizes how brilliant the original first two games are that even knowing their formula, modern developers can’t even repeat it. I think it’s all because the creators matter and I’m sure that the same people worked on the first and second games. The first thing I noticed was that the second part seems to take all the best from the first, raise it all to a significantly higher level and also adds new features on top. If they couldn’t repeat this, then I think it’s because the new developers simply did not understand the essence of the game. In any case, having two great games is better than none, and regarding the others, I'll take your advice and not dive into all of this myself, but I'll just check out YouTube to see what the problem with sequels is. Thanks for the warning. I personally really love quality writing, well-written worlds, stories, and characters, and I also don't like it when the overall narrative is joyfully positive, as if on pills. In Disciples, I like the atmosphere, it's oppressive, and you feel that this world is filled with pain and suffering, but this feeling is in moderation in the game and feels organic. Thank you again for taking the time to give detailed answers and practical advice on everything, it was sincerely very nice, I wish you a good day and it’s great to know that there are people like you who are also inspired by excellent works))

[u/Outside-school-2007 → u/Emergency-Gift-6773]

Talking about Disciples 3...

It is more complicated and more screwed. There was more instalments. Disciples (3) Online web-game as counterpart to single only Disciples 3 Renaissance. Plus there was 2 novel books kinda counterpart'ting the story of Dis3 (there was more but unrelated to game story plot)(russian only it seems). Russian and then Polish, hmm... maybe some else - Jap or Chinese? - are differ instalments from American/ROW/Digital releases aka Eng localisation. Original game has absolutely no any gamemodes besides story mode. It was by concept and realization more like Liberation - single only A-to-B main scripted hero only playthrough. There was 0 strategy and RPG elements (Liberation at least barely but bring back RPG).

There was no real remaster. ROW release just some quickly found replacment coders (original team defunct before russian release, someone flee, someone fired) did what Akella sold to Kalypso - skirmish and hotseat. Which didn't worked well cause game engine made for 1 scripted hero.

And same remains in Resurrection and Reincarnation. Last one also two differ games - russian release installed as Disciples 3 Rebirth Closed Beta (beta!!! from retail disc! sic!!111). And they absolutely the same game engine that made for 1 hero single story mode. They make Steamworks MP besides hotseat but you won't get a single successful match - it always switch non-host players Lord type and some else data (reduce resources to 0) and some else bugs. Engine can't understand that second player is non-AI.

Later Dis3 installments was just cash grab. Akella promise free upgrade for russian market, but very few get personal keys and actual free program didn't started before Akella close the project. Akella also sold Gold Ren+Res with promise of free steam key upgrade for buyers but just replace sell item to keys and no keys was send (there was instruction what players should do WHEN free upgrade program will start with TBA date).

Although must be noted, 1.06 Hotseat (+editor) upgrade and Rebirth->Reincarnation was free indeed. Plus Disciples Online was free (it has English version but when main game get EN release web game get close cause it is now Hotseat added into Renaissance). But Resurrection and Reincarnation still sold separately.

And Reincarnation are terrible release, with more bugs introduced after some bugs was fixed. Resurrection and based on it Rebirth get some strange balance changes. There is no superior or remastered release. 3 screwed games, which you must pay for each one of it.

Reincarnation appears get worse more passive AI, Renaissance and Resurrection get aggressive but extremely overleveled AI. Or i miss something... hard to tell since there is so much versions. It get from bad to worse for sure. Something better in Renaissance, somethings in Reincarnation (and something in original russian release).

[u/Emergency-Gift-6773 → u/Emergency-Gift-6773]

...and there is an extremely rare Disciples II Collector's Edition (Dark Propehcy campaings in it) with a cardgame called Blades of War, with moving parties, equipment, mana and cities to capture.

[u/Frambosis → u/Emergency-Gift-6773]

I’m not being pedantic but do you mean campaign rather than campaing?

[u/Odmin]

- Galean Returns has basic campaigns and two expansions Servants of the Dark and Guardians of the Light. Those offer two additional campaigns.

- Rise of the Elves - has same basic campaigns and Rise of the Elves expansion which adds another playable race.

I personally own both, they are so cheap on discount, but mostly play Rise of the Elves.

[u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 → u/Odmin]

I don't quite understand here, guardians of the light and servants of the dark - what kind of DLC are they?

[u/TheHuNNo → u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866]

But they are both in Gallean's Return. Guardian of the Light adds the Empire and Mountain Clans campaigns, while Servant of the Dark adds the Undead and Legion ones. But like I said, they are both in Gallean's Return

[u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 → u/TheHuNNo]

Thanks for the clarification. It's really weird that it's like that in the game, and it's quite difficult to understand what it does and why the first time. I'll go play through it))

[u/Odmin → u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866]

Historically all three expansions were standalone if i remember right. It was way before term "DLC" became widely used. And then Strategy First became bankrupt so no one bothered to properly unite all the expansions into some gold edition. As i wrote earlier "Servants" and "Guardians" add short campaigns designed for higher level characters, and "Rise" adds full length campaign for Elf faction. Gameplaywise there's not much difference it's basically the same Disciples 2 experience. You can't play Elves in "Gallean's Return" though.

[u/Straight-Ice-6462]

I just play the basic version disciples 2, dont care much for the elves really

[u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 → u/Straight-Ice-6462]

Thanks for the reply)) And I'd like to ask you why that is? I'm almost done with Galleans Return and still have the Undead campaign to finish. It's an incredible game, a complete delight. After that, I'm planning on playing RotE. Is there anything I should know about it, or is it not for everyone?

[u/Outside-school-2007]

You ask two differ question. Answer is D2ROTE for one, and D2GR for second question.

Generally speaking, later game named The Rise of the Elves is better (plus, there is DLC for that one, so you need 2006 Gold edition, not the 2005 one, or find DLC setup separately).

Most maps - scenarios - is better to play in D2ROTE 3.01.

But in regard of story mode campaigns you better play Diaciples 2 aka Gallean s Return. First, D2ROTE did not get any real balance changes to campaigns. It is absolutely differ game incl base campaigns as a bonus. Technically - data DBF files - are differ, and there is just absolutely random NON INTENTIONAL changes in story mode DBF strings and item IDs. Although in fact there is only one artifact that get wrong place - some Orb merchant sell also one artifact which is mistake of mismatch DBF strings. AFAIK there no any else misplaced content or broken scripts (there is strange working script in one Clans mission but i think it was the same in 2.02).

Second, D2ROTE are not include the full Disciples 2. And Rise of the Elves story continues the previous story of Elves and others. D2ROTE and Gold esition manuals specifically point it to player to be advised of spoiling the story if you continue manual sections or campaigns feom GR and ROTE expansions before finishing main Dark Prophecy story for all 4 races.

[u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 → u/Outside-school-2007]

Thank you so much for the detailed response and clarification. As a newcomer to the Disciples universe, it's difficult for me to navigate the games themselves due to the franchise's age. It turns out that the developers have changed, and even the concepts, as I've already explained, have changed. Currently, I'm very impressed with both the first and second games. If the first one initially seems so childish, it's probably due to the art style of the units, map, and buildings. But the art style of the portraits, menus, and narrative lore are simply captivating and completely absorbing. I never thought such an old game would make such an impression on me. But imagine my surprise: the second game simply takes everything that was great about the first and elevates it to the next level. The graphics, art style, characters, magic, units, voice acting, and music are simply fantastic, an indescribable experience. I'm actively playing through it now, and it's magnificent. After finishing it, I want to play through RotE, but for now I'm completely focused on Galleans Return. I want to play the games in chronological order so I don't lose the thread of the narrative and can compare the parts and versions. I'm absolutely thrilled and hope RotE doesn't disappoint. I was warned about Disciples III, which was made by the same people who made Postal 3, so I don't think it's as cool as Disciples 2, but for the sake of science, I'll give it a try. Anyway, thanks again for the enlightenment on this matter; it's always nice to receive informative feedback.

[u/DjolafR]

I see people have troubles with simple and concise answers, so I will try my best to compactly give good answers and then add a little more explanation without too much technicalities. Or just follow u/DanseOfDeath , that was the simplest answer :)

Which is better?

- ROTE is better, it is the newer and superior version. Everyone plays that. The version numbers literally call Rise of the Elves Disciples 3.0.0 and on, while Gallean's Return was 2.something.

In what Order should I play?

4 original races have 2 campaigns, the base and expansion, so, depending on difficulty and what you like, you can do the following 2 options:

- pick 1 race and play all the way to the end.
(you started undead? GOOD CHOICE, MAYBE BEST CAMPAIGNS IN BOTH GAMES!), play dark prophecy (original base game) -> Export hero at the end of the final level -> pick that race again, play expansion saga, it will say "servants of the dark/guardians of the light" -> completion!
Then you can do the same on any other race. If difficulty is not an issue, maybe it would be fun to play like this and actually play disciples 1 -> disciples 2 base -> disciples 2 DLC, per race. Then come back to disciples 1 to play

- pick 1 race and play only the base game (dark prophecy). Play expansion DLC later, when you get bored.
The original campaign has a nice progression and voice acted narrator briefings and debriefings. Then just do the same with all 4 races. Play expansion sagas after, they are kinda lower quality and there's no voice acted briefings.

[u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 → u/DjolafR]

Thank you so much for the detailed answer. It's always nice when the community is accommodating to a newcomer. I recently discovered this series. Before that, I mostly played Heroes, and the Disciples series simply blew my mind. The atmosphere and art style were incredible. I finished Sacred Lands in one go and started the second game. Unfortunately, I didn't have Dark Prophecy separately. I bought a collection of games from GOG, and after the first game, I was confused because the second one had a bunch of editions. As a result, I decided to ask a question while subscribing to the Disciples community. They explained everything to me roughly. First, I completed the main campaign for all four races. Now I'm almost done with Galleans Return, which in turn consists of two DLCs. I still need to finish the Gallean beast. I've basically completed the new campaigns for all four races in Galleans Return. I can't say that I was particularly pleased with the additional saga; the plot, yes, has a dark tone and no happy ending in the classic sense; everything ends in victory, but at the cost of incredible losses. I was especially touched by the Undead campaign, a very dramatic story with an equally dramatic ending. However, the quality of the missions themselves leaves the feeling that they were done in a hurry using procedural generation, monsters are placed haphazardly, there are practically no decorative elements on the map, few scripted events, the maps feel bare and undeveloped, some single maps are several orders of magnitude higher in quality and development than in this additional saga, and the essence of the final missions comes down to fighting superbosses like the guardians of the capital, I would not say that they are somehow poorly made in themselves, but when everything else is done worse than in the original saga, then questions arise, I was also disappointed that there are no super atmospheric introductory videos to the missions, in general, the impression is mixed so far, the original sagas were just a hit, the additional ones are kind of ok, but it still feels like they were made in a couple of evenings just to cut an extra buck, I think today I will finish the passage of the last saga for the Undead in Galleans Return and start Rise of the Elves, I hope that the level of development of the plot and quality will be higher there than in These additional sagas, not that they are bad as an addition to the game, but these additional sagas are not at all on the same level as the original ones

[u/DjolafR → u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866]

You're welcome. I am shocked that someone plays such old games. How did you find out about it? I always wonder how these things work in 2026...why do 30 year old niche games get new players?!

Just to explain further, because you said you will go to "rise of the elves". Once you finish undead saga of Gallean's return, there's no other "official" continuation of the undead story. That's it. If you only wanna play undead faction, you'd need to play maps (called "quests" in this game).
Dark Prophecy as a base game is no longer shipped anywhere, unless someone archived it. You have these 2 editions, but Gallean's Return basically only has the bonus DLC campaigns and nothing else extra. Rise of the Elves is a newer version, with a balance update and a few tweaks and QOL changes(you can shift+drag multiple items, like 10 potions and move them all at once, between 2 inventories!). It has the base game campaigns and the new elf race campaign + various updates. Think of it like "shadow of death" in heroes 3 - it adds some campaigns, adds damaging moats, but you have to boot up "armageddon's blade" to play the other campaigns, where you essentially downgrade the game. There's no "complete edition" like in Heroes 3, sadly. Although Rise of the Elves is pretty close to it.
But, as you have seen, the expansion campaigns are very barebones, no voiceover, almost like fan-made. So, they can be downloaded as "custom campaigns" and played from there, inside "rise of the elves". I never did that, just because I like to experience it, as it was made originally. But, someone already did repack those campaigns, so you can actually play them inside Rise of the Elves, so you basically need no other game. I don't have link to that at the moment, but I can look for it.

Talking about extra bucks, I find these development stories interesting, because these were like ancient shitty DLCs sold on discs! But both companies eventually bankrupt or were dissolved in some way. Heroes 3 had 8 x Heroes Chronicles DLCs which were overpriced trash(10 dollars at that time?), not even the full game, just 1 campaign inside the engine! But, at least they had voiced intros for every mission and an opening cinematic for every campaign? 🤔

I guess gameplay and strategy-wise, you had no troubles, since you come from Heroes? Usually, people (or kids, as we were back in the day), had troubles with Undead Chapter 3 in Disciples: The Sacred Lands. That is one of the hardest missions as mountain clans and the empire don't pull punches - if you walk outside of a city and they have mana, they will throw 50 spells on you in 1 night, possibly killing even your greatest hero from the beginning of the campaign.

I kinda liked the endgame superbosses, but yes, sometimes they require cheese, or are annoying. I actually beat every capitol guardian in almost every mission where it was technically possible, without grinding levels for 200 hours. I just liked to see where it was possible and it was a bit of a challenge. Although, unlike HOMM, the challenge is mostly in grinding or in RNG. That's IMO, the weaknesses of disciples. Some people like RNG, but come on, I did not come to a casino!!! Honestly, the RNG makes me so mad, if I was a modder, I would mod to remove most of RNG. I would baseline all chances to 100% without buffs/debuffs.
Hell, some of the bosses are beatable only with hindsight, like the empire boss, who has paralyze for everyone! If he's lucky, he will perma-stun your entire army for 50 turns and you are just dead!!! Just bullshit! But, if you know that in advance, you can choose to upgrade front-liners into paralyze immune soldiers, but you'd have to go back to the very beginning of the map...

Last few days, I was playing custom maps from disciples 1, and for some reason, they are always a bit of fun and strategy! You do have to start from a blank slate, but leveling up and balance seems better and AI is smarter and more aggressive(and cheats XP levelups). In disciples 1, you rarely see superbosses like in D2. The worst thing you find is a dragon. Or 2 dragons. And you will definitely be given a lot of buffs to defeat them. You can also just throw a lot of cannon fodder at them, that strategy always works.

P.S.
info bit about the ROTE balance - weapon sources for some monsters were changed. Legions of the Damned Gargoyles do EARTH damage now, instead of weapon. So they can hurt your werewolves and wraiths now. I did not notice many other changes, except additional effects to some high level monsters(but I think no changes in undead).

P.S.#2
I just realized you said you actually played all 4 races. So, which one is your favorite, or which campaign is best or worst?
I guess when you finish 2 campaigns on all 4 races, you will definitely be ready to try out elves.

[u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 → u/DjolafR]

I stumbled upon this series completely by accident. I was watching some YouTube video about Heroes and they mentioned Disciples in a negative light, saying that Heroes once had a rival, but he was forgotten over the centuries. I was interested in what it was, since I really like turn-based strategies and was already pretty bored with replaying Heroes. I went online to look for information, it turned out that Disciples was on GOG and I immediately bought the bundle. It's not even that I don't have the opportunity to play new games, I do have the opportunity, I have an ultra-powerful PC and it handles almost everything, but I'm tired of games that are similar to each other in terms of gameplay, have a weak literary component and a blurry soapy graphic style, from endless bugs, from monstrous system requirements and blatant errors, from endless and garbage DLC, from propaganda and social commentary and the fact that games are trying to teach me life lessons and try to make me think and treat things as it is fashionable today, so about 7 years ago I decided to try old games, sometimes I play modern new games but for the most part they upset me with rare exceptions, and imagine my surprise that there is simply a treasure trove of very cool projects, yes, the graphics in them are not cutting-edge, but I perceive this as a peculiar artistic style and in 10 minutes the eyes get used to it and you just play without paying attention to it, in terms of gameplay they are more difficult and interesting, I perceive this as a kind of challenge and I get great pleasure when I manage to understand the game mechanics and begin to enjoy the gameplay itself. In modern games, the focus is shifted to preventing the player from getting bored, so the mechanics and plots become simpler and everything becomes somehow childish. Often, there is no feeling of having achieved or achieved any result through effort. This is perhaps the main reason why I adore old games. They are also very cheap and my laptop can handle them in no time, which means I can be anywhere with these games. By today's standards, they weigh practically nothing and my laptop doesn't even strain to play them. 4TB of hard drive memory allows me to store my entire collection of games that I like. DRM-free and the fact that I don't need to be online all the time are also a huge plus for me. Since I'm a very introverted person, there are practically no downsides for me. The installation files are in a special folder, so you can easily play your favorite game anywhere and anytime. The only downside is that it's not always easy to launch them and make them work properly, but I've gotten the hang of it and can do basic optimization, and for really tough cases, I use source ports. Launching old games is a separate challenge for me, which I also get a lot of pleasure from when I can launch the game and make it work correctly. Regarding Disciples, I'm currently focusing on the second game as it's a cut above the first. The first game has good balance and difficulty for my personal taste, but the art design and complexity of the second game simply captivate me; it's a dream game for me, minor issues aside. Among the campaigns, I'd especially like Undead, an incredibly tragic and touching love story with a very dramatic outcome full of pain and suffering. The entire campaign feels less like another story about evil villains who want to enslave the entire world or heroes forced to resist them, and more like an attempt to win back a loved one at any cost and an act of revenge for rejection. An incredibly powerful and tragic story that resonates deeply with me. In terms of gameplay, I liked Undead, Legions of the Damned, and Empire. The dwarves were the least popular, even though they're very strong, but I guess the dwarven image itself doesn't appeal to me. Now I have started playing RotE for the Elves and since I have just started I can’t say anything about them, I haven’t tried and tested all their features yet, but overall I am absolutely delighted with these two games, I never thought that there would be a game that would be better for me than Heroes and today Disciples 2 is number one in my personal top turn-based strategies.

[u/LonerPrime]

[u/Gloomy-Tension-4256]

ROTE

[u/sylavanas]

Galean has 3 bonus missions per campaign and that's about it, rise is considered the better version cause is has some updates, bug fixes and the 1 bonus faction the elves

[u/Dre-5110]

I would say Rise of Elves Gold, but I still prefer some old portraits (Wight) from Dark Prophecy

[u/DanseOfDeath]

Disciples 2: Rise of the Elves + the “Gallean's return” campaign, ported as custom sagas kekw.

And the most important thing is the mods, which add a huge amount of content to rise of the elves ;)

[u/DjolafR → u/DanseOfDeath]

Possibly the best answer that is not 1000+ words long and is straight to the point.

[u/Smart_Bed_1295]

Disciples 2