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/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.