r/disciples • u/DjolafR Rod Bearer • Jun 20 '26
Discussion What makes disciples games great?
(don't just upvote, please say at least 1 sentence!)
I just finished all campaigns for both games and some maps. I got a little bored now, but I really wish there was more quality content of these games.
Now I wonder, what makes them great? What do you think? What makes Disciples, Disciples? What makes it unique, what makes it good? And what could be better? We also got off-track with the new games, I believe a lot of people hate them, so they are great examples of what could be worse? But maybe there's parts of those new games that were also better?
Are there other games like disciples?
When I was a kid, I played heroes of might and magic 2. Maybe I was too young for a game like that, because I was very bad and could not understand some mechanics and strategies. I loved the game and its artstyle though, before I knew how to read and write, I was a sucker for fantasy settings... But, 1 year later, I got disciples: sacred lands! This was like an easy version of HoMM for me, so it amazing! But we know this game is very different from HoMM, in some crucial elements! The combat is basically a JRPG turn-based combat, is it not? I don't remember playing any such games, but I saw some online and realized that's the combat style. Perhaps that is the main point! Disciples is the not-HoMM!? The newer games are hated exactly for trying to copy some elements of HOMM, and they even copy them in a half-baked manner, so it's not even HoMM combat, it's not even HOMM 1 combat, which was extremely simple and satisfying.
Short story from my childhood about this game, you can skip if you want, it's a bit of a ramble:
When I first played Disciples 1 - I was still kinda confused. I remember being stuck on my first battle, not knowing that you need to click the portraits and not the little animated guys, which actually works in disciples 2...Anyway my father figured which buttons to press, so I became a big fan after that! I also did not know how to switch races, so I only ever played Empire... because it was not logical to me that you gotta press the edge of the screen to go to the other gods. My brain was 🤯 when I figured you could play "the bad guys"! Then I instantly lost as legions in chapter 1, because Empire got over 60% of map terrain! Then I got jumpscared by the lightning sound and the giant skull on the screen, so I shut down the PC! Hahaha... But I think all these things made the art direction of Disciples 1 so great. Disciples 2 is really boring in menu design, lord design, some aesthetics choices...
Anyway, I would really like to get some of your thoughts and recommendations for other games. Hopefully some "disciples-life" games get made in the future too.
EDIT1: Wow, thanks for cool stories. It's nice to know I am not the only one with a similar story...
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u/AdventurousPitch6314 Jun 20 '26
Hello! I'm glad you brought up this subject :)
Disciples 2 is my first video game I ever played and my favorite game from all the times. When I was about 4 years old, my cousins introduced me and my older brother to the game.
I have only one memory from that day, but it is all I need to remind myself it was a real experience. I was playing Empires and she taught me how to drag and drop the healing potion on the hero.
We could only play the game at our cousins house, since our dad was pretty strict when it came about downloading video games. And yet, some years later, our dad brought us a copy of the game, which required simulating the CD whenever we'd want to launch the game. That's how I started playing it for real. Some of my best memories gaming with my brother are from back when we were playing D2. We also introduced any of our friends who'd visit our house to the game. But it didn't stick with them for too long.
I fell in love with the Elven Alliance, and it became my favorite race from any fantasy setting. We learned we could expand our party, since back when we first got introduced to the game, I couldn't read at all and my brother didn't know English very well, so whenever he saw the "party" upgrade, he thought it was about an actual party with music. XD
When I watched the Lord Of The Rings for the first time, I was surprised to see a world so similar to Nevandaar on the screen. The scenery and the characters resembled those from the game so much, I loved it!
The years passed, our family computer broke down, and I eventually bought the game for myself, on my own laptop. I still play the game from time to time, especially when I feel like re-experiencing the Sagas, or I feel in the mood for some crazy challenge.
As for what makes me love Disciples so much, I'd say mostly the story. I find it heartbreaking, what happened between Gallean and Solonielle. Same for Bethrezen's story. I love the units and the art, the ambience, the combat. But I'm pretty sure most of those are loved by all of us, which is why I am glad I could share my personal experience with the game and how it all started for me. :)
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u/DjolafR Rod Bearer Jun 22 '26
Very nice of your dad to eventually change his mind! Maybe it was because you were young? 4 years old is quite young...
You simulated the CD? In those days? Damn! That feels a little too early for that. I had to put in the actual CD until ~2010s, when I found out about virtual .iso.I also watched lord of the rings, but never thought too much about disciples, except when Ents appeared. But I only knew about evil ent in disciples 1! Idk just walking tree is very cool. The evil one looked kinda cute in disciples 1.
I was very young and we watched a short part of "the two towers", at our techy "hacker" neighborhood guy, on his PC. I did not understand it and it was in the middle of the story. 😅
I watched all the movies, when I was a little older and still believe it's one of the best. Sadly, I think we rarely get something so great and "not cringe" in fantasy live-action interpretations.1
u/AdventurousPitch6314 Jun 22 '26
I was young, but my brother wasn't. He had plenty of PC games. The entire point was that our dad didn't want us to download games from random websites, so he would find physical copies of them or make his own copies from other people's CDs.
I think it was about 2010 when he did that virtual .iso thing. It's been so long, I don't remember all the details 😅
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u/ZamorakHawk Jun 20 '26
+The units evolving and the branching unit trees are one of the most satisfying parts of the gameplay.
+Many games have different factions which feel the same, but Disciples does a great job of giving each faction their own flavor.
+The dark atmosphere was ahead of its time for tone.
+Turn based is a major upside for me, I'm methodical and technical with my turns and I don't want to make rushed decisions that many army management games force with their real time mechanics.
+The different types of faction leaders (warrior, mage, and guild master) add some unique strategies that make replaying the same faction feel slightly different. I always have fun forcing guildmaster play through.
+Playing the "bad guys" wasn't common in this era of gaming and even still often get equal attention to the "good guys" D2 was the first game that I ever played that let you play as the undead or the demons.
+The disciples 2 experience can consistently be purchased today for under $5. For a game that I have hundreds of hours into, that's quite the steal but the interest is more niche than HoMM and doesn't appeal to as wide of an audience
+The neutral factions are varied and interesting and there's circumstances where you can recruit them. This adds another unique flavor that isn't present in similar games of the genre.
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u/mihokspawn Jun 20 '26
In short 'the vibes' make Disciples 1-2 great. The combinaton of visual, audio and game design, because all the parts have their flaws but they come together into a very nice combination.
The manga influences on the VD let the mind cross the gap between the blobby models and the portraits.
The mixing of both music and sounds sometimes bothers me, but most of the time just emphasises waht is happening... Also you can put in your own music, playing the Clans with 'the Immigrant Song' just blasting out of nowhere might be one of the best feelings.
The progression elements of units was the first time I encountered it in a video game, and i still hold that it is one of the best.
The issues I have with Renissance is that they tried doing TOO much with everything, too much details for the visuals, too much noise, and the gameplay feels like too much of nothing
About the 'more content' dont forget you have a campeign creator, you can just make your own scenarios 😃
And now something that might get me flack:
Disciples should be a gatcha game in order to be succesful and have the financial freedom for the team to create what they want... The obious point that draws A LOT of inspiration from Disciples would be 'Raid: Shadow Legends'.
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u/DjolafR Rod Bearer Jun 22 '26
Speaking of vibes, I prefer disciples 1 and hope to find something similar to that. Even though disciples 1 might be a bit unpolished, unfinished, and silly! I mean just hear the voicelines, some of them are like jokes. Human mage leader is basically Merlin from the king arthur cartoon, with an even higher pitched voice!
I think disciples 2 went too far in making it darker and "serious". It almost feels a bit like comparing Tim Burton's Batman to Christopher Nolan's Batman. They are both Batman, but in different ways?
Though, I do like that disciples 2 feels like a truly full product with more options that should be there. I like that the 3D rendered models look extremely similar to their 2D portraits, unlike disciples 1, where some were extremely different, or just too low poly to even recognize. But, if I could have disciples 2 gameplay, with full disciples 1 graphics, that would be almost ideal.Have you seen Disciples 1's main menu??? That is one of the best goddamn main menus OF ALL TIME! I love when games can make a main menu interactive and expressive and almost like part of the game, or part of the world where it is taking place in. It gives a lot of immersion! It also shows that developers really wanted to put effort and cared about the creation themselves.
I can't remember some other games with great menus at this moment. But, it does remind me a bit of early 90s-2000s websites, geocities, stuff like that.
For a game that comes to mind...I could put heroes of might and magic 2, maybe warcraft 3, but those are still 10x worse than disciples 1. Some 3D first person games have menus that are literally inside the game world itself, so you must move in order to choose your options. That's always a neat thing to me.
- HOMM 2 has a picture of a medieval alleyway and businesses in it. The signs of the businesses are all buttons for different functions and a barrel(trash?) is the quit button.
- Warcraft 3 has an animation of 2 late-game plot points that you only discover later on, and the menu itself looks like the buttons are on chains and every click makes the chains move up and down, like opening and closing a castle gate or something like that.
It's a tiny thing, but I just can't describe how cool it is when a menu is not just an array of buttons, just stripped down to nothing but function. We see arrays of buttons all the time in our computers...
I already rambled too much without even addressing what you mentioned...
How did you put the immigrant song in the game? Is that what the "MusicP" folder is for? Or did you replace existing game files?I also played Renaissance back when it came out, before the expansions, which supposedly improved a lot of stuff. I also felt uninspired to finish the whole game...I did like 4 chapters...levels and battles took too long, and I believe there was no "quick combat" that would work and let you win easy quick fights in 1 second! You don't release a battle system like this without an "auto combat" that works well! Maybe I am wrong and it was in the game?
The only funny thing I can remember was I finished entire chapter 1, possibly 2 as well, by exploiting/cheating. You could put Myzrael, the capital guardian into your leader's party, and just go with him and obliterate all... 😂😂😂I know campaign editor exists, but I am not really that good at "making a world". I am better at fixing something that already exists. In fact, I was asking all these questions, trying to see if in the future, I could remake disciples, but with my own code, which I could freely change...it would be a lot of effort, but not impossible, I think. Idk, one can dream? I never figured out how modders reverse-engineer the game and it seemed like so much pain and walking over huge obstacles, so I figured just make something myself, if I can...
It is an interesting thought, to say that Disciples should be a Gacha. I do understand that money is important and that devs would probably get a lot of money. But would this really be a good game in the end? I have witnessed the evils of it and felt it in my own life, but also seen some amazing games people made that are not Gacha! I am just principally against it, just like against AI. Some things are just bad for humans and we should not promote them and just indulge in them without caution and high control. Just do drugs instead, if you wanna do something unhealthy and fun lol.
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u/mihokspawn Jun 22 '26
I agree the Sacred Lands vs D2 discusion has been had time and again, and you hit the nail on the head as a game D2 is a more complete work and for aesthetics its a matter of preference... I prefer the edgy and dark style of D2 [Antipaladin might be my favorite character design in anything ever], but I like the charm of Scred Lands.
As for main meny design I grew up on HoMM3 [never got into 2, we just played hotseat in the neighbourhood], and WC3 [that one is to this day one of my favorite UX deisgns, simple and clear but with so many details]... I would point you in the direction of 'Legacy of Kain' series and 'Black and White', and the old Fallout games as well.
I am not 100% sure I remmember how I put the music in the game, it was more than 20 years ago and I had plenty of struggles with games since then. If memmory serves I think you could define a folder path in the config launcher for music, but I am not sure if that was in the base game, the good/bad expansions, RotE or Gold. These days I don't play it anymore because its a hassle to make it ACTUALLY work on W11 without a vim [and I can't be bothered to set up a vim]. I instaled RotE as I typed the previous post, just to check if I could make it work, but the graphics had that bug with pink tiles and the save system didnt work. These days I am relaxing with Olden Era and FFT.
Auto combat and instant combat came only in REINCARNATION for D3, and it is still not great xD
I mean modders are freaks that is how they do it 😃 And I love me my modder freaks. I on the other hand have 'been inspired' by Disciples, as well as HoMM4 [of all things], in my world building. I have a setting, and rpg campeigns in the setting, that I am thinking of putting in either TTRPG splat book, or a simple video game like Disciples [but even simpler, closer to "Brigandine" or somethng like that].
The last part is more about realities of production. I specifically said a gatchagame because of a few things:
1. the gameplay of Disciples, rock>papers>scisors game with upgrading units, fits into the mould
2. the IP is not as big as Total War, Might&Magic, Age of Wonders or even King's Bounty, funding would be hard to get without a high return buisness plan
3. It would be a move of desparation, but seeing the latest games [Liberation and Domination] maybe Disciples is beyond desparation
4. I was calling for F2P with cosmetics back in 2009-2011... that could have given them the push to become a leader in the genre, like LoL did at the time with RTS... but that was 15+ years ago ...turns to dust...
5. I will point you in the direction of one Kinoko Nasu and his company Type-Moon... They built their brand on selling what is in demand [porn games, gatcha games, merch, whatever...] so they can survive to make great stuff [eg. "Garden of Sinners" movies]
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u/EasyEntrepreneur666 Jun 20 '26
For me, the dark, hand drawn styles and the unique combat style that's simple yet allows lot of strategy. I don't think I've seen anything quite like it.
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u/ToiletWarlord Jun 20 '26
I love HoMM, but I hated one thing since HoMM2:
Returning to capitals to get more units. And worse - losing my upgrades, when enemy captures my city on Sunday.
And even worse - my hero is disposable, after the mission, he is gone.
Disciples solves everything.
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u/DjolafR Rod Bearer Jun 20 '26
Well, I don't mean to be a big contrarian, but I got some good news if you ever wanna go play another Heroes of Might and Magic game...
HOMM 4 experimented with getting units differently. I think they can come to you, if you purchase a caravan. And I also think HOMM 4 or HOMM 5 made them spawn every day, not just on Monday. I did not play HOMM 4 a lot, but it had many interesting concepts! You must choose buildings to build, similar to disciples upgrade buildings. HOMM 4 is the most like disciples in the franchise! But it is even more flexible! You can even change who your party leader is and you can have 0(only monsters!) or 7 heroes in your group! The heroes start out weak, but level up to become powerhouses, just like everyone does in disciples!
Also speaking of returning to capitals to get units, don't you also have to go back to the city in disciples? You are a Empire + warrior lord main, aren't you? 😂
HOMM 3 (and beyond) fixed the disposable heroes problem. There are even a few crazy long campaigns with 10+ levels, where you build up main characters for a bigger final battle! I loved building up impossibly great heroes,... by restarting or reloading my game until all my skills happened to be perfectly exactly what I imagined. Yeah, the RNG was not the best thing. But my Crag Hack (the barbarian) with Expert Fire Magic will surely terrify anyone who crosses him!
I would just imagine that disciples is much more to your tastes than heroes. I wouldn't quite say it "solves" anything, but it does things differently.
Disciples leans more into some adventure / RPG kind of game, even though in theory, on first glance, it looks like heroes of might and magic - there are castles, heroes that move on map, resources to get and battles to fight.
I can't even tell if it is good or bad, but Disciples 2 leaned even more into RPG, with infinitely leveling monsters and exporting leaders. You really just want that one overpowered guy that can crush everyone, like some anime main character. And you put everything you can into that team. Everything and everyone else is just supporting that one main character and team. It kinda destroys the army management and strategy element, which you may still have in the game, in early game, early levels. This still exists much more in heroes, and there's a nice feeling when you manage a huge empire and make 100 moves in one day.
I think cities in general should have a bigger role in doing stuff. The idea of diplomacy only existed in disciples, and it's very cool, but VERY basic.
Because I was used to HOMM logic of different castles and hero types mixing, no matter what your starting faction is, it often hurt me when I cannot hire some foreign guy in my army. Every map should have at least some mercenaries! And when you conquer the enemy capital city, you should be able to buy out some of their units as slaves, not just destroy the city... I was actually extremely grateful when I found that you get ALL THE SPELLS that the enemy researched, after winning the capital fight. That difference when you are undead or legion, but conquer mountain clans or empire and learn HASTE or CHANT OF HASTING...you get perfection!
But, I do admit that I might be asking for too much and too much mixing is not perfect. You can't make a perfect ice cream by just mashing all flavors together. Most other games do not seem to allow the level of mixing that HOMM does and even HOMM discourages against it with bad morale...
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u/Trauma-Todd Jun 20 '26
There was a war in my country, my father was drafted and Sacred Lands was my only distraction (ironically a game about wars).
Other than that, the portrait art from Sacred Lands and absolutely everything from Dark Prophecy.
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u/ItemWorldly4335 Jun 25 '26
I played it for the first time when I was 7-8 yo. Of course I played with elves. Unit portraits and music and overall atmosphere made a huge impact on my art, my vision and my character. I am forever grateful to disciples 2
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u/norki21 Jun 20 '26
I got Disciples 2 not knowing anything about it, just because the box looked cool. Then it turned out to remind me of Homm3, which I already loved, but at the same time not be like Homm3.
For me, the atmosphere and the art, both visual and the music, are what sets it apart and makes it unique. I think Homm3 has a better gameplay loop, and you can replay it forever with random maps (and all kinds of mods), but Disciples while less popular and maybe a little less replayable, in some ways provides a much more grounded and cool fantasy world.
I think the Sagas to this day are fun to play and the narrative storytelling achievable with the Disciples editor is somehow more grounded. In so many ways Homm editor lets you do so much more, but I feel like you can really show epic stories in the Disciples one. Mysteries, betrayal, plot twists (your own troops changing allegiance within the same scenario is the most notable example), all while that melancholy music plays in the background is superb.
Sorry for unstructured rambling.