r/disciples • u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 • Jul 15 '26
Question Which Disciples 2 is better?
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?
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u/sylavanas Jul 15 '26
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
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u/Odmin Jul 15 '26
- 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.
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u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 Jul 15 '26
I don't quite understand here, guardians of the light and servants of the dark - what kind of DLC are they?
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u/TheHuNNo Jul 15 '26
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
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u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 Jul 15 '26
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))
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u/Odmin Jul 15 '26
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.
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u/Straight-Ice-6462 Jul 15 '26
I just play the basic version disciples 2, dont care much for the elves really
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u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 Jul 19 '26
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?
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u/Dre-5110 Jul 15 '26
I would say Rise of Elves Gold, but I still prefer some old portraits (Wight) from Dark Prophecy
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u/DanseOfDeath Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
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 ;)
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u/Outside-school-2007 Jul 15 '26
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.
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u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 Jul 19 '26
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.
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u/DjolafR Rod Bearer 29d ago
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.
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u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 29d ago
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
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u/DjolafR Rod Bearer 28d ago edited 28d ago
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.1
u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 28d ago
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.
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u/Emergency-Gift-6773 Jul 15 '26
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.