Disciples 2 Gold

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strategy / turn-based / fantasy

1.7 GB

based on 115 customer votes.

February 3, 2005

Windows® Vista & Windows® XP

Strategy First / Strategy First

English

buy for $9.99

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A decade after the First Great War, the final prophecy continues to unfold. Deep within the crevices of the Sacred Lands, the Chosen One has emerged, fated to bring salvation to some and destruction to others.
Braced with renewed faith and newfound conviction, each race must once again take up the sword for the sake of their people and the glory of their God.

Disciples II Gold includes the entire award-winning Disciples II series including Dark Prophecy, all three expansion packs (Guardians of the Light, Servants of the Dark, and Rise of the Elves), as well as new and exciting scenarios. Set in the magical realm of the Sacred Lands, four races--the Empire, the Mountain Clans, the Legions of the Damned, and the Undead Hordes--battle for the destiny of their gods. All of the campaigns and hundreds of hours of gameplay in one adventure package.

This game has been patched to the latest official versions. Disciples II - Rise of the Elves: 3.01, Disciples II Fantasy Pack Patch: 2.02.

Minimum system requirements: Windows XP or Windows Vista, 1 GHz Processor (1.4 GHz recommended), 512MB RAM (1 GB recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended), Mouse, Keyboard.

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Average customer rating 4.5 out of 5.0

Easy To Learn, Tough To Master (by EyeNixon

EyeNixon)

If you have any experience whatsoever with games such as Master of Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic, or the Warlords series (the original games, not the Battlecry spin-offs) then Disciples 2 will seem quite familiar. However, it has quite a few things going for it that not only produces an easier to learn experience, but provides a breadth of options despite its seemingly simplistic... full review systems.

Like any other game of the sort, Disciples 2 provides you with a capital city, a hero (which you can export to carry across scenarios as he improves) and allows you to explore a map filled with monsters, treasures, and land to be conquered.
What makes these maps unique however, is the incredible atmosphere that exudes from every single pixel within Disciples 2's majestic world. The music is at times haunting, at times beautiful, and typically always carries a low, somewhat soothing (and at times, eerie) tone throughout gameplay. This means Disciples 2 carries none of the crass and obnoxious bass heavy orchestral soundtracks that Fantasy games seem to like so much (I'm looking at you TES, tone it down). Equally beautiful is the terrain and units, Disciples 2 maintains a very dark stylized look, every unit and hero has its own unique personality, and the artwork provided for each unit is very high quality.

Backing up this gorgeous display of aesthetic is an equally impressive combat system, unlike Heroes of Might and Magic, combat in Disciples 2 is carried out by individual units rather than representation by number of mass armies, units will always do a similar amount of damage no matter their health. However, this provides an extra layer of strategy as you cannot simply amass hordes of pathetic units and whittle down your enemy, victory is obtained through careful training and combat of your units. Your soldiers regularly upgrade into stronger variants as they gain experience, what they upgrade into depends on the structures built at your Capital, an Empire (one of the four races present, an additional race is also available in Rise of the Elves) Squire for example, will upgrade into a Knight if the player built a Stable.
There are separate trees of construction available, so picking one upgrade path over another will cut off the other, forcing you to pick and choose strategically based on which you believe will serve you best.

Gameplay is tight and there are very few bugs present, I could only count a few, such as one annoying bug that appeared when playing windowed where a turn would not cease loading until you click on another window and return to the Disciples 2 process, which causes windowed play to be more of a chore than it should be.
Disciples 2 does possess a few problems that prevent it from achieving a 5 star rating in this critique, first off, the AI on any difficult below Hard is incredibly imbecilic, often sending decently leveled heroes with upgraded units straight into powerful Neutral units that tear them up. This wouldn't be a problem if the AI resorted to such stupid tactics rarely, but the AI seems quite inclined to perform such actions repeatedly in a single game, eventually providing little challenge to the player. This would most likely have lowered the score even more if it weren't for the fact that the AI on the harder difficulties is quite intelligent without cheating.

Another apparent problem in Disciples 2 is that there's a small amount of scenarios. While all four races carry length campaigns (labeled "Sagas"), it's disappointing to see only a dozen scenario maps.

These problems don't drag down the whole of Disciples 2 however, and the systems within the game are so well sculpted and polished that the scenarios you do play will be incredibly entertaining.
Worth playing for fans of HoMM, Warlords and MoM, and even for TBS players who would like to enjoy a little fantasy kick.

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Save often (by zrg

zrg)

Disciples 2 is a fantastic turn-based fantasy strategy game. Instead of commanding armies, you built yourself groups of heroes and their guards to wander around the map, claiming resources, freeing cities and doing battles with other heroes. They gain experience, level up and gain new skills. A lot of items like potions or equipment can be found and used by those heroes, as are... full review quests, so it sometimes feels like a RPG. You should save often though, as a loss of one of your group of heroes can be game deciding.

Once you gain an understanding of the mechanics of the game, the civilization feeling will settle in with "just one more round", until you realize that it's already 4 in the morning :) A map will take quite long from start to finish, especially if you play it the first time. Unfortunately, the autosave will save at the _end_ of your turn, when you have done all your actions, before the enemies have their turn. Also, only one autosave slot exists, so it would be wise to manually save every 3-5 turns.

Battles between groups are nicely done and remind of trading card games like Magic. Every unit has one way to attack, heroes can use equipped potions, units can defend, heal, etc.The tactical side shines in the combination of the different unit types and their strengths/weaknesses against other types. It's possible, although hard, to win with 'lesser' units against stronger groups, but the reverse is also true, so save often.

The graphics are nice, especially the 2D world view, which has a lot of small details, like flowing waterfalls, reflections of ships in the water, flying flocks of birds, etc. The landscape changes with your influence, so it's very rewarding to see the area in your kingdom turning to lush green fields, or hell-like, sulfurous wastelands. The graphics in the combat screen are good, with really great animations. The two groups are standing opposed of each other, and it reminded me a bit of Final Fantasy.

The story and setting is a dark fantasy world (which reminded me of Warhammer). Every race has it's own believable goals in the main story line, and the story is told from different point of views. The unit portraits are done nicely, as is the interface - although it's a bit clunky for my taste. With 5 races and three campaigns plus a big selection of solo maps and a map editor, there's really a lot to do.

One of the biggest disadvantages of this game is it's difficulty. Although the complexity and learning curve are not that big, the maps and the enemies you'll face on them are quite hard, and you'll find yourself quickloading a lot of times. Leveling is not restricted to your units only, as the enemy will also level up. This means a lost battle is also a double gain for the enemy and when you are on the loosing track it's very hard to impossible to swing the outcome around. Unfortunately, you'll notice this not until it's often too late, so save often.

tl;dr summary: A good strategy game that will keep you in it's grip if you give it the chance, and it's an entertaining timesink like civilization. But save often.

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Fantastic game, but not for everybody (by DoctorArch

DoctorArch)

Disciples 2 is an excellent, turn-based strategy game that takes elements from the Heroes of Might & Magic Series and transposes them into a brand new fantasy world. The game can be exceedingly difficult at times, but in a fair way that encourages you to plan your battles better.... full review

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