Disciples: Sacred Lands Gold

Played this game to death... It's extremely gorgeous and has very motivating gameplay. At first it might seem a bit more simplistic than other TBS games like Age of Wonders but it's really not. Disciples has a bigger focus on leveling up your party leader, individual units and exploring the map. You still have to find the best way to secure resources and evaluate the risks that this would take. The three different lord types that you can change for the four races impact your play style a lot. Magic spells are very important and have to be used wisely. But their use depends heavily on the amount of resources that you can gather. So it goes back and forth and you have to think several turns in advance. Best parts of the game are the presentation and how incredibly motivating it is to level up your individual units. Visually they change drastically and look badass. Visually absolutely charming and some parts of me wish that Disciples 2 would look a bit more like part 1 (although also very beautiful). Screenshots don't do this game justice. Play it yourself and you'll see that it's one of the best looking strategy games ever. Every campaign (4 in total) is a lot of fun and quite lengthy. There are also numerous scenarios which are also worth your time. Disciples 1&2 are very similar games but not interchangeable. The different visuals for one and there are just some highly entertaining campaign missions that you don't wanna miss. Most play Disciples 2 - Rise of the Elves in multiplayer but for a change of pace it's nice to also play Disciples 1 multiplayer once in a while. Maybe try to convince someone :) This game is a must play.

I promised myself I would never play this again... and I broke that promise. I was absorbed into this fantastic world and totally lost my hour count. This game never gets old. The mechanics are very simple. Gaining experience and upgrading your units is fun, and difficulty level is very well balanced. Undead campaign is very challenging - especially the third mission. To anyone experiencing problems when launching or with crashes... Setting compatibility to Windows Xp (Service Pack 3) solved problems in my case. Win 95 or 98 should do the trick too but there may be some problems with sound.

I'll admit it, I stink at strategy games... 20 minutes into Age of Empires and I had one peasant running for his life from a burning village pursued by a horde os swordsmen. That being said, I LOVE this game! For the first time ever, a strategy game made sense to me. I don't know if it's the fantasy setting or what but this is a VERY enjoyable game that is easy to learn and challenging without being frustrating. I played the Empire and managed to finish the game without cursing the game or breaking anything which is a rare occurance in my gaming record. Each race has its pros and cons and are different enough to give the game a lot of replayability. The graphics are somewhat dated but as I'm a huge pixel art fan, I enjoyed them and the animations for the actions and spell effects are really well done. I honestly can say this is the only strategy game I've EVER enjoyed and I can't recommend it enough - for $5.99 you'd be doing yourself a huge diservice by not buying it.

This is an older game, and admittedly, it's not so easy on the eyes. But it has a distinctive art style that is dark and vibrant, and even after so many years, the visuals are redeemed by this factor alone. I recommend setting your video card settings to maintain the original aspect ratio. Even with the black bars on the side, it's worth it. The game wasn't intended to be played stretched. I also recommend using forced anti-aliasing. The gameplay itself is somewhat hard to describe. There really isn't anything like it. If I had to try though, I would say it's a bit like Heroes of Might and Magic II, combined with a dark fantasy turn-based RPG. It's simple - much simpler to pick up and play than Heroes, but at the same time, it's every bit as deep...as crazy as that sounds. Try it and you will see what I mean. The story isn't great, but it's more than serviceable. I enjoy the story better than any of the HoMM stories (which isn't saying much), and it really sets the stage well for Disciples II. The story really suits the visual style - dark game, dark story. Good stuff. But the gameplay is where this game shines, though. I am not really that good when it comes to writing reviews, and I don't want to take up anymore of the reader's time, but I can't recommend this game enough. Both this game and the sequel are incredible. Highly recommended.

Warcraft 3 made this type of game obsolete. Hold on, though, this statement assumes that you enjoy shooting troops like bullets at your opponent or spending most of your free time honing your mind and fingers into spring-loaded RTS machinery . Since I am more into pure exploration and strategy - without the hectic barrage and late night training - Disciples still has vitality for me. The characters and maps look awesome, exploration is engaging and rewarding, and the gameplay seems to have been tweaked by designers whose obsession with balance seeps through everywhere. The explorable maps are huge. The scenarios are well-balanced and open ended, even though your army makeup and tactics are essentially limited. Somehow the very simple army structure, movement and magic system yields dozens of ways to accomplish the conquest of a portion of the map. You can go about things in the exact way you choose without getting stuck in grueling, inch-by-inch territory fights with opponents - unless you a make some pretty bad choices. The design is fairly awesome in this game. The character portraits really, really capture the essence of the type of unit. The un-leveled fighter's eyes glow with eagerness and solemn duty. When he levels into a Witch Hunter, his lowered, puritanical hat and 5-o'clock shadow make him look brooding, world-weary, and dangerous! A different tech path will turn the fighter into a knight - whose look of solemness is supervened with a light sneer and rising ridges of silver-white armor. Then you have bestiary of orcs, krakens, elementals, etc - All the fantasy tropes are nailed, and in many cases are world-class exemplary! The positives are definitely enough to get this game if you are into TBS (or strategy games that aren't a frantic nightmare), but the negatives are pretty glaring. For one, there is no plot here. There is a -story-. But as far as a group of characters taking part in this story, and an explanation of how your actions effect the story at large (a -plot-), no, you don't get that. The story expositions are so forced that they happen in between scenarios, in such a way that they could have been made up well after the scenarios were finished. Someone talks to you when you conquer a town, but it's so inconsistent as to who is talking to you, and why, that it's pretty hard to integrate or take seriously. At it's worst, the game will randomly throw up text boxes containing bits of story (again, with very little links to what the hell you have to do with any of it). I wouldn't be surprised if these boxes are verbatim storyboards that the developers meant to flesh out through dialog or cutscenes, but didn't have time to incorporate before shipping. It's hard for me to imagine someone making something so baffling and disordered without there having been a real problem. Also, it has not been localized well for about 60% of the game - the English is fluent, but only just. There seems to be some kind of cool story happening under the surface. It's too bad we don't get to be part of it. Other than this, there are some pathing issues (your units want to fight everything ever), and interface options are close to nil. You can't turn off unit responses and spell animations, or speed up the game to any appreciable level (the battle animations are cool, but after seeing them rote for the 1000th time, I'm ready to just end my turn).