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DEVELOPER
: Strategy
First
PUBLISHER : Strategy
First
System Requirements
Pentium 166 Mhz, 32 MB RAM |
Recommended
Pentium II 266MHz, 64+ MB RAM |
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Ratings
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| Code
Issues
Graphics: 8
- Stylized artwork attractive, very mood-setting. Great
use of animated sprites. Good-looking spell effects.
Audio: 6
- Functional sound f/x, but not essential.
Good background scoring.
Interface: 5
- Standard for the genre, but well-executed
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Play
Issues
Solo
play gameplay quality: 8 - RPG
elements engage player in the fate of his units; gameplay
takes place on different "levels" simultaneously.
Keeping gameplay streamlined allows AI to be very effective.
Length
of play/replay value: 8 - 4 races
require different gameplay styles, and "tech" trees
give each race replayability as well. Editor very easy
to use and stable.
Multiplay
quality: 8
Learning
curve: 9 - Uses a basic model, easy
to play without manual at all.
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| Other/Notes
Documentation:
6.0
Reviewed manual was Xerox'd copy,
hard to read; extensive tables. Other products from
Strategyfirst have had good documentation.
Stability:
8
Some reported bugs in demo
due to missing files, but retail version excellent - not a
SINGLE crash, lockup, etc in 20+ hours of play.
Overall:
7.4
"Evolutionary
wargame on the HOMM/WL-model, but done extremely well.
Disciples is entertaining to the experienced, yet accessible
to the new strategy gamer. Streamlined game model
provides surprisingly deep strategic play."
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Disciples is the latest product from Quebecois firm Strategy First Inc. and is a welcome addition to the lately-neglected turn-based fantasy strategy genre. This has historically been a fertile field for game companies, and the market is littered with titles and their successors such as Warlords (1, 2, 3:RoH, 3:DLR), HOMM (1, 2, 3), and MoM. Some of these games lineages reach back into the misty recesses of computer strategic gaming history and have brought their designers and publishers financial success for nearly fifteen years.
Which is what makes it so surprising the genre has been so neglected lately. Well, not neglected exactly. But...limited. The field has been focused almost exclusively on the few successful players for so long it seems that no one would ever be able to successfully challenge the brand-loyalty developed through the multi-sequels noted above. Don't get me wrong - the WL and HOMM series are great games whose latest incarnations provide many hours of gameplay. But essentially, they are basically the same as they've always been with perhaps better art and music - but why fix what's broken?
Because it gets stale, that's why. An analogy: I love vanilla malts. But if I have ONLY vanilla malts to drink, I'll find that the idea of something "different" strongly compelling. Disciples is a frothy chocolate shake - something essentially similar, but different enough to attract a broad base of customers looking for a different experience. Fortunately, Disciples is done well enough to not only attract, but hold these customers in an engaging and entertaining fantasy world for hours on end.
Basically stated, Disciples is a cross of HOMM and WL, with a touch of role-playing adventure thrown in. There are 4 "races": Empire (the good guys), Mountain Clans (Dwarves), Undead Hordes (ghosts and such), and Legions of the Damned (Devils and infernal beasties). These races compete for a variety of victory conditions, from the simple (conquer the most land) to the specifc (capture the evil sorceror's tower). There is also the single player campaign, where scenarios are linked by an interesting story, and the player is allowed to "carry over" one hero and two magical items from the previous scenario.
I saw Disciples first almost by accident at Gen Con and was immediately taken by the graphics. As you can see from the screenshots, there is a lot of artistry in this game. The stylized art by Patrick Lambert is simply beautiful. In fact, I would venture that the 226 megs of briefings (smacker videos) could have easily been reduced and the game made for 800x600 or higher resolution/depth for a better use of his striking talent. Despite this, the still graphics are superb (As are the briefings, actually. But I don't know many people who watch the briefings more than once, while the in-game graphics are constantly in front of the player). One thing I almost forgot to mention is the attractiveness of the terrain. Forget the billiard-table appearance of so many of these types of games. The geography is well-rendered, varied, and interesting.
Additionally, Strategy First has supplied a broad and inventive array of animations - for spell effects and character activity certainly, but also even for the terrain. The animations are littered throughout the game. Some I didn't even notice until I was playing with the editor, like the pig pen in which the pigs are moving around, or the trees from which crows descend, circle, and return. Subtle, and interesting.
Each animation also (generally) has a sound attached to it, from the groaning wraiths of a plague spell to the occasional haunting laughter of an evil opponent in the background. The sounds, while functional, are not critical and the game can be played in silence without missing too much. One thing you would miss (playing without sound) is the quality background music, which is different for each race you play and slightly contextual. That is, if your party ventures into the unknown and stumbles upon terrain controlled by the Undead Horde, their grating and evil "sound" will let you clearly know you're NOT in Kansas anymore.
Disciples interface is likewise pleasant, and pretty much well thought-out. Anecdotally, players of the demo widely report being able to play the game effectively without any manual reading. The various screens are basically easy to navigate, but there are no hotkeys (ok, I found one: ctrl+q to quicksave) making for a lot of needless clicking. Also, oddly, your empire's money available was not immediately apparent most of the time. It's a little buried, which is usually ok, since it's brought forth on the screens where you need it (notably, it's not evident on the "send bribe" diplomacy screen, which isn't a problem as long as you know about it).
The gameplay as I've stated is pretty genre-standard but with some interesting twists. As in most games you compete for control of various neutral cities. You build forces at your capital or controlled cities, and dispatch them under the aegis of a leader-figure to explore and conquer the world, stopping along the way to fight neutral creatures in the wilderness and loot ruins for treasure.
The twists are interesting and what makes playing Disciples a unique experience in it's own right. First, Leaders (Heroes) advance in level, learning to use magic items or (most importantly) allowing larger armies. There are also a surprising variety of them. Each races has their own specific variant of the following list - fighter leaders are massive melee combat machines, scouting leaders move fast and clear more fog of war (the black stuff that covers unexplored regions), mage leaders that cast spells in combat, thieves that can do a number of things (more on them later) and a unique character for each race than can plant rods for territory expansion.
As your forces gain experience, they also advance in level gaining additional capabilities according to their advancement path - which is determined by the structure-building you've arranged at your capital. For example, the Acolyte (healer) Imperial unit has two alternatives: they start as a pretty weak unit able to heal a single target for up to 20 hit points per combat round. At 80 experience points, they go up a level dependent on what you've built.
Sanctuary: will turn your unit to a Priest, capable of healing 40 points to a single unit. Later, when this priest has accumulated 480 xp, he'd become an Imperial Priest, capable of healing 80 points to a single target per round.
Monastery: will turn your unit to a Cleric who can heal EVERYONE in your party for up to 20 points per round. At 425 xp, he becomes a patriarch and can heal everyone for 40.
Second, you don't really "capture" resources in the traditional way. Mana (4 varieties, not-exactly corresponding to Life, Death, Elemental/Wild, and Fire/Evil magics) and money are gained by controlling the territory upon which they sit - literally. Each of your cities acts as a source for your "control" - represented graphically by the spread of a terrain color organically and incrementally across the map. Each race has it's own terrain (green grass for the Imperials, snow for the Mountain Clans, lava fields for the Infernal Legions, etc) with appropriate graphics to replace the terrain it's expanding over. For example, a scraggly forest becomes green & healthy when controlled by the Empire, or dead and withered by the Undead Horde. This expansion can be further directed or assisted by the planting of control rods (an unique ability of certain leader figures).
Third, you as the race's leader ALSO have a role to play. In the startup of a scenario (or "quest") you select what kind of a leader you are going to play which has major consequences for the course of the game. As a "warrior lord" you would have an early-game benefit: your troops recover hit points at a rate of 15% per day. As a mage lord, spell research costs are halved and you are allowed the use of the ultra-powerful 5th level spells - a HUGE advantage in the later game once mana starts to roll in. Finally, as a Guildmaster, your thieves are much more effective and cities expand more cheaply. [I was talking to Pro Sotos, producer of Disciples, and discussing my experiences with play testing the game. I had omitted trying the Guildmaster, as I figured the fighter and mage options were the most generic and interesting. He pointed out that the Guildmaster was HIS personal favorite. I tried it, and when you consider the many more options available to the thief of a Guildmaster, he might be right...]
Finally, combat is handled in an interesting yet simple system. There are six "character spaces" available per party (leader + five more spaces, but leader level limits how many of these you can use - for example a starting leader can only fill three other spaces with troops). There are 3 front-row spaces accessible (and vulnerable) to melee combat. The other three spaces are for healers or missile troops. Of course, some larger creatures (giants, dragons, etc) take up two spaces and therefore limit your party, at the commensurate benefit of some awesome combat capabilities. Even with two-space creatures or high-level characters, this "space-limited" system prevents the killer-stack-building common to other genre games. Additionally, leaders and parties can be equipped with magic items, artifacts and potions to augment their movement, survivability, or deadliness.
The combat itself is handled on an initiative basis, highest first. The melee is represented in the center window in graphic detail, where you can see your Ranger's falcon striking the enemy's head, or the gnarled roots of the enemy sorcerer's paralyze spell crawl forth from the ground a seize your toughest fighter. Retreat is possible, but the free round of strikes means most combat is winner-take-all.
An important aspect of the strategy of the game is that while characters can be incapacitated in combat, they are not killed unless the last party member falls. If "killed" in combat - knocked to 0 hp, the character cannot act (and is replaced by a little grave cairn and headstone) and their portrait is darkened. However, take this party to a friendly city (or if you have a magic potion) and that individual can be resurrected and healed (two separate things which can be expensive at higher levels) back to full in a turn.
This was a bit disconcerting at first - ok, he's been killed, but he's NOT dead? But once you've played, you find it's almost necessary since the parties are small and the enemies can be particularly lethal. I do think there should be some other penalty (i.e. can't act for a turn, lose xp, etc) for dying, especially leaders.
Other things can also affect combat, notably thieves. For example, a thief can be used to "scramble" a party's order. You'd be amazed how much more vulnerable a stack can become when it's mages and healers are exposed in the front rank, and it's super fighters are stuck in the back where they can't do anything until the front rank is dead.
Combat is cool, but not to say it's flawless; a couple features would have been well added. The ability to at least shift positions during combat, at the cost of an action would have made thieves a lot less powerful. An auto-combat feature would have spared a lot of mouse clicking. The ability to use a party's magic items IN combat (not just before) would also be eminently logical.
As mentioned, spells are cast in the midst of combat but these are exclusively tactical effects. More spell casting is available at the strategic level - again dependent on what you've researched at your capital. This leads to another layer of decision making: you must husband your resources (mana, money, and troops) to be prepared to blunt an aggressive enemy or spearhead an attack at the strategic level, making life for your heroes at the tactical level as survivable as possible. I haven't seen many games that tie the strategic and tactical decision making together so well.
There are a ton of spells, but aside from being cool to watch, their effects were pretty narrow. There are the "do damage" and "protective" spells so useful for prepping a party before combat, but other than that I felt that they could have offered a much broader variety of spells for each race. There could have been a much wider selection of summoned creatures ("Mountain Clan is casting a summon, oh *yawn* another Roc..."), and the creatures summoned could have had more utility than just combat machines - how about a low-hp flyer that grants the party with a spare position the ability to fly? - how about summoning low-skill thieves? Teleport spells would have been useful, as would a broader variety of magic items and magic item effects. This sound like grousing, and it really shouldn't. The magic spells are fun, but I keep thinking there could have been a lot MORE done with them.
Neutral creatures - which could have been a major challenge if it was possible for them to spawn into the game or even move around - are fixed and static, which was disappointing. They don't even heal between combats. I wish the makers of these games (not just Disciples - the whole category) would realize that we like a little struggle - even in the neutrals. Neutrals are also made MUCH more vulnerable by the fact that they start scouted. This means that you can examine the party/city by right clicking on them. (Other player parties are NOT visible unless they've been spied upon by a thief.)
The scenarios are well-designed, if a bit linear. The terrain is very restrictive, and used to not-so-subtly "direct" the spread of various races to their proper areas. Maps are usually rather small, which means that conflict is almost always imminent. The saga gets extremely tough, and the ability to migrate a leader from the last scenario to the current one is of limited (and vanishing) import as you go on. Nonetheless, I found the Dragon Lords scenario (largest map, 4 races) very entertaining and challenging, even at the easiest difficulty level.
One aside: as in most games of this type, diplomacy exists, but is more a matter of "knowing whom you're going to wipe out first". The functions vis a vis the AI and diplomacy are rather pointless. Between humans the functions are more useful, allowing the trading of spells, etc. for an effective alliance. Multiplay is entertaining, and the variety of units, build tracks, and options to each player (which can be fully used by devious humans) make it a new experience every game.
The scenario editor included is easy to use, if (as usual) rather spartan. Notably, this IS only a scenario editor; not a game editor. You can edit terrain, goals and features of the scenario, but you are not allowed to tweak unit stats, advancement courses, the units available to each race, etc. The basic game and rules structures remain inviolable, which slightly limits the otherwise great potential of the editor.
I called Disciples my "sleeper hit of the year" and will stand by that - I've seen little or no press on this entertaining game and I hope that changes. I think they have a winning combination of strategy, tactics, and fun that most people - whether they are strategy experts looking for more "fun" or strategy-newbies that don't want to be overwhelmed with details - will find engaging. It doesn't purport to re-invent the vanilla malt; it does offer a unique and reachable "flavor" that I happily recommend to everyone.
If
you like to comment on this review, please post a message at the forum.
Reviewed by Steve
Lieb
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