Disciples Demo Impressions from a Veteran HOMM player
Sebastien Patenaude
was seamless. I played the scenario from the Empire (human) side.
Here at my early impressions of it compared to HOMM 3.
I like it a lot but it's not as good as Heroes. Disciples is similar to
HOMM but I would not consider it a clone. There's no real tactical
positioning on the battle screen but I do admit their simple battle
system is fun (a little more control than Warlords but much less than
Heroes, I miss the maneuvering myself). The hirable creatures from town
are limited (and seem mostly humanoid) but they get better as
they gain experience. You still build upgrade structures in your town,
but all units start as basic ones, it's by fighting and winning battles,
that they improve in experience. Like a roleplaying game and depending
on the upgrade path you took, they'll change both in appearance and
abilities automatically. The non-humanoid wandering stacks do not seem
to be hirable but they provide more variety. The factions seem to be
human (combination of Knight and Tower), elven (like the Rampart or
Sorceress town), undead and demonic. There's also another faction that
seems to include the good old orcs and ogres.
The adventure map exploration works a lot like HOMM except it seems less
intuitive and beautiful. It also takes place on a more isometric point
of view than HOMM. A feature of Disciples I really liked is how the
terrain changes under you as you take control of more of the land. It
does mean however there's much less variety in decorations and trimming.
The castle building screen was decent and functional. On one hand, due
to the Disciples system, it seems to much less of a race to the
highest-level or best economical dwelling (which I personally like) but
on the other hand it's less interesting because gold is the only
resource required (no more resource or mine hunting) and the dwellings
are mostly upgrades not for new creatures. For example, in the Empire,
you have the knight (grunt), apprentice (mage), archer (shooter) and
initiate (healers). It will always be those units except they'll get
better.
Which brings me to armies, it works much different than HOMM in that
regard. Each army is like a mini-roleplaying party. The hero will have 0
to 5 other companions depending on his leadership skill. For example,
you could have a Ranger (a type of leader, there are 5) along with an
apprentice, a knight and a cleric. That "army" would not grow in
numbers, nor would it change unless you replaced one of the companions
(say the apprentice with another knight) or the hero's leadership grew.
Concept of numbered stacks does not exist.
I found the battle screen very small and unimpressive graphically (lots
of space wasted by interface).
The units are nicely animated but then again they're much too small for
my comfort. The graphics in general are decent but unimpressive, the
wandering stacks are tough to distinguish between each other (even seem
blurry as does everything) and the terrain features are dull. Those
criticisms being done, I liked the art style of the portraits very much.
They're attractive and they have personality. The portrait art style has
an anime/graphic novel feel (but not the cutesy kind). It made me think
of those Final Fantasy manual illustrations. I concentrate on that point
because the way it works, you'll pay a lot more attention to those than
the units on-screen (you choose targets by clicking on portraits not on
the units). The spell effects are also pretty good.
By playing Disciples, you realize how much HOMM's interface is polished
in comparison but Disciples is nowhere near being complicated and you
should feel pretty confident after about a hour of gameplaying. The game
*is* simpler overall than HOMM. Can't compare to Age of Wonders because
I haven't tried it.
My concerns about Disciples' gameplay, which I don't know if they will
be confirmed or not in the full game is how easy and frustrating it
would be to lose your better experienced armies (you can retreat from
battle but not before being hit once by every enemy unit and then you
could get attacked again because you're still only a few steps from the
enemy), the turns which could get awfully long in multiplayer (mostly
because of spellcasting and possibly unlimited number of heroes on the
board) and the very open gameplay (it's like you have a permanent fly
and water walk on every unit plus spells are not affected by distance,
if you see it on the adventure screen, you can zap it).
There are some nice features in Disciples that I haven't seen
in HOMM and that might work well in there such as : having 2 different
building branches (the Astral Wizard had suggested alternate creature
choices for each level of construction long ago which I prefer); units
gaining
experience (not too sure how this could work in HOMM system); offensive
and ability-boosting overland adventure spells (concerned about game
taking even longer than it does
now, in Disciples, you could cast each spell once per turn, multiply
that by dozens of spells ; I'm also concerned about being able to kill
monster stacks (or rival heroes) turn by turn without taking any risk) ;
the thief hero who had several original options ; bigger neutral
monsters (they had a cool Kraken in there, can we imagine giant
unhirable units
that would take more than 2 hexes? those look very good on the adventure
map too) ; heroes being able to challenge other heroes in duels to the
death if both accept (one of my old wishes); enemies and friends that
can change during the course of the map (from story point of view, that
would be great especially if controllable in the editor) and flying
mounts.
Something original that I liked in Disciples but would not
likely work in HOMM : the land changing underneath you as you gain and
lose terrain (HOMM has many custom terrain decorations and I like it
that way because the adventure screen has variety and rarely looks
generic, except in the underground which I usually hate :-). Why not
have seasons or weather instead ?
I'd say trying out the Disciples demo is definitely worth it. It had me
playing turn after turn just like the best HOMM maps. Did you know
Disciples was completely done by a small Quebecois developer called
Strategy First ? The production values and polish might not be totally
up there but it sure is an impressive effort.
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_\/\/\ @--@ Astral Wizard's Heroes of Might & Magic site
_\/\/\/ \VVVV/ http://www.astralwizard.com
Quatoria, er, BrotherGrimm, er, Nevermind...
Personally, I like both the changing terrain and the graphics.
However, HOMM's increasingly abstract graphics have really turned me
off, especially in HOMM3. I only played 3 for a day before
uninstalling it. It just turned me off.
>The castle building screen was decent and functional. On one hand, due
>to the Disciples system, it seems to much less of a race to the
>highest-level or best economical dwelling (which I personally like) but
>on the other hand it's less interesting because gold is the only
>resource required
Untrue. Gold is the only BUILDING resource required; however, you need
multiple brands of mana to research and cast the various spells in the
game. Magic plays a MAJOR role in combat, meaning you have to seek out
and hold the places of mana and gold. If you don't hold them, you'll
get smacked.
(no more resource or mine hunting) and the dwellings
>are mostly upgrades not for new creatures. For example, in the Empire,
>you have the knight (grunt), apprentice (mage), archer (shooter) and
>initiate (healers). It will always be those units except they'll get
>better.
Not exactly true. The path of upgrade chosen changes units
drastically. For death, for example, your basic warrior will either
become a magically warded warrior, immune to all elemental attacks, or
an undead creature, immune to death magic and very tough.
> I found the battle screen very small and unimpressive graphically (lots
>of space wasted by interface).
>The units are nicely animated but then again they're much too small for
>my comfort. The graphics in general are decent but unimpressive, the
>wandering stacks are tough to distinguish between each other (even seem
>blurry as does everything) and the terrain features are dull. Those
Are you sure you're not having an issue with your monitor or graphics
card? I have no trouble whatsoever distinguishing between all the
different units, and they all seem crisp and distinct.
>criticisms being done, I liked the art style of the portraits very much.
>They're attractive and they have personality. The portrait art style has
>an anime/graphic novel feel (but not the cutesy kind). It made me think
>of those Final Fantasy manual illustrations. I concentrate on that point
>because the way it works, you'll pay a lot more attention to those than
>the units on-screen (you choose targets by clicking on portraits not on
>the units). The spell effects are also pretty good.
>By playing Disciples, you realize how much HOMM's interface is polished
>in comparison but Disciples is nowhere near being complicated and you
>should feel pretty confident after about a hour of gameplaying. The game
>*is* simpler overall than HOMM. Can't compare to Age of Wonders because
>I haven't tried it.
It's simpler in some senses, but the combat actually requires more
thought, I've found. You can't rely on magic as a crutch in battle to
compensate for inexperienced units or poor planning; there are no
super-units you can build to dominate the field. To consistently win,
your stacks must be a well balanced and organized combination of melee
attackers/blockers and second line mages/archers/etc. If you really
want to be successful, you'll need a mix of resistances/defenses and
attack types. Magical items only up the ante.
>My concerns about Disciples' gameplay, which I don't know if they will
>be confirmed or not in the full game is how easy and frustrating it
>would be to lose your better experienced armies (you can retreat from
When you create your stacks with forethought and experience, and keep
them safe until they are ready for heavy combat, losing them is rarely
a concern.
>battle but not before being hit once by every enemy unit and then you
>could get attacked again because you're still only a few steps from the
>enemy), the turns which could get awfully long in multiplayer (mostly
>because of spellcasting and possibly unlimited number of heroes on the
>board) and the very open gameplay (it's like you have a permanent fly
>and water walk on every unit plus spells are not affected by distance,
>if you see it on the adventure screen, you can zap it).
Thus the existance of spells to create small patches of fog of war,
like a spell umbrella in strategic locations.
>There are some nice features in Disciples that I haven't seen
>in HOMM and that might work well in there such as : having 2 different
>building branches (the Astral Wizard had suggested alternate creature
>choices for each level of construction long ago which I prefer); units
>gaining
>experience (not too sure how this could work in HOMM system); offensive
>and ability-boosting overland adventure spells (concerned about game
>taking even longer than it does
>now, in Disciples, you could cast each spell once per turn, multiply
Not even remotely feasable on any campaign map. Each spell is VERY
expensive: 100 mana for level 1 spells, 200 mana for level 2 spells,
increasingly costly combinations of mana types for the more expensive
spells.
>that by dozens of spells ; I'm also concerned about being able to kill
>monster stacks (or rival heroes) turn by turn without taking any risk) ;
Doing this cripples you in the long run. You need those stacks to
train your heroes. Without them, your heroes will be too weak to
attack the cities you will need to hold as bases, cities that cannot
be attacked by offensive magic.
>the thief hero who had several original options ; bigger neutral
>monsters (they had a cool Kraken in there, can we imagine giant
>unhirable units
>that would take more than 2 hexes? those look very good on the adventure
>map too) ; heroes being able to challenge other heroes in duels to the
>death if both accept (one of my old wishes); enemies and friends that
>can change during the course of the map (from story point of view, that
>would be great especially if controllable in the editor) and flying
>mounts.
>
>Something original that I liked in Disciples but would not
>likely work in HOMM : the land changing underneath you as you gain and
>lose terrain (HOMM has many custom terrain decorations and I like it
>that way because the adventure screen has variety and rarely looks
>generic, except in the underground which I usually hate :-). Why not
>have seasons or weather instead ?
>
>I'd say trying out the Disciples demo is definitely worth it. It had me
>playing turn after turn just like the best HOMM maps. Did you know
>Disciples was completely done by a small Quebecois developer called
>Strategy First ? The production values and polish might not be totally
>up there but it sure is an impressive effort.
Quatoria
--
In the pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added.
In the practice of Tao,
every day something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
nothing is left un-done.
-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Alan Brooks
group...
> Downloaded it from GameCenter, it's about 37 megs big. The installation
> was seamless. I played the scenario from the Empire (human) side.
> Here at my early impressions of it compared to HOMM 3.
>
> I like it a lot but it's not as good as Heroes. Disciples is similar to
> HOMM but I would not consider it a clone. There's no real tactical
> positioning on the battle screen but I do admit their simple battle
> system is fun (a little more control than Warlords but much less than
> Heroes, I miss the maneuvering myself).
While at first glance it might appear there's no tactical positioning, I
don't think that can fairly be said. The same party in the same
formation is not going to fare well in all situations. Granted, the
positioning is very *simplified* (front and back rows, 3 spaces each),
but it isn't as *simplistic* as it might appear at first. I had the same
reservations at first myself.
> The hirable creatures from town
> are limited (and seem mostly humanoid) but they get better as
> they gain experience. You still build upgrade structures in your town,
> but all units start as basic ones, it's by fighting and winning battles,
> that they improve in experience. Like a roleplaying game and depending
> on the upgrade path you took, they'll change both in appearance and
> abilities automatically. The non-humanoid wandering stacks do not seem
> to be hirable but they provide more variety. The factions seem to be
> human (combination of Knight and Tower), elven (like the Rampart or
> Sorceress town), undead and demonic. There's also another faction that
> seems to include the good old orcs and ogres.
There are the Empire (humans), Mountain Clans, (mostly dwarves, some
giants and animals), the Undead Hordes (um, hordes of undead :), and the
Legion of the Damned (demons, devils, etc).
> The adventure map exploration works a lot like HOMM except it seems less
> intuitive and beautiful. It also takes place on a more isometric point
> of view than HOMM. A feature of Disciples I really liked is how the
> terrain changes under you as you take control of more of the land. It
> does mean however there's much less variety in decorations and trimming.
The slightly isometric view is a little confusing at first, at least in
terms of relating a unit/landscape feature's appearance on the main
screen to its appearance on the mini-map. I guess I don't think the
landscape is unattractive or lacking in 'trimming' (but then again, I
think I'd actually prefer a little *less* trimming in HoMM3, which
to me looks too busy sometimes).
>
> The castle building screen was decent and functional. On one hand, due
> to the Disciples system, it seems to much less of a race to the
> highest-level or best economical dwelling (which I personally like) but
> on the other hand it's less interesting because gold is the only
> resource required (no more resource or mine hunting) and the dwellings
> are mostly upgrades not for new creatures. For example, in the Empire,
> you have the knight (grunt), apprentice (mage), archer (shooter) and
> initiate (healers). It will always be those units except they'll get
> better.
Time will tell if I end up wanting more hirable creatures, but for now it
doesn't bother me at all. And what units your initial choices evolve or
'grow' into depends on which branch of specialization you determine with
your building choices. First-level Empire warriors can become either
witch-hunters or knights, which in turn can later become inquisitors or
imperial knights, each with different strengths and weaknesses. You
won't have both upgrades, as selection of one branch precludes the other.
You probably won't be using the same units in every scenario of a
campaign.
One other correction to your above paragraph: gold isn't the only
resource to gather. Magic depends on different types of mana, of which
there are four, and each kind roughly corresponds to each faction. Most
of each faction's low-level (first two levels) spells are dependent on
one kind of mana, but spells above that usually require the addition of
another kind of mana in demand by an opponent.
> Which brings me to armies, it works much different than HOMM in that
> regard. Each army is like a mini-roleplaying party. The hero will have 0
> to 5 other companions depending on his leadership skill. For example,
> you could have a Ranger (a type of leader, there are 5) along with an
> apprentice, a knight and a cleric. That "army" would not grow in
> numbers, nor would it change unless you replaced one of the companions
> (say the apprentice with another knight) or the hero's leadership grew.
> Concept of numbered stacks does not exist.
>
Each 'army' has the potential to grow, depending on its leader's
leadership rating. Upon gaining experience, the leaders have an option
of adding more units to their party (among other perks). And changing a
party's make-up over the course of a scenario, at least in my limited
experience so far, is if not necessary at least wise. Tactically
speaking, a party heavy in warriors and archers has little chance against
an enemy party containing mostly werewolves for example, which are immune
to weapon attacks. Trading a warrior or two for more magic would be
useful in such a situation.
> I found the battle screen very small and unimpressive graphically (lots
> of space wasted by interface).
> The units are nicely animated but then again they're much too small for
> my comfort. The graphics in general are decent but unimpressive, the
> wandering stacks are tough to distinguish between each other (even seem
> blurry as does everything) and the terrain features are dull. Those
> criticisms being done, I liked the art style of the portraits very much.
> They're attractive and they have personality. The portrait art style has
> an anime/graphic novel feel (but not the cutesy kind). It made me think
> of those Final Fantasy manual illustrations. I concentrate on that point
> because the way it works, you'll pay a lot more attention to those than
> the units on-screen (you choose targets by clicking on portraits not on
> the units). The spell effects are also pretty good.
I agree with most of what you're saying, although the landscape/unit
graphics don't bother me at all. The portraits, IMO, are gorgeous, as is
the rest of the art in briefings, etc. Nice style, linework, colors,
etc. At first I thought clicking on the portraits to select targets was
counter-intuitive, but I'm used to it now.
>
> By playing Disciples, you realize how much HOMM's interface is polished
> in comparison but Disciples is nowhere near being complicated and you
> should feel pretty confident after about a hour of gameplaying. The game
> *is* simpler overall than HOMM. Can't compare to Age of Wonders because
> I haven't tried it.
As I play Disciples more, I'm realizing it's not as simple as it comes
off at first. It's most definitely streamlined, but not simple as in
pushover. It's simple like chess (as, say, opposed to checkers) is
simple.
> My concerns about Disciples' gameplay, which I don't know if they will
> be confirmed or not in the full game is how easy and frustrating it
> would be to lose your better experienced armies (you can retreat from
> battle but not before being hit once by every enemy unit and then you
> could get attacked again because you're still only a few steps from the
> enemy), the turns which could get awfully long in multiplayer (mostly
> because of spellcasting and possibly unlimited number of heroes on the
> board)
After playing for a while, you'll find that having more than two or three
heroes (aside from thieves and rod-bearers) will hinder more than help
you. There's only so much experience to be gathered, and spreading it
too thinly among multiple heroes seems a bad idea, resulting in heroes
who will probably never be strong enough to be useful beyond the
beginning of the game.
> and the very open gameplay (it's like you have a permanent fly
> and water walk on every unit plus spells are not affected by distance,
> if you see it on the adventure screen, you can zap it).
While you don't have to procure ships or other means of water travel for
your units, only parties with winged leaders can fly. Even then,
mountains and other drastic differences in elevation are impassable to
flying units.
I too like the way your spreading terrain/territory works, especially
with regard to resource ownership. The inclusion of rods that can be
planted or removed in neutral or enemy territory correlates roughly to
the 'flagging' of mines, etc, in HoMM, but there's definitely an
advantage to territorial occupation.
>
> I'd say trying out the Disciples demo is definitely worth it. It had me
> playing turn after turn just like the best HOMM maps. Did you know
> Disciples was completely done by a small Quebecois developer called
> Strategy First ? The production values and polish might not be totally
> up there but it sure is an impressive effort.
>
>
Good post. I'd definitely suggest buying the game from somewhere that
accepts returns, play it for a few days, and see what you think. The
obvious and immediate comparisons to HoMM are without a doubt
understandable, but the distinctions quickly make themselves known. One
other thing I'd bring up is the way spending time with the early HoMM
games made their early criticisms of simplicity seem unfair; with
Disciples, too, it would seem that while the rules are pretty simple,
their implementation allows for a lot more depth than is readily
apparent.
Alan
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