Disciples 3 blows King's Bounty 1 & 2 out of the water!

[Metroplex]

Let me just say that I have played both King's Bounty games MANY times over and still like them and await the sequel, having said that and after finishing the Disciples 3 campaign after more than a month of playing though it (it is VERY long) I have to say the game is SUPERIOR to kings Bounty in every way, in fact, it steamrolls it and leaves it flat on the ground.
This is the only game that actually made me lose track of time and continue playing it long into the night, I didn't even do that for KB:AP, it is realistic in that it isn't cartoony like both KB games and it has this very exciting resources and building aspect built into it, your units evolve over time as long as you have the necessary building in your capital, the combat is top notch and the game very interesting, it is now my number one game of all time, it was so good.
For the next KB, it should borrow some aspects of D3 to make it more interesting.

[Zechnophobe]

I haven't met a person in real life that likes Disciples 3. Therefore, you must be a figment of my imagination.

[DGDobrev]

Yeah right

First of all, KB doesn't crash. Dcp3 crashes all the time
KBAP is a form of an upgrade to KBTL -more units, more spells. Dcp3 is Dcp2 and it's expansions with less content.
KBAP is 5 gigs with a lot of diverse maps and islands, ever changing enemies, wondrous randomness and has more content coming our way. Dcp3 is over 7 gigs has only a few free play maps and all that changes in some campaign maps is the monster composition.
KBAP allows for tactical combat. Dcp3 combat is very, very simple, and stupid, for that matter - take the focus points and you can beat 5 times stronger opponent.
KBAP has decent monster composition based on the difficulty and location. Dcp3 can put you against a lvl 17 opponent with a bunch fof healers which either stops you from leaving you own little area until you trash enough troops and spells into him, or if that's the case with the opponent, he may never get out of his area and you get an easy victory. No fun at all this way.
-> in addition to this, the free play maps favor the AI. The AI can pass through any enemy without needing to fight it and steal all the resources he can, while you must punch your way through every enemy. The map is big, I've only cleared a few stacks since I had no other alternative and hello, enemy! He's already stealing the resources around my capital.

Dcp3 is so unbalanced and awful at this point, that it requires a lot of hotfixes to make it decent. First of all, you can't select a leader for the hotseat maps. You're set with everything the game gives you and if you don't ike it, you must wait till you get 500 gold to buy a new leader+troops, which gives the AI 4-5 days head start. Then, it's the AI who passes through enemies without fighting them, and if you gave it a head start, good luck! Ever wondered why in the hotseat the game always puts you against a human opponent? Because the AI needs a lot of work still. What's good about it that is has a decent storyline that may well keep you occupied till you play it out.

So I did play it out, I did play the free play maps and that was all. On the hardest difficulty the game is really, really easy. Focus points for the win!

[Razorflame]

i agree
dc 3 was fun at sight but
after playing it
IT WAS SO HORRIBLE EASY

not to mention it got ALOT OF BUGS
so frustrating...

someone they ai let u switch from town during the campaign
and u can't upgrade your town
unless u save and reload
-.-

pain in the ass

but all in all
it is quite funny to play
but rather easy

[DGDobrev]

It's funnier when you fail to notice that you're not in your own town and start building up your opponent's town. Then you'll be like "OMG - AI's cheating!!!"

I'd love to give more credit to Dcp3, if only it wasn't fully copying Dcp2 in terms of unit trees (ok, you now have rocks to collect in addition to the gold - big deal! Gold is used to buy rocks in the usual life anyway) and it wasn't copying King's Bounty in terms of combat setup. All that is new in Dcp3 is the remastered models and improved graphics.

Shall we compare Dcp2 with Dcp3?

Graphics: Dcp2 < Dcp3
Gameplay: Dcp2 >= Dcp3 (at least in Dcp2 everything was set properly, the AI was good and was always providing a challenge, but Dcp3 has its merits, so one may consider them equal)
Content: Dcp2 >> Dcp3 - Dcp2 is much better because it had a ton of campaigns, one for each race, had more races, had more free play maps, had it all. In addition to that there were quite a bunch of player contributed maps.
Replayability: Dcp2 >> Dcp3 - Dcp2 had a ton of maps that could either be replayed alone or with a friend, and there were a ton of player-made maps that worked perfectly. all that Dcp3 has is 3 campaigns of 6-8 maps each and bout 6-7 free play maps that quickly get boring.
Here's a link: http://www.disciples2.com/d2/downloa...?ifiletypeid=6 - many, many Dcp2 maps for everyone.
Challenge and Battles: Dcp2 >> Dcp3 - Dcp2 is much, much better. In Dcp2 you can't beat an enemy army that is much better than yours with a vastly inferior army. The fact that there was no battlefield meant you can't run around and fool around with the AI like crazy. In Dcp2 you could actually lose it all to the AI. Dcp3 has a battlefield, has focus points. Put your leader on a focus point, put a second tank next to him for cover, leave all your mages, archers and healers behind and have fun with the stupid AI. Or of course, if you have a bunch of creatures to summon, do so and watch the stupid AI go for them first. At least in Dcp2 the AI always tried to deal with your healers/damage dealers first.
Capital battles: Dcp2 > Dcp3 - in Dcp2, taking a capital was always a big challenge. here, you can make utter fun of the enemy Capital Defender (the unit with a 3500 HP and 250 divine damage/all) with any army, as long as you have decent defenses and/or decent healers and/or decent spells stacked in your inventory (1600 damage anyone?!). The rest of the army can be comprised by any unit that will not die by the initial attack.
RPG system: Dcp2>=< Dcp3 - here's it's a matter of personal preference. In Dcp2, the RPG system was simplified and it worked perfectly. You could get what you wish without getting way too overpowered and without making an overwhelming army. In Dcp3 you can make an overpowered hero, but that comes at a price - the enemies stop hacking at him and go for any other unit you have.
Bugs: Dcp2 >> Dcp3 - out of the box Dcp2 had few bugs, while out of the box Dcp3 was almost unplayable.

I hope I didn't forget something

[Metathron]

We can also look at the scores these games received. Aggregator sites like gamerankings.com that collect reviews across various sites give you a good idea regarding the quality of a game.

Disciples 2: Dark Prophecy 8.4 (based on 28 reviews)
King's Bounty: The Legend 8.3 (based on 23 reviews)
King's Bounty: Armored Princess 8.1 (based on 13 reviews)
Disciples 3: Renaissance 5.9 (based on 12 reviews)

[DGDobrev]

Those ratings pretty much summarize it...

Still Disciples 3 has the potential to become a really great game, with awesome graphics, story and gameplay, but the developers must really put their back into it, add the missing races and provide a lot of content. A map editor won't hurt either, as it will greatly improve the replayability options and give the players a chance to put their imagination to good use.

[Metroplex]

I am aware of all the criticism being thrown at this game, some is true but most is just blown out of proportion, the game was FUN to play and I am certainly awaiting for the 'Ressurrection of Mortis' addon, I'm sure with more patch work, extra content, and time the game will be great.

[DGDobrev]

It will certainly be fun, but what I do not like is that you get a game, you pay for it, you see it's incomplete, and you need to wait for expansions which you'll also have to pay for, in order to make the game complete. This is a big money sink which Akella decided to make by copying Blizzard. Problem is that Blizzard always gives content when they make the money sink. A clear example is Starcraft 2 - the initial game has only the Terran campaign in it. However, to compensate for this it has various AI levels for all races, wondrous multiplayer, a lot of maps and a map editor. I would feel ok if Dcp3 had the lots of maps and the editor part of the upper sentence, but it doesn't...

When a person buys a game he/she always wants a complete product that is well worth the money. It is such simple tricks to make money that tick me off and this is why my opinion of this game is so low.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

It will certainly be fun, but what I do not like is that you get a game, you pay for it, you see it's incomplete, and you need to wait for expansions which you'll also have to pay for, in order to make the game complete. This is a big money sink which Akella decided to make by copying Blizzard. Problem is that Blizzard always gives content when they make the money sink. A clear example is Starcraft 2 - the initial game has only the Terran campaign in it. However, to compensate for this it has various AI levels for all races, wondrous multiplayer, a lot of maps and a map editor. I would feel ok if Dcp3 had the lots of maps and the editor part of the upper sentence, but it doesn't...

When a person buys a game he/she always wants a complete product that is well worth the money. It is such simple tricks to make money that tick me off and this is why my opinion of this game is so low.

I feel I should also point out that the Terran Campaign is also the size of all the campaigns combined in the previous starcraft (in play time at least).