Difficulty

[Salyn]

What does exactly difficulty settings change in game? And is there a way to make enemy not cast spells on the player? Does difficulty affects that? The spells which enemy casts on the player make the game broken for me. It's hard to enjoy the game because of that.

[QWEEDDY2]

UnFOG spells for legions (as i remember). Cities. Try to keep party most healed 9harder for Disciples 1).

Difficulty work in simple and usual way. Resources rate and at start. EXP rate. Any random chances. For Disciples 2 Easy double potions in Capital for player.

[︵djolaf]

Originally posted by QWEEDDY2:

UnFOG spells for legions (as i remember). Cities. Try to keep party most healed 9harder for Disciples 1).

Difficulty work in simple and usual way. Resources rate and at start. EXP rate. Any random chances. For Disciples 2 Easy double potions in Capital for player.

I didn't know about unfog spell! This is interesting!
EXP rate? What do you mean by that? You get less XP as a human player?

And chances to hit, thief success chances, are also lower? I think those 2 are really unfair because the game lies and says "no, it's 80%, but you miss 5 times in a row! You are just very unlucky!".

There are many small hidden things that difficulty might change. I think I saw some random creatures on the map start as level 2 or 3, with some random XP number, like 148/800. Nobody ever fought them, because they were stuck in some corner, behind more monsters, I was sure that no computer faction fought and fed them XP.

I am not sure about these because I always played disciples on hard or very hard. Only in my first time, I played on easy and average. After winning 1 saga on average, I wanted to make it more difficult, since I am a scum-saver anyway. I always load the game again, when even a little bad thing happens!

On harder difficulties, I only knew you get less gold, because the game tells you this. I didn't even know about potions, which can be very useful in the early game, especially when you don't play the Empire or Elves, because you have no healer, so you have to waste time going back to the city to heal and then you don't have money for temple heal, so you wait 1 or 2 days to heal and then you lose even more time to walk back to the next enemy! You lose so much time! With empire, you could have a snail hero and you would still win, because you almost never go back.

Originally posted by Salyn:

What does exactly difficulty settings change in game? And is there a way to make enemy not cast spells on the player? Does difficulty affects that? The spells which enemy casts on the player make the game broken for me. It's hard to enjoy the game because of that.

Easy AI definitely casts spells less often and is overall less aggressive. I know this is a disciples 1 forum, but in disciples 2, the AI is less aggressive than 1, from what I saw. I am not 100% sure about spells, but whenever the enemy has mana and you are approaching his leaders or cities, he will smash you with a spell, hoping that you will go back. He rarely tries to completely destroy you, unless he has A LOT of mana. I rarely saw enemies cast level 4 spells, unless they were very rich. In some maps, the enemy is quite rich.

The most difficult, in my opinion, is undead hordes saga chapter 3, which is also my favorite chapter in all of disciples 1. You have to fight 2 allied enemies and grow and win! In this chapter I saw mountain clans cast vengeance of ymir for the first time! It does 100 damage! They also often cast both vengeance of Ymir and tempest in 1 turn, which will insta-kill every level 1 hero, except if he has a high HP 2 slot unit, like a wyvern for the undead.
The simplest way to go around this is to always hide in city walls. It might not be enjoyable as you say, but being a coward like that will eventually make you win. In these levels, I would take a city and upgrade it to max, so that armor and HP regeneration would be as high as possible. If the enemy wants this city and he thinks he can't take it with his leaders, he will only cast summons on you and those will do less damage because of city armor! Plus, they might even make your units level up, making it even harder for them to take this city!

On another side, think about how enjoyable is for the enemy when you can destroy his strongest leader in 1 turn by smashing 50 spells on him! This is why my favorite is mage lord, so I can cast every spell 2 times per day.

[QWEEDDY2]

Thieves actions calculated TWICE. General % for chosen action, and additional % for item\spell level (steal option) or enemy party\city level.

You dunt get anything LESS. There is BONUS for player on Easy or for AI on H\VH. Only one that reducing for player or AI by diffculty - chances. AI miss more on Easy, you - on H\VH.

Hard is almost same as VH. Normal Easy and H\VH - very differ.

In FOG AI units get free EXP not only for battles but just for ending days. And on VH it seems they even can upgrade without buildings. Im not sure. Somtimes you can see AI units with "+
-- this unit will get new level after required building constracted"
sometimes it have free upgrades for unit.

On Easy your units get additional EXP for battles that you win.

Hit % - always random. 50/50. Forget about it, 75% 80% - in not matter even on Normal.

[QWEEDDY2]

AI become same aggressive from some patch for Dis2 long before GR (and ROTE) releases. It just rebalanced Magic and more HP for units + overleveling.

Actually AI dont get SO MUCH free resources. And he always spent it on attacking\summoning magic and for new units. He not research\build any new. So he always very soon be low on resources. Just try to expand faster and get most far resources (and items end more important - Magic Towers).

[︵djolaf]

Originally posted by QWEEDDY2:

Thieves actions calculated TWICE. General % for chosen action, and additional % for item\spell level (steal option) or enemy party\city level.

You dunt get anything LESS. There is BONUS for player on Easy or for AI on H\VH. Only one that reducing for player or AI by diffculty - chances. AI miss more on Easy, you - on H\VH.

Hard is almost same as VH. Normal Easy and H\VH - very differ.

On Easy your units get additional EXP for battles that you win.

Hit % - always random. 50/50. Forget about it, 75% 80% - in not matter even on Normal.

Wow! How did you learn this stuff? Do you know something from Disciples game code, or just from playing and testing?

I still think it's not good because the game never tells you "On hard you get lower %. On easy you get higher %". When I see 60%, I think - I send 1 thief, he dies, I send 1 more thief, he wins! And for spells and items, I never knew that there is hidden %. So, if I want to steal 50 hp potion, it's easy, but if I want to steal 2000 gold banner, it's harder, less %? Or I am wrong?

Also for spell steal, for every spell, it's same %, at least game tells you it's same %. You click and then open to see all spells in the spell shop or enemy capitol, you don't see "steal healing 60%", "steal armageddon 5%".

Originally posted by QWEEDDY2:

AI become same aggressive from some patch for Dis2 long before GR (and ROTE) releases. It just rebalanced Magic and more HP for units + overleveling.

What patch is this? I mostly play elves, gallean's return only for sagas. I just think from playing disciples 1 again, a few months ago, I remember that they NEVER RETREAT. I found this very refreshing, because in disciples 2, sometimes they are just scared and they always retreat from your main leader. But you just attack again and tomorrow again, until you kill all! You take ~0 damage, because they retreat, but maybe leave 1 unit to fight or just press defend. But, in disciples 1, they maybe kill 1 of your units if they just hit it with everyone! If I lose a unit, I know I have to go back and revive and heal. Maybe this is why I think they were very aggressive. I didn't play disciples 1 too much, it was just 1 or 2 quests, but this is what I remember. I think sometimes they attack my fully leveled leader with level 1 basic leaders. That is too aggressive, it's just stupid. They can't kill the strongest guy!

Originally posted by QWEEDDY2:

In FOG AI units get free EXP not only for battles but just for ending days. And on VH it seems they even can upgrade without buildings. Im not sure. Somtimes you can see AI units with "+
-- this unit will get new level after required building constracted"
sometimes it have free upgrades for unit.

Thank you for this! I always knew AI somehow got XP or even upgrades without any fights or trainer, but I never understood how?! I used to think maybe AI has like a trainer inside all cities, so they spend some gold on it.

I think they need a building for upgrades. Maybe sometimes they just have high level units at the start, from the scenario editor, mostly in sagas. I noticed this in some maps, maybe I am fighting legions of the damned and they have 1-2 anti-paladins. I kill them and later I see a berserker with "+".

Originally posted by QWEEDDY2:

Actually AI dont get SO MUCH free resources. And he always spent it on attacking\summoning magic and for new units. He not research\build any new. So he always very soon be low on resources. Just try to expand faster and get most far resources (and items end more important - Magic Towers).

I noticed this. I think they also rarely focus on making 1 strongest leader, but just fight with anyone? They waste XP and make maybe many level 2 units, but no level 3, 4...So later you fight and kill all of them.

I noticed that they very rarely build level 3 < 4 < 5 upgrade buildings. Sometimes I would have an ally or enemy that I just want to be stronger, because he has many "+" units and I want to get more XP for killing them, or at least have a challenging battle. So, I send the enemy AI 3000 gold and he just buys 3 new leaders, 2 new rod planters, 3 thieves...SO STUPID! JUST BUILD THE UPGRADE, YOU CAN GET A MOLOCH, SMH...

This also makes me wonder how does the AI decide what upgrade to take. Do they always get same upgrades, or sometimes different? I think in disciples 2, the empire always takes cleric, never priest, but I am not sure.

[St. Haborym]

If you want the enemy to not nuke your party with spells cast elemental protection spells on them. Or send out decoys first instead. Those fog spells will only work if the enemy doesn't send units in to spot your guys again.

[Salyn]

Those spells aren't easily accessible. Those nukes really ruin my experience with this game.

[St. Haborym]

They are if you play as the Empire

[︵djolaf]

Originally posted by Salyn:

Those spells aren't easily accessible. Those nukes really ruin my experience with this game.

Well, no game is perfect. Imagine multiplayer. Would you not nuke the enemy's strongest leader? Just move slowly and carefully, just like Hobo SL aaid - use decoys. Treat your strongest leader as a king, don't send him into dangerous territory, but protect him at all costs, with many bodyguards.
I think this is a bit more balanced in Disciples 2, because there's more regeneration every day and you can infinitely upgrade your units.

[St. Haborym]

Just for clarification, the decoys are meant to get nuked by spells in place of the main party. Do this long enough and eventually the enemy will run out of mana to cast spells. That's when you move in for the kill.

[QWEEDDY2]

I mention that keep party most healed is harder in Dis1. For others than Warrior Lord types units NOT HEALED at all. Only in cities.
And list of available perks is differ for differ LORD types. Same again in Rise of the Elves - Critical Hit perk for only Warrior Lord (cause units HP Regen is increased in RotE for own ground type).

[nobrien]

yea im with you OP the number of spells cast even in the first campain each turn is just crazy and even as a mage lord i have little chance to counter as they have 2 summons and 2 DD spells + the actual teams that are all big HP units lol,

unfortunily im freezing and having to restart pc every 10 turns so that dont help either and the RNG god just fkn hates me so im also missing attacks lmao.

i know i played this game decade + ago when came out but TBH idk if me not buying it when it came to steam and owning all the rest was because of that lol.