Disciples: Sacred Lands & Demo FAQS

Answering Them Before They Get Asked

A lot of questions that have arisen in regards to the Disciples Demo and with this FAQ list we hope to answer them.
The full game comes with a ninety-six-page manual that would answer a lot of the questions being asked. In this vein
I will present this basic information to you to head off a lot of the initial questions that arise when you first start playing Disciples.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Alt+F10 Screenshot
Alt+F4 Exit Disciples
Right-Click Access the Encyclopedia

From the Land View

F5 Switch between Map and Resource Pallet
C Center on Selected Party
D Center on Selected Party's destination
M Move to Selected Party's destination
Q Quick Save
Tab Next Leader
Ctrl + left-click Avoid combat when creating path to destination
Esc Go to the Game Options Screen

Demo Version

Demo Patch

The initial release of the Demo was missing a few files.
If you right click on a Rod with an ineligible unit or attack the enemy's capital
and you get an error message or worse yet the game crashes then you have the
first release of the Demo. Click here to download the Demo patch.

Starting the Game

You start by choosing Single Player and then New Saga, which brings you to the race selection screen.
Change your race by clicking in the upper right corner and click the check mark to continue.
Next is the leader selection screen. You can:

Choose one of three leader types
Change your leaders portrait
Enter your leaders name
Set the difficulty level

Once your choices are complete click on the check mark to continue.

The game will now load and give you your objective description screen.
In the demo there is no narration or animation in the objective screen to keep the download as small as possible.
To exit this screen and start your first turn click on the arrow in the bottom right of the screen.
When you reach the game map and have clicked through the two help scrolls you really only have to click once
on you Capital to enter it since it is already selected.

Now you have a choice you can do like I would which is jump into the game both feet first before reading the manual.
If you would like to learn how to play and see if you can figure out the game and interface on your own stop reading
here and go play the demo. When you have satisfied yourself you can come back and see how many of your questions
have been answered by this FAQ.
Here is one question that has been asked many times already by those who have played the demo.

0: When will the full game be in the store?

It was released on September 27, 1999. 1: Who plants and removes the Rods? With out naming names it is the leader who costs 300 Gold to hire.
Right click on leaders in the Manage Army screen to access the encyclopedia.
Their abilities are listed there. 2: What do Rods do again? They act as a source point of land transformation.
This allows you to transform land to your control anywhere you can place them.
This source of transformation is not as powerful as other cities and capitals. 3: I have never seen the AI retreat? For play balance the AI will not retreat. But after 15 rounds of
combat both sides will automatically retreat to end the combat. 4: Will the ability to raze cities be present? No. 5: Do cities produce any income? Yes, they do this indirectly by transforming terrain, which takes control of features,
by transforming the land under them to your type.
You may also find items in the treasury that could be sold for gold. 6: Why can I not build buildings in captured cities? The buildings are built in your capital to improve your unit infrastructure
and as such you only need one building since its effect applies everywhere.
For the captured cities you raise the city level which improves the defense,
healing and land transformation rate of the city. 7: Will I be able to produce Units from the other races? No, but you may be able to hire some of them as mercenaries
depending on how the scenario was designed.
The game comes with a scenario editor so you will be able to experiment with this your self. 8: Just what do the difficulty settings do? Most rules are the same; the fog of war for instance is applicable to the computer as well.
At higher levels of difficulty, your gold/mana production rates will go down a bit,
slowing you down as the computer opponents keep the same production rate.
The computer controlled opponents also become increasingly more aggressive at higher difficulty levels. 9: What other types of buildings will be in the full release? We are preparing a web page to show you the building tree and units that can be built. 10: Is there a way to cast spells on enemies in a city? No, other than having a summoned creature walk in just like any other stack.
The thief may be put to good use against units located in cities though. 11: Video hardware problems, 3dfx Banshee + Metabyte Vengeance? The game only takes up the bottom half of the space on my screen, with screen interlacing problems
and distortion, and it's impossible to click or see anything under the halfway mark. It's not the monitor
-- if I expand and move the horizontal, all I get is a larger version of the top half of the game.

SSI's Rites of War gave me lockup problems with DirectDraw enabled, and the only solution
-- an unacceptable one -- was to turn off DirectDraw.
This video chipset apparently just doesn't like strategy games

12: Video problems? The Demo does not include Microsoft Direct-X. The game does require it to run properly.
If you are having problems make sure you have the current version installed.
At this time Microsoft is up to version 6.1. 13: Does it take a thief? Try it for yourself. Make sure that you have built the guild so that you can hire thieves.
You can use them to find out the composition of the enemy parties as well as
explore ruins so that you can decide if you are ready or not to go and loot it.

Produce a few thieves and use them to poison the enemy parties just before attacking.
Repeated poisoning of the enemy forces can have a major impact on the outcome of the battle.
(You can also poison neutral units' as well as neutral and enemy cities.)

14: Where to sell items to raise capital? You will find an assortment of shops and stores along the way.
You simply click and drag the item you wish to sell over to where the shop items are displayed.
A little hint for you, try taking a thief to the store. 15: Spells, bought or otherwise acquired? The spells that you buy or otherwise acquire are spells that can be cast on the map only.
As for the spells cast in battle, they are the attack mode of the character
and can be viewed in the unit description.
The unit spells increase in power as a unit acquires new levels.
The spell animations will change accordingly.
Keep in mind that all units have unique spells that they will always use in battle. 16: Building buildings and where do the branches lead? Buildings are totally different for all the races except for the Chapel
(permits you to resurrect and heal units in cities for a price)
the magic tower (permits acquisition and research of new spells)
and the guild (permits hiring of thieves).
The other similarities between the different cities of the 4 races are in the building types.
You will always have the building branch that improves your "fighter" units,
one to improve the "mage" units and one that will improve the "range" units.
One more building type will also be present in cities.
Having to do with the race special "support" units that will be totally different from race to race.

The buildings will have sub-branching structures that are different from race to race.
These sub-branches are paths that define the type of units into which your basic unit
types will upgrade when enough experience is acquired. Once a sub-branch is started,
the other sub-branches cannot be accessed for the remainder of that scenario.
For instance, the human support units will be healers. Depending on the sub-branching
selected; the healers will improve their skill efficiency as well as the way they are used.
(A sub-branch will let the healer moderately heal all units in a party with increased
efficiency as he gets experience and goes up in levels.
The other sub-branch will allow the healer to perform his art on a single unit but will restore
a much greater amount of hit points) If you compare to the Undead Hordes,
Their basic support unit is the Doom Drake who can attack the other party with his deadly breath.
This unit will polymorph itself into a Death Dragon or into the Werewolf
(who is immune to standard weapons and can attack from the front row).
The Legions of the Damned support units will eventually branch into a greater demon
that deliver major blows to an adjacent opponent or the Beast who can attack any unit of the other side.
The support units of the Mountain Clans are the Hill Giants that are acquired after you build the Mountain Peak.
These will then become Ice Giants if you build the Ice Caves next.
These have the ability to devastate the whole enemy party with a rain of ice shards.
Otherwise, building the Cloud Peak will get you the Rock Giant that will do a huge amount of
Damage to a single unit by hurling massive rock to it.

17: Hot Seat Play and Home Network Play Work Around. Since the game does not include hot seat play, here is a work around so that you can use the multi-player feature on one computer. Yes! This means hot seat play is possible. This is a work around and therefore not officially supported. You should also have someone around who knows a little bit about setting up windows to help you if you do not understand the following instructions.

You must install Microsoft’s “Dial-Up Adapter” and TCP/IP Protocol if it is not already installed. Go to your control panel and double click on the Network icon. Click on the Add button and select Adapter and click the Add button again. Under manufacturer select Microsoft and their Dial-Up Adapter and click OK and go from there. Do the same for the TCP/IP protocol from Microsoft. This should also install the Client for Microsoft Networks, if not follow the same procedure from above. The result is you should have the following network components installed “Client form Microsoft Networks, Dial-Up Adapter and TCP/IP” under the Configuration tab of the Network window. Next you must assign a TCP/IP address to the protocol by selecting the TCP/IP Protocol and clicking on the Properties button. Select the “IP Address” tab and then the “Specify an IP address” radio button. For the address use a number you can remember such as “123.123.123.123” and for the Subnet Mask use “255.255.255.0”.

Now start Disciples, once at it’s main menu hit Alt + Esc to return to the desktop and you start Disciples again. Select multi-player and wait for the TCP/IP protocol to show up. It might take a few seconds so be patient. Select the TCP/IP Connection for Direct Play and than click on the check mark. The next step is to select Host and the Quest you want to play, race and so on until you are at the briefing screen of the game. Now hit Alt + Esc and select the other game session from the taskbar. Select multi-player and wait for the TCP/IP protocol to show up. It might take a few seconds so be patient. Select the TCP/IP Connection for Direct Play and than click on the check mark. Now select “Join Quest”. You should have a window pop up asking for the IP address of the host. You can enter it your self using “123.123.123.123” from above or let the computer search for it, use the tab key to move to OK and hit enter, note also that the cancel button does not work. The quest should show up in the list, select it than choose you race and enter the game normally. You can Alt + Tab between the two sessions if they are the only programs running otherwise use Alt + Esc and the Taskbar to switch between players.

To reduce the load on your CD-ROM drive you should copy the Music folder (44MB) from the CD-ROM into your Disciples folder on your hard drive. Once copied you must change the path pointing to it in the Disciples configuration file in the Disciples\Exe folder on your hard drive. You will find it at the end of the file under the heading [Installation]. I would also exit the autostart install program and start the games from the start button on the taskbar. I used a PII 166MHz system with Windows 95 to test it. Running the extra sessions slows the game down a little bit but it is still very playable. The answer is yes before you ask the question you can run four sessions for a four-person game (use Alt + Esc). The default path for the disciples’ installation is “C:\Program Files\Strategy First\Disciples” if you are looking for the Disciples folder.

For those with home networks, after copying the Music folder to the hard drive you just need the CD to start the game at which point you can move it to another computer to start the next session. This means you will only have the briefings available on the machine with the CD in it not to mention the videos.

Michael Le Drew tech support Strategy First Inc.

18: Experience! Did you say Experience?

Consider starting off with a single party first. Try to gather enough experience

by attacking any nearby neutral units and exploring nearby ruins.

Once some of your units go up in level, you can trade them with a newly created party.

Mixing higher level units together with lower level ones

will greatly increase the chance of survival of the lower level units.

If they get killed, you can always head back to your nearest city for resurrection and healing.

There are also the training grounds where you can eventually raise the amount of experience

of any unit that can still go up in levels. The higher the level of the training unit, the more expensive.

Training high level leaders can often cost you more than you have, forcing you to do partial training only.

19: Can I use a spell from another race? You will have the ability to gain spells from the other sides.
Spells can be acquired through diplomacy in scenarios that have at least 3 races
present or purchased from the right merchant. 20. Is there magic in combat? Yes. In combat spells are cast by units in a party; some spells affect only one opponent
while others affect the entire enemy party. As units gain experience and gain levels,
they get new and more potent spells. Your lord may cast numerous different offensive and defensive spells
on the world map that can tip the balance in the coming battle but once in the combat screen
it is up to your units - choose them and use them wisely! 21: 3dfx banshee video card might have a problem?

If you own a video card with the 3dfx banshee chipset, you have to make sure you’re not using the quake3 compatible drivers, otherwise the game won’t work with it. Make sure to use the proper banshee drivers from your card manufacturer.