Each of the four sides has unique units with their own special attributes and attack types. As your armies kill the enemies, the units earn experience and can improve in their abilities. Similar to the heroes in Warlords, leaders gain an extra buff every level which include the ability to use certain magic items, leading additional troops into battle, or improving their statistics like damage done or hit points. You get to choose the skill you want to learn each time a level is gained. Units also improve, and the neat thing is that you can decide on the path they will take when they upgrade. By constructing buildings in your capital, you choose the way all units of a type improve. It's an interesting system that works very well.

Speaking of magic now, there are a large number of spells to cast within four different schools. Each race specializes in one school, but you can find or buy the ability to use other spells on some maps. Spells impact the main map, either by directly attacking an enemy stack, improving the attributes of one of your armies for a turn or revealing or covering the map in some way. I like the variety of spells, which are critical to success in many maps. Combat itself (which resembles Heroes of Might and Magic in format) does not allow spells, and has at most 12 units involved. Each army has two rows, you can only attack units in the front row unless your attacker has a ranged attack ability. So, despite the fact that there are only a few units and they don't even move during combat, there is surprising tactical depth.

Most maps are challenging even on the "easy" setting. The difficulty level seems to impact only the costs of building units/buildings rather than enemy AI. But the AI is competent, although it could be more aggressive. One complaint I have about the game is that most missions are very long. Worse yet, some of the maps are used in more than one campaign, as you play the same battle from different perspectives. This makes the game a bit repetitive, and limits replay value. Despite this fault, though, I really like the elegant game design of Disciples. It doesn't get bogged down in needlessly complex details, and there are many nice touches in the game, including excellent hand-drawn portraits that depict units in battles, and inventive spells. The included map editor and excellent multiplayer mode offset limited long term play value of single-player campaign. Definitely a sleeper that deserves much more attention from HOMM fans. Two thumbs up!

Note that the official site offers both the direct digital download and the Steam version of the Gold edition of the game, which comes with 25 more battles and improved multiplayer play. There is also a sequel with multiple add-ons.