Various Thoughts

A storyline and mechanical sequel to Liberation, Domination includes a few clear improvements alongside a far greater number of mixed changes.

As for the improvements: The visual quality has been enhanced, there’s now a number of waypoint teleporters scattered around each area, teleportation is no longer prohibited in dungeons, the dwarven faction has been restored, some units can now be promoted to higher tiers, spells are learned directly from your spellbook instead of having to find them, the MC gets a couple more equipment slots, class archetypes are now far more distinct, and it’s much easier to raise your reputation with the various factions.

More questionable changes would be the ~20% reduction in units to choose from for your armies, only being able to field a maximum of 10 units, no longer having the option to build or swap base buildings (only upgrade the ones that are already there), replacing the protagonist’s voice actor with one that sounds incredibly young, having to readjust your army formation every battle since the deployment area varies wildly from encounter to encounter, and tying equipment rewards for battle to completing difficulty challenges (like not using companions, or hitting a certain number of weaknesses).

In Liberation I took the Hexblade path while fielding a Demon/Elf army focused on unholy damage. I decided to take a similar path here as a ‘Primordial Ruler’, which is basically a primal-damage themed spellblade, focused on the spellcasting Elementalist tree. Faction choice so far has been the same to great effect (Infernal Knight, Executioner, Blood Shaman, Winter Witch), but maybe I’ll eventually mix in a primal-focused Dwarf or Undead unit.

Things picked up a bit in the second act once I could start recruit Erinyes. Their AOE attack generally made short work of grouped enemies, making most battles less of a chore. Once again you get to chose between multiple areas to visit, and once again the order doesn’t matter. You’ll run into some level 75 groups in most of the areas, but you won’t be able to do anything about them until Act III.

You’ll also get a bunch of ‘Hard’ difficulty quests, which you’ll want to hold off doing until you’ve at the very least unlocked your final class and ideally at the very end of the chapter. The enemies in the related areas will range from 1-5 levels above yours (if you’re level 60 or less) and seem to be intended to be done in Act III since they each reward you with a Rank IV unit. Take special note of the Ritual quest, as after doing said ritual you’ll be locked in a dungeon until you can defeat everything (the saving grace here is you get a full resurrection/heal after every battle).

Act III turned out to be the best act, as the inclusion of Rank IV units (Blood Ents in my case) means even more area attacks to devastate the opposing armies before they get a turn. Even better, the ‘Auto-Resolve Battle’ button was available for pretty much every non-quest battle. Here is the point you’ll want to likely go cleaning up those various high-level enemy groups, but note that only most of them guard anything useful:

• Lows – Equilibrium spell (level 65 group in area past the act boss)
• Atellean – Ice Spear spell (northern level 75 group)
• Path of Flesh and Flames – Suffocating Heat spell (southwestern level 75 group)
• Queen’s Nest – Fear of the Dark & Shadow Tentacles spells (the two level 75 groups)

Shockingly, there’s an Act IV after that. And it is terrible. Just a total slog where once again you have to fight far, far too many pointless battles including multiple boss fights. Most enemies in this last part of the game max out at level 65, so that’s the level to aim for/surpass. Note that of the optional fights, the level 75 group in the Demon camp guards the Lost Helm of Haarhus legendary item (which you probably won’t need at this point).

After the last boss finally falls, some surprisingly decent ending slides pop up and the game will unlock Liberation Mode. Rather than being a NG+ though (nothing carries over), it’s just a normal new game with the option to take special dialog choices that will apparently let you max out all faction reputations, open the unopenable chest at your base, have no limitations on fielding companions, and fight an extra final boss. Going to try to play through it on Story difficulty as a mage (hopefully I can just spam army-deleting spells) to see what changes.

Some notes:

• With the +XP crystal equipped all game and having completed all found quests and killed all roaming enemies I ended up at level 73.
• You can apparently farm the level 80 encounter in Queen’s Nest, which is only 3 enemies, indefinitely.
• At best, you can only max out 3 factions on your first playthrough.
• I never found the Wall of Thorns, Corpse Explosion, or Chaotic Shift spells.
• Assuming you’re not playing a mage, you’ll want to rush the 30-point Nephilim Power passive before branching out into the Combat tree.
• I have no idea why Leadership increases 5 points every 5 levels, when all Leadership requirements are in multiples of 10.
• It’s incredibly annoying that only units directly opposite each other get the flanking damage bonus.

The last Disciples game I played was the very first one, which at the time was enjoyable. Liberation is apparently the fourth in the series and bears a shocking resemblance to the King’s Bounty games.

Main differences would be that your army’s made up of single units instead of unit stacks and there’s a prominent quest system, including an assortment of companion quests. You also have to travel between different mid-sized maps instead of having a large open world and have to manually upgrade your recruitment buildings rather then find them in the wild. The storyline and dialog however are just as bad as in those games (although there are a number of roleplaying choices here), while the combat and exploration style are essentially identical.

Ultimately the main issue is that clearing the maps becomes incredibly boring quite quickly, which is not helped at all by the arbitrary availability of the ‘Auto-Resolve Battle’ button. If it could be used for any non-boss fight you significantly outlevel then map exploration would be immensely improved. As things stand I’m already basically burned out at the start of Act II from hacking & slashing my way through so many similar armies. The Act I boss also being a slog certainly didn’t help.

A few things to be aware of in the first act if you decide to play:

• While the order you visit the various faction locations doesn’t matter since enemy levels are to an extent tied to yours, visiting in Empire -> Undead -> Demon -> Elf order will minimize backtracking.
• The Bone Golem quest cannot be completed until Act II, and ~may~ fail if you try to complete it early by killing the undead queen.
• Most chests, particularly ones guarded by armies initially higher level than you, contain nothing but generic equipment.
• Since there’s no map function within dungeons, you’ll want to manually record any blocked paths or higher-level enemies you find for return trips.