Other than that, Servants of the Dark offers more than a dozen new stand-alone scenarios, though in keeping with the theme, these only let you play as the evil-aligned factions (unless you also have the Guardians of the Light expansion). These new missions essentially are more of what Disciples II fans have come to expect from the game and aren't noticeably better than or different from the scenarios that shipped with the original game more than a year ago.
Servants of the Dark looks identical to Disciples II, which looked superb when it was originally released, but it was limited to 800x600 resolution. However, the expansion supports resolutions up to 1280x1024 for the map screen, and you can also choose to have the graphics for the menus and combat stretch to fill the screen in the higher-resolution modes, which helps keep the visuals looking fresh. The character art and combat still look great after all these months, but it can still be difficult to spot enemy units or key features on the overhead map. A few new characters have been added, and the graphics for the Undead's and the Legions' capital buildings have been redone, but these are minor details. Disciples II's audio has held up fine, and to its credit, Servants of the Dark contains some good, new music tracks (though they're the same ones as in Guardians of the Light). There's also a sort of multimedia gallery that lets you look at some of the artwork from the game, if that's any consolation.
Though Servants of the Dark is budget-priced, it doesn't offer much that wasn't in the original game, and the original is even cheaper now.
This expansion also features some gameplay enhancements over the original release of Disciples II, which are available already via free downloadable patches. You can auto-resolve combat if you don't want to sit through the lengthy animations in a battle that's a surefire victory (or defeat), and the AI of the game handles alliances and certain other situations more capably. Disciples II was a notoriously difficult game, but now the "easy" setting makes it considerably more manageable. Servants of the Dark also includes the Disciples II scenario editor, which allows you to put together your very own maps and quests. The box advertises a "random map generator," one of the most-wanted features from the original Disciples II, but this is really just a way to quickly create some terrain for a custom map and populate it with monsters and treasure. You'll need to tune and balance the map yourself, and since the scenario editor is a separate executable from the actual game, this random map generator really isn't practical for the average player.
Disciples II is still a great game at its core. The highly streamlined combat and the memorable units and factions still make for some entertaining and addictive gameplay. As such, the Servants of the Dark expansion is partly suited just as a reminder for you to go back and play some more Disciples II, or pick up a cheap copy if you missed out on it. On its own merits, this expansion is a reasonably good deal, but it's best suited for the hard-core Disciples II fan who wishes to play every single official scenario for the game.
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