There's a ton in Sacrifice to like -- neat powers, creatures, tactical strategy, RPG elements, dark humour -- but after the first 3-4 levels, I just can't get into this game. I'm not sure why, but everything just seems to accelerated, too chaotic, and too frantic for me to really enjoy.
I'm not slagging people that like this game (it seems like a great game that I just can't get my head into), but I'd really like some insight into how to, well, ENJOY it. My main problem is the perspective, really -- if it were a top-down game, I think I'd be having a blast, but having to deal with the camera angles and views really bums me out. I can't ever tell whose units are whose in scrums, and actually controlling my troops seems all but impossible. I feel like I just wind up flailing away all the time, making incremental progress before the next swarm comes to annihilate me, then regrouping, respawing and battling back, lather/rinse/repeat until I usually wind up winning levels just through grim determination.
How do you have fun playing Sacrifice? Is there a mindset I should try to get into?

Unfortunately that whole "grim determination" thing you talked about is how a lot of the later levels go. Much of the time its just a drawn out battle for a few souls at a time. If you havent yet, I would try a more defensively minded approach at the beginning of most of the levels as this generally makes things much easier and also allows you to be more methodical in how you plan your battles.
As far as managing troops, what Ive found is that I have more fun when I use my sorcerer more as a fighting unit and less as a tactician. A lot more of the strategy (i think) comes from which units you summon and less how you order them. Sure you have to be careful not to let your units die or lose souls but trying to micromanage units especially during combat is a pain and for the most part unnecessary. Assign your units by groups before the battle, line the up in formations, position them based on who you want attacking when from where, and then order them to attack and start slinging some magic. I wouldnt say Im the best player in the world and a human would probably kick my ass but in the campaign its all you need to do.
Sorry if it sounds like a bunch of garbage but I do hope this helps because it really is a great game.

The proper mindset to enjoy the game is, for me, is to just enjoy the battle. That means your wizard also joins the fray, either as a backup type healing units (persephone discipline is a good choice for this) or at the frontline, stealing souls and casting spells while running around like hell because your wizard is not the strongest unit. Basically I never go into too much strategy, I just build my army as big as I can, grouped them, and send them in waves to meet the enemy. Then I cast speed up and join the battle. For perspective I usually zoom out as far as I can so that the camera will not get in the way of action. Like any battle, seek out the most determining unit (that means enemy wizard) and focus your attack on him or her. Destroy his manahoars and kill him, effectively forcing him to get out of the battle. His army will be weaker (usually) and your army can kill them and you can steal each of their souls. This is probably seems repetitive but I never find this old.

If you're having problems with the controlling try theese tricks:
Group your creatures with ctrl+ number. If you (re)summon a new creature just press this combination again as it will be automaticly added to the others on the creature list.
Select all of your creatures on the MINIMAP by making a square selection on it. It will select all the creatures shown on the minimap. Don't worry about manahoars being selected, as they will stay in their original position and won't attack if you order attack to them.
Get the mouse over a spell and press ctrl +shift +keyboard letter and it will be added to that letter. Use m to summon manaliths, n to manahoars, h to heal, g to guard, y to speed up (theese are stated combinations).
Hold ctrl and click a creature of yours, it will select all the SAME creatures nearby.
In a battle, just order all the creatures to kill the enemy wiz and collect the souls of your dead creatues (and summon them again). This basic method works in most of the missions.
Sorry if this isn't new to you. I myself always use these tricks. Have fun!

You generally need to be with your army at all times, unlike other RTS.
However, you can use certain units remotely effectively . Open the hot keys. There's one for 'Go To'. You need to hotkey it.
You can then use the hotkey and click on the map and have your minions destroy enemy manaliths with remote control. Works especially great with Gremins and Seraphs as they're very fast and do good damage to structures.
If you ever have trouble on a level, just create the strongest units you have available and guardian them to a manalith. When the enemy attacks they will just die. Then take their souls, kill the guardians and summon a mobile army to go on the attack.

Excactly! The horrible perspective blocks view of units, and cannot be altered enough to fix the problem. That alone makes this game a complete turd. Add to that the frantic pace, which also cannot be adjusted, and you've got an outright ripoff. Should not even be sold on Gog. JuNK jUnK JunK

I disagree. The game has a steep learning curve, and the display takes time to get used to. The best way to learn the mechanics - adjusting to the pace, and (VERY important!) the use of the minimap, hotkeys and customizable keybindings - would be to get some friends and play with them some skirmish matches over LAN/Hamachi/whathave you. Because, and I have to agree on that, tha AI is mean and will punish you severely on each occasion.

It's just innovative, you have to give it some patience to get used to it. If you've been playing warcraft-clones all your life, you won't have any problems adjusting to StarCraft2's quick competetive pace, complexity, micro/macro management and mechanics, but show SC2 to a newcommer to RTS - instant n00b ;-) Same thing applies here.

I'm gonna give you the hint of a life time! If you go into the options and then keyboard controls. There is a key called "Add new key binding" then choose a key and choose the binding "Pause". It lets you pause the game real time and thus allows you to target spells, command creatures or just enjoy the view. Once the pause is off the commands will be preformed. As in Dragon Age / Neverwinter nights. Do enjoy!

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but this comment made my day ! I tried to enjoy Sacrifice, but was turned-off by the real-time mechanics. I will try it with this trick and see if I can enjoy it now that I will be able to pause the game.

Thanks for the hint !

Glad to be of help! I too found it bothersome that spell targeting and creature commands relied opun my reflexes. It is such a differnce that you can now target your spells precisely, and pause to command your creatures on the fly. :)