Do I have the latest version of the Great Battles Software ?
See the Patches page for full details.
Answer 1.
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Answer 4.
Answer 5.
Answer 7.
Answer 2.
Answer 8.
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Answer 10.
Has anyone managed to successfully get Great Battles working under windows 2000 ? Did you encounter any problems that you manged to overcome ?
Ulfdan Jarlsaga
I bought the three games of the series a year ago in USA, at the time I did not know there was a single edition for the three. Is there a way I could buy or get somewhere just the Scenario Editor?
Fernando Arjona
When I mark the box enabling in-game music in the Alexander and Hannibal parts of the series, the music comes on and plays fine. But when I go do the same for the Caesar part or the Scenario Editor-made games, my speakers stay silent, no music plays. My question therefore is how do I get the music to play for the third disc (the Caesar disc in other words) like I can for the Alexander disc and the Hannibal disc? I might add that both the Caesar game and the Scenario Editor-made game does play the battle sounds and the ambient/environment sounds without any problem. It's just the music that they won't play.
Quazi Ahmed
I've recently gotten interested in dusting off my copy of the GBCE again, with an intent at trying my hand at my own scenarios. However, what's interested me is something GMT has never done yet (IIRC), which is trying to map out certain medieval-era battles.
I admit it's a daunting task, considering the fact that some things aren't really modelled -- like the full effect of a charge of armored knights, or the real impact a few thousand archers can have on a battle. Still, the GBH system is among my favorite, and the PC games are definently my favorite wargames, so I figure it's worth a try.
One thing that would help a lot would be to edit the image files. I see that the scenario editor allows a unit to be associated with new artwork, but when I try it I don't see a list of available art associations.
More interesting still is the fact that the *.dib files are openable in a program such as Paint Shop Pro. The only image I get is the standing image rather than the full range of movement animation. Have you had any success in editing these image files? I figure that there must be some way to access the full range of animations (minus, perhaps, the actual battle animations) and I'd be one happy wargamer if I could change the graphics for the appropriate era.
Elio M. García, Jr.
The *.dib files are indeed static graphics, used in the unit editor of the scenario editor. These are the images you get to see when you edit a unit's properties in the editor.
The images used in the game - the animated images - are not the *.dib files, but the *.eif files. These won't show up in the editor, nor can they be opened in programs like Paint Shop. There are always three *.eif files of each unit, one for the detailed view, one for the normal view and one for the larger overall view of the battlefield.
When you use the windows explorer, you can change the names of the *.eif files. This way you can correct some of the bugs in the game, e.g. replace the corrupted *.eif file of the Macedonian prodromoi lancers - that produre only a greyish blur when you select the overall view. But be careful editing needs to be done carefully and you can easily make a mess of it. I know of no method to edit the *.eif-files themselves.
In some versions of the games there exists an unfinished, unused *.eif file of Spartan hoplites. With some ingenuity you can adopt these in the the GBCE-editor. But the result is disappointing, as the Spartans appear as ghostlike phantoms.
Nick Welman
Answer 6.
The obvious answer is to try some of the computer stores on the Internet. They may charge a bit extra to post to your country but you should be able to get it. Does anyone know any internet stores that stock the Great Battles game?
Does anyone have any recommendations for a good supplier of the Great Battles game? Tell me about an internet store List known internet Stores
Ian Montgomery
Can someone please tell me how and where to buy this game ?
John Leonard
Where can I find players to play Great Battles over the Internet?
Justin Tremblay
It is likely to have something to do with the game rules. Please bear in mind the GB-series were developed from a board game and include some rules that, though quite sound for a board game, would not normally have
to be included in a computer game.
The freezing is probably due to:
- 1. running out of missiles (this rule is rather debatable);
- 2. being out of reach of a leader because of some enemy unit's zone of control;
3. the unit has been rallied and is not allowed to move for some time.
Please check if any of these circumstances apply. If not, there is another bug (the game is quite full of bugs) and post back to let us know about it.
Leaders starting with 3 instead of 4 initiative points : Again, suggest is this is not the AI but some obscure rule from the board game included in the computer version.
It might be that a leader 'needed' the
initiative to escape from the enemy, or to orderly withdraw a unit earlier on - and these moves were in a mysterious way subtracted from his initiative rating.
Anyway, another bug compensates for the loss of initiative: sometimes, when you move a leader once
he becomes active, then push the undo button afterwards and your initiative will be fully restored while the leader will remain in place. Odd?
Also the computer AI appears to have a 'rally units group command' which the player has not.
Nick Welman
Has anyone experienced the freezing up of some of your troops when you should be able to use them? Along the same lines has anyone had comands skipped, such as say as an example, Mago having 4 orders and only getting 3? I have run into these problems,mostly when I am overruning the other side or way ahead of them,it's almost as if the A.I. does it to keep you from running away with the battle?
Steve Carney
I have sucessfully installed GB for Hannibal on Windows NT 4.0 and it works fine. I installed DirectX on my NT inorder to get Hannibal to work, but for the other two that didn't help. The installation program itself stopped me from installing Ceasar and Alexander on a non windows 95/98 operating system.
Tomas Stenlund
In the Great Battles manual (individual or collectors edition) it clearly states that the game was designed for Windows 95 and doesn't mention any other variant eg. NT. I don't think Windows 98 was much around when
the game was released. Most packages will indicate viable variants.
Maybe you could contact some GB-players at the Wargamer, but from my point of view running GB on Windows NT would be a hopeless
effort.
Nick Welman
I am trying to install GB of Alexander on Windows NT 4.0. Unfortunately the installation program aborts with this message: Severe - Alexander requires Windows 95
I am pretty sure that this game can run on NT,
if I could install it. Any ideas how to make it work?
Bulcsu Varhegyi
In GBCE, when playing Hannibal, the turning arrows are always greyed out. They work just fine in Alexander, Caesar, & scenarios made with the editor.
All the obvious have been tried, latest version, reload but no difference.
George LeSauvage
You can now download the Scenario Editor and Scenario Player from this site.
Ian Montgomery
Answer 11.
Answer 12.
I have a question about the shock combat rules. In the manual it is written, before shock combat, there would be a TQ check for the attacker and for the defender, but only, if the attacker moved. For the attacker, that's right, but the defender never gets cohesion hits in the TQ check, I have tested it by playing both sides and moving elephants to velites, cavalry to cavalry, legions to phalanxes and vice versa. In all cases, only the moving (attacking) units sometimes got TQ cohesion hits at shock combat, but never the defending units (as seen in the commentary window - unit x got y cohesion hits during charge). Please tell me if the manual is right - do defenders ever get TQ hits from a charge ?
Rainer Spiekermann
Answer 13.
Whilst attempting to play the Campaign game in Alexander on Windows 98, the game crashes during the campaign sequence for some reason. Does anyone know how to get round this problem?
Craig Champagne
Can you play the Great Battles games under Windows XP ?
Ian Montgomery
The simple answer to your question is to go to the Wargamer. They have a number of battles that run between players as well as knockout competitions and campaigns. You can also find players to play by e-mail.
Ian Montgomery
Yes. All the Great Battles including the Scenario Editor can be successfully played under Windows XP. The following adjustments need to be made in order to get the games to run correctly.
To get Alexander to run under XP use the compatibility mode and set for Windows 95. You don't need to select any of the 640x480 or 256 colours etc, just Windows 95 mode. You also need to copy all the files from the System directory to the c:\windows\system32 directory. A full list is on the Compatibility page.
Note that there is an additional system file in Alexander and 2 additional system files in Caesar. Also note that 6 of the system files (HDK3AN32.DLL, HDK3ANIM.DLL, HDK3CR32.DLL, HDK3CRYP.DLL, HDK3CT32.DLL, HDK3CTNT.DLL) in Caesar are later their equivalents in Hannibal and Alexander so ensure you don't overwrite the later versions.
Depending on your XP setup, you may also need to make the following changes. Go to Preferences and make sure that the following boxes are unchecked;
a. Finish Leader Dialog box
b. Confirm Group Command Dialog box (Thanks to Scott Ryan for this)
For any other single game, just follow as for Alexander. Once the files have been copied into the system32 directory, no other changes are required for the remaining Great Battles games.
If you've moved onto a fast machine, the main problem you might notice is the speed at which the units now move - almost too quick to see what is happening !
Ian Montgomery
I ran into this same problem with Windows XP. What I did was highlight the setup program on the Alexander CD, then right click and under Compatibility, select "Run in Windows 95 Compatibility Mode". After that, the program ran without any problems and installed Alexander on my hard drive. I thought I would be forced to do the same for the Alexander executable, but I didn't. It ran without any problems under XP after it was installed.
digrafid dragonlink
See the compatibility page for details of other Operating Systems compatibility.
Ian Montgomery
I have a patch for the German version of Alexander but no Spanish versions - can anyone else help? Please contact me if you can send them.
Answer 14.
I have the spanish versions of the games and I have tried to install the patches from this web-site but it´s impossible. Are there patches for other not english versions?
Alfonso Velasco
Answer 15.
Tried installing original version of Alexander on my XP system and followed the compatibility instructions on your site but to no avail. I keep getting this error message: "Failure in ..\Intranet\dialogue CCP at line 101. Unable to allocate recources for dialog boxes. Window is low on resources. Abort? (Yes or no still causes program to crash).
Samuel Jackson
... I have been fiddling a bit further and got the thing working. I had already copied the DLLs and was running the install program in W95 compatibility, the breakthrough was installing the patch - after that most
ran things OK.
The main exception is that the Tutorial option failed, requiring two more DLLs installed in \system32 (namely hdk3anim.dll and hdk3ctnt.dll). After that it runs without error messages but the boxes are transparent so
difficult to read. The help system itself is perfectly readable...."
David Ankers
