On the Hannibal and Cesar games, the music stops when it change tunes.

Manually disabling and re-enabling them on the preferences menu works. Perhaps there's an easier fix?

You can restart it by going into preferences, unchecking the "music" box, and hitting okay. Then go into preferences *again*, check the "music" box, and hit okay. It will play the next song, but will bug again when it ends. Pain in the neck, but at least you can have the awesome music.

Second solution, much better!

Since getting the music to keep playing in-game is a pain, the best solution IMHO is to play the music in WMP, WinAmp, or whatever media player you fancy. The problem is that the games' soundtracks are (as far as I can tell) not available for purchase or download.

Fortunately, the games' music files are right there in their directories. I took the liberty of converting them all into .mp3 format and dropping them into a .zip file. You can download said zip file here: ul.to/qvlak57j (throw an http:// in front of it)

If there is a 'legitimate' way to get the soundtrack in .mp3 format, please let me know and I'll kill the upload link ASAP. In the meantime, happy conquest everyone! :)

I haven't been able to figure it out yet, but in Hannibal it stops in the main menu screen as well as in battles. In battle Track 1 plays, then Track 2 starts, plays about three notes, and stops. The fact that it is starting the new track then halting is likely a clue as to what is happening or at least might be to someone who understands the new install.

One thing I've noticed about the music is that the original Hannibal game has three battle music files: Track1, 2 and 3.WAV. But the GOG install has some additional .OGG files in a music folder labeled Track2 through 7. For some reason there is no 1. Caesar is structured differently. In any case both have .ogg library files and the music folder with .ogg tracks so I wonder if some change has been made to the .exe to use a different player that is shutting down for some unknown reason? FYI, in Hannibal Track2.WAV corresponds to Track4.ogg and/or possibly Track6.ogg.

In Hannibal I've tried:

1. Moving the "MUSIC" folder--game still plays but without music
2. Creating a copy of one of the .ogg files in the Music folder and renaming it Track1.ogg--no effect.
3. Moving WINNM.DLL already in the GOG Hannibal directory--game won't launch, .
4. Replaced WINNM.DLL with WINMM.DLL from the Windows/System32 directory. (Notice the different file name...NM vs MM.) This allows starting video to play, then halts for missing WINNM.DLL

Looking up the info on the above WINNM.DLL it is a WAV CD wrapper by Toni Spets who appears to be a Finnish programmer. It looks like something is wrong in the implementation or use of the wrapper here that causes the process to halt on whatever track it tries to play second.

I'm pretty sure this WAV wrapper isn't necessary for Windows 7 in Caesar, because the original game would run from CD and play music without problems before I did the GOG install. Don't know on Hannibal because the installer from original CD wouldn't work. It might be required for no CD operation.

EDIT: The wrapper isn't used in Alex, which works fine without it.

Okay, I'm going to have to revise prior statements/impressions based on some new tests I've made. I no longer believe the WAV/OGG file wrapper is the cause of the music stopping. It appears to be something in the original game .exe. I've been able to reinstall the original CD version of Caesar (with GOG version still installed as well.) The trick is to install from the Caesar folder set up as admin, Win95 compatible, not the CD root directory auto.exe. The game seems to be running fine, and the music plays...then music stops after the first track completes (without ever starting on another track.) It can be restarted with some toggling in preferences, and then issuing some orders in game.

What I notice is that when the music restarts the CD winds up and runs the whole time the music plays...and so does the hard drive. So I'm not sure what is going on, except that the original game executable thinks it needs to read the CD even if the music is on the hard drive. And this is probably why the wrapper is being used for the GOG install to prevent no CD halts.

So, yay! I've got Caesar working again, although the GOG version is still broken. I'm going to try another test using the Romanian fellow's no CD version of the Caesar.exe from Ian's site. He claimed he did various things to get the CD calls to stop happening in game and I'm crossing my fingers that one of these will fix the music halt bug.

And I still need to check to see if this CD install of Caesar has broken GOG's Alex or Hannibal. After that I need to see if I can bring the GCBE scenario editor/player back to life...