It just hit me - GOG are selling a 'cracked' Steam version! hahaha I know that's a simplified explanation but yeah, go GOG haxors! lol

Given that we're talking about steam, perhaps "dissipated" would be more appropriate.

Or blown.

I've tried Wine 1.6.2 and 1.7.51 on Debian. Maybe the reason is a missing library for the audio output. But unfortunately the game doesn't give me a hint.

I'm glad you asked that, Judas (not!) So here's the embarrassing thing...

I use GeForce Experience to keep the drivers up to date in both my own and my husband's laptops. When installing the game, it ran a PhysX installer before quitting. When the error occurred, I used GeForce Experience to check for updates and it told me that everything was up to date, including PhysX. Then you asked what version of PhysX I had.

I couldn't find it listed in the driver's properties tab so I thought I was looking in the wrong place. A quick Google showed that I was looking in the right place and PhysX was not installed - at least not where nVidia and King Arthur expected it to be!

I downloaded and manually installed PhysX and hey presto - the game worked! (Cue red face!)

The moral of the story is - don't trust GeForce Experience to keep you up to date. I'm off to install PhysX manually on my own laptop now - just in case I need it in future for one of my 499 backlog games!

Thanks everyone for al the advice.

GeForce Experience might not have been incorrect and you might indeed have had the latest PhysX version. The thing is that some older games require a specific version of PhysX installed, otherwise they will refuse to launch. Making this more aggravating is the fact that you can't install an older version of PhysX, along with a newer one and you'll have to unistall the newer one, before installing the older one.

I've lost a bit track of what I've tried. At least several d3dx versions to get the game running at all, dsound, directmusic and directplay. But only the installation of the full directx9 package finally fixed the sound problem. Nice music in the game. :)

I'm not sure if there's a "cheaper" solution with less native libraries installed. Maybe I'll try the installation from scratch again later, but I'm short of time now and I'm not sure if the demo is worth the effort.

Does the GOG version of the game work for you under Wine? And does it have sound?


Edit: Such a nice music and the game does not come with a soundtrack. :(

No hurry! I've just realized that the release discount is gone, so there's plenty of time. Please let us know if you get the game working under Wine. Meanwhile I hopefully find the time to play the demo.

Good hint, thanks! I did not know that winetricks creates a log. And the log contains exactly what I have written in my last post. :)

I use a separate Wine prefix for every Windows application I install. That makes it much easier to restart from scratch and to avoid side effects.

No problem. When the game runs with at least one Wine version often other versions work too. And in the worst case I always can install exactly that Wine version myself.

After PHC7006 and Ixam's comment in this thread convinced me to buy this game, I started the campaign yesterday, and I like it so far. Reminds me of a Total War with more RPG elements, and a less boring open map strategic gameplay.

And the tactical AI feels decent. I had my first "big" battle (two heroes and a near complete order of battle on each sides) against the king of Dorset, and even on "easy" and with a stronger army the battle was not an easy win. The AI manoeuvered around my army, avoided the contact in the open plains where my heavier infantry would have had the advantage, and used its bowmen to lure me into the hills where his own battle line was drawn. It then sent some light troops to circle the main battle and harass my bowmen, while protecting his own ranged troops against my cavalry with a company of lancers. And it was quite efficient at grabbing strategic objectives without completely exposing his main line.

Maybe it was just random dumb luck and grabbing opportunities my own inexperience created, but it felt "real", which was a cool for a first contact with the game.

Not totally hooked yet (TW type games often have trouble grabbing my attention on the long term), but it looks promising.

I remember enjoying how the A.I. played as well. It uses forests for cover too (I can recall one map where I had the bulk of my forces on a hilltop, surrounded by forest on a darkened map - the enemy poured out of the trees on multiple sides when it finally did attack). If you leave too big a "gap" in your line and unguarded archers, it has no problem going for them (usually with a "reserve" type unit it had held back). I'm not a long time pro at these games either, but I thought it was pretty neat that the computer would pull this stuff too.

It gets fun when dividing your forces to take multiple VP points as well. As the attacker, I'd even go with maps that I thought would give me an advantage based on how many VP sites there were based on the armies.

Hopefully, once the RPG stuff (text quests and managing your characters stats / equipment / fiefdoms and skills) kicks in you'll find enough there to get over the long term attention hump of other games in the style. I'm still surprised I pushed on through to the end, and enjoyed it the whole way through.