I have an old CD copy of the first warlords battlecry. Anyone know why the music only plays when they CD is in the disk drive? I suppose its not really a big deal since the game plays fine without the CD, but if i could get the menu music to play without the CD, (my laptop doesn't have an integrated CD drive, i have a usb one i use) that would be pretty sweet.

I was very disappointed the game is missing the music without the CD, I asked a long time ago if there was a solution to this, but got no replies, so I just gave up. I think it's very unlikely this will ever be fixed, though, if you want to, maybe asking GOG support wouldn't hurt, they probably won't read the forum messages, so the best way is contacting them directly.

Try to create an ISO of the disk and mount it as a virtual CD. Most likely the game simply loads the music off the CD live and the files live there.

Some PC games in the 90's embedded their music into the CD as a music track. The Victory music and Menu music for WBC were done as such, so the game code is expecting to play CD music tracks and cannot find the disc. As one user already mentioned, if you rip the CD into an ISO file and launch the game from that, you may have more success.

Unfortunately, from what I can tell with the GOG release, they removed the need for the CD, so unless there's a way to edit that dependency back into the game files then even with loading an ISO the menu music will not play. I had to install the game from the ISO itself to get the music to play, and now I'm trying to eliminate the damn screen flickering.

I learned that too after messing with an original CD copy of the game. The games code executes these audio files whenever that sequence comes up. but since the data isn't located in the games directory and there is no CD to pull the data from, there is no music.

I have also experimented with different tricks to try and get it to work. I've also encountered the same problem you have with the screen flickering,(Matches not loading, Invisible sprites,) I think the way I managed to get it to work was to rip an original cd copy and convert it into an ISO file and mount and run it that way as suggested. I think I also needed to find a "No CD" "Fix" to prevent the game from throwing an error at startup because it doesn't detect a disk.

First of, this is old thread...

There is game required disc drive (or virtual) (empty) even if they possible be play without CD. just empty. any kink of virtual, if you for whatever reason (or Microsoft) dont lie SPTD normal virtual drivers and DT\Alcohol (there is no alternatives to them for decades).

There is games that even copied all content to folder, there is game\data-path in ini\registry\etc - they are still read it from disc.

There is AudioCD discs.

This one game is not AudioCD disc originally. At least not the version GOG based. GOG\slitherine version ofc solve all kind of that issues - by copy all files to installation folder or by newcompeltely DRM-free exe.

Still for GOG games compeltely DRM-free not exclude first variant - when game even read all fiels from folder but still look if there is disc drives in system. They not read it, it can be empty, games are DRM-free. its just old games when not supposed to them been installed in full lenght to PC, even 'Full Installation' (during install options set-up process) usually keep music and video on CD.

This thread initially is not about GOG version. And as i can see by files - this game is not AudioCD
http://www.gogdb.org/manifest/bd0768ea-cbbf-4da3-9445-9e05bbc88181
( http://www.gogdb.org/product/1207659110 )
Do full install, copy remain files, install latest patch (check PCGW and duckduckgo for it). And as result double check if your installation folder looks like GOG folder for this game.
[url=http://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Series:Warlords]http://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Series:Warlords[/url]
(there is also can be info if this game require CD to play some files)

(keep in mind GOG Galaxy builds are seaprate from offline and sometimes even have less\missing files than should be)
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As for issues. GOG version come with some compatibility pre-set's. High DPI (not actual, but Windows one - UI size in Windows) scaling disabling on exe. And few more - in installable sdb-package (from Microsoft Applciation Comaptiblity Toolkit). If you have GOG version - you can check what it pre-set.

Flickering issue - it is Nvidia trash driver developers. Google, Vavle, Microsfot - and very long ago - Nvidia start to broke everything they can for backword copatibility. Nvidia worst one - they driver is broken entirely starting from 400.x. It can cause BSOD on some machines from version to ersion randomly (what say, they now have broken refernce cards for manufacters happened twice for both gens - 2k RTX and 3k RTX highest(!!!) cards).
To fix flickering use some wrappers - GOG one (not avaialbe for public, included with another one Warlords 3\WBC1-3 game - check GOGDb which one), WineD3D or narzoul.
Or just add game exe file to nvidia Control Panel and disable Nvidia for this game - let it use Intel card.

Or look here for another useful links (PCGW mostly)
http://www.gog.com/forum/warlords_battlecry_series/will_this_game_run_on_windows_11

On the matter of dx wrappers, im not sure about WBc1 but for WBc2 i use cnc-ddraw and it runs perfectly.

If u run its configuration utility and choose Fullscreen Upscaled from the Presentation drop-down list, it even lets u run the game at the highest supported resolution of 1600x1200 (selected from the game options screen) on a 1920x1080 (or whatever) monitor! The actual desktop res doesn't change, the game runs borderless but is tricked into thinking its running at (downscaled) 1600x1200, which provides a larger viewing area and looks great too (the stretching is minimal)!

Just make sure to also enable "Adjust Mouse Sensitivity" in cnc-ddraw settings, for the mouse cursor to be likewise tricked, or it wont be able to be moved to the bottom of the screen.

I discovered that placing the .exe file from the original installation into the GoG installation directory, then running that instead of the GoG version's .exe file, allows the menu music (and any other CD song) to play off of the disc or virtual drive. The original and GoG version both work fine for me though as far as I know, so I'm not sure if using the original .exe in a GoG installation would still cause this flickering issue or not.