Making Gorgon's Alliance PC Work

[thelebk]

Guys--

I was thrilled to recently discover this group. The BR campaign setting is one of my favorites, and the BR PC Game by Sierra is one of my favorite games of all time (and I have played many computer games over many, many years). One of my biggest disappointments with the game however is that I was never able to play a game to completion.

The game invariably would crash dumping me back into a dos prompt with code streaming by. This usually would occur after flinging some big splashy area of effect type spells in the final dungeon adventures. I am guessing that the screen drawing of multiple mobs with variable effects would just overwhelm the poor program.

So here is my question to the assembled experts and afficionados here:

Can I make this game actually work using modern technology? The patches by Sierra were inadequate. Have fans procuced patch mods which fix these game stopping bugs? Could I get this working again and actually play it? I have different platforms to choose from 1) Dos True 2) Win 98 3) Win XP SP2 4) Vista. Any suggestions/instructions? Thanks in advance.

[Sorontar]

Hi,
Welcome to the BR.net community. I know nothing about the game but have you tried Patch 1.4 that can be found in http://www.birthright.net/forums/downloads.php?do=cat&id=2 ?

Sorontar

[thelebk]

Thanks for the welcome. :) I can give that patch a try. Which PC (platform) do you recommend I try installing it on? Thanks.

[thelebk]

OK that did not work. I installed the game on my Win98 machine and then the 1.4 patch. It crashes right at start up when it is trying to display the logo. Looks like a classic directX type error...

[blitzmacher]

I run it off my windows vista, I've only had one crash, and that was before running the patches.

[ibzzzzz]

the game works fine for me. downloaded the game from a torrent and installed using a virtual drive(power iso). now i'm experimenting on playing multiplayer online using hamachi. anyone familiar with hamachi? you can download it at this site:
http://hamachi.en.softonic.com/download

search the wikipedia for description and background of hamachi.

[thelebk]

Wow running on Vista? That is so far beyond the target platform for the game that I did not even think to try it. I have Vista on my laptop, so I may give that a go.

Ibzzzzz: What platform are you running the game on? What is this ISO thing you are talking about?

Thanks!

[ibzzzzz]

BR:Gorgon's Alliance worked perfectly on my Windows XP Prof..
an ISO file (or Image file) includes all the data of files contained on the archived of CD's and DVD's, therefore, even without the physical CD or DVD you can mount the Image File (a.k.a Imaginary CD/DVD) on your Disk Drive. try downloading DAEMON TOOLS, MAGIC ISO or POWER ISO, there's lots of program use to run Image FIles.

Most of the Downloadable games now are on ISO format.

[thelebk]

Well I installed the game on both my vista laptop and my Win Xp SP2 desktop. The good news is that the game did not immediately crash so it got my hopes up. The bad news is that it may all be for naught as commands that should work are failing.

In the tutorial adventure Rudewash keep for instance, I cannot get the change leader command to work either through hotkey or by clicking the change leader button in combat. Also in the dungeon my lead character can pick up the potion of flying but it appears in another character's inventory. I can enter combat mode and give it to the leader, but when the leader clicks the potion in the magic items menu, and clicks the use button, nothing happens. The potion is not used and the party does not fly so we are forever trapped in the tutorial dungeon lol!

Is there a way around these bugs? I have not tried the tutorial on the Vista laptop, but I expect these same bugs will replicate there.... :(

[ibzzzzz]

Firstly i wasnt able to undergone tutorial due to action exitement.LoL :)
but for the sake of my fellow BR fan i partially played the tutorial at the beginning but didnt finish it(only to test the bugs as you indicated above).
Secondly, how did you install your BR:Gorgon's Alliance? Did you purchased the original CD?
Now to solve your problems(LoL), about the ''change leader'', you need to select and click another character aside from your current leader and click the change leader button or the hotkey and for you to be able to fly after using the potion you need to press "A"(jump) button to fly.

If still you experience the same problems, well i suggest you skip the tutorials and head for the actions right away (so far no bugs encountered in the real game), go and play the expert mode to experience the full complexity and excitement of the game, but be sure to set your realm difficulty to easy in the options menu before you play the expert mode.

I also had a BR:GA CD back in 1997 but it got lost, and i was searching the web for the game, and it took me weeks before i finally found the game. I downloaded the game for maybe two weeks because of the very few seeders. but if anybody who wants to download the game i'd be happy to seed for them and share the game. :)

[thelebk]

I hit the "a" key but my character only jumps, not flies. This is to be expected however as I cannot use the flying potion. Every time I try and click use under magic items, it goes back to exploration mode with no fly in effect, and the potion still unconsumed in my inventory.

How do you "select" another character. When I do that from combat mode (highlight their picture) and click the change leader button at the bottum, nothing happens. The leader stays the same (defaults to regent).

Some of the most important dungeons in the game, including Rhobe Manslayer if I recall, require the potion of flyign to work or you CANNOT complete them. This really is a game stopper. Also have to lead with the regent constantly will get him/her killed. Also if potions of flying dont work other items may not work as well. I cannot imagine why these bugs would only be present in the tutorial and not carry over to the main game, I expect they will manifest in the main game and break it.

As to my install it is off the original CD, then patch 1.4. Running Win XP SP2. I can try running clean by quitting all apps in memory save explorer and systray... Please advise. :)

[thelebk]

Update: I restored all of the options in the various options menu to defautl settings, rebooted, relaunched, and it seems to be working now! Let's keep our fingers crossed!

[ibzzzzz]

That's good to hear. :) just update me. hope we can play multiplayer soon. when are you going to go online again? so that we could chat.

[Venom]

I might play multi too pm me if you are up to play

[vota dc]

A remake of Gorgon's Alliance should be a good idea for multiplayer:it is too slow for such an old game,plus the only time I played multiplayer I losed because I made an army of irregulars not knowing that direct battle is not allowed against PC in multi mode lol.

[JakobLiar]

Personally, a strategy I found to work like 99.99% of the time is I purchased nothing but archers and used only one or two to fight against everything and every time I did this (and did it personally, not automated), I won. The only one I didn't win personally was against the Gorgon and even then I had to do it a couple of times before I won.

[vota dc]

Irregulars are better:they are archer that cost half.The problem is since multiplayer force you to use simulated battle they are rubbish.The only solution is using expensive forces like knights:so the endgame will be easier than the beginning if you are able to expand for the reason that skeletons are worse than knights in that mode (I think because their price is 4 regency vs 6 gold bars of knights).