Warhammer (SotHR, Dark Omen) & Co

[Jasede]

Hello Codexites-

My favourite tactical game ever made is defintitely Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat. Never have I found a game that had more challenging battles, more features, etc. The campaign was nicely non-linear, the graphics great and timeless and the game jaw-breakingly difficult. It had very memorable missions, like the one right after saving Ilmarien, where you face, I believe, 3 large regiments of black orcs, 2 wolfrider squad, some goblin stickers and archers while only having 1 cavalary, 1 heavy & 1 light infantry, 1 (CPU-controlled) regiment of dwarves, an elven hero, a squad of crossbowmen and, critical for the battle, an amber wizard. Not long thereafter comes a mission where you attack an orc camp, again extremely hard since they have artillery that can very easily wipe your regiments out (goblin kamikaze).

Everyone recommends me Dark Omen, the sequel, but it's impossible (for me) to get it to run under XP, and I -have- tried everything people and websites recommended, and more; it didn't run for me under Win98SE either. Might be my Radeon 9600 SE?

Anyway-

Are there other games that offer the gameplay that Shadow of the Horned Rat and Dark Omen did?

Are the Warhammer 40K games worth exploring, even if I am not a fan of the 40K setting? Specifically I am thinking of Dawn of War and its numerous addons.

 

[pkt-zer0]

Everyone recommends me Dark Omen, the sequel, but it's impossible (for me) to get it to run under XP, and I -have- tried everything people and websites recommended, and more; it didn't run for me under Win98SE either. Might be my Radeon 9600 SE?

I don't think so. At least, I got it to run under XP with a Radeon 9600 myself without much of a hassle (i.e. nothing more advanced that changing compatibility settings). However, note the past tense: unfortunately my recent efforts have met with failure. It might possibly work with an older version DirectX, as I think that could've been what killed it eventually.
The game does work with Virtual PC just fine - if your PC is fast enough to handle it, that is. Mine wasn't.

You could also try emulating the PSX version of the game if all else fails.

Are there other games that offer the gameplay that Shadow of the Horned Rat and Dark Omen did?

Are the Warhammer 40K games worth exploring, even if I am not a fan of the 40K setting? Specifically I am thinking of Dawn of War and its numerous addons.

Well, I haven't played a whole lot of DoW, but their gameplay seems more similar to standard RTS games than that of SotHR/Dark Omen.

 

[Kingston]

Damn I would enjoy Dark Omen multiplayer. I tried to pimp it on irc at some point but no one was interested D:

You've tried all of the cursor replacing tricks? There is no alternative game for Dark Omen, you have to get it working one way or another!

 

[pkt-zer0]

Damn I would enjoy Dark Omen multiplayer.

I've actually played that a bit as well, back in the Win98 days, against my brother. I thought it was pretty cool that you could improve your army as you won matches, but usually the gold went to repairing the heavy losses incurred.

I'm actually thinking of building a machine from the old spare parts lying around, just to have something to run Dark Omen on. That'd be a worst case scenario, though.

Oh, also: Ground Control, the first one! I also like that very much, for the same reasons as Dark Omen - focus on battles instead of resource gathering and build orders and stuff.

 

[Jasede]

Damn I would enjoy Dark Omen multiplayer. I tried to pimp it on irc at some point but no one was interested D:

You've tried all of the cursor replacing tricks? There is no alternative game for Dark Omen, you have to get it working one way or another!

Yes I tried that. That's not what causes it. I don't even get to the main menu most of the time. However, I do get to it ONCE each time I install the game, after much alt-tabbing, but after that it crashes. It's very weird. Maybe my 64 bit processor causes this? It's a real shame since I read that this game is even BETTER than my very beloved Horned Rat!

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Jasede: If you like the 40k universe I would HIGHLY recommend Dawn of War and its addons. You can pick up the set of three in a 'Platinum Edition' for a low price now.

 

[Jasede]

I just wrote I *don't* like the WH40K universe- hence why I am asking! Are the games good enough that they might make me like the setting more, is the gameplay fine? One of the addons seems to have a strategical map and a non-linear campaign, something I highly value.

 

[Destroid]

It should be pointed out that DoW is nothing like SotHR or DO. It is a standard RTS with a few modifications (squads and reinforcements mainly).

SotHR was a mad game, never could beat those end missions vs hoards of skaven though, I took too many casualties through the rest of the campaign and was weak by the end

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I just wrote I *don't* like the WH40K universe- hence why I am asking! Are the games good enough that they might make me like the setting more, is the gameplay fine? One of the addons seems to have a strategical map and a non-linear campaign, something I highly value.

I really don't know... the games aren't lore heavy and you really don't need a knowledge of 40k to enjoy them, and you don't really learn much of the 40k universe by playing them. So really they are just really, really fun strategy games with units from 40k.

Online is the best part because when you're playing against human opponents you do need a strategy otherwise you're done for. But the campaign is easy in some parts and harder in others, unless you crank up the difficult to 'Hard', where it is difficult most of the way through. The strategical map is quite simplistic actually, nowhere near as complex as the kind of maps you find in Total War, but its still fun and kind of non-linear in that you can choose who you want to kill first, but forget about using diplomacy or trade to solve your issues, you need to wipe them all out.

 

[Jasede]

I just wish I could play Dark Omen. Everyone says it's even better than Horned Rat, my favourite tactical game ever. If anyone else could solve his Dark Omen problem, feel free to derail the thread with a solution.

 

[pkt-zer0]

...so you've already given Virtual PC a shot, then?

I didn't know that Shadow of the Horned Rat worked properly, though.

 

[Jasede]

Where can I download it? Is it free? How does it work? Do I need my Windows 98 SE CD? I do not have it anymore.

 

[pkt-zer0]

Where can I download it? Is it free? How does it work?

From Microsoft's site. It's free. It emulates earlier PC hardware, basically. You install DOS/Windows/whatever on it, and run older games.

Do I need my Windows 98 SE CD? I do not have it anymore.

Yeah, you would. You might be able to get a virtual hard-drive file that has Win98 already installed.

 

[obediah]

Are the Warhammer 40K games worth exploring, even if I am not a fan of the 40K setting? Specifically I am thinking of Dawn of War and its numerous addons.

I thought Chaos Gate and the Epic game were both pretty swank. Especially for GW games.

If you're looking for that magic of the Horned Rat, stay far, far away from Dawn of War. While SotHR was a warhammer tactical game that was implemented in RT, Dawn of War is an RTS with warhammer skins. If you are an RTS fag, then there are all sorts of things to set it apart and may love it - but from a birds eye view SotHR is to the Total War games as Dawn of War is to Warcraft or C&C or [INSERT 50,000 RTS GAMES HERE].

 

[Jasede]

Where can I download it? Is it free? How does it work?

From Microsoft's site. It's free. It emulates earlier PC hardware, basically. You install DOS/Windows/whatever on it, and run older games.

Do I need my Windows 98 SE CD? I do not have it anymore.

Yeah, you would. You might be able to get a virtual hard-drive file that has Win98 already installed.

Hmm, it seems to work, but I need to buy Windows 98 SE again. Oh well, next month.

 

[sheek]

Dark Omen does work on WinXP, but it's very complicated to get it to work...

I can't remember how I did it but it took a long time looking at cached forum pages to figure it out... if you want I could archive and upload the installed game directory, maybe that would work.

You have to install it to the right directory I think.

 

[Jasede]

Oh please! It would mean a lot to me. You don't have to, though, since you already did me a big favour - you gave me a link to the French version of Myth 2, which was really, really great - though not as good as Shadow of the Horned Rat (to me).

 

[sheek]

OK I have a cracked version on a backup CD... not sure if this is what I used to install it (I forgot that I deleted the installed game) or if I did it another way.


Anyway here's what the readme file says:

Required: The PDM release of WARHAMMER DARK OMEN


OK, As we all know, Dark Omen will not run in Windows 98 correctly, because of some sort of differences between the way registry entries work in win95 and win98. HOWEVER, there is a way to fix this!

The error that would come up BEFORE this fix would look like this:

"An error has occured within the current Dark Omen installation, please re-install."

The Solution:

1. Install Dark Omen to c:\darkomen
2. Extract CRACK.ZIP to this directory
3: Run setup.exe, but BEFORE it stops itself, close the program, so it doesn't delete the file temp.reg
4. Run temp.reg
5. Run game via ENGREL.EXE

Now it should work! Have a nice day folks!

-KoRnMaN

Have you seen anything like that before?

 

[Jasede]

Nope, that's new to me! I'll just wait until the HOTU download of DO finishes. 4 hours left, HOTU gives me 0.5 kb/s these days.

 

[sheek]

OK I just checked it and I can get to the main menu... it flickers a lot but that's a separate problem, I think due to default graphics settings. The trick is that you _must_ install the game to C:\Darkomen for the registry fix to work.

Anyway, should be finished uploading in 45 minutes. I'll send you a private message with the link when it's ready.

 

[Kingston]

but it's impossible (for me) to get it to run under XP, and I -have- tried everything people and websites recommended, and more

Liar lol.

 

[Jasede]

:D Well, I tried everything Google came up with last year and the year before. It's a great game, supposedly.

Do your regiments carry over like in Shadow of the Hornet Rat? Do they get XP and can they find items? Does the game have many optional side-missions?

 

[pkt-zer0]

Do your regiments carry over like in Shadow of the Hornet Rat? Do they get XP and can they find items? Does the game have many optional side-missions?

Those mechanics are intact, yes. From what I've read of SotHR's reviews, it's basically where that game was way ahead of its time, and thus had some technical issues, Dark Omen fixes those problems while leaving the core gameplay intact.

Dunno about how many side-missions there are, since I didn't get too far in the game, but I've seen a few. You get some additional troops and alternative levels that way, usually.

OK I just checked it and I can get to the main menu... it flickers a lot but that's a separate problem, I think due to default graphics settings. The trick is that you _must_ install the game to C:\Darkomen for the registry fix to work.

I'd wager you can just change the values in the registry fix by hand and install it to whatever directory.

 

[sheek]

I can't remember the game too well, the only time I actually finished a campaign was 10 years ago, but there are at least three occasions where you can do optional missions. There is a pretty long (3-4 mission) 'plot branch' in the early/middle game.

Regiments get experience, start with 0 and can go up to 4 max, which makes a lot of difference. The Grudgebringer cavalry I think starts with 3. There are a _lot_ of items, I didn't know what to do with them all.

By the way I found my original Dark Omen CD, so if you guys have got a ripped/warez version and are missing the movies and sound I can upload them.

 

[Kingston]

There are plenty of opporturnities for side-missions and they aren't all super-easy choices. Small spoileriffics: At one point you are journeying to a castle to protect it from a siege, but you can stop to aid a town from an undead army. This leads to the castle being sieged and you end up having to recapture it, whereas if you had skipped the town quest you would be defending it with a huge advantage.

Unit parties gain experience and you can outfit them with certain items (lots of tactix can be used here). Units have morale, and if faced with a party of undead they can flee. I remember being scared shitless back in the day when an undead party attacked and an undead sorceror cackled malvolently. My swordsmen buggered off only to run into ghouls.

The game is very tactical, and unit placement is key to winning any battle. Don't remember playing any game where placement mattered as much. But then again I'm not an expert on the strategy genre.

Edit: I have the original cd too!