Conqueror - A.D. 1086
 

Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!

Review & Download (if available)

Help
 

Can someone help me? I'm using win7 ultimate and the game won't run. I tried changing the compatibility to win95 but that didn't work either. Any suggestions?

Use DosBox then follow the instructions at the bottom of the review:

In order to run Conqueror - A.D. 1086 in DOSBox, you'll need to type in the following commands in order (note: these instructions assume you've extracted the game's folder, called CONQUER, directly to your C drive):

mount d: c:/conquer/cd -t cdrom -label CONQEROR mount c: c:/conquer/ c: conquer.bat

Use DosBox then follow the instructions at the bottom of the review:

In order to run Conqueror - A.D. 1086 in DOSBox, you'll need to type in the following commands in order (note: these instructions assume you've extracted the game's folder, called CONQUER, directly to your C drive):

mount d: c:/conquer/cd -t cdrom -label CONQEROR mount c: c:/conquer/ c: conquer.bat

I followed all the instructions presented, but I'm still running into a problem. The game acts like it's starting to run and some text appears in the DosBox box, but then it says: "ERROR: Not enough memory to load Gob file or file not found. Aborting..." Then it says: "Program aborted. Thanks for playing Conqueror 1086AD" Any of you guys have any idea what could be wrong?

I ran into the same issue. The problem seems to be that the directory provided isn't actually properly installed. I fixed it by mounting the CD subdirectory as a cdrom using DOSBox then running the install program from the disc, installing it, then running it from the directory I installed it to.

Have you tried increasing the amount of memory DOSBox uses? I have mine set at 63MB. In order to change the amount of memory, simply open up dosbox.conf (if you have the latest version, you may need to access it using DOSBox 0.74 Options.bat) and alter the memsize line to memsize=63.

In the event that doesn't work, use Jaksen's advice. Also, since you shouldn't need to install the game AGAIN (the Conqueror - A.D. 1086 archive is supposed to be pre-installed), I can get the game's archive re-submitted.

Okay, I think I figured this out. In the file Conquer.ini it has a line:

GOB=C:\SIERRA\CONQUER\

I'm fairly certain that unless that's where you have the game extracted, it can't find the GOB file. So, an easier fix than the one I suggested is probably just to change that line.

So that's the issue! I'll have the game's archive re-uploaded so that line will read "GOB=C:\CONQUER\" (don't worry, I won't be putting in those quotation marks!) since there's no SIERRA folder anywhere in the archive. Thanks for finding the problem, Jaksen!

I've updated the game's archive with the fix Jaksen found. It should prevent the Not enough memory to load Gob file or file not found error.

I think if you follow the instructions on the download page, you'll need the ini file to read "gob = c:". Since "c:conquer" is mounted as "c:" Dosbox doesn't recognize that the folder "conquer" exists.

Why not try one of these:
It did work with some other games, might work here too.

Well, I'm running Windows 7 as well and tried all of the above to no avail. Anyone get this to work?

Yes, just extract the archive in your DOSBox C-drive and mount the CD folder as CD-ROM drive D:\

That one seems to work.

BTW, there are a few files in the current archive that the game deletes after you exit back to DOS. Those temporary files take up a few MBs:

Indeed, and after some tests I found you can make this game run without having to mount the CD subdirectory as the CD drive, and no matter what path it is located under. Here's how:
Move everything from the \CD\ subdirectory - including the CONQUER subdirectory - to the main game directory, but do not overwrite the existing conquer.ini. Overwriting a duplicated GOB file is OK. You can now remove both batch files (optional, but they're useless from now on). Now, change the paths in conquer.ini to:
Ta-dah!

If somebody could make a video of this.
 

The only reason I can work DOS box is from watch video on youtube, so gentlemen, if could make video for the dos dummy like myself it would be such a great help. I would really love to to play this game.

Check the post above. :-)
Also: http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showthread.php?t=14406
http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/forumdisplay.php?f=90

Still lost in how you do the coding. I have no idea how get conquer onto that code path. Plus I running window seven.

I know how to mount and all that fun jazz, but I have no idea of how to get into the code.

What coding? You just oepn conquer.ini with a text editor... ANY text editor, starting with Notepad.

The archive has been replaced with a new copy that includes the changes mentioned above. It's ready to run.

<- Is curious ... downloads, test 1 .. 2 .. 3.. and
Nice work.
For those interested: runs flawless.
You can run it by usual virtual C: mount or even by drag&drop.
Both work flawless.

so now that it runs, is anyone playing this game?

Character Generator
 

I've made a small start at reuncovering all the bonuses from the character generator (used to have it long time ago but lost it)

Note that options are governed by your current statistics:
Don't expect to kill a dragon with low strength and stamine, just like trying to convince the king with low piety/honor.




Integrated spoiler tags (they are not only useful to hide spoilers but also to keep the navigation intact when writing long texts ^_^ ). ~Luchsen

I'm having repeated problems with the game crashing after startup.
Happens particularly when talking to others.
I suspect a shortage of memory is the problem or wrong setting for CPU cycles.
Does anyone know what is the best configuration for Windows XP?

This is a fascinating game. However, it is also obtuse as hell!

I'm going to try and dig up a manual for this one, because for the life of me I can't figure out what I'm doing.

I obtained the manual/reference card from sierragamers.com.
hope it helps. If you have any specific queries, ask away.
I think too laterally for this image verification thing (I suck at it).

I thought the game was a lot smaller when I helped someone from our forums get it running. Then again, there were no videos. Are they important?

Expack mentioned something that if he replaced each video with 1 or 2 still frames, the archive could be reduced to 80 MB or so.
Not sure there's a point in doing that, he spent a lot of effort in preparing this version.

Hi all....just registered here.

Two things:

1) I can't defeat the dragon no matter what I do. I've aimed for the eye dead-on. I have the dragon stone, dragon armor, dragon-slaying lance, and St. George's shield. I've tried hitting different locations on the dragon's body. Etc. Nothing works. I keep thinking maybe I'm missing an object, but I've successfully courted every lady but Adela (found out no difference in items between Wendessa and Victoria). So what do I have to do?

2) I really like the character generation list. Unfortunately, the window cuts off the list without any scroll option, so I haven't been able to view the whole list.

On the whole, Conqueror is a fun game, even with its quirks. It would be nice to see a newer, updated version to expand the game and storyline....and without all the bugs which plagued the original.

Dragon
 

Is the dragon unkillable? I don't even know where to find the items anymore, but I found them all years ago and died every time. Only way I have even been able to win is by killing the king. Any help with the dragon would be appreciated.

I know I've read the dragon is killable.
I'll check my collection, but I don't think I've got the magazine with the solution anymore.

EDIT: Found a scanned copy on the net. All it said was exactly what you are doing - you need the Shield, Lance and Armor and then aim for the eye.

Items
 

Do you remember or does it say how to get those items?

Somewhat. "Court Jane and break off with her to get the Lance", "Court Wendessa sufficiently long to get the Shield", "be in good relations with Valletta to get the Armor".

I've killed the dragon many times, rest assured it can be done! I can't do it every time though...it is hard. As long as you've got the 3 items, and your lance skills is pretty darn high...plus you have to have high strength...it should be easy enough to get herculean from just taking a few castles...I've always managed to get that...but I feel like those details might be overlooked easily.

I believe one of the ladies mentions that a man would have to be very strong to effectively use the dragon slaying armor...remember the man died because the armor was too heavy and he fell off his horse...so the story goes anyways.

So I figure you need herculean strength...high lance skill, and the three items...try a good 4 or 5 times...tracking the eye with your lance

Good luck!

You can get both the Shield and the Dragonstone from either Victoria or Wendessa. The Lance you get from Hugh by either making a deal with him in exchange for the Proclamation or by breaking off the engagement to Jane. In the former, you can still marry Jane by keeping her in the dark. Valetta will give you the Armor if you insist upon slaying the dragon, which won't ruin any prospect of marriage. So obviously, I've acquired all the items.

I also have tried this after maxing out all of my attributes, and still failed. My lance skill won't seem to go beyond 20 though....even after going 48-7 in jousts. (Took me a while to figure out the lance....then I went undefeated afterward.)

I'm wondering if my inability to slay the dragon stems from one of two possible glitches. One is the graphics which if I read correctly suffered from the rip. The other is that the jousting skill not going above 20 when maybe it is supposed to. My melee skill is at least twice as high, since I have been in over 100 battles, but the jousting skill seems to max out within about 10 wins.

Does anyone know whether either of these two things might be causing the problem?

Oh....and I've tried slaying the dragon probably 20+ times with zero success. I just get eaten.

Step-by-Step-How-To-Do ?
 

Hi!

I just found this game what I played for hours a day when i was a kid. I tried to use the DosBox to emulate this game, but can I have step-by-step how to do it, on the first page it's quite difficult becauce I don't get it! Do I suppose to write all the command lines in on "sentence" or what? Help the dummy one!

Perhaps this will help a bit: http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showthread.php?t=14406

Problem Getting Conqueror to Work
 

I'm using D-Fend Reloaded. I have the CD-rom, I copied all of the files to my hard drive and pointed D-Fend to where the files were and made a new profile using the conquer.exe file.

I was having problems with the Gob file error message, I then edited the .INI file as you all recommended (added the GOB=.\
AUD_DRV=.\
CD_PATH=.\CONQUER\)

That solved the GOB problem. The program starts now, the hourglass cursor appears, I get excited, then it cancels out and gives me an error screen which reads "cdrom access failure mscdex not found" and it returns to windows.

What is the problem here?

Delete your stuff, that's not the way to work with a real CD.
The game searches files via mscdex call.
Create CD image and mount that as D: in D-Fend ( -> D-Fend manual)
Reinstall the game from D: on C:

Hey, sorry I'm not familiar with D-fend that well and am not sure of how to do what you're talking about. Could you explain it step by step for me?

I put all of the files of the CD into Magic ISO and made a .ISO file out of it... not sure what to do next so I'd really appreciate some guidance on this, thanks!

I'm not familiar with Dfend, but usually you mount the ISO as D: and your dosgames folder as C: -- then install the game as you normally would. Check in our Tutorials section. There's a lovely Dosbox step-by-step animation on www.Dosbox.com as well.

Without D-Fend you'd just use the IMGMOUNT command (it's explained in detail inside the DOSBox readme file).

Thanks for the help, I'm going to try it in DosBox over the weekend (I really miss this game and had all but given up hope playing it til I saw this thread!). I'd prefer to use D-fend because I like as little code/text based interface as possible, so if anyone has steps on how to do this in d-fend I'd appreciate it!

Not sure how to mount the .ISO file so I can use it in d-fend and get access to its files. Ideally I won't get that "cdrom access failure mscdex not found" message after going through all of this, hopefully that's what this is doing.

Nope.
You don't 'put' files into a CD image, you create a CD image from the CD itself.

It would amaze me that the CD image is valid the way you described how you created the image.
Only a few games will accept what you did.

A nice soft to create dosbox compat images is: http://www.imgburn.com/

And please, read the manuals, all you ask is already explained in them.

Okay I downloaded the software and made an image file from the CD like you said which came out as a .bin file. Is there any way to play the game in D-fend reloaded or do I have to do it from Dosbox when using image files (i know nothing about it)?

Secondly, I realize that I'll likely still need to add the GOB info listed earlier in this thread to make it work, so I'm not sure how I can edit that conquer.ini file when it's part of an image file. Thoughts? (feel free to speak to me like I'm an idiot because I am when it comes to this).

The joke is that most of us here don't know how to do it in D-Fend because - grumpy old men we are - we can't stand the very idea of frontends. The original D-Fend might have had a hand in fostering that dislike after many users came to us with problems that "magically" vanished once they stopped using D-Fend. :p
You don't. Consider the disc image to be the same thing as the actual game disc. Means you can't change its' contents. If you'll be editing any INI file, it will be one that has been installed from the image to the HDD. :)

graphics
 

I can play the game, but im having trouble with the graphics...
The start of the game where it plays the short clip is is distorted and appears a but laggy, can someone guide me to what graphics settings i can place.

im using d-frend reloaded.

The clips have been recompressed to reduce their filesize. Unfortunately, we missed the fact that the game doesn't scale them to fit the screen.

Found the old CD Rom... But i'm having trouble!
 

Hello everyone! I recently found my old Conqueror 1086 AD CDROM and I was so excited to play it. I used to play this game for hours as a kid! Everything downloaded smoothly but when I tried playing the game on windows 7 a window popped up titled "16 bit MS-DOS subsystem" saying: "I:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe This system does not support fullscreen mode. Choose close to terminate the application." (Obviously I use the I: drive instead of the traditional C: ). Please help!

I read the earlier posts and was wondering with the CD, do I need DOSBOX or Defender to run this program. I have already installed them just in case.

You need DOSBox.

Help pleeaaase
 

well,i really want to play this game but when i try to play it,this happens http://clip2net.com/clip/m92783/1384....png?nocache=1 tried everthing now,mounting the cd,using daemon tools and then mounting the cd image that comes with,changing stuff on the INI file but nothing happens,HELP ME PEOPLE PLOX

You're trying to run conquer.bat. The notes at the end of the review tell you very clearly to run conquer.exe .

This game runs too fast on Dosbox when on the map screen...almost unplayable. :(

Lower the cycles in DOsbox???

Thanks, the answer!

Yes, I did. I lowered the cycles almost to zero and it is still unplayable!
I wrote about this strange event to the DosBox too.
Somehow this game is not correctly synchronized with the Dosbox emu (on my computer to say the least of it) when it is on the map screen.

Interesting. Too bad about that, no more ideas from me.

SierraGamers has the game manual and quick reference card if anyone needs them:
http://www.sierragamers.com/aspx/blo...x/msgid/659765

This game is quite terrible actually, although I do like the premise and the historical setting. I'm surprised that people still in 1995 had so much patience for such awful gameplay.

The FPS is the best part but it's incredibly subpar for 1995. The management is pointless and looks like it wasn't half done when the game was rushed out. The field battles are equally crappy. The whole game is also way too easy.

Yeah, you're right! The field battles are :hihihi:.
As you said the FPS is subpar but the engine can make random maps and this is cool I think... at least. :perv:
There are neither siege nor raid (for just money and items) in this game,
BUT this could have been a good game... but could have been only.