Warcraft II
 

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 and Download (if available)

Thanks so much for posting this! Fantastic game, almost as good as the original. I would like to play online against a friend of mine though (not on the same LAN, he lives in another city). Does anyone know if this is possible to do through Dosbox?

It's indeed possible ,but if you don't know how to do it you always simply can join Classic Gaming Arena, a site specialized in online gaming for dosbox.
http://www.classicgamingarena.com/

The game is listed on it.

Hi guys,

first of all, this game brings back memories! I first played it as a demo copy at my grandad's house (not sure how he ended up with a copy of it!) and got hooked on it.

I seem to remember you can't group units etc, so I imagine it will be very clunky to play now, but am going to give it a go for the nostalgia.


QUESTION: I am trying to run it in DOSbox and failing. I have the folder at C:War2, and I am running DOSbox, mounting the folder (tried mounting it as drive C and also drive D as the game seems to prefer drive D?)
then running War2.bat, (also tried W2.exe) and getting into the game, but when I click to play single player it says I need the disk.

Have I missed something?

Any help appreciated

Assuming you followed the instructions at the game description (where normally a review is located and where you can download it) page here on Abandonia, and burned the two folders to a CD or made an ISO file of it, try using the following commands:

mount c c:
mount d X: -t cdrom
c:
cd \war2
war2.bat

where X: is the drive in which either your CD is located or the ISO which you mounted.
Try pressing ALT + 1 (up to 5) or CTRL + 1 (up to 5)keys, those should memorize a group of units, and select that group instantly, if I remember correctly. Might be SHIFT + 1 also.

The instructions on the download/review page does mention that the game must be mounted so that it's in a C:\WAR2\ folder inside DOSBox. But I guess it can be misunderstood to mean real instead of virtual location, I'll see if I can rephrase that, but this is always tricky for people. Scatty's commands would work if you skip the "mount d ..." one, as war2.bat mounts its own CD. Although it isn't recommended in general to mount your whole actual hard disk in DOSBox; it would be better something like "mount c c:\dos", if you put the game at "c:\dos\war2"

This archive's not original, it was made by Horseman, including the war2.bat loader. The CDs (the one for Tides of Darkness and the other one for the expansion) are included as folders and mounted by this script, and that's why you have to select which to play before starting the game, and you can't swap them without exiting the game, the way the archive is prepared.

Other approaches are possible, for example DOSBox allows several CDs to be prepared for mounting, by passing multiple arguments to a single mount command, and then swap them at any time with Ctrl+F4...

If you're having issues running single player on DosBox from a Mac/Linux computer it could be because the War2.bat script is assuming that your host system has windows-style file separators i.e \ instead of /. Since the War2.bat file is really just setting up the START.BAT file and then calling it, one way to fix the issue is by editing START.BAT manually and then starting the program by running START.BAT instead of War2.bat.

The following lines will need to be modified in START.BAT:
Line 2: Set wardir to the absolute path to the WAR2 folder on your host machine
Line 21: Change "%wardir%\TOD" to "%wardir%/TOD"
Line 25: Change "%wardir%\DP" to "%wardir%/DP"

Note that if you run War2.bat after you have modified START.BAT, it will overwrite the changes that you have made and you'll have to change the above lines again.

No, those scripts are run from within DOSBox, so whatever your OS is does not matter.

Incidentally, DOSBox accepts '/' as equivalent to '\'

There's a text file somewhere in there IIRC that you can edit to make the change permament. Been a while since I set this up.

The scripts are running within DosBox, but the lines that need to be edited are executing the mount command which takes a path on your host system as an argument. This is why the file separators matter and the lines need to be edited.

Thanks for the tip. I dug a little deeper and it does look like you can edit PREP.COM (lines 98 and 102) and it will make the changes permanent.

OK thanks. Then we may have to fix the archive...

Own Battle.net edition of this one.

Finished Tides of Darkness twice and Beyond the Dark Portal once.

Definitely my favorite WarCraft title.

The pure audio joy when you send about dozen peasants/peons to chop wood...priceless.

status
 

Since when is it for free? I didn't notice that.

im having trouble starting the game
i get to the menu and i click single player and it says i need to insert the cd
can i get almost specific directions on how to make the game playable

There are some issues with the script that I had to fix in order to make the game find its CD:
1) Modify the start.bat according to the comment of Mongoose85 (as I run it on Linux).
2) Replace "TOD" with "ToD" in the path (line 21 of start.bat).
I think (at least this should be fixed in the script, as the directory in the archive is "ToD").

Anyway, the script as it is is now together with the instructions on the review page definitely didn't work for me without those modifications. Maybe it does work out of the box with Windows, but its definitely not with Linux and I'd also expect MacOS users to have the same problems.

The download as it is currently offered here will be ways too difficult to use for most users.
Could probably be easier if the two parts (ToD and DP) would be offered seperately...

Have to add:
3) Mount the D-Drive as CDROM manually.
Without that, I get an error that the (correct) directory that should be mounted doesn't exist.

Issues
 

Okay, for some reason the file shows as a 7z. Zip or some such. So I go and get 7z from a site to open it. Doesn't do anything to it. Try to Dosbox it. Nothing but a lack of compatability message and a note about it being more than 8 characters long which apparently dosbox does not like long names like Warcraft2 etc.

How can I fix this and be able to play this game?

7Z is an archive. Games are packed into those so that you can download them as a single file.
You need to unpack it, and then run the unpacked game in DOSBox. http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showthread.php?t=14406

To start the game, use START.BAT . It will allow you to choose whether you want to play the base game or the expansion and perform additional tasks needed to ensure whichever you chose runs properly.

Thanks for the help with the 7z. I feel pretty lame though given the files are still dodging any form of being opened beyond menus.

Hate to ask a second question on this but can I get a link to the IIRC fix for the game?

It's bothering me that the virtual space will read the game enough to access the menus but that after that for anything not requiring the cd like Lans it still demands to find a cd drive. I don't have Rewritable disks or other capabilities to write cd's to copy paste for it. I tried switching the CD path directory in the Settings to send it on a path to it's own data files in the ToD, but nothing occurred.

The game data must be unpacked into a directory named WAR2, and WAR2 must be placed so that it is visible as itself in your DOSBox C mount.
Please double-check to ensure that is the case.

If you want to mount the directories manually, you need to mount either the TOD or DP sbdirectory as drive d, using the -t cdrom parameter

Help
 

Hi guys i'm a fan from Italy. I'd like to play Warcraft 2 but i'm not really an insider about dos box and those issues. Would you like to be kind and try to explain in the easiest way how to fix the problem that occur me when i start the game and it asks me for CD? I actually didn't get exactly the point about this sentence "the game must be mounted so that there's a C:\WAR2 directory visible inside DOSBox." in the voice "How to run" in the website. Thank you in advance.

Try to follow the tutorial first to get familiar with DOSBox: http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showthread.php?t=14406

Now, assuming you followed the tutorial, you have a C:\Oldgames directory that's mounted as your C drive in DOSbox on start.
Unpack Warcraft 2 from the archive into that directory.
Run war2.bat .
You're ready, enjoy the game. :)

For those with the problem of the game asking for a disk, check your autoexec section (scroll down to the end) in DOSBox options and make sure to delete the line that has -t cdrom at the end of it, that seems to have helped me after I basically stumbled over it while experimenting because nothing in this thread had helped me though I suppose I could have missed a post maybe.

Regardless, here's an example.

Delete the bolded line if you want to play WC2 as the bat file drive mounting seems to conflict with autoexec drive mounting. Happy playing! :)

Warcraft 2 on DOSBOX issues
 

After the file downloaded from Abandonia.. It is named warcra~1 7z on my dosbox when I perform a DIR. I can't seem to do a .bat file .exe on it. It keeps on saying illegal command. I hope someone had this same issue and was able to resolve it.
I mounted it as c C:\dosprogs\

c:

cd \war2
war2.bat


and it still don't work..

.7z means it's archive. 7z-archive, to be exact. Unpack it before trying to start.

That's weird. I thought we only did .zip archives?

No, we have 7z since long ago.

Ray, you can more easily do the unpacking in Windows outside DOSBox. What you have to mount later is the contents of the zip/7z, not the compressed archive itself.

http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showthread.php?t=17497

Nope.
Not working.
Followed them steps precisely:

1.-creating c:\oldgames
2.-unpacking the contents (copied war2 DIR directly to the c:\oldgames-folder)
3.-starting DOSBox v 0.70
-> mount c c:\oldgames
-> cd war2
-> war2.bat
line before start of game: **** TOD - directory doesn't exist

- editing the start.bat from TOD to ToD
- repeating steps 1.-3.
line before start of game: **** TOD - directory doesn't exist

- mounting the CD-ROM as follows:
-> mount d c:\oldgames\war2
- steps 1-3
line before start of game: **** TOD - directory doesn't exist

After exiting the game i'm told that drive D has been successfully removed.

I'm rather annoyed, spent 2h trying to get it to work. Since I've been a huge fan of your site for years now, some helpful advice would be greatly appreciated.

thx

Stan

So, does the directory exist? It should be in the war2 directory.

Anyway, I downloaded the game and it works just as promised. I extracted the archive with 7zip in my DOSBox C-drive, did cd war2 and executed war2.bat: game started, no problems.

You must be doing something differently or have missing files/folders. Also, if you already have a D-drive mounted before running the script (war2.bat) it won't work on the first run (it doesn't unmount the D-drive first, only after exiting the game).

war2.bat doesn't seem to be able to mount the cd properly.

mount c c:\oldgames
mount d c:\oldgames\war2\TOD -t cdrom

c:
cd war2
war2.bat

= same result

Just now noticed this. Is this true or typo? Current DOSBox version is 0.74, 0.70 is quite very old.

And it seems the mount-script doesn't work with 0.70, but I was still able to make the game work by typing the mount command for the CD-ROM manually.

Well, 0.74 sorta did the mounting part fairly well, thank you for that hint.

Still, ingame, Single-Player is not possible due to missing CD-ROM.

Are there any hardware - related issues possible? I'm running a 6700K i7 with a SSD - harddrive. OS is Windows 7 64bit Home Premium. Not an expert on that matter, thou.

No, DOSBox works pretty much the same on any hardware.

Originally, the game came on two discs - one for the base game and one for the expansion.

After running the BAT file, you are given three choices: Tides of Darkness, Beyond the Dark Portal, Exit.

When you choose one of the first two, the game will run with the according set of data mounted as the D drive.

In single player, you will only be able to play missions from that specific campaign set until you exit the game and start it again with the other option.

am i just dumb or is it impossible to run with the war2.bat ?
i tried the following things :
run it via autoexec:
mount c c:\war2
c:
cd\war2
war2.bat

so the following problem occured after running: Directory c:\war2\PREP.COM\TOD doesn't exist.
Illegal command:w2.

so i tried looking for the folder PREP.COM (pls no hate) and only found the application -> i put the app aside, created a new folder called PREP.COM, and put both TOD and DP in it (found it logically)

after the changes tried to run it again, new problem occured: Directory c:\war2\WAR\TOD doesn't exist
Illegal command: w2.

also Drive D isn't mounted, which i found strange since the bat should mount it itself?

so i thought damn world you got me cornered again..
after that i tried all other things posted here on the forum and on other sites, but nothing worked for me..
can someone explain my directory problem? (and yes i put everything in the right directory kek)
Regards

Another one :palm:
I have no idea what you people are doing differently. Every time I've tried running the game it works and I didn't have to change anything.

ok so apparently the .bat doesn't work with me when i put the warcraft folder into a differently named folder (e.g.) c:\games\war2
it seems to require you to put the war2 folder in a war2 folder, or in the "games" folder just war2 ( didn't test that ).7
Yay 3 1/2 hours of head against keyboard slashing, i found out that i need to put the game into a folder into a folder, both of the same name(c:\war2\war2), success! :)

C:\WAR2 is enough, works for me at least.

FYI: The Scripts that mount the Folders are not compatible with the file systems of all common Operating Systems.

If you are following the instructions given on this website to run the game and when you rune the game you are asked to insert the cd it means the script that mounts the folder for that cd did not work.
you can work around this by mounting them manualy E.G
mount d YourFilePathToFolder -f cdrom

DP is is the folder for the dark portal cd
ToD is for the Tides of darkness cd
These folders are in the war2 Folder

You're correct, I just tried it on Linux. But since everyone who had problems used Windows style paths I don't think this is the cause of their problems.

Anyway, the problem is caused by prep.com which creates start.bat. It uses the Windows style backslash "\" instead of forwards slash "/" (which would also work on Windows). It is easy to fix using a hex editor (or even a text editor). The start.bat script is embedded in the executable, just change the lines
@mount d "%wardir%\TOD" -t cdrom
@mount d "%wardir%\DP" -t cdrom
to
@mount d "%wardir%/TOD" -t cdrom
@mount d "%wardir%/DP" -t cdrom
and it works on all systems.

You've earned all your wizard ZZ's :)

I always planned to give this a try - for "historical" reasons and curiosity - but since Warcraft 3 was my first serious game (and one of the all time favorites), the feeling that step back would only disappoint kept on stopping me from even trying.

It takes some time to get used to (and Warcraft II is the most mass-unit-spam game in the series), and many comfort functions weren't invented yet - but if you never go through the very first Warcraft - Orcs and Humans game all the way through to Warcraft 3, you can't say Warcraft III is a serious game.

I thought "serious" as in "first one I put very significant amount of time into", nothing more than that.

A little problem
 

Hello everyone!
I was so happy to find one of fav games, downloaded it, used D-Fend to run it to only find out that I need a second CD.. The game asked me to put a second Cd which I don't have. Any suggestions?? Thanks in advance!

PS. Feel free to move my reply to another thread if this one isn't acceptable. :)

The archive includes the data of both CDs and when you start the game with war2.bat you select if you want to play the original game or the expansion pack. The script will then mount the appropriate data directory as a CD-drive in DOSBox and you can play the game you selected.

Hm... I don't have war2.bat :(
When I used wizard to install it I used SETUP. EXE

Downloaded the rip version. Found war2cd.bat.
Still asking to insert a CD and I didn't find anywhere where I can choose from original game or expansion. Little help please and thank you??!!!

There's no war2cd.bat in the Abandonia version.
This is where you select the game when you run war2.bat:
http://i.imgur.com/nvOxTECm.png

I’m a Medieval Man
 

As Gordon228 posted this interesting information in another Sub-Forum, I will be quoting his post and also a text from Wikia on the same subject:

You need this disc.

Check yourself. :)

Thank you very much for the link. :OK:

I already own the original disc versions of Warcraft I, Warcraft II and its expansion, although Warcraft II has been translated and dubbed into Brazilian Portuguese. :headslap: :palm:

Ugh! :sick: I hate the dubbed version in Brazilian Portuguese, because I think the original English version is better and more solemn in my opinion. *shrug*

And to be honest, I prefer Warcraft I than its sequel Warcraft II. I think the same thing about Dune II and its sequel Dune 2000.

I played this game a long time ago. To tell you the truth, I liked more its prequel, Warcraft I, for the OST and voices because I hated the Brazilian Portuguese dubbing in Warcraft II.

OTOH, I will admit that Warcraft II had improvements with the introduction of naval and air units, absent in its prequel.

Something tells me its high time the download is pulled down and a relevant GOG link is offered insted ;)

Wow!! It’s been a while since I’ve checked the “news” on GOG.com. :)

I am surprised they have added “new” games (Warcraft series, Flashback) available. :OK:

I just wanted them to add more memorable classic games such as the Commander Keen series, the Dune series, Diablo II and expansion (only for collecting), Gods, Heart of Darkness, Inca, Return of the Phantom, Reunion, Rome, etc. *shrug*