Syndicate
 

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

A very inderesting game was syndicate 2 also... I liked its 3D graphics ( although as a game it offered very few in comparison with syndicate 1 ) ... Is syndicade 2 abandonware?

Syndicate Wars is available for download over at Home of the Underdogs.

People should probably know that Syndicate Wars will no longer work properly on machines with CPUs of 2GHz or more.

Game speed is far too fast so you must use CPU slowdown programs. However, the game is badly designed (not gameplay but coding) so any slow down programs only make the game EXTREMELY CHOPPY.

OMG, I finally found it!
Syndicate! I was so good in this game ones, I wonder how I'm now :?
When I first started to find abonden games I was accually just looking for
Doom 2 (Which you almost can find anywhere)

God damn this is a good game, the Syndicate War wrecked the game becouse it was so bad.
I don't need to look anymore for abonden games anymore.

PS: Got Incredible Machines? That was really a fun game :lol:
Ah yes, good old times :roll:

You might be able to find Doom2 anywere but it is not abandonware but oldwarez and therefore even more illegal as abandonware. But have fun with Syndicate.

There is no setsound utlitly or setup for sound at all for syndicate. You'll have to manually edit synd.bat and edit the IO port, dma and irq for your soundcard. Even though it doesn't seem to like my soundcard on my old 486 nor my 1.8ghz. :/

Best game ever! no discussion about that!!!!

savegame doesn't work ... sound either ... y ?

Try that out, I posted this on troubleshooting thread, sticky syndicate:

Good Game.
 

This game is great, I consider this game the first real "GTA" game. I mean, this might sound bad, but I really enjoyed just walking around the map, and stealing cars and stuff. Also, the best weapon in this game was by far the flame thrower!!
-Sean

Yeah, the flamethrower cleaned up whole areas in the game :lol:
But the minigun (that one with awesome power and fast shooting rate) is also not to be understimated.

Neither is the long range rifle.
(As long as you don't encounter a lot of enemy sindicates).

But my absolute favourite is the minigun :twisted:

Dude I loved that gun, I use to go up in high areas and just sniper. The only thing with this game, is as much fun as it was, I remember not being able to beat it. I recall that all the countries I controlled would revolt and cause mass problems for me. But that was a long time ago when I played this game last, so I'd probably be able to beat it now.
-Sean

You just raised the tax-rate too high. If you keep it at 5-15%, you still should get enough money and the population in countries under your iron hand could even grow larger (especially with 5% or less). They lose people if the tax is too high, too (cause you get less money).

How do you "take the roofs off" buildings so you can look around inside them?

As far as I know, you can't.

I always use my map when moving inside houses. Just click on the map, instead of in the screen.

I'm stuck on the second mission, where you have to persuade the scientists, I have persuaded all of the scientists and had fun walking around shooting people but how do you evacuate from the area? I have gone back to where I started but i still don't know how to end the level.

The map will flash indicating where you should go. When you are in the middle of the evacuation circle, just press Space.

Hmm, interesting, I'll have to remember that. I also remember the game getting really tough when you had to fight rogue cyborgs, that sucked!
-Sean

Yes, that part is hard. Just keep shooting them with the minigun (you should have researched it already by the time and upgraded your's cyborgs a little and have enough money to buy the miniguns, if not, spend little time with waiting for money & research in the menus). In first 2 encounters with them the MP's could suffice also, but after that - only minigun.
In some of the missions, you also can use flamethrower against them effectively - if you place your's cyborgs strategically, they (enemy) may move into a house, when they are after you, just approach the house carefully, and, if they don't come out then, carefully move into the house and start burning 'em :twisted: Just don't forget, they can shoot at you in the house too, just not that often like outside.
Also if there are enemy cyborgs from more than one company in the level (different head-colors), they may get on themselves first too, just let them until there is only small amount left. When they're after you again, start shooting them (minigun, of course).

I always felt totaly jiped that the big milatary APC type thing didnt have a cannon that you could shoot at ppl

btw did ne1 ever play the mega drive version of this? this cars were controled by the keypad so it was relly easy to run ppl over it was a hell of alot of fun but most cars are pretty week so some agent would always come along and take out your whole group :(

I'll have to remember all these great tips when I play it again. I actually do remember using the cars, they were great! I use to flamethrow cars in the streets and watch them exploded :twisted: Good times. That's why I stick to my earlier statement about how syndicate was the first true Grand Theft Auto.
-Sean

:twisted: OH MY GOD, this is the only game i've ever really loved, it has everything! story, gameplay, originality. ITS GOD DAMN AWESOME!!!! i love it. can't believe i just stumbled on this site. wow, what a suprise!!!!!! yehaaaa, civilians, here i come with ma Gause gun!!!!

Splash. Blood everywhere :w00t: :blink: :twisted:

Just wait till we place up Syndicate Wars :sneaky:

I heard Syndicate Wars was not as good as the first, but I'm curious so I'll definitely try it out. ;)

syndicate is one of the best games ever, though i never got to try the expansion for it and the second syndicate was one of the worst games ever when i played it. it just was horrible i didnt enjoy it one bit.

Actually, I quite liked Syndicate Wars. The atmosphere of high tech and black/dark urban decay, and the improved graphics. Also, in one of the original Syndicate (S1) missions, once shooting started every flipping enemy agent on the map started running at me (don't know if this was scripted, or a bug with the enemy AI)

Also, on the second mission, you have to be careful when going to the extraction point - it's near a sewer. I went inside the sewer, and 2 of my agents died immediately, so I had to restart the mission! Not sure if you are not supposed to go in it, or if it was a bug, and I was supposed to go in there....

As for the Genesis version, I think you could only control one agent at a time....er....but I wasn't really paying attention.

A major problem with Syndicate Wars (SW) was the manual - (actually, 2 manuals), which had quite a lot of errors and important stuff missing. Like how to get out of the game from a mission that you had failed....press escape, not spacebar (the latter just restarted the mission-so you could end up trapped-especially if your agents couldn't be self destructed!).

In addition, unlike in S1, you don't seem to receive cash as time elapses (since I think this meant people would leave their computers running all night to accumulate cash - why the game designers didn't have it so that cash only accumulated during the time taken for game missions I don't know (although, you could get round that by completing the mission, then waiting before getting to the extraction point).

Even worse, the manual says that Eurocorp Syndicate departments are supposed to pay each other for services rendered - though who pays you is not clear. It seemed that the only way to get funds was to;
1: Take weaponry off dead enemies and sell it
2: Rob banks (BUT again, the game doesn't state which buildings are banks! (And they don't have a big "BANK" sign on them either!) Luckily, I figured out which were the buildings - and how to rob them (er....you have to blow up the bank, by putting explosives either near a wall on the INSIDE of the building, or near a door on the inside of the building).

Oh yeah, weaponry works differently in this game - no solid state ammo - each agent has a "Microfusion reactor" powerpack, which constantly generates power for a battery. Each weapon in the game depletes this battery (faster than it is generated). When out of power, you have to run and hope you stay alive long enough for the reactor to get enough juice so you can fire your weapon again. Because of this, each agent CANNOT have more than one copy of each weapon or item (not even medkits, although you can equip a medkit and an auto-medkit).

Luckily, it turns out that miniguns, despite being the 2nd weapon you get (the basic firearm for this game is the uzi!), are actually better than the more advanced (and expensive) pulse laser and electron (er....electric?) gun - so no problems with selling those!

Another problem was that the game engine could be unstable - probably due to the fact that the game allowed 360 rotation, zooming in and out, and (I think) view angle changing, as well as "deep radar" (buildings which were in the way would turn into semi-transparent purple blocks, so you could see everything). Probably too experimental or beyond current technology or something. Sometimes, I got white lines going everywhere along the pavements.

Then, finally, the key for the radar in the manual - which wasn't completely accurate. What it failed to mention was that in many levels, you would have to kill people whose termination weren't strictly mission objectives (i.e.: not highlighted by that red moving circle thingy). It also failed to mention that there were quite a few agents and combat operatives who were NOT on your side.

Syndicate Wars was a game that i wanted to review but it's been called im waiting for the review to be posted. I will try it out when it's posted. Also when playing syndicate with DOSbox it quits after i do the 1st mission how can i stop that?

I think you need to create a director called save to save your games.

Hmm...actually I don't use dosbox to play Syndicate...I just double click on it, or run with VDMS. I probably should, seeing as I don't get any sound running it in this way! Don't have any save problems though....

Also, there seems to be a crash bug - the game sometimes immediately exits to Windows(XP) when 1 or more timebombs blow up on screen - which is a bit annoying (it first happened on the mission set in India, when you get rushed at the start of the mission by lots of enemies equiped with minguns and timebombs. Also, the timebombs blow up if you shoot them!

I own real copy of syndicate plus :max:

Such a scary game it used to be... oh boy!

:blink: :blink:


YES!!!!

Any chance you can figure out which files are the animations? The guns, the skeleton and so on?

Hmm....actually I can't get sound no matter if I use XP with VDMS, XP without VDMS, or Dosbox. Ah well....doesn't appear to be too critical a problem.

My syndicate has no sound and crashes to desktop ocassonaly.
Is there any way to solve these problems.

Oops...didn't log in that time.

Double oops....this sound question was answered in a previous post....to get sound, somebody suggested that you had to enter a file and manually change the soundcard settings, since the game doesn't have a sound setup program. But I can't really be bothered....yet.

I found that sometimes I get booted out of the game back into Windows XP when a time bomb goes off on screen. Usually, I either try to not have the explosion on screen (ie.: be looking at some other area of the map), or to restart the computer (I think the program seems to have a limit to the number of explosions it will allow before booting you out, and restarting the computer resets this. Restarting the program without restarting the computer DOESN'T do this).

(I'm just guessing....but this seems to be what is happening on my computer)

Also, has anyone else figured out how the drugs work?
On the agent status panel in the top left, below the picture of the agent is are 3 bars with a white line in the middle - left click or drag to the left or right of the line moves it and doses the agent(s) with a drug).

I know that the red one speeds up your agents (if you move it to the right). The white line will gradually move rightwards as the agent's tolerance to the drug increases - eventually, the drug will have no effect if left on forever). Simply move the slider all the way to the left until the white line is back in the middle.

BUT does anyone know what the blue and yellow drugs do? I know that one of them boosts accuracy (cos in one mission, you have to kill someone on a rooftop-that rooftop has no direct access, and the only way to kill her is to go up on a nearby rooftop and shoot her with a long range rifle. Well, after 10 shots, despite having a red (in range) targeting reticle (i.e.: not a white one), she was still alive, so I decided to put all the drugs to maximum - and killed her with the next shot.

Also, I think this explains why enemy agents suddenly go fast and psycho only AFTER they've been intially shot by you.

BTW I don't like the LR rifle - too weedy and slow rate of fire. Syndicate Wars had a much better one - It fired 1 really powerful slug to a long range - only problem was it often depleted ALL your weapon power in 1 or 2 shots, although 1-4 shots was normally enough to kill and agent.

Er....does anyone know how many shots with LR rifle are needed to kill an agent? Also, does using the accuracy drug make shots more lethal? Or just more likely to hit?

Woohoo! I finally found Syndicate, like all of you guys did ages ago probably :D

My favourite weapon: without doubt the ever-powerfull PERSUADERTRON moehahaha

Actually, with like brain version 2 of something, you can just easily complete every level just persuading some cops then waiting in a corner for enemy agents... So every now and then i just go playing violently for a change LOL :w00t:

I uploaded original manual and SB16 optimized version of Syndicate long time ago. Hope they will upload them on the web site.

I also have no sound in syndicate, and would really like to play this game with sound! Somebody please help! I've tried everything so far suggested in this thread and nothing works!

You should try to list your computer specs and which program / OS you are trying to run the game in :bye:

if you cant get it running in dosbox (you should be able to though) try using the amiga port and WinUAE

yeah its a great game... anyone got a scanned manual? I own the game in a OEM version and it's no manual there.

Anyone figured out how to play over network, it think you should be able to do it...?

i found the game doesnt work with dosbox at all

to run with windows XP SP1 i did:

Install VDMS
right click on it, compatibilty settings, 800x640 resolution, 256colours and then the last one "disable someting"

should work fine. remember to run setup to set up your sound cards : just use sound blaster 16ones. seems to work with my sound card

I thought I would clear up some misinformation. The version uploaded here has some problems you need to fix before you can play it, no matter how you run the game.

1. Stability -- the dos4gw.exe in this game is terrible and causes crashes. Download a new dos4gw, preferably 1.97 or newer.

2. Sound -- for some reason, that sound files aren't in the proper directory. Copy all the dlls, ani, tab, and other non-exe files to the DATA subdir. That enables sounds.

VDMS notes (win 2k, xp)
Disable MIDI and joystick
Cap dos timer rate
Slow down the cpu according to how fast it seems
Enable VESA video

This works to get the game running and with sound as well. Only the "win" screen is jerky.

you know u coulda jus gone to gamefaqs.com for this but il lsave u the trouble

Gain $100 million
To receive one hundred million dollars, type ''Rob A Bank'' as your company name.

Quicken time
To speed-up time, type ''Watch the Clock'' as your company name.

Unlock all missions
To unlock all missions to select, type ''Nuk Them'' as your company name.



Team Names

Enter your team name as the following:Password Effect
COOPER TEAM Unlock everything

I used to play Syndicate on my Macintosh LC575 back when I was 13, boy did it corrupt me. I used to go around dropping time bombs in large crowds, and when everyone was running around in terror after the explosions I would pick them off with gauss guns. Bodies everywhere!

Me and some friends have gotten together and are making an RPG inspired by Syndicates gameplay, if anyone is interested. The working title is "Three Cities".

I have the cd of syndicate plus,the expansion rocks.

I have a version of the game that seems to work perfectly. The sound seems perfect and I get a nice fps.

If anyone would like, I'm sure we can talk about it, p2p :D.

One thing that is funny about my Syndicate is that it's twice the size as the one yuo guys are hosting here, with twice as many files.

well even using dosbox in win2k it still crashes after about 5 seconds

Version I have does not crash. I'll check with admins to upload it again and make sure they replace it this time. (I already did it once)

great game. ive been playing it a lot, and ive discovered that at the start of each level, all the enemy agents seem to rush at you in the first few seconds. is this supposed to happen?! cos it makes the later levels extremely hard!
:sniper:

Love the website. Nice to see all the old games I've been looking for on here. But Syndicate is a pain...can't get any sound even in DOSBOX. Can someone lay out some instruction on how to get my sound to work? I saw someone mention editing the Sound.bat file, but I didn't find a file by that exact name. Also, what program do I need to edit the sound bat? Thanks...

Hi,

Big fan of this game, so I was stubborn about getting it to work. I experienced most of the problems listed in this topic, so I thought I'd share how I got around them all.

I'm running WinXP with DosBOX and the front end D-FEND. You can get it running without D-FEND, but I recommend it - it's system of profiles makes getting games to run enormously easier. You can get it from:

http://members.home.nl/mabus/dfend.htm.

1. I copied all the non .exe/.bat files into the data directory to get the sound working.

2. Using DosBOX config file or D-FEND profile, I changed the Soundblaster IRQ to 5 (I found no need to edit the synd.bat file)

3. Bumped the CPU cycles up to 10,000 - again, you can do this in the DosBOX config file or using D-FEND (this cured the pause-while-moving-the-mouse problem)

4. Downloaded the latest version of Dos4gw (link in this topic) and replaced the old dos4gw.exe with the new .exe file. I had to do this within DosBOX, because for some reason WinXP insisted a program was using all my syndicate/DosBOX files and wouldn't let me move or rename them.

5. The new Dos4gw would throw up an error whenever I bypassed the intro sequence. It's non-critical, but to get around it, I renamed intro.exe so Syndicate couldn't find it and then it would jump straight into the main menu (I thought using main.exe rather than synd.bat would have the same effect, but it didn't).

I hope this helps people. It's such a great game, so it's worth persevering. Hasn't aged too badly, I must say.

When i played Syndicate a decade ago there used to be a hotkey or control move that jacked up all your agents drug bars to full and equipped their most powerful weapon- i think it was both mouse buttons together- but it doesn't seem to work now. Anyone with a manual can shed light on this?

Both mouse-buttons is correct. (Double click ;) )

this used to be like my favorite game, i also remember this was the first game that my mom refused to let me play. i never did beat this game, but hopefully now i can. ALRIGHT LETS DO IT.

Does anyone know where can i find Sindicate: American Revolt..(extra missions) i used to own a CD and i remember American revolt being really really hard! Didnt finish a single mission; Now i think i am ready for payback :sniper:
i have some frustrations left since Atlantic city mission LOL

I am almost sure I have it somewhere....But I need to find that damn CD first...
And yes it IS incredible dificult.Just for experienced Syndicate players... :rifle:

I'm looking for American Revolt too :) Playing Syndicate has brought back fond memories :P Whatever happened to good gameplay?

Toby -

Well done!!! That worked like a charm, I had no idea what I was doing with DFEND when I went through all those settings to create a profile, but I did what you mentioned - changed IRQ, installed DOSBox, etc. and when it came up suddenly sound was working. And it went into the intro, which it wasn't doing before.

I can't wait to play this...I actually bought the boxed version a year or so ago for about $10 to play again, but the combination of no sound and a mouse that moved VERY slowly forced me to give up.

Syndicate was always a blast, so I'm really looking forward to this.

One thing I might point out to others that go this route...I found that the mouse speed was still a problem, so using dfend I right clicked on my syndicate profile, selected edit, and on the general tab I changed the mouse speed from 100 to 250. I had to experiment for a while to get it where I liked it, so you may want a different value.

Also, I found that when I got to the main menu instead of controlling the green mouse arrow I was getting a magenta "shadow" mouse...this is easily fixed by alt-tabbing away from DOSBox and then selecting it from the program bar.

If I know what you are saying, you could more easily, just click on the DOSBox program while it's already open. You shouldn't have to alt-tab or anything.

If what I stated is a different scenario than what you are talking about, just disregard this message.

hey im having alot of trouble getting syndicate running using dosbox i can get sound but it jutters extremely slow (i've done all thats been suggested), but just using normal dos4gw(1.74) i could get it going, small lags with the mouse and no sound.. i've done everything that these posts have suggested but have those problems.. just gunna list my pc specs and hope someone can help me cause i REALLLY wanna play this again!!

intel celeron 533mhz
about 320mb sd ram
direct agp hardware 11mb dynamic video memory

ye my pc is old and crap LOL
thanks

what a game :kosta:

the second 1 was good 2

There seems to be an error in the review... the Syndicate agents are NOT androids... they're cyborgs. The intro clearly shows them kidnapping some guy to turn him into one of these mind-controlled cyborgs.

:D Must Have for all Neuromancer, Cyberpunks and Runners :evil: Syndicate :sniper: the world

Does anyone know how else to get the damn sound working on this game???? I have a $5000 Toshiba laptop, and I cannot for the life of me get the damn sound to work....but the game plays ok!
Does anyone know a better emulator than DOSBox that might solve this problem??

VDMSound.

search google for it, install it, right click synd.exe (or whatever the syndicate application is) and click run with VDMS sound.

should work, thats hwo i get sound.

Love this game!!! but I got addicted to the SNES version and never came back to it. the SNES versions a bit different but still awesome :ok:

Know what the stupid thing about that is? They GOT VDMS on Abandonia. They should just put that VDMS button on more games :tai:

Ah it's great to be playing syndicate again. Has anyone remember the columbia mission in south america, where you have to find an ambulance and get is to the doctor then protect doctor while he drives the ambulance to the patient? I can't get the stupid AI controlled doctor to get into the ambulance. Can anyone help me get past this mission?

I've just replayed that mission.

Once you get the ambulance, drive it towards the doctor. When you are close to the doctor, leave the car and walk up to the doctor. Follow him, keep close to him -it might take some walking around before he leaves the platform. He will automatically enter the car (DO NOT persuade him, that's not necessary). Then enter the car and let the doctor drive. You have to be quick in order to get aboard the car, so it's best to make sure all agents' stimulant levels are maximized.

Another classic ^_^

First played on the AmigaCD 32*!
Yes, I was one of the '20' owners of the AmigaCD 32
What an amazin console - way before its time


-={ Abe+ }=-

Ah memories of me cousin playing this...i didnt understand it at all just walked around n got shot :( games great but OMG how bad is the direction AI u have to click them to every corner if u try clickin to far ahead they just walk round in a circle. :ranting: :wall: Oh yeah can anyone explain how to get more agents i know its somethin with the peursuadatron o something but all i seem to get is hippys following me which i dont want LOL

Walk around with the persuadertron on. Once you've 4 civilians following you, officers will start to be persuaded as well. I don't know the exact figure after that, but once you've got enough persuaded civilians and officers, you'll be able to persuade enemy agents. Of course this is sometimes rather risky, as their weapons outrange your persuadertron.
However I remember there was 1 particular mission that could be played using only a persuadertron, persuading some 10 enemy agents.

but i dont like crowds following me and besides anytime get near an agent they end up wasting half of the followers right there i need help :(

'20'?

Amiga it self was great, but they made mistake with CD32, which was first 32bit console, with 16bit games.

The civilians and officers are cannon fodder... and if you try to pick up weapons and you've got persuaded civilians nearby, they might arm themselves with those weapons. They as well as persuaded officers give you some extra firepower.
If your mission is to persuade or protect someone, this will only hinder you, but it can be useful during sweeping missions, where you only have to kill all the enemy agents.
A last tip: when sneaking up on enemy agents to persuade them (after you've persuaded enough civilians and officers), boost your agent's three "bars" to their maximum so that he or she will be running at maximum speed. Use the cover of buildings to get close to the enemy agent. And remember you can persuade someone who is behind the corner. :sneaky:

And you don't need to persuade lots of enemy agents. I've played all missions except the Atlantic Accelerator using my original 4 agents plus 2 spares that were already in the cryogenic chamber at the start of the game. So I didn't need to persuade any enemy agents at all.

Well i hate a huge crowd with me say ok i needed 8 ppl to pursuade before getting an agent and all 8 got shot would that mean i have to get another 8 or once i reach the number 8 its permanent.
Also bit off topic but when i try running this game *or any other for that matter* theres always a bit of the left screen cut off and a blank black space on the right *about the same amount as what is cut off on the left* so it seems the prob could be fixed by readjusting it to the right a bit its annoying cause everyone says just press alt+enter and its the same effect on al games *iv tried changin resolution to 800x600 but it didnt do anything.

I played this for a while recently (until I got addicted to UFO). How do you centre on your active character? I can't remember, so I have to scroll back as fast as I can (which is not fast enough sometimes) if I have separated my characters.

Incidentally, a strategy that I remember working for me really well years ago when I finished this game was to get those shields or whatever they're called (I think you have to research "miscellaneous" a couple of times). They shield you from all enemy bullets. They wear down gradually though and once they're fully depleted they won't recharge. However, if you have several (I can't remember how many), you can switch to another before the current one is fully depleted and while you're using the second (or third or fourth) shield, the first will recharge (so at all times, you'll have one fully recharged shield and several being recharged). In this way, it's possible to basically walk around completely immune to your enemies forever. I seem to remember this working really well on the final mission. You can do that mission with just two characters with this method. You'll get swamped by enemy agents, but all you have to do is let them massacre each other with stray shots while you're immune, and when there are only a couple of enemies left, usually centred on one of your characters, you can use the second character to pick them off with whatever weapon you like (including enemy miniguns you pick up from the ground).

At first sight (I only had time to try it out once, and it's not easy to have all the persuaded people massacred since your own weapons won't harm them) the number seems permanent.

> Shorbe: thanks for the tip, I think it's really valuable to anyone who wants to finish the accelerator :ok:

another_guest: I can't imagine how it would be possible to complete that level with any other method as it's just crazy. From memory, there are so many enemies and it's hard (if not impossible) to hide anywhere and pick them off with a flamethrower. I think the sheer amount of ammo needed would also make it impossible.

> Shorbe: Indeed! I always ran out of ammo quite fast (and the weapons from fallen enemies are never fully loaded even if they hadn't used them at all), so I kept packing lots of miniguns or an occasional gauss gun. In turn, this meant that I never had more than 2 or 3 shields per agent, and I guess that was the reason I never managed to complete that mission. The best I ever did was killing about half of the enemy agents. I never thought of taking even more shields :whistle:

I got this game long time ago but I never passed the secound mission for this guy in the house doesn't want to come!! They say I need to persuade him but how do I do that? :crazy:

Once you've killed the 3 guards in front of the house, activate your persuadertron (so that it lights up in orange below your agent's icon).
Then use the map to navigate your agent: left-click your target on the map and your agent will walk towards it. Once your agent is close enough, the persuadertron will affect the target and you'll see his white dot turn to yellow. From then on he'll follow you everywhere you go.

Note that walking inside buildings is easy using the map, but not always when there are enemies inside that building. Here it just works fine because there are no guards inside.

Only one stupid quastion- how do I activate my persuadertron!?!

Look at the top-left corner of the screen, with the 4 agents depicted there. Below that you'll see the weapons the currently selected agent is carrying. Left-click the persuadertron once and it will be activated. Clicking it again will de-activate it (the symbol will no longer light up).

Do you know where to get this as a mod or add on? If so please where :ok:

Not bloody likely... it is a game made when games were pretty much unmoddable. That said, I could be wrong.

I own the original floppy disk version of this game and I have a problem.

I saved the disks on a CD. Now I only have a Laptop without floppy drive.

When I try to install the game it checks if the disk has the right label.

With Dosbox I can mount a directory as floppy with a label, but then he wants disk 2 ...

Anyone has an idea how to solve this?

Hello. I play this game for a little while now and I've just arrived in India. Now the ennemies have time-bombs and, like someone sais before, after 3 or 4 explosions the game crashes. Did somebody knows how to fix that (other than looking elsewhere during the explosions). I run Syndicate under XP with VDM and it's too slow under DosBox (even when changing CPU cycles)

Please help me. :help: I love this game and I'd hate to stop it just because of these damn crash !

Well, I do hope someone will come up with a solution, but as far as I know none exists.
And even Dosbox doesn't help: the game ran fast enough through Dosbox, but the crashes still occured.
:angry:

well, it crashes in winxp under dosbox....but if you have dual-boot (win98se as a second OS) it works perfectly. at least for me...

this game is awesome! i played it 12y ago, when it was just released on amiga 1200...i remember that i wasn't sleeping for days until i didn't finished it. and then it came mission disk...but that was *dirty word* heavy. great game :ok:

I found out I could dl it in this site..
haha
let me try...
This is the most awesome game ever!! :cheers:

sorry but this game is ESA protected.So you could try e-bay or some other store :)

I was able to get Syndicate to run under DosBox in WinXP without crashing!

Here's what I can remember about what I did.

I set synd.bat to my DosBox soundblaster settings in order to get sound working. They're both set to IRQ:7 DMA:1 IO:220. DosBox cycles are set to 10000 and memory up to 128MB.

I do get one error when running synd.bat in DosBox, something about not enough extended memory, although XMS and EMS are on.

The game runs fast enough, but sound anywhere BUT the missions is stunted. As long as the game isn't stunted I'm happy!

I get the feeling that the crash problem is the memory settings. DosBox is set to 16MB by default, and is probably not enough for the game.

Actually, DosBox can only use max. 64MB of RAM, no matter how much higher you set it. So no 128MB.
And if I remember correctly, Syndicate only needs around 4MB RAM, after all the game came out in 1993.

YES!! I just found my original copy of the game which had been stored in the attic for some time. I got this game as a present in a "Classics"-box, which includes American Revolt, a couple of years after it was released. I didn't get very far because I didn't really understood how the game was played since I was only around 9-10 years old when I played it. But now... I'm going to finish it :)

I'm having a bit of trouble getting the game to work. When playing the game "au naturelle" in WinXP the time flows really fast in the world map. In Dosbox however, I can't save games! Help!

Mount in DosBox not like that:
mount c c:/games/syndicat (assuming that's where you have the game)

but like that:

mount c c:/
c:
cd games/syndicat

because the game saves the games in a different folder than where it's located. ;)

Perfect! Mounted it as following:

mount c c:/
c:
cd synd/save

... and created the above folders. Now saving works like a charm. Really nice!

can someone tell me tricks for the game?

BTW, does someone know any special parameter that you can enter so you won't have to see the intro movie when you start the game?

I'm not sure if there's one at all, but try synd.exe /nointro or synd.exe - nointro ?

1) Tricks for the game?
In what direction were you thinking, what aspects are you having trouble with?

2) Skipping the intro?
For me it works to press spacebar.

Yeah for me too, but what I meant was to skip it alltogether meaning you enter the menu right away. Because when I press spacebar to skip the intromovie it has to load about 6-7 seconds before the menu comes up which is a bit annoying in the long run.

Then increase the CPU cycles and see if that helps. Should actually. ;)

Well, won't that increase the speed of the whole game? Because the game itself right now runs in a speed as it is supposed too.

Increasing the number of CPU cycles shouldn't change anything about the game speed, except if the initial number was too low (which would then cause the game to lag a bit). It could help for the intro skipping though.
I never needed more than a second to skip the intro and get to the main screen, but I run main.exe instead of synd.bat
However I have no idea if this is possible with the version here on abandonia, if those files are included there as well.

It would be the same difference as between a 486DX2-66 and Pentium 133 - the difference in speed in the game won't be any noticeable, but the loading of parts of the game would be quite faster. ;)

The problem for me is the music, not the sound..., i don't have any music.. i want the music.

ps: i specify that i don't have a sound blaster

But you did not specify do you use DOSBox, VDMSound, operating system, etc.

You should tell us rest of it, so that we can figure it out. ;)

i use just winxp, nothing else.

Then go to the troubleshooting section and read the FAQ's there. Everything is explained.

This game has very good gameplay, but the thing that got me hypnothised is graphics and design in general. It is a real piece of art. :kosta:

OKay....lesse...if you d/l'd the game and aren't getting any sound. couple things u can try. For me I have windows xp....
1)got my d/l off of gamebird.....I don't know what files are included on this site hopefully similar
2)dosbox was in it too....game run fine with no sound
3)d/l vdm sound from newhere. the newest version is 2.0.4
--ran into a problem after d/ling vdm sound.....dlls were not being installed....just ignore it for now...
--check out the sourceforge forums...this is where I got the answer for the vdm sound not being installed properly....in one of the replys they include a zipped file archive which after d/ling and then opening and double clicking on magically vdm sound now works
5)oh yeah....I also copied everything in the main folder into the data folder...I doubt this did anything to help....but hey I was trying anything to get the sound to work- sound works good except for .......
6)finally....for me the sound is working...but yeah I notice the same thing...the game will crash when too many explosions i.e. the time bombs go off.....One thing I do is just equip my squad with a whole muck load of lasers....cuz after the enemy agents are killed they just dissapear and drop nothing...so I guess its an alternate fix...just wipe em out...if ya need ta feel safe though carry a spare minigun wit ya and a medpack.....5 lasers usually last a whole sweep :sniper: ....except in the accelerator mission
7)someone had a question as to what the bars are for...
a)red bar- makes em move faster
b)blue bar - Makes em hella accurate
c)doodoo yellow bar - makes em kill threats on their own.. :Titan: "just sit back and watch"
8)The original reason why I came here was to check if neone had an easy way to finish off the peru mission....the one where the doods in the bunker in an apc....and always seems to get away even when I leave one of mine around the rear to blow him up if he comes out....I never see him leave though...neway...imma try it again now....hope this muck helps sumone out ... eaazy :ok:

Groovy game! :ok:

Blue Bags: I'll see about that Peru mission when I managed to get home one of the next weeks. It must have been feasible and not as damn difficult as the Atlantic Accelerator, since I've finished the Peru mission more than once.
I might be able to provide you with an answer much sooner, if Syndicate is still on my laptop, but feel free to ask again if I don't reply in a few weeks time...

Oh hey.....I found an easy way to pass the peru mission....I just used a gauss gun from the beginning and shot at the tunnel the dood is walking in...and he just burned and died.....easy level....just gotta think outside the box..... :Brain:

Oh yeah one more thing......thinking outside the box like.....u don't need any shields for the atlantic accelerator mission....maybe just one medkit...one minigun...and all the lasers u can carry. The last thing u need is a quick finger...to set all your agents into panic mode from the start and starting zapping up the agents with your lasers....keep the agents in panic mode and slowly move forward...I never used any shields...just lasers...once in awhile I used the minigun to kill sum guards and grab their weapons...but hey this level is so much easier now that I'm playing this game when im older...neway maybe this will help people....can beat the accelerator level in bout 2 minutes this way.....eaazzy :sniper:

One question I do have is...where can I get "syndicate american revolt" expansion....I heard its harder....I really wanna try that :sick:

oh yeah one more question.....does syndicate wars really suck that bad??? I remember playing syndicate on the playstation 1 and it totally sucked in every way......ah well Im off to d/l and play sum dune 2....the next conquest I never finished as a kid. :ph34r:

What's the best way to get max taxes and happy peons, i mean population,,,,taxes should be around .,.i must say this is just the begginig of the game,.

30% or more for missions you can complete with ease and without losing too much money on ammo. Like for most of Western Europe, you could let taxes skyrocket if you want.

Most countries will feel comfortable (happy or very happy) with taxes of 25-30%

For some of the hardest countries I even dropped to 12-15% when I noticed the population growing less happy. You really want to avoid revolts there...

Of course there's always the "bug" that time passes by when you're looking at the research screen and similar screens, so if you wait a while, cash simply flows in (as long as your research costs don't exceed or equal your tax income). I never used that one, but it would certainly come in handy early in the game.

As far as I know that's not a bug but a feature of the game :)

That's why I used quotation marks ;)
I meant it's a little strange that you just have to leave your pc on that screen for a couple of hours, and all your money problems will be history, which is more than a little weird...

As for the Peru mission: I always posted 1 or 2 agents with gauss guns at the bunker exit (where the car makes its escape, below the platform where your agents are dropped at the beginning of the mission). Then I used another agent to get to the other side of the bunker (using a stolen car or the car in the top left corner of the screen). When the latter agent comes close, your target will run off. At that point, just give the other agent/agents a boost in their drug levels so they'll blast away the escaping vehicle as soon as it leaves the bunker.
But ok Blue_Bags, your way is even a lot faster :ok:

:kosta: Taxes u should just make em very happy....cuz the more u dominate the more money u eventually have, and revolts suck cuz u gotta play the whole thing over again.....things really don't start getting hard until u reach north and south america.....besides the only things u really need for maybe first 20 missions is the minigun upgrade, and modded agents all level 3.......oh yeah LASERS are the best weapon in the game....but minigun u get more ammo.
of course yeah u could just let the game run overnight to make things easier...but that way is so boring......neone know of ne other good games to get for free....dune 2 sucks

Thats sooooo untrue, but thats :ot:

For the missions when countries rebel i always thought it would be better to have a "hunt down rebels" mission that was randomly generated - like missions in UFO. It makes no sense to pacify a nation by <pursuading> a scientist !

Aside from that Syndicate was by first true love on the Amiga... dammit i might just start a new game !

i can't seem to find the download link for the game on the site. But seems like people have been posting on this thread that they have 'found it'. Has the link been removed since then?

Yes. That is why the download link says "No go"

Tom,
there is a link for walkthrough for this game, but that document is not really walkthrough. It is some sort of game instructions, but not the one supplied with the game.

Can we rename that file to what really represent?

oh, it reads "no go" :) i thought it said "no. 90!"

I put this in the troubleshooting thread, but I'm hoping someone here might have a different thought on it.
Please delete this posting if putting it in both places isnt allowed.
Thanks!!

I have a quick question, if anyone can help.
I've read through this whole thread and the other one under the Syndicate general discussion, but I haven't found anyone experiencing the same problem as I am.

I got the Syndicate file and everything unzipped fine.
Wouldnt play with sound in XP (duh.)
I installed VDMS and now the sound works for the intro, and the music works in-game, but for some reason i'm not getting the rest of the sound effects (the gunshots and stuff).

It seems to me, as a newb, that if the music is working, then its not my configuration that's messed up, maybe i'm missing the sound effect files?

Oh, I tried running dosbox but just got horribly confused.
The game runs perfectly with VDMS, for everything BUT the sound effects.

Thanks for any help!!!

I believe there are no sound effects in the game. I have a different version of Syndicate, not off this site, but I never had any sounds with it, nor on my old 486 nor in DosBox although I experimented a bit with the command-line parameters of the game.

There ARE sound effects in Syndicate. I have the old version that used to be here.

:sniper: Here is Mr. Syndicate talking, I was remenbering games of my old days when I found this page about Syndicate Bullfrog Inc. the best game ever. as I saw some people having problems with the game I decided to help. About saving the game: The game does not has to be played on DOS mode so u can be able to save, it automataclly generates a save directory, the problem is, the directory is always on the C:/Program Files, and so if the game isn't in the same directory it does not saves the game you're playing.
The only bug i've ever seen on this game is that my multiplayer mode doesn't works and if you're playing on an old pc, with low performance/RAM memeory, the textures can fail sometimes.

By the way, some people said that the flamer(flamethrower) is the best gun ever. that's only until your enemy get an UZI or MINI-GUN and I won't even metion what would happen if it had an GAUSS GUN.

Best weapon ever is the MINI-GUn, thou the PERSUADERTRON works pretty well.

Mr. SyndcateNinja(Syndja) :ph34r: :sniper: :ph34r:

:borg: Automated agents Rock!!!! :borg:

:guns: thou the Gunmans Roll!!!! :guns:

:rifle: And the Gunners Wreck!!!!:rifle:

"What doesn't kills you makes you stronger."
-Old Hellvish saying.
--------------------------------------S.M.O.D.----------------------------------------

Post Scriptum:The sound works better with ol' Creative Labs Sound Blaster 32 MB.
SoundBlaster in the Veins!!!!!! :max:

Textures? Multiplayer?
We talking about the same game here?

Was Internet existing when they made Syndicate? :blink:

Yup. It existed. In 1993 the first browser was created :D

Yes it did exist already then, but with multiplayer mode is not meant the playing over internet. It's the modem-connection where two people can play against each other, I guess, or otherwise a LAN-connection. I'm aware that there actually is the possibility to play Syndicate in more than just singleplayer mode, but I never was able to find out how with my version of the game (downloaded version off the net 1998, hehe).

Proud owner of the original and american revolt! :D

I own the CD (Syndicate + American Revolt) but I couldn't make it run. Then I read this thread, replaced DOS4GW.EXE and it works! :Brain: Thanks a lot pals!

So anybody who's got problems, the first thing you've got to try with this game is replacing DOS4GW.EXE with a newer version. The freeware 32-bit version linked here didn't work, but the one from X-Com - Terror from the Deep did the job. :beer:

Hello merry mass murderers :cheers:
I enjoy this game for the meaningful mayhem caused by my 4 rabid rascals, but for some reason every mission turns out the same: I stand there at the LZ with my 4 miniguns, all agents in a synthetic haze, and EVERY AGENT rushes towards me immediately. After a few minutes there are no enemy agents left, and I can go on with persuading or whatever. This repetitive pattern IS kind of a drag. Only in the mission where you have to reach an informant before the enemy, do I have to make a dash for it. Does anyone else have that problem?

Nope, that didn't occur in my version.

I don't know if I got you right, but I think that enemies, or at least policemen, attack you if any of your men is wielding a weapon, and ignore you if none is wielding any.

I don't know if I got you right, but I think that enemies, or at least policemen, attack you if any of your men is wielding a weapon, and ignore you if none is wielding any. [/b][/quote]
Thanks, but the problem is that all enemy agents 'spot me' the moment I start the mission. That makes the one mission where you're supposed to escort a lady exceptionally difficult. Every agent on the entire map comes rushing, the lady keeps walking, my cyborgs go ballistic, enemy agents die and drop time bombs, lady walks into bomb blast, lady gets killed, mission failed. The coppers I can handle, but not 20 suicidal wackos. I remember from my Amiga days that the enemy usually kept still untill you got well, at least, spotted. Not so here. So, I don't think concealing the pieces will do the trick here. In fact, a couple of times I forgot to 'ready the guns', they came and left me with 4 heaps of *yeuch*.

I found the laser really useful in this level because it makes you opponents disappear together with their timed bombs - security for the lady.
Just let your guys fire automatically they're quite smart. You just have to be quick and clever with your commands.

Oh man. I played this game back in the mid 90s on a Macintosh Performa. Its amazing how 13 years later, starting up the intro each scene comes flooding back. . the music. . its amazing what the human mind can do.

The version I found was around 6 or 7 megs. If youve got a copy with less than that, theres probably nothing you can do to get the sound to work. . just try and find the larger copy.

I distinctly remember being able to beat the atlantic scenario, because my comp ran so slow I got about 2 fps. Not that I knew what FPS were back in those days, but I could practicly see where the screen was being drawn down. :ok:

Not really fair, I would say.
The atlantic level is so hard but nothing abit of gauss can't fix! :sneaky:

My advice to anybody that starts playing- for the more advenced levels equip your soilders with atlist one sniper rifle to take care of enemy snipers. You should also get the minigun which is good for combats. Flamethrower is good for the first levels and for close combat since it kills enemies really quickly, but becarefull of longrange weapons, with a flamethrower you wont stand a chance.

a few months ago i finished syndicate and american revolt. my biggest tip is: use LASERS! in normal syndicate i thought that lasers suck, because they have low ammo and shoot slowly. only in the american revolt i found out that they kill all enemies in a straight line. so it's amazing for killing large groups of enemy agents. so i basically carried at least 4 lasers with every agent. i never used shields....i think my loadout in american revolt was something like 4 - 5 lasers, 2 medikits, and the rest were gausses, persuadertron or radar.

also, in the american revolt, always move. they will call airstrikes at your current position, but if you move it won't hit you. with lotsa moving, lasers and calling an occational airstrike, american revolt isn't that insanely hard (it's still pretty hard, just ok for my taste).

now i've finally finished it!!!
i gave up 12 years ago when the larger missions in this game ran soooooo slowly on my amiga 600
that i was losing the will to live


wheeeeeeee

OMFG! I have been looking for this game since i was 7! thats 13 years ago! Hurray! :brain:
But offcourse it's too good to be true, i cant play it on my computer. Dont know why but it looks like the screen is broken when i start the game, all the pixels are changing coullors so i cant see anything...=/ maby my computer is new.. if thats even possible? can anyone see a solution?

*maybe my computer is TOO new* ^_^

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Loffenstein @ Nov 2 2006, 12:56 AM) [snapback]264909[/snapback]</div>i run a 1 year old pc and it works fine with dosbox but you have to crank the frameskip up (ctr f12) to about 15000

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Nov 2 2006, 06:59 PM) [snapback]265038[/snapback]</div>i run a 1 year old pc and it works fine with dosbox but you have to crank the frameskip up (ctr f12) to about 15000
[/b][/quote]

That's not frameskip :P those are CPU cycles. Higher cycles mean a faster CPU you're emulating, with your own CPU being the limit of how high you can get those cycles without the sound breaking up.

Regrading the person earlier who said they had some sound but no effects the same thing happened to me.

If you try running the other files in the directory one of them works with sound. I think its the "Intro" one that does it.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(red_avatar @ Nov 3 2006, 09:57 AM) [snapback]265119[/snapback]</div>whatever it still works though

This is truly the best game around - esp the first version.

I am now trying to run it on XP home via DOSbox. I don't get the sound - but don't really care that. I do care, however, that I can't seem to fire my weapons.

My agents will walk around with the gun pointing, the weapon is marked and there is ammunition available, the cross hairs go red but nothing else happens.

what am I doing wrong?

cheers,

bj

The three bars under the agents active their cybernetic brain, eyes and legs if I recall that correctly. You have to set them all fully to the right and they aim and shoot on their own.
You can however (and sometimes you even have to) do right-click for firing the weapons manually.

Nope, the three bars are responsible for stimulant drugs.

Right-clicking is the primary way of attacking.

But the bars are indeed linked to brain, eyes and legs (from top to bottom).
For example to make your agent run faster, set the bottom bar to the right.

I think clicking both mouse buttons at the same time immediately set all bars for all agents fully to the right.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ Nov 10 2006, 03:10 PM) [snapback]266297[/snapback]</div>Is this about giving advice or being precise? :sneaky: :D

About being precise in giving advice, more like. ^_^

If you constantly use the stimulants, the trooper's dependency marker will move to the right -> effect of further doses will be decreased. This returns to normal after a while, and also works the other way round.

In other words, it is possible to use counter-stimulants to decrease dependency to mimimum (bars to the left until the white indicators move all the way there too) and then set the stimulants to maximum values, thus effectively turning your agents into superhuman killing machines (until the drugs wear off, that is).

Is there any way to group the agents other than "1 or all"? For some obscure reason, I think I remember that you could... But then again, my memory is as full of holes as a B-movie plot.

Try clicking on the other agent's panel when holding SHIFT?

i love this game... works fine for me under windows xp pro, when set on win95 compatibility mode... just no sound and the occasional crash, but i dont care...

You can use DosBox and VDMSound to make it run better :)

Hi, im really eager to play syndicate, but cant find where i actually download it? Can anyone please help

Thanks a lot

Hi, Syndicate is no longer available for download, click the "ESA - no go" button in the review page to learn more.

But you should be able to find it on ebay or similar sites. Only yesterday I came across a copy for a couple of euros...

Anybody where can i find syndicate

Hey

Where can i find Syndicate PLUS. I have a copy on CD ( 1997 or 1996 came with a creative bundle). CD is Scratched and cannot load.




Back in the day i Loved it. Was the best game ever.

Anybody?

Yeah well, you can buy it. Since it's protected and not downloadable for free.

Or maybe you write a nice letter to bullfrog with the CD and kindly ask them to give you a new one.
When they have the old CD they see that you spend money for it so you're a rightful owner of that game.
I actually do not think that the deveopers are that kind (otherwise we would have less probs hosting old games) but it's worth a try. Whadda ya think?! :sneaky:

I've seen that you can buy it on amazon as well.

Hi all, just read every post about this great game and can't tell you how excited to play it again! After reading all the posts, I used all the scattered helpful hints and successfully loaded the game on a P4 2.8GHz using D-Fend in Windows XP, SP 2, with ALL sounds, and no crashes (yet!). I hope I can help others who have had pretty much the same reoccuring problems. I'll address them as best as I can:

1) I was able to find a download for syndicate from another very popular DOS games site, so you should have no problem finding it.

2) Extract the files. (should be another zip file and a .rar file)

3) The additional zip file is a mistake, just delete it. Use winRAR to unpack the .rar file. (I put it in c:\program files\games\syndicate)

4) Now you should have a folder (synd) containing: two folders (DATA, SAVE), three .exe files (DOS4GW, INTRO, MAIN), and one .bat file (SYND).

5) Replace the dos4gw.exe file with version 1.97, available at http://www.pfxcorp.com/download/download.html (slightly below halfway down the page.)

6) Right-click synd.bat file, and select edit. Change BOTH iirq5 values to iirq7.

7) Use the D-Fend wizard to create a new profile for Syndicate, using main.exe as the "Game EXE" run file. I just hit "Auto Create" for mounting, which it does straight to the C Drive and works fine. Increase memory to 63MB and up the clock speed to 10,000 (ten thousand).

8) After the profile is created, edit the profile, go to the General tab, and check the boxes next to "Start Fullscreen" and "Auto Lock Mouse."

That should get you to a fully functioning experience complete with a working intro, music that changes according to the situation (you know when agents have spotted you just by listening), sounds for different weapons, and my favorite "DROP YOUR WEAPONS" when the police see you brandishing that shiny Uzi! I really hope this works for everyone else who is having problems. :) I gotta tell you, it really made me remember having to do this all back when the all-powerful blinking underscore was my tool in DOS! :rolleyes:

Happy Holidays everyone!

wichtig
 

sorry da german

wie kann ich syndicate auf mein rechner spielen:notrust:

Sorry, English forum.
Most of us don't speak German, so won't be able to figure out what the hell you meant in the first place.

Even more ironic, the post just above him explains step by step how to get Syndicate working on a modern-day computer...

And he even isn't able to write in a proper German...

Just like many native English speakers don't bother to post in proper English, either :P

Wot U meanzz? :amused:
Anyway, enough with the nonsense... Only last weekend I found myself wondering again why there is nothing close to a successor to the Syndicate games.

super
 

It's a super game. I liked it.

Syndicate Downloads
 

Hi everbody! When the game SYNDICATE is able to download? Why the game can´t be downloaded?
I downloaded some games in this site and i liked the abandonia.com. Great site.
Thanks for everything.
Alekos73

wait for real, why is this protected? the game protection ended in 2008 and all solid copies are sold

Because we weren't quite sure of the exact release date.
Should be safe now.

ok, edited

How about a little announcement?

Great game!

I have the Plus version, anyone want me to upload it?

Need a way to get sound. Anyone knows it?

This ?....................................

anyone noticed how one of the guns (laser i think it is) looks like a penis (oh no i just got shot by.......wtf......a penis?)

I was too busy looking at the swathe of ownage it causes. :D Man, my Dad used to play this a long time ago. I can see why he liked it. *pulls minigun out from behind trenchcoat*

I remember the first time I played this game. God I got hooked on it, I remember spending hours and hours playing to over and over again. Think I knew most of the maps by heart back then.

At the end I ran around and used the Persuadetron on anything that moved, which was quite fun :)
It became harder towards the end tho when the enemies started using the gauss gun which usually ment that 99% of the people I had with me died :s

I have Syndicate wars on CD and 3.5 and Syndicate Wars on CD. I enjoyed playing it back in the day but never finished it.:(

I was so young when I first played this that I actually used to get excited by the suggestive outlines of the female agents...

Panick Mode
 

Hi guys, panick mode doesn't work, the mouse cursor shoots of someplace strange and their stats don't go up, any ideas?

DOS, Windows, DOSBox ...?

I'm using Dosbox

Which version? Also, please describe exactly what are you doing and what is happening.

Please descrive also what are you eating at the moment, is extremely important.

Sorry for necromanting this thread, but I've got one little problem: I cannot get the sound star ... HA ... just kidding ;)
That's no problem at all. Sound works, graphics work, everything seems to be fine. BUT:
The ingame clock counts much too fast. At first - using DBGL - everything was set at maximum. Game hours flew by at 1h/s. First mission was done within 2 days. I figured that this couldn't be right so I dropped cycles to 10000 and put the core to normal. It seemed better ... MUCH better, but still: It doesn't seem to be right. The first mission still took 17 ingame hours and I ran almost directly to the target killing it. Shouldn't it be more like 5 hours or so? Or is this okay? What kind of setting do you tend to use and think "That's about right!" ?

Thanks forwards :)

Noticed that too. But the:
1. The game-time is generally not supposed to run at realtime speed, or it would take AGES to research the equipment and outfit your agents with it.
2. We can always pretend it factors in the time it takes for the agents to travel to and from the mission site.

Oh the Ingame explanation isn't that vital for me. If a mission takes 2 days for just killing one simple punk, well, then it is just like that. But the problem is, that everything depends on time - especially my funds counter. I imagine a rather long session of about 30 minutes of play time during a mission coming back to the world map and my whole despotism came to an end just because all my cash is drained or people are responding negative and I can't do anything about that.
How slow is normal for the game?

You should have a positive cashflow, so either:
- increase taxes, especially in regions with easy missions (too high taxes may cause a revolt, forcing you to replay that mission)
- decrease your research spend

For the in-game speed, it's important to fine-tune it so that the game is well playable. The in-game hours don't really matter much, I remember most missions took easily 24 or more in-game hours.

got sound but no music
 

Hey. great game. the sound is working but im getting no music. whys that? running in dosbox.

that's funny, i don't get any sound :ouch:

i tried looking into main.bat and saw there is iirq5 instead of dosbox's default iirq7, change that but it didn't help

There's very little music in the game. Just one track during the intro and one during missions. Are you hearing the one in the intro?

nope .. absolutely none, i tried all dosbox 72 and 73

and lol, i just found this post in this thread, look
after doing this, it works like a charm, the music is inside the missions and sound effects too

i wonder why did this never get fixed, gonna update the archive on the server
edit: done

Copy all the files from your syndicate folder in the syndicate\DATA folder and edit the synd.bat file so it reads:
main.exe >nul: /iirq7 /idma1 /iio$220 /c0
and start the game with synd.bat.

Looks like AB has a corrupted archive or something :dunno:

edit: :doh::doh::doh: :)

that worked. thank you. synd bat irq was a;ready at 7.

Gee, think we could send copies of this game to Congress? :lol:

Hi, I am having a version of the old 'not saving' problem - I'm running the game from dosbox on a mac. Syndicate works fine but its the American Revolt version that isn't saving.

I've seen people saying you need a folder called SYND/SAVE in your root folder regardless of where the game is, but had no luck with that.

The package I downloaded (which I placed in UNTITLED/SYND - 'UNTITLED' being the drive) has a directory called 'C', which contains 'SYND', which in turn contains 'main.exe' and all those.

so the path of 'SAVE' is UNTITLED/SYND/SAVE
the game is UNTITLED/SYND/C/SYND/main.exe

any ideas?

UNTITLED/SYND/C/SYND/Save might be what you are looking for.

Cheers, I tried that though, forgot to mention that

If you want an answer to solve your problem you should tell us how you mount your virtual C in dosbox.
Your exact mount line and inputs to launch the game would be helpful.

I know nothing about mounting virtual drives in dosbox, sorry - I've never had to do it. I'm using Boxer if that's any help to you - I just installed it and it created a "DOS Games" folder to put your games in. I moved Syndicate from this default location to try and fix the issue - it still runs but doesn't save.

To run the game I click on main.exe from finder (on the path UNTITLED/SYND/C/SYND). I've tried dos4gw.exe but this crashes.

That's a perfect example why you should use dosbox as it was meant tto be used, to know from the C prompt, and not with a frontend.
The frontend mounts are unpredictable.
As far as I can see in your first post the dosboxpath to your save folder could be:
c:\synd\c\synd\save\
or:
c:\c\synd\save\
or:
c:\synd\save\
or even:
c:\save\
It all depends how boxer mounts the virtual C, I have no idea about that.

Things you must understand:
Your dosbox path isn't UNTITLED/SYND/C/SYND/ but one level higher then the mount of your virtual C.

Examples:
if boxer uses
mount c UNTITLED/SYND/
your dosbox path for the save folder is:
c:\c\synd\save\

if boxer uses
mount c UNTITLED/SYND/C/
your dosbox path for the save folder is:
c:\synd\save\

etcetera etcetera.
Try things out till you find the right one I would say, or learn to use dosbox without frontend.

Lucky for me I have two DOS 6.2 machines still available so I can enjoy this game without altering the OS. I still have the floppies and CDs to all of the Syndicate games. I didn't care for Syndicate wars too much.:)

hi guys just downladed this game had it for the amiga 1200 when i was like 5 and bought the syndicate pluse box ages ago and cant find it now :doh: anyway turns out i cant seem to save when i have the game in the d: drive
and it runs if i type

mount d: d:syndicate
d:
cd syndicat
main

D:\syndicate\SYNDICAT is the directory

i have put a SYND\SAVE in every file any ideas thanks :)

Oh and could some one do me a favour if possable print screen the main file so i can see what it looks like with you no worrys if it cant be done :OK:

This game is so much of a failure. It had so much potential, but it really ends up every level a bunch of enemy (= all the enemy on the map) with extremly low range (shotgun) but with extremly fast legs (V3 legs on the first mission???) running towards you.

The minimap is terrible too, as well as the tax/research options. I could figure out that 30% will make a country very happy, while 40% makes them rebelling.

Actually if you ike the idea of this game, just go and play Abomination: The Nemesis Project, that's my opinion.

Is this a typical Bullfrog-game? It constantly crashes, not allows saves between missions, nowhere is described properly how the equipment works, and all missions are basically the same: survive the instantly arriving first wave and win, or be destroyed.

The AI-controll not also either. Fights are basiacally done by activating the "fighting mode", and then everything is made automatically.

The vehicle-system sucks (especially that no armor the vehicles have), and I have objections against certain missions.

Crashes? I have never seen Syndicate crash (DOS or DOSBox).

You can save between missions but not during a mission.

Manual?
IIRC, they all work the same way: highlight the weapon/equipment -> right click to use.

Not true.

Nope, won't work on the later missions or especially in the American Revolt missions.

It's an old game. Maybe you should try the sequel, Syndicate Wars (or maybe don't play this game if you don't like it).

I think Syndicate is one of the best DOS games ever, and Syndicate Wars is even better.

When I have to retry the same mission ca. 3rd times the game always crashes. As most of the times it is hard to figure out what the player supposed to do in a certain mission it is pretty regular.

The manual is misguiding, as it does not contain the information required to play (I've read it). And no, most implants work with activated IPA-levels, what can too be adjusted up and down...

It is abolutely true that all missions is about surviving the first minute (= first wave of enemy). Ok, some of the later missions can afford more then one wave of enemy, but that's really it is.

What is the "American Revolt" mission? Anyway, 1 mission from 50 is hardly enough to counter me on the question. Not to mention it is basically impossible to win fights afer the first half dozen quests because the enemy comes in groups and from more then one direction. The AI is simply zillion times better to handle the fights.

Syndicate Wars is currently not avaiable. But if you liked Syndicate (what sucks in too many ways to stand out the trials of time), then give a try to Abomination: the nemesis project. That game succeeds in all fields where Syndicate was just an idea.

Btw, if anyone can help me out with these quests:
- in Kenya (the missions are not random, yes?) I should protect an agent who is white and has mind of his own. He starts to go to his destination, and at the immediate start many enemy comes, all equipped with timed bombs, so when I finish off the arriving mass, the agent supposed to be guarded always dies from the explosions. Any hint?
- in South Africa I'm supposed to infiltrate a military camp. The outer part is guarded by 4 enemy, and separated by a door. As doors are only accessible by vehicles, I sit into the only vehicle in the area, what after a second blows up leaving me hopeless. Any hint?
- in Peru the city is built on pillars. I'm supposed to enter a tunnel to assassinate a guy, but I can't seem to find the enterance to the tunnel. Any hint?
- in Paraguay I'm supposed to persecute some drones. I can clear the area from enemy, but the drone is not persecuted. Any hint?
- in New England all the enemy seems to have better AI, range, reaction - basically they seem to have level 4 upgrades or something. Wtf?
- in Argentina another mindless agent is supposed to be carried over. He goes with his own mind, and all arriving enemy attacks HIM. Worst problem is, enemy comes from all direction. Any hint?

This is an oldschool game. You need to think like an oldschool player.

The best first hint: there is always at least two ways to do the mission. The head on approach (which is the simplest and work most of the time but is risky) and the covert approach (you do realize you can mind control any citizen you want to bring with you, right?). Most missions even have very obvious courses of action, like infiltrate the base covertly with a vehicle then get out in the base and blow everything up from the inside... Or find a dead end with great close weapons or very powerful weapons and torch every enemy coming your way past that corner you keep firing at. The AI will suddenly look very, very, very dumb to you instead of being a hundred times better than you.

Also, this game is basically won by over-researching your opponents. If you bothered to watch the intro then you should already know what I am talking about. Research better weapons and better implants than your competitors, implement them... And suddenly it's so easy to win every mission it's almost not fun anymore. Simply don't forget to bring medkits for every soldiers and heal yourself as needed.

I finished this game in about a week of sporadic play. That was when I was a teenager. I bet you'll be able to find your way around this game... As long as you stop thinking like a stupid average neo-gamer who expect everything to fall on your lap all the time.

Thy for nothing Eagle.

1) You can NOT controll unlimited amount of people. Also can NOT mindcontroll anyone (eg. higher level agents). Also this is NOT solution for either mission I've asked.

2) You do NOT understand what I'm talking about. The pathfinding routine might be (IS) shit, but firing to 5 directions to out of screen enemies, can not be done by biological beings. And running to a dead end is NOT good idea, as with that you'd pull unhandleable amount of enemy to yourself.

3) I have medikits. They worth very low, and NOT one of the missions I've asked about includes them as solution.

4) Nice you making statements, but NOT nice being unhelpful. Please leave contact until you come up with something useful. Thx.

5) Btw, this game IS about outresearching the oppopnent. That makes missions nice and easy, and sometimes is direct requirement (eg. in missions where you need to reach an NPC af fast as possible, or you loos the mission requires leg implants, AND using IPA - and thus heart implant - what function is not even told about in the manual...)

Solutions I've found:

- for Paraguay the persudator was malfunctioning, or it had to do with something with the IPA-levels. The solution was to lower the basic IPA level, then rise the actual level to maximum, persuade a random NPC, then persuade the target. Seems bug.

- for New England I turned to the "old gamer thinking" like Eagle suggested. My thought was: what you can not kill, destroy. I carried a Gauss Gun to the mission, and behind the corner I shot down the problematic groups with the hugh explosion.

- Peru: The cover of the particles is also badly designed in this game, but I was able to find the enterance of the tunnel at the end. The mission also requires 2 agents as minimum.

- South Africa: this turned out one of the missions where yu have to have meta-knowledge. One of the enemy at the start goes to put a nontimed timed bomb on the vehicle. So I only had to run in. Also a strange bug occured: the person supposed to be assassinated had time to sit in his car, and although I blew up the car "Mission Failed".

- Argentina: this mission require all 4 agents. Immediatelly at the start you have to shoot down the immediate arrivals, then position the agents to their places, then hit (again) the "all agent active" button to kick in the AI.
After the first doze of enemy falls there will be another group, who has (again) timed bombs. These can be blown up by will if you shoot on them directly (you must do this, as the bomb are en route you protege).

- in Kenya the mission require 4 agents, all equipped with lasers.

Now the only remaining mission is the supposedly final mission, but the designers f'd up again, and a bug causes that to be amongst the regular missions, and thx to that the game has no ending. Bullfrog!

Strange how you are the only one who ever have problems with Bullfrogs games. That company always had the highest reputation of quality for their games and I don't even remember one of their games crashing at all...

If you want a company which had a very, very bad quality reputation in their games then you can go play with Sierra games. :suspicious:

Also... Strange how you tell me "thanks for nothing" but then the post right after you describe exactly what I told you to do... ;)

Actually Sierra had (has) a very good quality-reputation (around here at east); and if you check my posts actually you'll find the second one sarcastic.

Oh, and a hint to any player who will play this in the future:
Energy Shield is a must in the "final" mission, but it does not protect your team from timed bombs.

You can and you can.
Nope. IIRC the manual explains EXACTLY that each recruited civilian increases your Persuadotron's power. You need to have a certain amount of power to recruit a cop, and a higher one yet to recruit an agent. Some cases may require you to have an ID Card, I think. The Brain upgrade of the agent armed with the persuadertron gives a multiplier to the persuadertron's power.
Expansion pack.

Are not.
Kill them faster with Miniguns. Pick up the bombs to disarm them. Use laser, it doesn't leave corpses. Note the enemies are ignoring the target and focusing on your agents. Or use persuadertron - just be careful to not use it on the agent you're protecting. That last one? Heavily upgraded Agents + 1 Persuadertron = victory without firing a gun ONCE.

Upload your savegame in an attachment, let me check the other missions (my saves are generally either at the "just starting out" stage or "I OWN THE WORLD" stage).

Not really. It leaves you unable to return fire. Lasers ten to help there.

Actually the manual says only your brain-implant enchances your persuation-power, and what you require to persuade better is brain-implant.

There is no exp.pack here.

- about Kenya-mission: another clever guy is Fifth, eh? Bad side of his idea is, you may not get too far away from the protected NPC, what means the idea is useless. Besides during missions carrying zounds weapons you have no space, and while moving the whole team picking up object most often ends up not picking up by any member (possibly another bug).

Look, a tip is not a "100% you have to do this", ok?
By the way you'd be screwed with lasers I bet. Not enough ammo, and you'd be teared by the gunners anyway in miliseconds. If you'd open the last mission, you'd now you're placed right under fire from two different group, 3 more coming seconds later. My bet - the safest bet - is to carry energy shields and run around in the middle of the crowd until 1-2 dies, then run some distance away and let them blow up from their own timed bombs. With 2 energy shield you might even preserve power for both shields (so they can be recharged).

Who said only one of those solutions can be applied at a time? :)
Also, as I said... enemy agents IGNORE the NPC. :p

:mhh: I'm pretty sure we were supposed to place Syndicate Plus for download, ie the version that came with American Revolt and gave you a choice which of the two to start.
In that case, you must have a bad copy. The page 48 of the manual available from Abandonia clearly gives the information I mentioned.

They do NOT ignore the NPC you're supposed to protect.

Well, you seemed f'd up, as only the pure Syndicate is there.

I used the same manual, but it says not. It is badly designed, so bogus anyway.

I can prove they ignore her. Give me a moment to finish uploading the recording to YouTube.

At 1:18, you'll see an enemy agent passing by the NPC and not doing anything. Guess why? All enemy agents in this mission are either going after your agents or to the starting location to set their bombs there.
Take a look then: http://imgur.com/ahfhx

Second that.
The missions tend to get increasingly difficult after the first one, but actually only if don't let the game run for hours outside of the missions for research & taxes cash. If you do let it run for hours before going for further missions, researching thing after thing, the game gets quickly almost too easy once you go on to the missions.
Also in most missions there are good safe spots where you can let enemy agents come up to you without them being able to shoot you from far away, and roast them with flamethrowers or chainguns from very close, doing colossal damage in seconds.

Guess what? You're talking about the wrong mission (you should have picture Argentina), using meta-knowledge etc.

I'm sorry but incrising difficuty? In a nonlinear-system game? How is that?

I only needed as weapon the Machine Gun to wreak havoc 99% or the missions. Found a prototype very early, between the 5-10th mission. The only other guns I needed was Gaus rifle (to eliminate vehicles), lazer (during Argetina mission) and Energy Shield (during 1 mission besides the Atlantic Station).

I only researched 1 thing at a time, and only waited when the project required less then 1.5 days.

When gazillion well equipped (= miniguns) enemy comes, it doesn't matter wether you have a "safe point" or not - you'll die. Make them come in few (direction and distance does not matter, the AI controlls the shoots remember). I found though only 1-2 missions where this problem occurs.

Negative.
"in Kenya" "in Kenya" "about Kenya-mission"
Negative. I only MUST ensure my own agents are upgraded to the maximum affordable level no matter what the mission is. Which I did quite successfully. In the playthrough that video came from I have by that point completed Atlantic Accelerator and did not get around to Kenya, Mauritania, Arabia, Mozambique, Indonesia or any of the territories in South America or Australia.

You know, it's odd how you conveniently "missed" a page in the manual, you conveniently "forget" what mission we're talking about, you're throwing around claims you can't back and dismiss anything the others tell you no matter the proof, just coming up with more bullshit excuses... in other words, every symptom of a common internet troll. Adjust your attitude before we do it for you with a two-by-four.

And cut out that bull about "meta-knowledge". You've taken words of one person and are twisting them completely out of context. In other words, it's just another way you're trolling.

Negative. You take things out of context and referrs on the wrong situation.

Negative. Check Mission Argentina.

You conveniently "missed" any part of the conversation not on your side.

You probably haven't noticed that I said I can only run one of the missions on your list from the savegames I've got. The others are either already completed or require completing several other missions before I could start them. I don't have time to replay the game just to get there.

One of the things I enjoyed playing Syndicate was the ability to persuade Civilians, Guards, Police Officers and even Enemy Agents. Of course after using cheat codes. Without cheat codes, it is difficult to persuade Enemy Agents and the Scanner to make the Map more accurate and wider in scope. Bacause you Agents must be faster, stronger and more powerful (more powerful armor).

• I enjoyed performing several Missions in which I eliminated the Enemy Agents simply by persuading them! I realized that Enemy Agents will ALWAYS try to eliminate Agent #1 first, then Agent #2 and so on. I positioned Agent #1 under a building and all the Enemy Agents stand on top of the building (up the ramp) and stand still. Then I persuaded the Civilians using other Agents and then the Enemy Agents. Depending on the Mission, I used different tactics according to the geography of the place. On almost all Missions, I successfully persuaded the Enemy Agents except in the Atlantic Mission, for the Enemy Agents literally shoot everywhere and have no Civilian to be persuaded.

• On one of the Missions I do not remember where, a simple action is enough to complete the Mission without facing the Enemy Agents. The city has a railway line, is on an elevation (viaduct) while the Mission Target is in a Tunnel. As the Target is well on the side of your Agents, just use Gauss Gun in the Tunnel to eliminate the Target.

• A curiosity is that when I used Game Wizard (Mega Trainer and Editor), I captured Enemy Agents that were of both genders. When you use the cheat codes, all captured Enemy Agents and your Agents are only female.

Syndicate: American Revolt
 

As the “American Revolt” package is part of Syndicate, I will comment it on this topic.

Like Syndicate Wars, the package is also very difficult. The reasons:

• The Enemy Agents are better armored, faster (Level 1 or 2 Armor), far superior to the original Syndicate game (enemy Agents without Armor);

• The Clone Shield is useless to the enemy Agents, being useful only to deceive Cops and Guards.

• The bloody Aerial Bombardments (I can not remember the correct name). Your Agents are “flying” and can fall into a ocean (Atlantic Mission) or lower floor without having to leave!

On the other hand, I managed to persuade all the enemy Agents when there were Civilians.

I do not remember right, but the Atlantic Mission, as usual, I could not persuade enemy Agents.

Whether you are using Game Wizard Editor or Cheat Codes, it is possible for an Agent with “infinite” HP to perish. One of the most unpleasant things is when your Agent falls into the sewer, river, lake, ocean. Death is certain. Or if the Agent falls and has no way to return.

I forgot to mention that as much as the Agent has infinite HP, if he gets hit by a vehicle, there is no editor or trainer to save him from certain death. I am not sure, but in American Revolt, enemy Agents can shoot you inside a vehicle.

In my opinion, the Game Wizard Editor is the best, because the HP of the Agent could be frozen, fixed. But damn Aerial Bombardments ruin all pleasure, because you have to get away. Imagine several Gauss Guns pointed at your Agents. And woe to you if you do not have enough money, because each Aerial Bombardment costs a lot of money.

One thing I like Syndicate about Syndicate Wars is that there is a difference when you have Armor. You are faster, mightier, fiercer. A Level 3 Armored Agent “walks” among Unarmeded Agents, Cops and Guards. A Level 3 Agent, on full alert, seems to “dance” with the Mini Gun (“Guitar” :guitar: :p) while dealing with enemies on all sides.

On the other hand, Syndicate Wars Agents of maximum Level Armor do not look as superior to the Cops and U-Citizens aka Cyber-Punks / Daft Punks :rocks: :kuger:.

I forgot to mention that I had already encountered civilians who resembled Sindicate Agents. I kept wondering if they were renegade and / or stray Syndicate Agents.

In the map with more reach using the Scan device, these “Agents” were identified as civilians. There, I remembered that on one of the missions, I needed to recover fellow Agents with malfunction. I believe they were also identified as civilians on the map, but without being very sure.

I also remember that in one of the missions, I should eliminate a former fellow Agent, an old, renegade, and rebellious model. The curious thing is that she did not try to defend herself, but to act like a simple civilian, wearing and acting as such.

One way to circumvent Syndicate without using cheats, would be to run the game, with the agents “in standby mode”, and let time pass.

After some time, you give up the mission and you have collected taxes in the areas controlled by your Syndicate and probably got something (weapons, devices, armors, etc.) from R&D.

But between us, would not it be much easier for you to use cheats? Much faster, more practical and with the same result... *shrug*

:lame: :lame:

I said in another post about the combat style of the Sardaukar, the Imperial Super Soldiers.

Agents, the Cyber Super Soldiers, adopt a similar, but long-range, fighting style.

Agents, the Elite Force of the Syndicate, as a group, positioned themselves into four (from twosome to foursome) in a way that eliminated “unguarded” rearguard or the “blind spot”.

And when the level of the four (2 - 4) agents what the Manual named IPA (Intelligence, Perception and Adrenaline) are activated, and using Armor level 3, they become a truly unstoppable Elite Force... :laser: :rocket: :minigun:

I am thinking of posting / starting a new Thread, in another Sub-Forum, with texts and screenshots from Missions in Syndicate where enemy Agents are likely to be persuaded via Persuadertron.

I am also thinking about posting screenshots of some of the Campaigns on the Human Side in Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.

For better didacticism, the ideal would be for each post to address a single and individual Mission so that there is a precise and optimized separation for better clarity of texts.

The worst thing would be confusion of understanding because there is no separation of texts and screenshots from different Missions. :wacko: :hypno:

All this would be just an idea :idea:, but I am well aware that to elaborate all this would require several screenshots and the inevitable use of Image Editor... Well, image editing is certainly not my turf... :whops: :doh:

2nd best ever game (first is the original Railroad Tycoons)
 

This game is awesome. Man I remember spending a ton of hours in my dorm playing it. Loved how you can set up and position your squad...snipers in building, dudes with shot guns, planting mines....the pursuadeatron !!!
Loved to convert an army of civilians and have them pick up the dropped weapons !!!
Havent been able to find a game like this one since....Also love the blade runner-esque cutaway scenes.

Have fun with this one!