Assigning Priests, Bishops and/or Inquisitors to pray at a Church will increase the bonus that Church gives to passing Peasants. The more advanced the praying unit (Inquisitors are better than Bishops, which are better than Priests) the higher the bonus.

Docks and Overseas Supply Lines

If a Village cannot deliver to a Manor, its Cart(s) will automatically deliver to the nearest Dock instead. You do not need to manually order a Cart to do this. Cogs can be assigned to this Dock. They will then automatically deliver resources to a Dock that is closest to the nearest Manor. You will still have to assign a Cart to the Dock from which you want resources brought to your Manor.

Single Player Campaign Decision Nodes

There are three different paths you can follow in the single player campaign, each path being an entire campaign in its own right. Certain choices you make in the campaign game determine the campaign path you will follow. When you come to one of these ‘decision nodes’ you will be presented with a text box that is coloured orange instead of blue. The answer you give determines the path you follow.

As you play the campaign game, as you complete levels, they will become ‘unlocked’. This means you can load a specific ‘unlocked’ level if from the main menu. Unlocked levels that contain decision nodes will have their filenames coloured orange as well. So, if you wish to play another campaign without playing through the levels that lead to that decision point, simply load that level directly from the Main Menu.

Tribute and Diplomacy in Multi-Player

In the multi-player game, building a Tavern gives you access to the Diplomacy screens. If you lose your last Tavern, you will also lose access to the Diplomacy screens until you build another one.

Building a Trading Post gives you access to the Tributes screen. This allows you to send tribute or additional supplies to an ally in the form of Food, Materials or Gold. Left click on a resource icon in the target player's row on the Tribute screen to increase the amount of that resource by ten. Right click to decrease the amount. Holding down the shift key and clicking increments/decrements the amount by 50. Click on the Send button to send the tribute. This is added to the target player's global stocks immediately. You will receive a message if you are the recipient of tribute. Note that you can always receive tribute, even if you haven’t got a Trading Post.

Experience

There are no longer 4 levels of experience, as stated in the manual. Units gradually gain experience over time through training and/or combat, which is represented in the unit selection indicator as little ‘notches’. Units continuously improve slightly all the time, rather than having 4 separate grades. The more experienced a unit, the better its attack value and aiming skills.

Unit Costs

There are some errors in the manual and the Reference Chart:

Abaddon costs 500 Food, 250 Gold and has a Food Consumption value of 20.

The Archangel costs 500 Food, 250 Gold and has a Food Consumption value of 0.

The Carrack costs 600 Materials, 10 Gold and 50 Food.

The Galleass costs 800 Materials and 50 Gold.

Hot Keys

Addition – F5 toggles the scores on and off in multi-player games.

Unit Values

The Unit Selection Indicator in the bottom left hand corner of the screen will display your currently selected unit. Around the image of the unit or building, there are various numbers, depending on the type of unit or building selected. These are:

Heart : Hit points

Sword : Melee attack value

Shield : Armour value

Bow and arrow : Missile attack value

Food : Total Food carried

Wood : Total Wood carried

Stone : Total Stone carried

Gold : Total Gold carried

Sometimes you will see more than one number, for instance, a Shield (armour) icon, and then two numbers, such as 12 + 2. The first number is base armour value, with experience factored in, the second number is additional armour from upgrades.

Blacksmith Upgrades

The detailed descriptions of the upgrades available at the Blacksmith are missing from the online manual. Basically, these upgrades improve the attack and defence values of your units. Each upgrade becomes available when the first one is completed – for instance, the Heavy Infantry Pattern Welded Blade upgrade is not available until the Heavy Infantry Damascene Steel upgrade has been completed. Note that they are not cumulative, so a level 2 percentage increase is based on the original unit value, and not the value given after the level 1 upgrade.

Level 1: Heavy Infantry Damascene Steel – Increases the Melee Attack damage of all your Heavy Infantry units by 15%.

Level 2: Heavy Infantry Pattern Welded Blade – Increases the Melee Attack damage of all your Heavy Infantry units by 30%.

Level 3: Heavy Infantry Tempered Steel – Increases the Melee Attack damage of all your Heavy Infantry units by 45%.

Level 1: Heavy Infantry Scalemail – Increases Armour rating of all your Heavy Infantry by 15%.

Level 2: Heavy Infantry Chainmail – Increases Armour rating of all your Heavy Infantry by 30%.

Level 3: Heavy Infantry Plate Armour – Increases Armour rating of all your Heavy Infantry by 45%.

Level 1: Light Infantry Iron-tipped Weapon – Increases Light Infantry Missile attack damage by 15%.

Level 2: Light Infantry Steel-tipped Weapon – Increases Light Infantry Missile attack damage by 30%.

Level 3: Light Infantry Armour Piercing – Increases Light Infantry Missile attack damage by 45%.

Level 1: Light Infantry Leather Armour – Increases Light Infantry Armour value by 15%.

Level 2: Light Infantry Hardened Leather Armour – Increases Light Infantry Armour value by 30%.

Level 3: Light Infantry Ringmail Armour – Increases Light Infantry Armour value by 45%.

Level 1: Light Cavalry Iron-tipped Weapon – Increases Light Cavalry Missile damage by 15%.

Level 2: Light Cavalry Steel-tipped Weapon – Increases Light Cavalry Missile damage by 30%.

Level 3: Light Cavalry Armour Piercing– Increases Light Cavalry Missile damage by 45%.

Level 1: Light Cavalry Quilted Hauberk – Increases Light Cavalry Armour values by 15%.

Level 2: Light Cavalry Mail Barding – Increases Light Cavalry Armour values by 30%.

Level 3: Light Cavalry Plate Barding – Increases Light Cavalry Armour values by 45%.

Level 1: Heavy Cavalry Leather Barding– Increases Heavy Infantry Armour values by 15%.

Level 2: Heavy Cavalry Mail Barding – Increases Heavy Infantry Armour values by 30%.

Level 3: Heavy Cavalry Plate Barding – Increases Heavy Infantry Armour values by 45%.

Stable Upgrades

Level 1: Warhorse – Increases Heavy Cavalry Melee attack damage by 15%.

Level 2: Stirrups – Increases Heavy Cavalry Melee attack damage by 30%.

Level 3: Horse Shoe – Increases Heavy Cavalry Melee attack damage by 45%.

Food Support Clarifications

Each Farm you build will support 4 non-Peasant units. If you have more units than Farms to support them, those units will begin to consume food directly from your Global Stocks. When those stocks are exhausted, your units will then begin to starve, and start losing health. Health will never be reduced below 1 through starvation, however. Certain upgrades increase the Farm Support value;

Heavy Plough: Each Farm supports 6 units.

Horse Harness: Each Farm supports 10 units.

Crop Rotation: Each Farm supports 15 units.

The Farm support value is now displayed on a Farm when you select it. The amount of Food Support versus Food Consumption is also displayed as a number (ie 8/4 means you can support 8 units, and you have 4 units in play, which means you have a Food surplus that will be continuously added to your Global Stocks). This number is displayed along the Food Consumption bar at the top of the screen.

Maypoles, Churches, Sawmills & Windmills

These buildings must be within 50 metres of the Farms/trees/stone outcroppings that your Peasants are working on, or they won’t be able to give their bonuses to those Peasants who are working. Note that for the purposes of scale, a Farm is 15 metres by 15 metres in size.

When you command a Peasant to build a structure, the effective diameter of that building will now be displayed before you choose where to place it. Once built, selecting the building will also display this area of effect. This will be displayed as a blue circle around the building. For Maypoles, Churches, Sawmills and Windmills this blue circle is the area of effect in which your Peasant must be working for them to visit the building and gain an efficiency bonus. For other buildings, such as Forts and Towers, the blue circle represents the ammunition reload area of effect. Units within this area of effect will have their ammunition automatically replenished.

Formations

Clarification: You can change the facing of a formation by selecting the formation, and then right clicking on the terrain. With the right mouse button held down, you can drag the mouse in the direction you want the formation to face. A small white arrow will appear on the terrain, indicating the direction in which they will face. You can also do this to command a unit to move to particular spot and then change facing once they reach there.

Tutorials

There are four tutorial levels – Basic Economic, Advanced Economic, Basic Military and Advanced Military. You can load the tutorials from the Main Menu, and it is strongly recommended that you do so before playing the game.

Mouse Wheel problems

If you have a mouse wheel, but you find that you cannot move the camera up and down or anchor the terrain, particular with an NEC mouse, try the following solution:

Click on 'Start' menu

Select 'Settings' -> 'Control Panel'

Open 'Mouse' Settings

Select the Buttons Tab

Check the checkbox labelled 'Use MS Office Compatible Scroll Only'

For the mouse wheel to work, the middle button should be mapped to 'Middle Button', not any other function.

Poor performance or the game is failing to start up

Solution:

As with all PC games, you need to ensure that you have the latest versions of all drivers and system files on your computer. We think the best way to do this is to visit the Windows Update site at:

http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

Click on the 'Product Updates' heading to download and install the latest updates for your computer.

NVidia Cards

As you have an NVidia card, you may find reading the comprehensive NVidia troubleshooting FAQ worthwhile at:

http://www.geforcefaq.com/faq.cgi

Some people have reported that installing a different version of the NVidia drivers (specifically version 12.41 or version 27.42) have given them a significant performance improvement.

If you are still having problems, you should contact Microids Technical Support via their website at http://www.microids.com. They will be able to give you more detailed help.

General Fixes

- Fixed LaserLock copy protection issue.

- Fixed sound not playing on SoundBlaster 128 PCI cards under Windows 98.

- Disconnecting a USB mouse whilst the game is running no longer causes a crash.

- Fixed characters occasionally disappearing when being ungarrisoned, particularly from Churches.

- Fixed sight range for objects placed along the left margin of large maps (fixes Towers not firing).

- Fixed a couple of issues with the pathfinding, particularly to do with formations attacking buildings.

- Fixed missiles colliding with disabled characters.

- Fixed various dedicated server related interface issues.

- Burning buildings no longer sometimes "put themselves out" at the last hit point.

- Bug with Watchtowers un-garrisoning when being destroyed fixed.

- Fixed Minimap clicking still being active even when Minimap is disabled.

- Fixed Multiplayer Chat window being enabled after a player has entered "Spectator Mode".

- Level 2 ‘Angland Invaded’ – Fixed bug where dropping off from a cart could give you negative wood.

- Level 7 ‘Knights of the Sacred Sepulchre’ - piety problem fixed.

- Level 8 ‘Telamagna!’ - Kang Manor double message fixed.

- Level 5 ‘Sneaky Succubi’ - Vericundi message problems fixed.

- Wormwood now plays a sound effect warning.

- Corrected cost for Mounted Huntresses.

- Corrected Priest costs at the Church.

- Siege Weapons hold fire correctly.

- Bug on Tribute Carts fixed.

- Various game logic failures on campaign levels.

- Various level specific and general frame rate optimisations.

- Added music to the Front End.

- Allowed users to skip the introduction AVIs with a mouse click or key press.

- Added "Game Speed - Fast/Normal/Slow" messages in-game.

- Added "Game saved successfully" message in-game.

- Added "Profile already exists..." message to Front End.

Trouble Shooting

If nothing happens when the CD is inserted into the drive, Autoplay can also be started by double clicking on the CD icon found in ‘My Computer’. If neither of these starts the installation, either begin installation manually or enable Autoplay on your CD ROM/DVD drive (instructions on how to do this are found below).

Manual Installation

If your machine does not have Autoplay enabled, the game can also be installed by opening the ‘My Computer’ window and then double clicking on the CD icon to open a window displaying the contents of the CD. From this window find the file named SETUP and double click it, this will start the installation process.

Moving game files to a new folder or drive

If you wish to move the games files to a different drive or folder, it is recommended that you uninstall the game and reinstall it in the new destination. Simply copying files to a new destination can result in the game failing to run.

Reinstallation

If you need to reinstall the game, either Autorun the CD and select the ‘reinstall’ option from the menu screen that appears or follow the instructions above for a manual installation.

Enabling Autoplay on your CD/DVD drive

Autoplay can be enabled as follows:

Right click on the ‘My Computer’ icon and select ‘Properties’.

From the ‘System Properties’ window that opens, click on the ‘Device Manager’ tab.

A list of components in your machine will appear, click the + sign next to the CDROM label, highlight the drive that appears and select the ‘Properties’ icon at the base of the Window.

From the Window that opens, click the ‘Settings’ tab.

On the ‘Settings’ screen there should be an Option named ‘Auto insert notification’, ensure that there is a tick next to this.

Click ‘OK’ to exit the CD properties screen then close the ‘System Properties’ window. Your machine will probably say it needs to restart, once this is done Autoplay should be enabled on your machine.

Installing DirectX 8

Warrior Kings requires that DirectX 8 is installed to allow certain functions to operate. The Warrior Kings installation program will automatically check to see if you have this on your system. If not it will automatically load it for you, so nothing to worry about.

If you are experiencing problems with DirectX 8 then please refer to the chapter on DirectX 8 issues.

WINDOWS CONFIGURATION

When running Warrior Kings, it is recommended that you check the following configuration settings of Windows;

Colour Mode

You will need to have windows set to a colour mode of True Colour (32bit) colours or higher. The colour mode can be changed as follows;

Click the right mouse button when on the desktop, and select the option ‘Properties’ from the menu that appears.

A window titled ‘Display Properties’ will appear. Click on the ‘Settings’ tab to bring up the display settings screen.

From this screen the colour mode (‘Colours’) and screen resolution (‘Screen area’) can be altered.

Active Desktop

If you have Microsoft's Active Desktop enabled, it is recommended that you disable it before running Warrior Kings.

Close Other Programs

Before starting Warrior Kings, you are advised to close down all other programs that may be running. Doing this will ensure that Warrior Kings is able to use the maximum system resources available.

Windows Virtual Memory

Virtual Memory is basically when Windows uses hard drive space as extra memory. It does this by creating a swap file on the hard drive and writing data to it, the result is that software that may need more memory than the machine it is being run on physically has will still run.

Games software typically needs a fairly large amount of space for a swap file, with around 100Mb typically recommended, or more.

The Virtual memory can be managed in two ways, automatically or manually. To check which method is being used on your machine, follow these steps;

Right click on ‘My Computer’ and select ‘Properties’ from the menu that appears.

The ‘System Properties’ window will open, click on the ‘Performance’ tab and then click on the ‘Virtual Memory’ icon.

A window titled ‘Virtual Memory’ will now be open.

If the option “Let Windows manage my virtual memory settings” is highlighted then your virtual memory is being automatically managed by Windows. If this is the case please ensure that your C: drive has enough free hard drive space (100Mb or more). This can be checked by double clicking on the ‘My Computer’ icon, right clicking on the C: drive and selecting ‘Properties’, the free space on the drive will be listed in the properties window that opens.

If the option “Let me specify my own virtual memory settings” is highlighted, you are manually setting the limits of the swap file for virtual memory. If this is the case we recommend that you ensure that the maximum amount listed is not less than 100Mb.

Mouse Drivers

If you have a LOGITECH mouse, DO NOT USE "web wheel", and ensure that you have assigned the wheel to "MS standard scrolling" and "scroll in active window only" and the centre wheel button to "middle mouse button" and NOT TO ANY OTHER ASSIGNMENT.

VIDEO CARDS

Video Card Requirements

Warrior Kings requires a video card with at least 16Mb of memory that can display 16bit colour. The primary video card in your machine MUST have at least 16Mb of memory for Warrior Kings to run, the memory of any additional accelerator cards will not be taken into account. If your video card has insufficient memory the game will not run correctly, or at all. In the finished product an explicit message will be displayed.

Direct X

In order to run, the video card must be compatible with Direct X (and must also typically be using certified drivers). Possible symptoms of your card not being DirectX compatible include the machine displaying a black screen when you start the game, the graphics of the game being corrupted or the colour within the game being incorrect.

Monitor Settings

If you experience video problems, it is also possible that the cause could be that your monitor is not configured within Windows. This can be checked as follows;

Click the right mouse button on the desktop and select ‘Properties’ from the menu that appears.

On the ‘Display Properties’ window that appears, click on the ‘Settings’ tab. Click on the ‘Advanced’ icon (users with the original version of Windows will have to click on the ‘Change Display Type’ icon at this point).

Click on the ‘monitor’ tab in the new window. If your monitor is not the one currently named, click on the ‘Change’ icon (users of the original version of Windows will need to click on the ‘Change’ icon next to ‘Monitor Type’). If you received a driver disk with your monitor, use that. If not, you will need to manually configure your monitor.

Under Windows you can select your monitor from the list displayed (Click on ‘Show all Devices’ to get a complete list if your monitor is not named under ‘Show Compatible Devices’). Under Windows 98 you will need to select the option to ‘Display a list of all drivers in a specific location’, and once again select ‘Show all Hardware’ if your monitor is not listed under the ‘Show Compatible Hardware’ option.

Multi-Monitor Systems

If you have a computer with more than one graphics accelerator card that is DirectX 8 compatible, then Warrior Kings may not select the accelerator card that you want when it starts up. You can specify the card that Warrior Kings uses by changing some if its system settings in the registry. WARNING, we only recommend that advanced users attempt this.

Warrior Kings saves its persistent graphical settings in the following place in the system registry;

'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Black Cactus/Warrior Kings/Renderer'

You can browse and edit the registry with the 'regedit' program, which is part of the default Windows installation.

You need to set the 'save_enumerations_to_file' key to 1. This will make Warrior Kings save a file called 'enumerations.txt' into its working directory when the game exits. This file contains a list of all available accelerator devices that Warrior Kings can use.

An example of the contents of this file on a multi-monitor system is:

Device('nv4_disp.dll'): 'NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400'

Driver: 'HAL'

Device('nv4_disp.dll'): 'NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500'

Driver: 'HAL'

Now, you can tell the game to attempt to use one of these cards by editing the 'prefered_device' and 'prefered_driver' keys in the registry. To use the 'GeForce3 Ti' card in the above sample;

set 'prefered_device' to NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500

set 'prefered_driver' to HAL

Drivers

If any graphical problems are encountered, we recommend that you try using the latest video card drivers from the manufacturer of your video card or its chipset. The Internet addresses of some of the main video card and chipset manufacturers are listed below. If yours is not covered, please check your card’s documentation for a link.

Chipset Manufacturers

3DFX Interactive Inc (3DFX Voodoo, Voodoo2) www.3dfx.com

3D Labs Inc (Permedia 2) www.3dlabs.com

ATI (ATI All-in-wonder, Xpert) www.atitech.ca

Matrox Graphics Inc (Millennium, Mystique) www.matrox.com

NVidia (Riva 128, Riva TNT) www.nvidia.com

Rendition (Verite 1000, Verite 2000) www.rendition.com

S3 (Virge, Savage 3D) www.s3.com

Video Card Manufacturers

Canopus Corporation www.canopuscorp.com

Creative Labs www.creativelabs.com

Diamond Multimedia www.diamondmm.com

Guillemot International www.guillemot.com

Hercules www.hercules.com

Miro www.miro.de

Number Nine www.nine.com

STB www.stb.com

Videologic www.videologic.com

SOUND CARDS

Sound Card Requirements

Your machine MUST have a sound card in order to load. If your machine does not have a sound card the game will fail to load. You will need to have a Direct X compatible sound card (it will also typically need to be using certified drivers).

Possible symptoms of your card not being DirectX compatible include receiving no sound whilst playing, sound effects playing but stuttering or static playing rather than sound and music. See Section 3 for details on how to check your sound cards compatibility.

Volume Settings

If all the drivers for the sound card are OK but you are still receiving no sound, check the volume controls within Windows are set correctly. To do this;

In the bottom right of the desktop, next to the clock, should be a speaker icon. Right click on this and select ‘Open Volume Controls’ from the menu that appears.

A window titled ‘Volume Control’ should open. Ensure that all the volume meters are set correctly and that none of the boxes labelled ‘Mute’ are ticked.

Checking Sound Playback

To check that the sound is working correctly within Windows;

Open ‘My Computer’ by double clicking on its icon and then double click on the Control Panel icon on the window that appears.

From the Control Panel, double click on the ‘Sounds’ icon.

Highlight one of the options (e.g. ‘Asterisk’) and ensure there is a speaker icon next to its name. If there is not click ‘browse’ and select a file, the folder

C:\Windows\Media will normally contain some.

Click on the play button next to ‘Preview:’. A sound sample should now load and play, if you do not hear anything then your sound card may not be set up correctly within Windows.

Specific Sound Card Problems

If your sound card is not Direct X certified you may encounter audio corruption. To check whether your sound card is certified, see section 3 (Checking Certification). Obtaining DirectX compatible drivers from your hardware manufacturer can solve the problem.

Drivers

If any problems are encountered, we recommend that you try using the latest audio drivers from the manufacturer of your sound card. The Internet addresses of some of the main sound card manufacturers are listed below. If yours is not covered, please check your card’s documentation for a link.

Creative Labs www.creativelabs.com

Diamond Multimedia www.diamondmm.com

Guillemot International www.guillemot.com

Videologic www.videologic.com

Yamaha www.yamaha.com

CD ROM/DVD DRIVES

Systems with multiple CD drives

If you are running the game on a system that has more than one CD or DVD drive (due to either multiple drives or having one drive with multiple trays) we recommend that the Warrior Kings CD is always placed in the first drive (i.e. on a system with E:, F: and G: drives, place the CD in E:).

Windows drivers

In order to install Warrior Kings your CD/DVD will need to be using Windows based drivers. If it is running using MS-DOS based drivers you will be unable to install the game (an error titled ‘SEVERE, Unable to install Direct X Media’ is the typical symptom). In this case, please install Windows drivers for your CD/DVD drive.

To check which drivers you are using

Right click on ‘My Computer’ and select ‘Properties’ from the menu that appears.

From the ‘System Properties’ menu that appears click on the ‘Performance’ tab.

Under the heading ‘Performance Status’, File System should be listed as 32-bit whilst at the bottom of the box it should say ‘Your system is configured for optimal performance’. If this is not the case you may need to obtain Windows based drivers for your CD/DVD drive from its manufacturer.

CD Errors

If you receive a Blue Windows error screen saying there was an error reading the CD whilst installing or playing the game, it could be the result of one of the following.

Removing the CD whilst a game is in progress.

A CD that is scratched or dirty. This can be checked by examining the CD for scratches, fingerprints, etc. If any are found the CD may need cleaning, this can be done with either a commercially available CD cleaner or by wiping the CD with a soft dry cloth (always ensure that you wipe the CD in a straight line from the centre to the outer edge).

There may be a problem with your CD/DVD drive. Ensure that you are using the Windows based drivers. If you are experiencing similar problems with other disk intensive software it could be that the drive itself is not working properly.

UNINSTALLATION

The game should always be removed either from the uninstall option on the START menu or from the add/remove menu (details on how to do this are below). It should not be manually deleted from the hard drive, as this will result in data being left in the Windows registry.

Uninstalling Game via START menu

To remove Warrior Kings via the START menu, open the START menu, then open the Programs / Warrior Kings folder. From here select the option ‘Uninstall Warrior Kings’ to remove the game from your machine.

Uninstalling game via Add/Remove Programs

To remove the game using the Add/remove Programs function of Windows

Double click on ‘My Computer’ and then double click on the ‘Control Panel’ icon in the window that opens.

Double click on the ‘Add/Remove Programs’ icon.

Highlight the Warrior Kings line on the ‘Add/Remove Programs Properties’ window and click on the ‘Add/Remove’ icon.

Problems Uninstalling Game

If any problems are encountered during the uninstallation of the game that result in it being impossible to remove it, we recommend that you try reinstalling Warrior Kings. Once this has been done it should be possible to uninstall it without any problems.

Files Left Behind

When Warrior Kings is uninstalled, you may find that some files are left behind. These files consist of options settings and save games. If you do not wish to keep these files you will need to manually delete them from your system.

OPTIMIZING GAME SPEED

There are a number of ways in which machines can be optimised to improve the speed of games.

Ensure No Other Software is Running

For details on how to check which other programs are running on your machine.

Disable virus checking software while running Warrior Kings.

Virtual Memory

Ensure that there is enough free hard drive space for Virtual Memory.

The performance of a machine can also be improved by manually setting up a permanent swap file on a separate physical drive (this should only be attempted by advanced users).

Screen Savers/Desktop Themes

Disabling any third party Screen Savers or Desktop Themes may have an effect on improving system performance.

Hard Drive Maintenance

Ensure that your hard drive is working efficiently. This can be done using Scandisk (to check for damaged or corruption of the hard drive) and Defrag (to defragment the hard drive and possibly reduce load times). To access these utilities;

Double click on ‘My Computer’.

Right click on the hard drive you wish to check and select ‘Properties’ from the menu that appears.

When the drive properties window opens, click on the ‘Tools’ tab.

To run Scandisk, click on the ‘Check Now’ icon under the heading ‘Error Checking Status’. To run Defrag, click on the ‘Defragment Now’ button under the heading ‘Defragmentation’.

Warrior Kings Settings

You can improve performance via the in-game Settings menu, on the tool bar at the top of the game screen. Choose the Graphics menu, and you can improve performance at the expense of graphics quality, by lowering texture depth, turning off bump mapping, shadows, and so on. This will be particularly useful for lower end machines.

TROUBLESHOOTING

If a problem does occur, we recommend that you exit the game and restart Windows before attempting to run Warrior Kings again. If you are having trouble exiting the game, it can be done manually as follows;

Press the CONTROL, ALT and DELETE keys together.

From the ‘Close Program’ menu that appears highlight the name Warrior Kings.

Click on the ‘End Task’ icon.

General Solutions

If you are having problems running Warrior Kings, there are a number of things that you can initially try.

Manually Install DirectX

DirectX may need to be reinstalled, see section (3) for details on how to do this.

Reinstall Game

Sometimes problems may have occurred during the installation of the game. Simply uninstalling Warrior Kings and then installing it once more can fix these problems.

Close Other Programs

Ensure that Warrior Kings is the only program running.

Check that DirectX Drivers are Certified

See the relevant section for details on how to check that your video and sound card drivers are certified by DirectX. If they are not you may need to obtain the latest drivers from your cards manufacturer.

Potential issues with DirectX 8

Installing DirectX may result in any manufacturers video card utilities being disabled. These utilities will no longer be accessible, and any options to change video settings etc. will revert back to the control of Windows (to access the display properties, right click the mouse over the Windows desktop and select ‘Properties’, from the Window that then opens select the ‘Settings’ tab to enter the ‘Display Properties’ screen).

If after installing DirectX 8, you restart your machine and encounter problems (e.g. a black screen is displayed rather than the Windows desktop) you may need to restore your old video card drivers. In order to see the Windows desktop to do this, start your machine in ‘Safe Mode’. This can be done as follows;

Start your machine, and when the BIOS screen appears (a screen listing CPU type etc. in a table) press the F8 key. You should now be shown the Windows Startup Menu.

Select the Safe Mode option from this menu using the cursor keys and then press RETURN.

Windows will start and you will be met with a message telling you that Windows is running in ‘Safe Mode’. Press RETURN to continue loading Windows.

Once Windows finished loading, press the right mouse button and select ‘Properties’ from the menu that appears.

From the ‘Display Properties’ menu, choose the ‘Settings’ tab and then click on ‘Advanced’ (if you are using the original version of Windows, this will be named ‘Change Display Type’).

From the new window that opens click on the ‘Adapter’ tab, then click on the ‘Change…’ icon (if using the original version of Windows, click on the ‘Change’ icon next to ‘Adapter Type’).

The installation process for adding video drivers will now begin, use the drivers originally supplied for your video card, and follow the manufacturer's instructions.

Changing Hardware

If you change any of the hardware within your machine, you will need to reinstall DirectX again. This is to ensure that the new hardware is DirectX certified, as the drivers supplied with the hardware may not be.

Checking Certification

In order to ensure that Warrior Kings works correctly on your machine, you will need to have your video and display drivers certified by DirectX (for details of what certification means see the section ‘Certification’ below). If you encounter any problems running the game, the first thing to check is that your video and sound cards are certified, this can be done as follows

Open the Start menu by clicking on the START icon at the bottom left of the screen, from here click on the ‘Run’ option.

A window titled ‘Run’ will open, in the box labelled ‘Open:’ type in the following;

C:\PROGRAM FILES\DIRECTX\SETUP\DXDIAG.EXE

A window titled ‘DirectX Diagnostic Tool’ should now be open. If this window does not open, you may not have DirectX6 installed, see above for details on how to install it from the CD. If the window does appear there are a number of things that can be checked.

Video Driver Certification

Click on the ‘Display’ or ‘Display 1’ tab at the top of the ‘DirectX Diagnostic Tool’ window.

From the screen that appears, you can find out the name of your video card, the amount of memory it has and you can also test its 2D (DirectDraw) and 3D (Direct3D) features. To check certification, under the heading ‘Drivers’ the ‘Certified :’ heading should be accompanied by Yes. Also, under the ‘Notes’ heading the first line should say ‘No driver problems found’. If this is not the case on your system, then you may need to obtain new video card drivers from your manufacturer. A list of Internet sites where drivers can be found is listed below under 'Video Cards'.

Sound Driver Certification

Click on the ‘Sound’ tab at the top of the ‘DirectX Diagnostic Tool’ window. On the screen that appears, under the heading ‘Driver’ it will say whether it is certified (Yes or No) whilst under the heading ‘Notes’ the first line should read ‘No driver problems found’. If this is not the case on your system then you will need to obtain new sound card drivers from your manufacturer. A list of Internet sites where drivers can be found is listed below under 'Sound Cards'.

Certification

If a driver is ‘certified’ by DirectX, it means that it has been tested by Microsoft for full compatibility with the latest version of DirectX. Uncertified drivers have not been tested by Microsoft, and although they may still run DirectX games, it is not guaranteed. In order to guarantee full compatibility with current software, every driver should be certified (this typically applies to sound and video card drivers).

Direct Media

Direct Media is required to view the games introduction. If you are not seeing the rendered introduction upon starting the game you may not have Direct Media on your machine. Direct Media can be installed by reinstalling DirectX, and answering YES when asked if you wish to install Direct Media.

Check the websites for the latest information:

www.WarriorKings.com

www.BlackCactus.com

Please report any bugs to: bugs@blackcactus.com.