How to make Dungeon Keeper 2 retail version 2 CD work ?

[Mornagest]

Hello everyone

So I'm here to ask that simple question which I cannot answer...

I get a 2 CD retail version of Dungeon Keeper, and a long time ago I was able to install and play it on Ubuntu (I guess 14.04 but I'm not sure at all) with Wine. Now Wine has newer versions, my computer isn't the same and all I get is fatal error while launching the game.

I tried several things, with different versions of Wine (stable, testing), with different computers, by emulating Windows 98 SE and XP SP2 with VMWare. All failed.

The best I could get is to launch the game with a black screen and hearing the intro, but when I stroke any key, I got a fatal error grom DKII.icd.

So I also tried to remove that funky Safedisc but it didn't change anything, on Windows nor on Ubuntu.

I posted some info here: https://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&p=136813 (official Wine forums) but nothing worked anyway.

I want to play that 1.51 version (1.31 + patch to 1.51) because the GOG version I get is not good for me: AI is dumb. I tried the GIM mod but then some levels are too difficult (especially level 11 and the "famous" level 10-salamander that attacks right away, ugh...).

Well. Maybe there's a solution to make the CD version work, maybe there's a solution to make the GOG version interesting, but I didn't find it.

Could you please help me?

Thank you in advance!

[YourMaster]

Try GIM Lite, it's here on Keeperklan too. It's GIM without the level changes.

[Mornagest]

Hello YourMaster and thank you for your answer

I finally managed to reinstall an old Windows XP on an old laptop and actually DK2 v1.5 (according to the main menu, beside the fact that the patch is named 1.3 to 1.51).

But the fact is that it seems less stable than the GOG version.

So does GIM Lite make the same refinements than this 1.5 version of the game, or anything else I should be aware of? I could have the benefits of both 1.5 (AI) and 1.7 (stability)

Thank you for your answer!

[YourMaster]

1.7 does not really have more stability over 1.51, but GOG did their own modifications that did help there. And yes, that's the point of GIM (lite), to get the best of both worlds. The features of 1.7, but without the bugs introduced in that version.

[Metal Gear Rex]

1.3 AI is pretty good too, not as good as 1.51 but there are some things 1.3 AI does better if I recall. Keeper AI anyway, I don't know about Creature AI differences only that 1.7 creature AI is dumb as bricks. They can sometimes often have issues setting up their own Lair and then get annoyed over it.

1.3 is also the most stable as far as I know, more so than GOG if I'm not mistaken.

[Mornagest]

Thank you for your answers!

I can give an example I found on 1.7 GOG version: minions bumping against a wall of the hatchery in an infinite loop instead of eating chickens so they become unhappy then angry.

The annoying fact is that I found it yesterday in 1.5 CD version too...

As far as I remember, I didn't get that bug when I played the game 20 years before, with (I suppose) the 1.3 version. Am I right?

Sorry for bothering you with that kind of questions but I seek the most efficient version in terms of bugs and AI and I'm not sure I found it

[Metal Gear Rex]

I can give an example I found on 1.7 GOG version: minions bumping against a wall of the hatchery in an infinite loop instead of eating chickens so they become unhappy then angry.

This is unfortunately a bug in all versions of the game. Something with collisions or something. I think it's potentially solvable or at least possible to mitigate by changing certain game settings like within the editor, but nothing a player can do on their own.

[Bodsda]

Hello everyone

So I'm here to ask that simple question which I cannot answer...

I get a 2 CD retail version of Dungeon Keeper, and a long time ago I was able to install and play it on Ubuntu (I guess 14.04 but I'm not sure at all) with Wine. Now Wine has newer versions, my computer isn't the same and all I get is fatal error while launching the game.

I tried several things, with different versions of Wine (stable, testing), with different computers, by emulating Windows 98 SE and XP SP2 with VMWare. All failed.

The best I could get is to launch the game with a black screen and hearing the intro, but when I stroke any key, I got a fatal error grom DKII.icd.

So I also tried to remove that funky Safedisc but it didn't change anything, on Windows nor on Ubuntu.

I posted some info here: https://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&p=136813 (official Wine forums) but nothing worked anyway.

I want to play that 1.51 version (1.31 + patch to 1.51) because the GOG version I get is not good for me: AI is dumb. I tried the GIM mod but then some levels are too difficult (especially level 11 and the "famous" level 10-salamander that attacks right away, ugh...).

Well. Maybe there's a solution to make the CD version work, maybe there's a solution to make the GOG version interesting, but I didn't find it.

Could you please help me?

Thank you in advance!

If you want to play it on Linux, use Lutris. It automatically creates the wineprefix for you, installs all necessary winetricks and gives you an easy launcher for it. I've not tried it with a retail version of the game, but I doubt it would work any differently as far as Lutris/Wine is concerned

https://lutris.net/games/dungeon-keeper-2/

[Mornagest]

Okay so here are the news

I only played campaign for those tries.

For the CD retail patched to 1.5 : I tried to play until level Peachtree, when I could summon Horny. In this particular level, I found that none of my creature was able to attack a magic door... silly and annoying.

But more importantly, when I summon Horny, the game crashed after some random time (some seconds to a minute maybe). Don't know why, but the crash is systematic.

So I tried the GOG version 1.7 with GIM and... I don't know what. DKII.exe crashes (nothing happens when I open it), and when I play with DKII-DX.exe, I found no change with AI: imps are still silly (e.g. one is digging and suddenly begins to claim land after some time, while there are still digging to be made. Just like in 1.7 GOG version without GIM changes, in fact.

So I don't know what to do to have a non-silly AI with my creatures and with opponents...

Thank you for your answers!

[Metal Gear Rex]

For the CD retail patched to 1.5 : I tried to play until level Peachtree, when I could summon Horny. In this particular level, I found that none of my creature was able to attack a magic door... silly and annoying.

1.51 has the exclusive feature of trying to make it so Magic Door is effective against melee creatures, like in DK1. It unfortunately had the silliest way of accomplishing this. That behavior is "intended".

So I tried the GOG version 1.7 with GIM and... I don't know what. DKII.exe crashes (nothing happens when I open it), and when I play with DKII-DX.exe, I found no change with AI: imps are still silly (e.g. one is digging and suddenly begins to claim land after some time, while there are still digging to be made. Just like in 1.7 GOG version without GIM changes, in fact.

GIM doesn't do any AI changes. GIM takes other mods like unlimited zoom out and packages them together. It also has the 1.51 exe and 1.7 exe so you can play any version essentially, but those exes are exactly the same so the AI will be the same as either or.

I haven't really played with 1.51 or 1.7 so I don't know much about the Imp AI. 1.3 Imp AI has issues with priority, they don't prioritize rescuing wounded creatures highly enough, instead preferring to claim or dig. Solvable by having a lot of imps or manually assigning them but not ideal. Not sure if other versions of the game have this either - maybe making Imps break away from their current task was an attempt at getting them to check for other tasks to do in general, such as rescuing wounded creatures.

I'm afraid I don't know about the Horned Reaper crash. Not sure I've heard of that.