Making it run on Windows 8.1

[Propper47]

Hello! I had the problem that the game would start... load the first screen then crash, what I did is remove the intro movies ( 3.ogv and 2.ogv) ...now it works, but its rather sluggish and I have not tried internet games yet. I hope it helps you a little. Cheers and gods speed on your conquest for Europe!

[Suspiria]

omg how i can delete intro movies??

[Tavan]

this didnt work :(

[dylan.joseph]

Okay, here is how to make it go on 8.1 (Or at least what worked for me)
1) Like Propper47 said, delete the intro movies.
2) Set engine.exe to compatability mode for XP SP2
3) If it alternates between your native resolution and 1999, press escape and it 'should' drop you in the game menu. This might take a couple of tries.

[olok4444]

hey dylan.joseph, my game is sluggish and crashes after i win a battle and it doesnt save it. do you have the same issue?

[olok4444]

i did what you said btw

[AnonVendetta]

Here is my post from another Cossacks topic in a Steam Community discussion. It might help. I didnt need to manually delete any intro movies, and running engine.exe in compatibiltity mode isn't necessary. This was posted months ago, I have since went back from 7 to 8.1:

"First, I'm running Win7,not 8, I recently switched back to 7 after having issues upgrading to the new Windows 8.1. I found this solution somewhere on one of Valve's sites, it worked for me and I believe it might work for others. This specifically applies to Cossacks II: Battle For Europe. I had the issue that my screen would turn bright green after launching the game, and then crash to desktop. First, as a precaution uninstall and reinstall the game, so everything is fresh. Next go to the game folder and find engine.exe, right-click it, go to Properties, then Compatibility tab, and ensure that you are *NOT* using any compatibility modes whatsoever, they aren't necessary and will slow the game down. Then scroll down the list of files until you find 2 files that start with "settings" in their names, Delete these files, and *ONLY* these 2 files. Try launching the game again. The green screen should be gone, everything should work perfectly, and multiplayer should work too. Don't worry about the "Game files have changed" message, things should still work. I don't take credit for this fix, just wanted to dispel the myth on the Steam forums that BFE don't work on win Vista/7/8, or 64 bit Windows. I cuurently own all the games in the Cossacks series, there are a few minor issues here and there, but they all run fine overall. Hope this helped someone!"

[Solun]

Originally posted by AnonVendetta:

Here is my post from another Cossacks topic in a Steam Community discussion. It might help. I didnt need to manually delete any intro movies, and running engine.exe in compatibiltity mode isn't necessary. This was posted months ago, I have since went back from 7 to 8.1:

Just wanted to thank you for your tip. It really does work. I tried to find the solution everywhere but this is the only one that works for me - I am able to run the game. BUT unfortunately, the game is still not playable. Even though I set the game to run through the graphics card (natively, it uses integrated graphics), after like one minute of perfectly smooth gameplay (no matter if in tutorial, campaign or skirmish), the game starts to act laggy to the point of not being able to play because it looks like a picture slideshow. So the game runs on my Windows 8.1 now but still not playable. Anyone has any tips?