Has my disc died?

[akko313]

Hello! After a break from roma surrectum for about two years and being disappointed by later total war series games, i found myself going back to good ol' roma surrectum. As i have many times before and hopefully will continue to do so for years to come!
HOWEVER, tried to load it up again (my previous version, 2.6), wouldn't launch. So i reinstalled roma surrectum with the update to 3.1, hit the lancher, then when i select play the lancher closes and then nothing happens, same issue as before.
So, i uninstalled rome total war, reinstalled it, put the disc in, selected play rome and the same thing happens! NOTHING! the disc has seen better days after many years of abuse but if it was able to be read to download the game then why won't it play it?
Any suggestions apart from buy a new disc?

Thanks

[akko313]

So after a bit more digging, with the disc in if i go into programme files/the creative assembly/rome total war and click the application icon for rome or BI, same thing, nothing happens.
If i click the disc itsself and then click the rome application it comes up with the message "the program can't start because MSS32.DLL is missing from your comuter. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem".

Well, i've already done that..

[ur-Lord Tedric]

By 'disc' - do you mean your original RTW, BI, or Alex CD (disk)? For you then mention downloading the game......

Have you followed all the instructions on how to install RS on top of a clean RTW install?

[akko313]

By 'disc' - do you mean your original RTW, BI, or Alex CD (disk)? For you then mention downloading the game......

Have you followed all the instructions on how to install RS on top of a clean RTW install?

Yes

I think i had a clean installation of 3.1, the problem is it wouldn't open my old working version of 2.6 either, and then when i've reinstalled rome total war itself and tried to play vanilla (to check that its working, nothing else ), that doesn't work too!

For some reason it just open the game when selection play on any of the lanchers, vanilla or roma surrectum

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Yes

I think i had a clean installation of 3.1, the problem is it wouldn't open my old working version of 2.6 either, and then when i've reinstalled rome total war itself and tried to play vanilla (to check that its working, nothing else ), that doesn't work too!

For some reason it just open the game when selection play on any of the lanchers, vanilla or roma surrectum

Hmmm... this doesn't sound right.

If you have a 'proper' RTW disk (preferably, I'd recommend, BI) then you should have 'separate installs' for each thing.

Firstly (making sure that you have 'no' installs of RTW at all) - you install RTW 'clean' on you PC from the disk. That will certainly show you that your disk works fine.

Secondly - you don't touch that install again - but make a complete copy of the entire install and name it 'vanilla RTW' or some such. Rename the original 'RTW Clean' (sic).

Then re-copy the, now, RTW Clean and make 'RS2.6' - and it's to that install you copy all the RS 2.6 stuff.

Lastly - copy RTW Clean and make 'RS3.1' - and copy all the RS 3.1 stuff.

You make 3 different shortcuts (I had 8 at one point during testing) to each playable install - you NEVER, EVER, touch RTW Clean except to create a new install.

With the disk in the drive - and always starting each different game from the desktop - all 3 different games/mods should be playable. The disk is only accessed at the very beginning of each game.

Now - is your setup like that?

[akko313]

There's a torrent: https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/7799871/Rome.Total.War.Gold.Edition-AnCiENT. Get a good torrent downloader program and have the game downloaded via internet.
You aren't pirating since you just bought the game. These disc stop working after a few years unfortunately.

Hmmm... this doesn't sound right.

If you have a 'proper' RTW disk (preferably, I'd recommend, BI) then you should have 'separate installs' for each thing.

Firstly (making sure that you have 'no' installs of RTW at all) - you install RTW 'clean' on you PC from the disk. That will certainly show you that your disk works fine.

Secondly - you don't touch that install again - but make a complete copy of the entire install and name it 'vanilla RTW' or some such. Rename the original 'RTW Clean' (sic).

Then re-copy the, now, RTW Clean and make 'RS2.6' - and it's to that install you copy all the RS 2.6 stuff.

Lastly - copy RTW Clean and make 'RS3.1' - and copy all the RS 3.1 stuff.

You make 3 different shortcuts (I had 8 at one point during testing) to each playable install - you NEVER, EVER, touch RTW Clean except to create a new install.

With the disk in the drive - and always starting each different game from the desktop - all 3 different games/mods should be playable. The disk is only accessed at the very beginning of each game.

Now - is your setup like that?

GOOD NEWS! I sorted the problem!

ur-Lord Teric, that is exactly the way i had it set out. In the end the problem was that in the year since i'd played Roma Surrectum i'd done some microsoft updates. This update has made some old games unplayable due to the MSS32.DLL error where it won't launch the game. I had to uninstall a specific microsoft update and now it works! I bought a new disc with alaxander on just in case before i tried this (I must have spent about £50 on rome total war discs over the years...worth it though) so now am experiencing the alex AI for the first time!

Anyway, its all installed and i have started a campagin as the romans (obviously) on H/H. The first battle against hannibal I ACTUALLY LOST bearing in mind this was my first battle in over a year, no reinforcements, my god, it was a close one but he took so god damn long to die!!
Loving the campaign again so far, why don't they make games like this anymore?
Thanks to all involved for creating this masterpiece of a mod, who would of thought there would still be people enjoying a game this old. Absolutely fantastic!

[Quintillius]

There's a torrent: https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/7799871/Rome.Total.War.Gold.Edition-AnCiENT. Get a good torrent downloader program and have the game downloaded via internet.
You aren't pirating since you just bought the game. These disc stop working after a few years unfortunately.

[akko313]

i will post some pictures in the empires thread in due course