Huh, the Linux demo is really messed up

[Litude]

Has anyone given the Linux demo of Knights and Merchants a try? I just recently got it up and running and of my god it's truly the result of lazy work

It seems like the battle tutorial was removed from the Linux demo, and the first thing I noticed when starting the game was that music was labeled as "not available in demo". That wasn't the huge thing though, all buildings are available directly from the start of the tutorial mission (even the iron smithy, gold mines and such)! :shock:
Then there was one thing which instantly made it clear there was NO beta testing done at all on the demo version of the game. Off the three messages initially sent at the start, two of them contain only the string "Sawmill" in them :evil:
Still, the gameplay seemed the same to me, but I think the game speed might have been a bit faster in the Linux version, but it might have been just me though.

Judging by the demo, the files themselves seem to have pretty much the same basic construction, but there was no missions folder, instead all the stuff was seemingly squished together into one file called missioneng.dat. The sound files also had been packed in some weird method I didn't bother taking a closer look at.

I don't have the retail Linux version of the game so I'm hopeful that none of this weirdness exist in that version of the game.

[Lewin]

Yeah, I did try it. I thought the colors were a bit odd and response was very bad. (When you click to place road, it sometimes takes ages) I saw the mission file. I think the map is at the start and the mission in the middle. Maybe this is to stop people from installing it and copying the original missions over?
Have you tried Wine? (WINdows Emulator) Install it (Let me know if you want help) Then just copy your whole TPR folder over, then cd to that directory and type wine-auto KM_TPR.exe It works like a treat! (far, far better than the demo) I haven't found any issues at all, and game play is much the same as on Windows. You can probably also use the installer on the CD, but I haven't tried that.
So, Linux peoples: Don't use the Linux copy, use the Windows one with Wine!!
Lewin.

[Litude]

The sound effects were also one step behind for me, but from what I know it could just be me messing up some audio config or something.
No I didn't try Wine yet, I might try doing that soon but I just mostly installed the demo for curiosity's sake, not for playing

[kuba11100]

I've tested this demo, too. First of all, the sound wasn't working for me at all (OSS only?). The animations maybe were a bit better. Colours like in 0.73 demo. Also, some map tiles are wrong (look at the iron mountain near the blue enemy base or the water in the east). They really messed it up. So if you want to play KaM on Linux I also recommend Wine. Only movies are not working there, netplay also (but it's buggy on Windows, too), and cursor can be slow.

And look at the price of the retail version... 25 pounds?! When I bought TSK in 2001 (? don't remember) I paid 40 PLN (50? don't remember also).

(1 pound was about 5 PLN, now 4, but it's also a big difference)