Hi all,

New user here - I've been getting into retro and nostalgia computing mainly via YouTube. The thing driving my nostalgia is memories of the first PC I got as a kid, an IBM Aptiva tower Pentium 120Mhz, that came with a set of games and software which included Sierra's Caesar 2. That game totally absorbed me as a kid, and "plebs are needed!" still rings through my head every so often ...

I've found several different copies of the game as either zipped folders, or ISOs, and tried running them in both DOSBox and VirtualBox with Win98SE installed, and I've never managed to get the MIDI music working! It just isn't the same without the music - which you can hear in gameplay videos on YouTube like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpDjllLwRAU - this isn't the same as the intro music on the first few splash screens, and in-game announcements etc, which work just fine as wave audio.

There are old threads on this forum where people have asked about the music, and even asked if the CD actually had a CD-audio track for the music (which I guess means they couldn't get the music to work at all). But I can't seem to find any answers ...

I've tried tweaking the DOSBox conf file endlessly, including trying Ultrasound emulation etc, but no luck. I've mainly tried with a MacOS Ventura host, but also with an XP SP3 host.

I also tried running it natively (in compatibility mode) on XP (on the first Retro PC I've bought - a ThinkPad X60s - which I don't believe will work with earlier versions of Windows) but still no luck. I'm starting to wonder whether the game always looks for the music on a CD (presumably looking for a DOS CD driver?) and when you get prompted to choose "run from hard disk only", it doesn't even look for the files, even if they're there?

The only way I got the music at all was running the Win95 version from an ISO in VirtualBox with Win98SE installed - but the timing then seemed to be way out (year ending every few seconds) and no walkers appeared etc. The Windows version doesn't seem as good anyway!

Has anyone ever managed to get the music in Caesar 2 DOS version working on any kind of emulation (or more modern hardware?)

This has become a bit of a mission for me ... think the next step might be to track down an original CD on eBay ...

Thanks

Justin