Heroes Over Europe

How to Play

The game has been tested on Windows 7 64-bit and Windows 10, it works fine. You may experience some small troubles when you play the game on modern systems, check our Guide and Notes for details

Before installation - if you're using Windows 8, 8.1, 10 or 11 - make sure that you enabled DirectPlay if you didn't make it before, read this or this guide how to do it (if you're using Windows 7 or older - just install DirectX from the disc)

Install & play guide:

• Mount the disc image. You will need the utility for mounting disc image files, like WinCDEmu, UltraISO, Alcohol 52%/Alcohol 120% or Daemon Tools Lite
• Install the game. It is recommended to install the game not in default path, but in some other, non-system folder, like C:/Games/Heroes over Europe
• After you installed the game - install both patches. The patches fix many problems and add support for more models of joysticks and gamepads
• Open the directory with the game and find heroes2.exe. Right click on heroes2.exe - Properties - Compatibility - Set "Run this app in compatibility mode with Windows XP SP3" and "Run as administrator"
• Launch the game and play. If the game doesn't work in compatibility mode with Windows XP - try to launch it in compatibility mode with other version of Windows (Windows 95, 98, Windows XP, etc.)

Notes:

• If the installation doesn't start - try to launch Setup.exe in compatibility mode with old version of Windows (98, 2000 or XP)
• Make sure to install all patches before running the game. The patches fix many technical issues, especially critical problem when Direct-Input joystick axes are not correctly mapped by default and cannot be remapped, and the patches also add support for more joystick and gamepad models, including the Xbox 360 controller
• It is recommended to install all versions of Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable and NET Framework for the correct work of the game. Also it is recommended to install K-Lite Codec Pack for the correct work of in-game videos
• The game works on DirectX 9, so if you're using Windows 8, 8.1, 10 or 11 - you need to enable DirectPlay: Go to Control Panel, and select 'Programs'. Select 'Turn Windows features on and off', click on 'Legacy Components' and check the box 'DirectPlay'. Select OK, once the installation is done, restart your computer
• The game didn't have any DRM protection, so you just need to install the game and patches, and you can play
• If you want to change graphics settings - run graphicssettings.exe, also you can change it manually in GraphicsSettings.ini file via Notepad
• Some users reported the problem about broken inscriptions in Graphics Settings configurator, when all text is shown as "String not localised". To fix it open graphicssettings.exe in any HeX-editor, search for "gfxsettings/%s/gfxsettingstool.csv" and once you find it, change "%s" to "en"; save the changes. Then go to the Heroes over Europe/gfxsettings folder, there will folder called english, rename it from english to en. Now run graphicssettings.exe and try to change settings, it should work correct. For more details about this trouble check this thread
• The game supports wide and high screen resolutions, but for unknown reasons, for some resolutions you cannot select 4x anti-aliasing and high shadows details at the same time. Apparently this is a feature of the game engine, and not a bug
• If you have problems completing missions, download a save file with a completed game and put it in C:/Users/Username/AppData/Roaming/Ubisoft/Heroes Over Europe folder, this will make all missions and all planes available for selection
• If you have troubles with launch of the game - try to delete Ubisoft Connect if you have it installed