the site mentions that sometimes the auto update is buggy on some updates. I started doing manual updates 4 months ago. Find Conquer.exe, right click and chose send to desktop then go to your desktop right click on new shortcut and chose properties. In the target box, add -blacknull at the end of the line. Dont forget the space before the - like so.
Now simply click on your new shortcut to run the game. If you prefer to pin it to the start menu thats fine too. just make sure its Conquer.exe and not Play.exe.
PS. Instead of having Shortcut to Conquer.exe i renamed it Conquer 2.0