Anyone using Windows Vista running into trouble, receiving the error message "Colonization has stopped working...etc etc etc" ? Ive installed the game, and at the same point in 3 separate tries, the error message appears. Single game, play now, select nation, select leader, select map, difficulty level/game length, then the load screen, the leader screen pops up, i hit continue, and then....poof. "Colonization has stopped working, blah blah blah" Anyone else have this? Is there a patch (already?!?!) I might have missed? Thanks in advance, folks.

game installed ok on my Vista 64... but the damn Securerom does not like my DVD drive and refuses to let the game play... plays fine with no cd EXE

Been playing fine on Vista Home Ultimate. :)

If it dies on the leaderhead screen coming up, it could be graphical related. You got an up to date card with the latest drivers?

I had the same problem and after much tinkering I found that disabling particle effects fixes it.

Hope this helps!

No problems so far, although the install thought my video card couldn't handle it so it auto-set it to 'low graphics'. I think it might've been looking at the onboard video adapter rather than my card, because so far 'medium graphics' hasn't had any issues that I'm aware of.

The installation was a mess on 32 bit Windows Vista machine. Each time I inserted the Colonization disk and clicked "Install," Vista would try to reinstall my printer driver. Eventually, I went to the disk's directory and manually started the SETUP utility. Even after that, it installed everything OK, but it never gave me any prompts after it finished the installation. It didn't add any icons. The only way I can start the game is to go into "My Computer" and manually double click the DVD drive icon to launch the "Play" menu.

It puts the icon in vista, in the Games Explorer, not on the desktop.

It puts the icon in vista, in the Games Explorer, not on the desktop.

I thought I checked the Games explorer, but I'll check again. Thanks.

It was still odd that it finished the installation without any prompt to that effect.

I thought I checked the Games explorer, but I'll check again. Thanks.

It was still odd that it finished the installation without any prompt to that effect.

i don't like the games explorer idea

after getting used to having icons on my desktop for the last 15 years

I hate the bloody thing. Too many friggin clicks just to play a game. Start *click* Programs *click* Games *click* games explorer *click* game *double click*

Just copy paste it to desktop. :p

Anyone using Windows Vista running into trouble, receiving the error message "Colonization has stopped working...etc etc etc" ? Ive installed the game, and at the same point in 3 separate tries, the error message appears. Single game, play now, select nation, select leader, select map, difficulty level/game length, then the load screen, the leader screen pops up, i hit continue, and then....poof. "Colonization has stopped working, blah blah blah" Anyone else have this? Is there a patch (already?!?!) I might have missed? Thanks in advance, folks.

Exactly, I haved the same problem 3 months ago, with Oblivion...
A week later my computer died, and i send it to a place where they "repair" computers, the problem: my graphic-card...
Maybe it's that's who's following you... :)
I don't know...

I hate the bloody thing. Too many friggin clicks just to play a game. Start *click* Programs *click* Games *click* games explorer *click* game *double click*

Just copy paste it to desktop. :p

Agreed. Not to mention that there are a ton of games that don't even show up in the Game Explorer.

Running Vista, installed with no issues, and running just fine.

Good lord, I haven't used the Desktop for anything other than convenient folder storage in years. Custom toolbars FTW! (Which is roughly what games explorer should be, just sounds like they do a poor job of designing it).

You do know you're allowed to edit your start menu, right? You don't have to retain the default 50+ folders they bury stuff in, you know. Just put the relevant shortcut into your main GAMES folder, which is right there. Poof! I classify all my software like this, so I don't have to sort through crazy lists; things are where they ought to be, instead of where some idiot thought they should be.

Thanks for the help/responses folks, very helpful. Turned out I too needed to reduce my graphics to "low" and it works fine. Also nice to know where they hid the desktop icon--that was annoying too. Anyhow, thanks again. I appreciate it.

Thanks for the heads up on graphics resolution. I too got the "Colonizaton has stopped working..." error message,until I switched to low res graphics. Game runs fine now.

Anyone using Windows Vista running into trouble, receiving the error message "Colonization has stopped working...etc etc etc" ?...
I've got exactly the same problem running Windows Vista Ultimate x86 SP1.

EDIT:

Autodetected Graphics Options:

Resolution: 800x600
Anti-Aliasing 0x
Level of Detai: High
Opt: Full Screen

Change: Increased resolution to 1280x800
Result: Crash to Desktop (I didn't try running in 800x600)

Change: Effects disabled (mentioned in an earlier post as a possible fix)
Result: Crash to Desktop

Change: Re-enabled effects
Result: Crash to Desktop

Change: Set level of detail to meduim (disables 'High Detail Terrain' and enables 'Globe View Buildings Disabled')
Result: Works okay

Change: Disabled 'Globe View Buildings Disabled' (so globe view buildings are enabled)
Result: Works okay

Change: Enabled 'High Detail Terrain'
Result: Works okay


So at least in my case the problem is not the particle effects (at least not the medium detail particle effects), high detail terrain or the globe view buildings.

And when I say it works okay I mean it hasn't immediately crashed when starting the game... :)

Looks like I may have spoken too soon. I'm getting some artifacts such as invisible units and grey bars (akin to solid 'rays' of light).

EDIT: And it crashed when I tried to exit the game. :(

EDIT: Message deleted. I learned the problem was with my PC, not the game.

Looks like I may have spoken too soon. I'm getting some artifacts such as invisible units and grey bars (akin to solid 'rays' of light).

EDIT: And it crashed when I tried to exit the game. :(

I'm getting some invisible units, too, and grey bars that just flash crazily all over the screen. And when my first colony completes it's first building task the monitor goes crazy trying to switch video modes and then I get the Vista application terminated nonsense. Any ideas on what settings, game or card, can overcome this?

I'm getting some invisible units, too, and grey bars that just flash crazily all over the screen. And when my first colony completes it's first building task the monitor goes crazy trying to switch video modes and then I get the Vista application terminated nonsense. Any ideas on what settings, game or card, can overcome this?these issues might be fixed with setting all graphic setting to the minimum.

these issues might be fixed with setting all graphic setting to the minimum.

That's what I eventually had to do, and that will be suitable. Even with all of the settings at the mins the game still looks better than a lot of other products. This game was always one of my favorites, bested in most time played only by Alpha Centauri. Now that would be an awesome remake, and one I would buy sight unseen.

Vista Home Premium here

With it installing with default and a lower screen then my monitor uses I reset to the 1680x1050

Game then crashed after selecting nation and leader and continue

Resolution:

Medium not High Setting and Low Graphics Terrain

My Store Bought comes with 256 MB (system Ram shared)
Intel graphics media accelerator 950

Thing is with Civ 4 or even beyond the sword I can use High graphics and high graphics terrain without
a problem

I did note that Colonization uses Shader 1.1

:crazyeye:

Hi there,

I got Civ IV: Colonization last friday. It stopped working for the first time after 15 minutes of play. It then worked for at least 5 hours over the next few days. After 2 blue screens in one session, I updated my video card drivers from 175.? to 178.3. Now the game stops working once every 15 minutes, but no more blue screens.
Since Colonization was pretty much impossible to enjoy, I started a new Civ IV game instead. After 15 minutes of play, Civ IV crashed as well. I tried out different video settings for a few hours, but I have given up for now. I think I'll wait for a new video driver or a patch, playing with constant crashes is just no fun.

OS:
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP1

H/W:
Asus P5N-E SLI ATX Motherboard
Asus EN7900GT 256Mb (Nvidia, supposedly vista ready)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Processor
2GB of Kingston HyperX RAM

Looks like I may have spoken too soon. I'm getting some artifacts such as invisible units and grey bars (akin to solid 'rays' of light).

EDIT: And it crashed when I tried to exit the game. :(

I have the same problem with a Vista Home OS. I think it's a problem with the DivX software.

I'm soldiering thru it though just to see what neat tricks are in the game.

After having no system problems at all when winning on all the other levels I've just got to 73 turns away from the end of my first Revolutionary game and it looks like I will win within that time and I've started getting "Colonization has stopped working" at exactly the same point.

I've reloaded several earlier autosaves and tried to play through but as it clicks round from 1719-1720 I get the same error. I've tried at least 25 times and done different actions every time to see if I can carry on but it just keeps crashing. Maybe it's something to do with the autosave it tries to do at that point??

Any ideas? Dunno if I can be bothered to play it all through again since I'll only end up doing exactly the same thing!

I'm on Vista Home Premium, Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2GHz, 2 gig of RAM if that helps.

I haven't had a problem getting to the end of the game but I can only run it at low rez.

Updating to SP1 for Vista Home Premium didn't help. In fact I had to roll back out of it. With SP 1 installed I only managed to get half a dozen turns in before the laptop hung totally.

I'm using a Toshiba Satellite A200 with 2 Gig of ram

Change: Re-enabled effects
Result: Crash to Desktop

Change: Set level of detail to meduim (disables 'High Detail Terrain' and enables 'Globe View Buildings Disabled')
Result: Works okay

Change: Disabled 'Globe View Buildings Disabled' (so globe view buildings are enabled)
Result: Works okay

Change: Enabled 'High Detail Terrain'
Result: Works okay

So at least in my case the problem is not the particle effects (at least not the medium detail particle effects), high detail terrain or the globe view buildings.

Finally, thanks to tinkering like you suggested, I no longer have invisible units after loading a save. Indians where you could see only bow & arrows, or pioneers where you could see only their tools working, was a real drag. Lowering the grafix a bit was all it took, and I can't even notice any lessening in quality.

So many thanks. Now I can play it again. :cool:

Like several others I couldn't get past the initial character page until I reset my graphics resolution. Now I'm wondering if that's why some of my other games won't run on Vista.

I had the same problem and after much tinkering I found that disabling particle effects fixes it.

Hope this helps!

i bet that would fix it but how do you disable paticle effects?:confused:

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