Civ3 gets error upon clicking "Play Game"

White Glint · Aug 7, 2010

Hi CivFanatics Forums!
I really wish my first post here wasn't a technical one, but I've ran out of options as to what I should do now with my problem...

My Civilization 3 game has been running flawlessly for about ~6 months, after which I had to put it down because schoolwork was piling up. Now that I have time to pick it up again, the "Intro window" that pops up when you first insert the CD (asking if you want to PLAY GAME, README, UNINSTALL, or EXIT) appears normally. However, if I click PLAY GAME, the following message appears:

"Civilization3.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close."

I can't even get to the opening cinematic.

It doesn't actually say what the problem is. I've tried installing and reinstalling a number of times, but that doesn't work.

I'm really at a loss here. Any suggestions would GREATLY be appreciated.

Gary Childress · Sep 18, 2010

White Glint said:
Hi CivFanatics Forums!
I really wish my first post here wasn't a technical one, but I've ran out of options as to what I should do now with my problem...

My Civilization 3 game has been running flawlessly for about ~6 months, after which I had to put it down because schoolwork was piling up. Now that I have time to pick it up again, the "Intro window" that pops up when you first insert the CD (asking if you want to PLAY GAME, README, UNINSTALL, or EXIT) appears normally. However, if I click PLAY GAME, the following message appears:

"Civilization3.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close."

I can't even get to the opening cinematic.

It doesn't actually say what the problem is. I've tried installing and reinstalling a number of times, but that doesn't work.

I'm really at a loss here. Any suggestions would GREATLY be appreciated.

I'm having the exact same problem. The program once worked fine and now I'm suddenly getting the same error message you are. As soon as I double click on the icon it comes up with the message, no other explanation as to why it didn't open or anything. The only thing I can think of is if my computer has some sort of virus or maybe Windows XP was recently updated by MS and it has messed something up.

Is anyone else having this problem? Does anyone know a fix for this?

Many thanks!

paramatt · Sep 22, 2010

I get this in other games sometimes,

did you retry to open the game or just come here after the one time?

I don't know why, but sometimes the game just won't go to the Directory and open up, try opening the game by going straight to the directory, instead of a desktop icon or going to my computer and clicking on the icon.

i don't know much about computers.. at all... but try starting just from the directory (right click on the desktop icon > open file folder > Civilization 3 (Whatever the name of the game is)

Im playing Civ3 PTW so it'll say Civ3Conquests

you could probably just reinstall aswell, the game only takes a few minutes to do so, and don't worry about losing saved games/ect, whenever I reinstall, for some reason the games don't get deleted.

Civ3 gets error upon clicking "Play Game"

White Glint

Chieftain

Gary Childress

Student for and of life

paramatt

Chieftain

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