Cannot load save games

[WallyTheWalrus]

I have installed the game and upgraded it to the latest patch (f)

I can play the game no problem but if I close it and load the save game it refuses to load the saved game file saying "DataIO operation System Error:UNIT".

I have done no hacking are changes whatsoever the game is exactly as installed and upgraded with the official patch. I have also tried the auto saves and they are the same.

One more thing this only happens after 1300 BC before that the game loads ok.

I have reinstalled three times and I get the same result.

I am using XP professional although the save game fails on win98 when I tried to load it on another machine.

Is this a common problem.

[Acex]

Well I had same problem, tried all sorts of things, then changed somethin in a ini-file and installed a nocd-patch I found at http://www.gamecopyworld.com. Works now, allthough it takes a long time to load, taskmanager even claims that civ3 isn't responding, but it gets through, old saves even work again

[WallyTheWalrus]

Hi,

Thanks for this it does work but it is a shame that we have to resort to such lenghths to get a game running.

I have also solved the problem. I had a look at the save game that was rejected in the save game editor and discovered that at the end of the units was a barbarian settler with a key of 0 the same key as the first unit in the list. In the editor I deleted this barbarian and then the save game was accepted. It seems that sometimes the game creates a characted with a duplicate key and that is why the file fails to load. I did some testing and found that if I save the game when the end of turn message is shown it always corrupted the game other times it only did it when a lot of cities exist.