Trying to get back to the world's greatest conquest (I'm leading in 1986) but I can't open the file. I get a DataIO Error, System Error: City message. Any way I can get the file? I tried going back a bit, the saved 1985, 1984, AutoSave, etc., but with the same result. I can start a new game but can't open where I left off. Am I cowdung out of luck? Thanks for any help.
DataIO Error System Error: City
- Thread starter tsih
- Start date
if you have no saved games that are loadable you are probably out of luck because im not aware of any utilities to fix a corrupt city registry. i tried manually scanning a file to see what it would take and lets just say it wasnt going to happen.
but i can give advice what to do to keep from being burned again.
... and this is somewhat speculative so cut me some slack.
my experience with a corrupt city registry occured in a great game i was playing recently. i had to go back 6 HOURS to get a loadable game. i played this game for 2 hours saving every other turn or so and immediatly attempting a reload. suddenly i got the corrupt file again. what did i notice happened between the 2 turns between which the file went bad? i noticed russia was eliminated from the game. i looked at the earlier of the 2 turns (as well as the histograph) and noticed that russia had had no cities for many turns before they were finally eliminated. it stands to (unproven) reason that they had a settler wandering about somewhere. most likely in a boat or it wouldnt have survived so long. elimination of the settler corrupted the database because apparently the game engine doesnt know how to handle the situation of a civ losing this way.
this game happened to me recently. i threw out my civ disk over it so i have to buy a new one before i can check if my fix works. but check it i will. the fix is on the turn before russia would be eliminated (or any turn before ) give them one of my junk cities. if the settler does indeed get killed presumably the registry will remain intact since they are still in the game with a city. perhaps this city can then be captured as well once the settler is gone. i dont know. but you know ill try it out.
in future games back up your games regularly with unique names. for example first game can have backups named a1, a2, a3, etc. back up at least once an hour and immediately CTRL-L to reload the game to prove it isnt corrupt. how often is "regularly" can be anywhere from once an hour to once a turn.
now do me and everyone a favor and try to answer this question.
load your corrupt game. it will show the map but no cities. if it wont display then first load a good game and then load on top of it the corrupt game with CTRL-L.
check the histograph.
put it on 'power'.
see if there is a recently eliminated civ that managed to stay in the game for some time after it lost its last city. the evidence of this is they are in the game but show no discernible 'power' in the power histograph. they actually have a microscopic amount of power remaining from a straggling settler somewhere. if this all turns out to be true tell us. it will be a strong confirmation that everything i posted points to the formation of this ugly bug.
but if you dont have an old save of the game before that civ was eliminated then i think like me you are out of luck for this particular game.
but i can give advice what to do to keep from being burned again.
... and this is somewhat speculative so cut me some slack.
my experience with a corrupt city registry occured in a great game i was playing recently. i had to go back 6 HOURS to get a loadable game. i played this game for 2 hours saving every other turn or so and immediatly attempting a reload. suddenly i got the corrupt file again. what did i notice happened between the 2 turns between which the file went bad? i noticed russia was eliminated from the game. i looked at the earlier of the 2 turns (as well as the histograph) and noticed that russia had had no cities for many turns before they were finally eliminated. it stands to (unproven) reason that they had a settler wandering about somewhere. most likely in a boat or it wouldnt have survived so long. elimination of the settler corrupted the database because apparently the game engine doesnt know how to handle the situation of a civ losing this way.
this game happened to me recently. i threw out my civ disk over it so i have to buy a new one before i can check if my fix works. but check it i will. the fix is on the turn before russia would be eliminated (or any turn before ) give them one of my junk cities. if the settler does indeed get killed presumably the registry will remain intact since they are still in the game with a city. perhaps this city can then be captured as well once the settler is gone. i dont know. but you know ill try it out.
in future games back up your games regularly with unique names. for example first game can have backups named a1, a2, a3, etc. back up at least once an hour and immediately CTRL-L to reload the game to prove it isnt corrupt. how often is "regularly" can be anywhere from once an hour to once a turn.
now do me and everyone a favor and try to answer this question.
load your corrupt game. it will show the map but no cities. if it wont display then first load a good game and then load on top of it the corrupt game with CTRL-L.
check the histograph.
put it on 'power'.
see if there is a recently eliminated civ that managed to stay in the game for some time after it lost its last city. the evidence of this is they are in the game but show no discernible 'power' in the power histograph. they actually have a microscopic amount of power remaining from a straggling settler somewhere. if this all turns out to be true tell us. it will be a strong confirmation that everything i posted points to the formation of this ugly bug.
but if you dont have an old save of the game before that civ was eliminated then i think like me you are out of luck for this particular game.
I did something simple and I got right back to the game. I downloaded 1.29f which cleared it right up. However, you are on to something. I had America surrounded and finally blasted two ships which, lo and behold, had a settler in one, after everyone else had eliminated all their cities. I think the elimination of the settler set (no pun intended) the game off. Thanks.
Yes, Eliminating a final "Settler on a Boat" was a bug back in the original release ....
i tried the patch too but couldnt get the game to run with it 
it was that old bug about the game saying "please insert the cd rom". that was actually the straw that caused me to finally throw the disk away. anyway i did get a new disk and i tried what i said about loading the game the turn before this presumed settler was to be killed and i did give russia a city. and yup it did work too. needless to say im saving this game every turn now and that is a nuisance. to make it worse im not playing these make up turns as well as i did the first time around
nevertheless thanks for pointing that out about the patch. ill try that again maybe this weekend or something
it was that old bug about the game saying "please insert the cd rom". that was actually the straw that caused me to finally throw the disk away. anyway i did get a new disk and i tried what i said about loading the game the turn before this presumed settler was to be killed and i did give russia a city. and yup it did work too. needless to say im saving this game every turn now and that is a nuisance. to make it worse im not playing these make up turns as well as i did the first time around
nevertheless thanks for pointing that out about the patch. ill try that again maybe this weekend or something
tsih said:
i finally got 1.29f to work and it loaded my "corrupt" files without a problem. i recommend it. it still crashes once in a while but definitely less often.
an interesting thing about that settler in a boat thing. its difficult to prove there is a settler out there but this is what happened. i gave russia a landlocked junk city. about 50 turns later lo! the russians land a settler on the other side of the map! now i declare war and take out both cities and this time unlike before russia was eliminated from the game. and no bugged game either.
