City limits

The “no limits.exe” has a preplace limit of 600 cities. When you went back to 512 cities, did you simply remove the ones that you added or did you use an unaltered copy of your original map?
If you just removed the excess cities the file my still contain invalid data.

After additional experimentation, I'm having the same problem even using unmodded Conquests. I start with 512 cities. I can build about 45 more, but after that the game crashes. I've been playing using the No Raze, No City Limits, No Units Limits exe downloaded from here. I'm stumped. Any ideas?
 
I’ve only recently reached the 512 city limit and I think I’m only up to about 525 now. You’re going to have to track down one to the older members more familiar with this patch. I’m out of my depth with this stuff.
OK, thanks.
 
Describe the crash. Is it a crash to desktop? Is the game freezing but staying open? a BSD? Something Else?

I get a message box saying that the application is no longer working with an option to close the program or let it keep trying. When I select close, I go right out to the desktop.
 
If it’s this message upload_2017-3-24_2-25-29.png I always get that between turns. It’s just the result of a high demand on your RAM causing the computer to focus on working out the enemy turns and neglecting the visual side. It will last for 5 minutes in a small game and up to 25 late in a 360x360 (max) map.

Useful tip, if you press the windows key you can do other stuff on your computer whilst you wait. I’d keep it to browsing the internet or playing minesweeper, anything that doesn’t take away too mush processing power from the game.
 
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It’s just the result of a high demand on your RAM causing the computer to focus on working out the enemy turns and neglecting the visual side.
One major cause for this kind of delay is that the game engine tests every possible trade route between each city. In other words, for each pair of cities the game is checking every possible path tile by tile to see if it can make a connection. Removing the built-in city limits increases the potential pairs. A larger map multiplies the possible tile paths. Improvements such as harbors increase the possible paths even further. Then there are the potential paths for unit movement between cities ...
 
If it’s this message View attachment 467628 I always get that between turns. It’s just the result of a high demand on your RAM causing the computer to focus on working out the enemy turns and neglecting the visual side. It will last for 5 minutes in a small game and up to 25 late in a 360x360 (max) map.

Useful tip, if you press the windows key you can do other stuff on your computer whilst you wait. I’d keep it to browsing the internet or playing minesweeper, anything that doesn’t take away too mush processing power from the game.
I am getting a message like that. It's not between turns, though. It's when I build the 557th city. I'm playing on a map that is 224 x 200.
 
I have the same issue where the game always crashes when I try to found the 557th city. I’ve been trying everything I can think of ... it works just fine until the exact point that I try to found another city. Initially it freezes, but if I click on anything it gives the “Civ3Conquests is not responding” message, and will never recover no matter how long I let it continue running.

I’ve attached the savefile that I’m working with, which is currently 40 cities over the original limit. No matter what I do, I can found four more cities but the fifth will cause the crash. Does anyone have any idea what might be going wrong?
 

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Historia27, welcome at CFC! :band:[party]

The NCL Component of those patches (some of them in combination with the No-Raze and the graphics patch) is simply not working correctly. In the documented test for my epic mod CCM2 I showed, that games with a NCL component soon run into severe memory problems when exceeding the 512 cities limit.

When City 543 (512+31) is founded, none of the advisor windows could be opened any longer. The game still can be saved and some more cities can be founded with the city screen opening (until city 556), but when any of the advisor screens is opened, I got a freeze of the game (starting with city 543):
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ccm2-epic-mod.625812/page-15#post-15444062

When exceeding city number 556 the game is freezing completely: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ccm2-epic-mod.625812/page-15#post-15441099

In my eyes, patches with a NCL component with the current memory problems are dangerous for games with random maps, as soon after exceeding the 512th city, the memory problems will start and with city 557 your game will be stopped by that problem completely and your current game (that otherwise could have given you a lot of fun for many more turns with 512 cities) unfortunately is thrown into the garbage bin by the game.
 
Thanks for answering. Do you know anything about what's wrong? Earlier in the thread it seems like some players could get more than 557 cities. I like playing on maximum-size maps and being unable to finish my games is killing me.

The advisor windows are working fine for me. Even at city 556, everything works perfectly and I can play for as long as I like as long as I don't found another city. Do you get the same as me if you use my save file? I did a clean install to make sure the NCL patch is the only change. If there are differences between our versions, then maybe there's a version where it works, or maybe it would work on an earlier version of Windows.
 
Historia27, a belated welcome to CivFanatics! I have the same problem with the patch as you do, and I have always had the same problem since I started using it back in 2012. Words to the effect: "Civ. III has encountered a problem and needs to close. Sorry for the ...etc." It has happened to me on both XP & Win 8.1 when I try to build city 557. Maybe it might work OK on Win98, I don't know. The patch, however, is a great addition to CivIII, IMHO. I really enjoy playing the game much more with the patch than without it. Many thanks to Knuckles & his friends for developing it. Good luck, and once again Hi!
 
There was a comment on city limits causing crashes in the Quick Answers/Newbie Questions thread.

I myself do not use the patch so I cannot say.
 
Does this imply that, for modding purposes - so that everyone can play every mod - which should stop using the No City Limits patch? (I wasn't planning on using it for Terra Fantasia, but still ... :hmm: )

One fact for all patch versions containing the NCL component seems to be common: Unfortunately with city 557 your game is over. This is especially bad for games played on random maps. The player can control that he never builds more cities than an overall number of 556, but there is no control over the AI trying to build this city ... and it is no crash to desktop - it is a freeze.
 
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To Civinator: No, in my experience the AI does not try to build cities once the limit of 512 is reached. All cities above that have to be built by the Human player. When the human tries to build #557, the Microsoft error window and dialogue box appears and the game shuts down. What I do is simply is go back to my previous end turn save and reload the game and do not try to build the 557th city. Everything is then fine. I use Knuckles 4th download because no unit limits is a major fun factor for me. I have no experience with multi-human player games, however.
 
Hi Gronk and welcome to CFC! :band:[party]

I made my test with a version that contains the NCL component (and the MUA patch, the NoRaze patch and an additional fix of the graphical glitches that Firaxis had done in the civilopedia) that was kindly posted in my CCM2 thread. I have greatest respect for everybody who tries to fix problems and to overcome limits in C3C. My test was done with a biq in Debug Mode by adding settlers in that mode - so not in a real game. Unfortunately the save files from that test seem to be deleted.

If the AI in your observations doesn´t build any cities above 512, I have no observations that are contradicting this, as my test was done in Debug mode. On the other side, if only a human player can build cities number 513 - 556 it is the question, if this is really a big progress in the gameplay.

Gronk, have you tested the MUA (maximum Units Allowed) patch in a game ? I never had the time to place 8192 + x units on a map with that patch. More than ten years ago I had to rewrite my version of SOE with regimental settings and the names of those regiments to a higher scale, as the playtesters soon ran into the MUA.
 
Earlier posts in this thread have echoed your same comments about only the human player being able to build above 512 cities, ie "What's the point?" True, that is up to each player and what they feel comfortable with or like.
Some players claim in earlier posts they could pre-place 600 cities using the editor. I, however, have never tried that.
Knuckles' 4th post includes his "No Unit Limits" and it works. I used to maintain records of my total units and gold per turn, per game; Game A: 450 BC- 402 units and 1060 AD-8693 units. Game B: 450 BC-1873 units and 590 AD-7195 units. I was also facing "monster" stacks of AI units at the same time. Since I have playing with this patch, the original unit limits have disappeared. I am, however, unfamiliar with the MUA patch and I haven't played your CCM2 mod.
 
Gronk, thank you very much for your answer. :)
 
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