Civ 3 Complete not working at all

[Shino D Sniper]

I dicided to reinstall my Civ 3 com. game after a long time of rebooting my comp.
now, whenever i try to start the game, a message comes up saying "Civ 3 Complete has encountered a ploblem and must close". It doesn't even start the game

I even tried it without the disk in the drive. No "NO disk" message, just the same error screen.

pleese help. Its been a while since i played and this game was the first thing that got me hooked on the civ games...

 

[phuy2u2]

I recently bought and installed Civ3 complete on two different boxes in the house and have been playing it without issue for several weeks. Yesterday it worked fine. Today it crashes on startup with the "encountered a problem on and must close" on BOTH systems. 1 system is XP home on a 2.8 ghz P4 prescott /w Nvidia graphics and the other is XP Pro SP2 on a dual 1.2ghz PIII w/ATI graphics. These systems are quite dissimilar in hardware

Tried deinstall/reinstall on the PIII. No effect.

The following is excerpted from the Windows event log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Error
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1000
Description:
Faulting application civ3conquests.exe, version 1.22.0.0, faulting module kernel32.dll, version 5.1.2600.2945, fault address 0x000ee047.

This smells like a Windows issue--something broken by Windows update? Is anybody else having this problem?

 

[T.A JONES]

This smells like a Windows issue--something broken by Windows update? Is anybody else having this problem?

Sure I get that one alot actually. I think it has something to do with screen res compatibility issues. The screen reformats to the res the programs instructs then crashes (windows error) back to defualt res on the desktop.

Once this happened so many times in row I was scared I damaged the disc but Ive always got it to work after restarting several times.

Once I had to completly unplug the sytem and turn it back on because the reset button would trigger the crash.

Best advice? if you havn't already, try being persistant before you come to any drastic conclusions

 

[phuy2u2]

has something to do with screen res compatibility issues. The screen reformats to the res the programs instructs then crashes (windows error) back to defualt res on the desktop.

I considered this but the video doesn't even so much as flicker. It goes straight to the windows message about the crash on both systems. Generally when a game is resetting the video I can hear the monitor click.

Is this something that can be addressed by monkeying with the INI file?

 

[T.A JONES]

I considered this but the video doesn't even so much as flicker. It goes straight to the windows message about the crash on both systems. Generally when a game is resetting the video I can hear the monitor click.

Is this something that can be addressed by monkeying with the INI file?

Sure try to repair if you can. You sound better adapt then me to figure that angle.I have no expience making that work for me.

Im only saying that the exact same thing happend to me over and over until I finnaly got it to play after unplugigng the damn thing and reloading. The reset butten didn't stop it from happening. Very strange, so you see how a few people might have given up and posted to fast Im sure this is not you anymore but still had to rule this possibility out
I landed some crappy copyright protecton software through firaxis sharware one time. I dleted it from my my registry and was able to fix the installsheild glitch that was feeding false directions or something. Try a search for "securom" software in the registry. Thats about all can think off besides
a deep search here for exact cases matching yours. That how I got through.

Goodluck man

 

[phuy2u2]

Since this occurred on two dissimilar hardware configurations at the same time I concluded it probably had to do with a similar software issue on BOTH boxes. Turned out not to be Windows. ZoneAlarm Security Suite is the culprit. Just updated to 7.0.377.000. Program settings for access for Civ3 complete have no effect--it simply prevents Civ from loading. Shutting down all ZA components in the task manager didn't help. Had to disable ZA from loading at Windows startup and then it works fine. Will be contacting ZoneLabs--somehow I suspect Civ isn't the only program their update broke.

This might be something to check on competing security software as well if anybody else is having similar trouble. Civ3 is old code and might be making program calls the security software doesn't like.

 

[GVBN]

somehow I suspect Civ isn't the only program their update broke.

You're correct. That's the reason I stopped using ZA

 

[phuy2u2]

What's really chapping me about this is that I just subscribed to a two-year renewal for ZA. I liked the product up until this point as it seemed to have way less overhead for older systems than Symantec's stuff. I have a technical support request into ZoneLabs to see what they say about the broken CivIII launch.

 

[phuy2u2]

Update. Zonelabs has not responded yet but on one of the systems I reverted to a clean install of ZoneAlarm Security Suite 6.5. Works fine so the update to 7.0 is clearly the problem. If anyone else is having this issue this should cure the problem. I haven't seen anything in 7.0 I particularly need.

 

[phuy2u2]

Zonelabs tech support was very responsive. The upgrade to version 7 unmasked a Windows bug. A Windows update pushed out last fall broke some copy-protected CD programs. This is addressed in a hotfix available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924867/en-us

CivIII is now working great under ZoneAlarm 7.

 

[Raziel_uk]

I bought Civ III Complete yesterday and had the same problem as above - although I use Kaspersky and not Zone Alarm.

Tried the download from the link Phyy2u2 gave above and it worked a treat!

Thanks.

 

[phuy2u2]

Useful to know. It confirms the problem is in Windows, not in the add-on security software.