Civ VII Crash Issue

[Zorlai]

I purchased and downloaded the Founders Edition of Civ VII on 02.19.2025. I played from 8pm (02.19) - 3am (02.20) MST.

On 02.20 (today), I opened the game and noticed I did not have Napoleon unlocked even though my 2k account was linked. A suggestion I read was to log out and log back into 2k. I logged out of 2k account in Civ VII, and the game immediately crashed. I have been unable to load the game since. 2k and Steam are still linked. I have uninstalled the game, reinstalled, verified files, updated graphic drivers, power cycled PC, stripped all hardware down to empty case and reassembled PC, and the game still will not run. The furthest I've gotten after clicking launch is the opening cinematic, then the game crashes before the main menu. Usually it crashes before the opening cinematic.

I have tried running Steam with and without Admin, and Civ VII with and without admin. I have tried launching with DX 12 and Vulkan. I have run Steam online and offline.

I don't know if the crash is related to signing out of 2k, but it happened right when I did. I have tried signing back in to 2k, but as far as I can tell the only way to do that is through the Civ VII game.

OS: Windows 10 Home
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT 6-Core Processor
Card name: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 32.0 GB
BaseBoard Product ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING

 

[The_J]

In principle your hardware is good enough, and you did all the first obvious things to check, so... .

Something radical, for which I have no idea if it'd help, and I don't know if Steam will particularly like it, is to get a refund for the game, and then maybe buy it again. That should definitely unlink anything online related, I would guess. No clue how Steam will react to that later though.

 

[Zorlai]

In principle your hardware is good enough, and you did all the first obvious things to check, so... .

Something radical, for which I have no idea if it'd help, and I don't know if Steam will particularly like it, is to get a refund for the game, and then maybe buy it again. That should definitely unlink anything online related, I would guess. No clue how Steam will react to that later though.

I did try uninstalling and deleting Steam and every Steam related file, and Civ and every Civ related file. I redownloaded Steam, logged in and authenticated my account, redownloaded Civ VII and accepted the EULA and all the "first time" things when downloading, and then tried to launch. Still crashing. I've submitted a request for a refund, which is being reviewed due to having 7 hours of playtime. In the notes I explained my issues and that I intend to repurchase the game if it is refunded. Guess we'll see what happens.

 

[Riconatic]

I did try uninstalling and deleting Steam and every Steam related file, and Civ and every Civ related file. I redownloaded Steam, logged in and authenticated my account, redownloaded Civ VII and accepted the EULA and all the "first time" things when downloading, and then tried to launch. Still crashing. I've submitted a request for a refund, which is being reviewed due to having 7 hours of playtime. In the notes I explained my issues and that I intend to repurchase the game if it is refunded. Guess we'll see what happens.

I still want to confirm: Uninstalling game usually never delete the settings folder that is totally different place than game install.

Did you delete your settings from %localappdata%\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VII?

Also I am under impression that dates of your amd gpu driver points to the old version. Not the newest with civ vii support. But I do not have amd cards to check myself.

 

[Riconatic]

I can confirm that your drivers in dxdiag report are not newest.

Newest from release notes are 32.0.12033.5029 windows driver store version. Link to release notes https://www.amd.com/en/resources/support-articles/release-notes/RN-RAD-WIN-25-2-1.html

Your dxdiag says 32.00.12033.1030

 

[Zorlai]

I still want to confirm: Uninstalling game usually never delete the settings folder that is totally different place than game install.

Did you delete your settings from %localappdata%\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VII?

Also I am under impression that dates of your amd gpu driver points to the old version. Not the newest with civ vii support. But I do not have amd cards to check myself.

I did delete that folder. I deleted and removed all Steam and Steam related files, as well as all original save files associated with Steam paths. I moved* all save data I wanted to keep to a new folder on another hard drive, and then disconnected that hard drive. I then factory reset my Steam hard drive. At one point today, for the first time since about 2005, I had a computer with no Steam files.

I can confirm that your drivers in dxdiag report are not newest.

Newest from release notes are 32.0.12033.5029 windows driver store version. Link to release notes https://www.amd.com/en/resources/support-articles/release-notes/RN-RAD-WIN-25-2-1.html

Your dxdiag says 32.00.12033.1030

Not sure how I missed this. My AMD Adrenalin app said I was up to date. I've downloaded the new drivers, and am still experiencing the launch crash. Before and after pictures of my drivers, along with new dxdiag attached. Now showing driver file version 32.00.12033.5029.


Edit: I've been sitting here clicking launch randomly since downloading the drivers you linked and just made it into the game, and was able to successfully load my save from my first 7 hours of playtime. Downloading the new drivers is the only change I've made in the last hour. I did restart my PC after downloading the drivers. The game crashed on launch about 20-30 times for about 30 minutes, then just worked. I've never seen a driver update not work right away after a restart, but that is the only recent change. Unless there was an issue on the Steam/Civ side of things, I'd say the driver update did the trick.

 

[Riconatic]

I did delete that folder. I deleted and removed all Steam and Steam related files, as well as all original save files associated with Steam paths. I moved* all save data I wanted to keep to a new folder on another hard drive, and then disconnected that hard drive. I then factory reset my Steam hard drive. At one point today, for the first time since about 2005, I had a computer with no Steam files.



Not sure how I missed this. My AMD Adrenalin app said I was up to date. I've downloaded the new drivers, and am still experiencing the launch crash. Before and after pictures of my drivers, along with new dxdiag attached. Now showing driver file version 32.00.12033.5029.


Edit: I've been sitting here clicking launch randomly since downloading the drivers you linked and just made it into the game, and was able to successfully load my save from my first 7 hours of playtime. Downloading the new drivers is the only change I've made in the last hour. I did restart my PC after downloading the drivers. The game crashed on launch about 20-30 times for about 30 minutes, then just worked. I've never seen a driver update not work right away after a restart, but that is the only recent change. Unless there was an issue on the Steam/Civ side of things, I'd say the driver update did the trick.

Overall sounds very strange. Hopefully everything works ok in the end!