CivAssist II

CivAssist II 30-Oct-2016

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janger said:
I've just bought a laptop with Vista (which is a pain) and am having similar troubles to you all. I've finally got CivAssist working by running it as Administartor etc. However there's another problem. CivAssist watches for saves in the usual place. But Vista with its wonders of file virtualization actually redirects the saves to another place under your account settings. And CivAssist doesn't seem to detect the new saves to pop up the alerts etc.

VERY ANNOYING!
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Well, CivAssist II was made for XP, so you can't blame Vista for trying to improve security. Software written since Vista was released recognizes file virtualization, so if CivAssist II is not updated, don't put the blame on the OS.

User Access Control was included for a reason, to prevent people who don't know what they're doing from messing up their computers, as well as improving internet and file security. People who do know what they're doing (eg. admins) can get around the whole thing by disabling UAC. If you go back a few pages, this comes up pretty frequently. As good an idea as it is, UAC does get annoying after a while. Thank Microsoft for at least giving us the option to turn it off.

I believe that file virtualization works only for files in C:\Windows and C:\Program Files and your C:\Users directories. It prevents possible viruses and worms from going after the real files by creating virtual records of the files which can be reset if your system gets attacked. If you install your games to a folder such as C:\Games , file virtualization won't touch the folder and you don't have to disable UAC if you don't want to. Also, your computer is more organized because all of your games are installed to one folder in the C:\ drive.

By the way, I run a laptop with Vista Ultimate, and I would take it over XP any day.
 
splunge said:
It's a P4 1.7gHz with 1 gig RAM. I have some stuff in background, but not dreadful, I don't think. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. At the risk of sounding dumb, what's the right way to start playing while running CA2?
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Your pc should not run slow (unless you're on Vista).

I almost don't remember how I started the game (not played for a very long time). I believe I first launched CA2, then the game. Or was it the other way around? :hmm:
I think someone else should answer this.
 
splunge said:
It's a P4 1.7gHz with 1 gig RAM. I have some stuff in background, but not dreadful, I don't think. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. At the risk of sounding dumb, what's the right way to start playing while running CA2?
Click to expand...

You're above the recommended specs for Civ3, so that shouldn't be much of a problem. If you're running XP, then most likely you have lots of background tasks running at the same time that are eating away at your processing time, leaving little RAM for CivAssist II and Civ3. If you're running Vista, then expect to be slowed significantly, as P4 1.7gHz and 1 gig RAM are on the low end of the OS recommendations alone.

You can open your task manager to see how many things are running in the background and how much RAM is being used up. Some stuff in the background might not seem like much, but it adds up. If you're using too much RAM just idling then disable non-essential startup tasks, and disable those little icons in the bottom right corner of your screen. Don't disable anything essential though.

There's a chance that it might just be a software problem. Do you use Windows Update to keep your OS up to date with the latest patches and fixes? Also, is your Civ3 patched to the latest version? Are you using the latest release of CivAssist II? What about your video card drivers, and DirectX? Update everything possible. You can also try uninstalling/reinstalling Civ3, could be an issue with the way it was installed.

Oh, and when I play, first I run CivAssist II, and then I run Civ3.
 
Macezek said:
Well, CivAssist II was made for XP, so you can't blame Vista for trying to improve security. Software written since Vista was released recognizes file virtualization, so if CivAssist II is not updated, don't put the blame on the OS.
Click to expand...
You misunderstand me, Macezek. It's just annoying because I thought it was all running fine, only to find out there was another problem, then another, then.... But after only one day of using Vista I'm fairly impressed. It's a little bloated and uses too much memory, but that's the times I guess.

Now as for disabling UAC, it's generally not a good idea. It may create problems with installing security updates and whether certain other security parts of the OS operate correctly, or so I've read. I found a tip from a MS geek which leaves UAC enabled but will make it automatically accept the warnings that pop up. It can be done through Local Security Policy or in my case with Vista Home, through a registry tweak. Not only that but I found how to disable virtualization in a similar fashion. I like to know where my files are!

Anyway, can you tell me how well CivAssist is running on your system? It seems ok on mine but when I click to close the alert window it hangs for nearly ten seconds before it closes.
 
janger said:
You misunderstand me, Macezek. It's just annoying because I thought it was all running fine, only to find out there was another problem, then another, then.... But after only one day of using Vista I'm fairly impressed. It's a little bloated and uses too much memory, but that's the times I guess.
Click to expand...

I can see how my comment might have sounded inflammatory, I didn't mean it that way. :blush:

janger said:
Now as for disabling UAC, it's generally not a good idea. It may create problems with installing security updates and whether certain other security parts of the OS operate correctly, or so I've read. I found a tip from a MS geek which leaves UAC enabled but will make it automatically accept the warnings that pop up. It can be done through Local Security Policy or in my case with Vista Home, through a registry tweak. Not only that but I found how to disable virtualization in a similar fashion. I like to know where my files are!

Anyway, can you tell me how well CivAssist is running on your system? It seems ok on mine but when I click to close the alert window it hangs for nearly ten seconds before it closes.
Click to expand...

Well, diabling UAC can mess things up, but it depends when you turn it off. If you disable it AFTER installing updates and other software, suddenly your programs have missing files because file virtualization placed them into your C:\Users directory instead of where they're supposed to go. If you disable UAC first thing after booting for the first time, then you won't run into any problems. I disabled UAC first thing after getting my laptop (i didn't know you can change settings at the time), and I haven't had any issues with Vista or updates or other software. There's a real nice summary of UAC on Wikipedia.

As for CivAssist II, it takes a few seconds to start up, but after that it runs really well. No lagging, everything is instant. Full screen, alerts on, running along-side of the game, it's fine. The alerts close right away, same with the program itself. You know that you can toggle the alerts window by pressing the Insert key?
 
Arg. Now using a laptop with XP updated as far as I can get it, NET 1.1 installed, likewise updated, and I STILL get the same error as Kulko and Northen Wolf. I had CIV 3 on this same laptop and CIV Assist II worked fine then, but I had to uninstall both a while back. Now after reinstlalling CA II I can't get it to run at all. What's left to do????
 
SimpleMonkey, I don't know but the only times I've got .Net errors in XP with CivAssist is when I didn't have all of .Net installed. Put XP SP2 on my laptop last night, pretty much only installed the .net runtimes using Autopatcher and CivAssist is working fine. Have you tried reinstalling all the runtimes then reinstalling CivAssist?
 
OK, I've got CA to run, I can load my recent save and see alerts. I can run my game without it slowing to a crawl. I'm sorry to be a moron, how do I configure it to evaluate my game turn by turn. So far, I've only been able to save each turn, load the save into CA and then bring up my game agian. I'm sure there's a better way.

Thanks everyone for their patience.

BTW, I'm playing with Civ3 Complete with my saves going in :c/programfiles/atari/civ3complete/scenarios/conquests/saves with a subfolder of auto. I don't know if I have to reconfigure anything for Civ 3 Complete.
 
splunge said:
I don't know if I have to reconfigure anything for Civ 3 Complete.
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I don't think so it should detect the game and save location. See at the bottom left of the CivAssist window? It will say "On Lookout", then show an icon for the version of game running and an icon for the version of opened file. But I've only used it with C3C so could be wrong.
 
splunge said:
OK, I've got CA to run, I can load my recent save and see alerts. I can run my game without it slowing to a crawl. I'm sorry to be a moron, how do I configure it to evaluate my game turn by turn. So far, I've only been able to save each turn, load the save into CA and then bring up my game agian. I'm sure there's a better way.

Thanks everyone for their patience...
Click to expand...

The only thing I can think of is, do you have "Always Wait at End of Turn" enabled in Civ 3? Go to your preferences, and enable it if it isn't. When you load up CivAssist II, use the file browser to open the save you're going to play in Civ 3. Then open that game in Civ 3. Turn on the alerts window, and go through a few turns to see if it's displaying new info every turn.
 
Thanks Janfer and Macezek.
I have "always wait " checked.
I remembered my current game is played under Patch Suggestions-Lite mod rather than straight
C3C. Does CA get messed up with mods?

Edit:Also, in the Game Files Path in options, the path C/ProgramFiles/Atari/.../saves/auto is filled in. Would that mess up loading turn by turn?
 
I don't know what mods might do since I don't really play any big mods. I do know that when I play a mini-mod of my own where you can upgrade armies, whenever I have an army CivAssist II crashes, so I would assume that if you deviate from the standard rules too far it doesn't cooperate. Like I said, I haven't played any major mods so I wouldn't really know.

And with the game files path, my setting is blank. I have nothing written in there, and it work fine. In fact, it says in brackets to only fill the box in if you don't have Civ 3 installed, so if you do have Civ 3 installed, that box should be empty. That could be your problem right there.
 
I've tried it empty too. It's odd, the file path filled in on install, I never putit in myself. When I finish my current game which is all but won, I'll try a game under straight rules with the file path blank and see. Thanks for the advice!
 
janger said:
SimpleMonkey, I don't know but the only times I've got .Net errors in XP with CivAssist is when I didn't have all of .Net installed. Put XP SP2 on my laptop last night, pretty much only installed the .net runtimes using Autopatcher and CivAssist is working fine. Have you tried reinstalling all the runtimes then reinstalling CivAssist?
Click to expand...

I only be a simple primate, not wise to computer ways. What is this Autopatcher of which you speak? :confused: I've installed, reinstalled and checked for updates on .NET 1.1, 2, 3 and 3.5, with no success. The instructions for repairing .NET 1.1 refer to using the installation path, which I do not understand, being a simple primate after all. My frustration grows, as I really wanted to finish my deity space race game.
 
SimpleMonkey said:
I only be a simple primate, not wise to computer ways. What is this Autopatcher of which you speak?
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It's not important. Just pretty much all windows updates put in a single package, where you can select what to install. Anyway, re-installing or repairing .NET the usual way should fix any problems with it.

As for the file path in CivAssist, filling it in prevents it from watching your games. And I'm not sure whether clearing it manually actually removes the setting properly. Did you try re-installing CivAssist?
 
If you have Vista, it comes with .NET 3.0, which has 2.0 built into it. So you have to install .NET 1.1 and its service pack. Otherwise, they are all seperate and you have to install them seperately (though only 1.1 should be needed). If you are running Vista, you have to right click on the .exe and select Run as Administrator. That worked for me.
 
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