Civilization III Fixes (PLEASE READ)

[CJayCz]

No I get no error messages, the game just doesn't start at all. My sound/video drivers have been fully upgraded. I just recently upgraded to Direct X 9.0c and there has been no change. I will contact Atari support though so thanks for your refferal.

 

[simperial]

Hey, im glad there is someone from Infogrames support to assist.

Niether my friend nor i can successfully host games. Everytime we try, the game is not visible in the multiplayer lobby. We are both running conquests version 1.22.

We are both running XP and have both disabled the XP firewall. I am no a T1 provided by my apartment complex and my friend goes through a router. Im not certain what kind of router it is, but he has opened all the specified ports for Civ 3.

We have no problems joining games, just hosting. However, this is a real problem for us because we wanted to play games with just the two of us and AI for awhile before considering joining other players.

Any help in solving this very frustrating issue would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Venomous]

I've got a Civilization III Limited Edition that refuses to start. I go through the start menu, select Civ III, and nothing happens. No changing screens, no frozen cinematic, just nothing. Upon calling up my tasklist, Civ III wont be listed as an application, but I'll see it in the processes list. Any ideas on how I can fix this? I've updated my sound and video drivers, run windows update, and even got the damn patch.

Any ideas?

 

[ainwood]

To ask the "silly" question - did you have any problem with the install? Have you tried reinstalling?

Also, have you tried browsing through explorer to the install directory to run Civilization3.exe directly?

 

[Venomous]

Yes, I've actually tried uninstalling/reinstalling three times. All three times it installed without a hitch. And having just tried running it by browsing through explorer I got the same results as before.

Interestingly enough, I can run the map editor with no problems at all. Does that mean anything?

 

[deliibrahim]

i downloaded the trial version of Civ3 gold but it doesn't work..

see the attachments please..
and please help..

 

[cidknee]

well my problem is interesting... I have the vanilla Civ 3 and I got the 1.29 patch. So I make myself a game ( with editor) and it crashes a couple min into the game. Ok problem with the scenario, So I play a regular game, I get 3 moves ina CRASH. Im running xp pro on my celeron 500 ( i know its slow) with 128 mb ram ( im gettin more), as far as I know all my drivers are up to date.

any help will be appreceated

 

[Pamonha]

Hiho everyone
im having a freaky video problem...
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the video goes normaly but then the game become a mess and thats how it goes during the game....there is no error msg and i could play the game "normaly" even with this problem... btw i use geforce 4 mx with the new driver and a thunderbird 900 i would like to know if some1 can plz help me
thks

 

[Polietileno]

Somebody here can tell me why this screen happens?
No matter if I'm playing Vanilla, Conquest, or any mod or regular, it always happens.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Hiho everyone
im having a freaky video problem...

the video goes normaly but then the game become a mess and thats how it goes during the game....there is no error msg and i could play the game "normaly" even with this problem... btw i use geforce 4 mx with the new driver and a thunderbird 900 i would like to know if some1 can plz help me
thks

Hi, this happened to me once before too. Try cleaning the disk, and reinstalling it. It was most likely a glitch of the graphics, and cleaning & reinstalling should fix it. Post here if it starts to work or if it stays the same, ok?

Somebody here can tell me why this screen happens?
No matter if I'm playing Vanilla, Conquest, or any mod or regular, it always happens.

Seems like this message comes up because something in your C++ Library isn't there and it should be - however, I have no knowledge on this sort of stuff. You'd be better off either contacting Atari or waiting for a more knowledgeable person to post here.

 

[Alittle77]

Yes they will bud! Those are the two things I run on my home system, works great! Have Fun!

sk0tie
Infogrames, Inc
Tech Support North America

Morning.
I just completed a new install of XP Home. I loaded CivIII and tried to play, but it won't work. I've uninstalled it. What do I need to do to get it to work properly? I've downloaded the newest patch, but of course haven't installed it. Don't want to do anything more until I'm sure I'm doing the right stuff. Thanx

WinXP Home
500mHz
512MB RAM
GeForce4 128MB video

 

[MaMort]

If this Thread is still active......I have all the Requirements for Civ3, but whenever I double click on the icon to go into the game, it reads the disc but does nothing!?!? I don't get it!

Microsoft Windows XP professional (5.1, build 2600)
System Manufacturer: ASUSTek Computer INC
System Model: A7N8X2.0
BIOS: Ver 1.65
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm), MMX, 3DNow, ~1.6GHz
Memory: 1024MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

Main Driver: Nv4_disp.dll
Version: 6.14.0010.5673
Mini VDD: Nv4_mini.sys
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)

SB Audigy 2 ZS Audio (9000)

 

[chocolatefro]

I'm having a problem (listed earlier) where I can't get it to launch after showing the splash screen, spinning the disk drive madly and then dropping back to the desktop, once (by changing resolution I think) I was able to get it to go black before it dropped back to the desktop. Anyway, I can't find drivers (will try tech at ATI tomorrow) for my video card as I have a laptop now and it seems likek neither ATI nor the mfg of the laptop carry them, and i've tried everything else listed short of the regedit (and my monitor is set at 60 hz so i doubt thats the issue). Here are my system specs and if people think i need to get a safedisk override I'm happy to do it, but I think its totally silly that a game would REQUIRE you to break safegaurds that shouldn't be a problem for people who bought it legit. P.S. I'm not running any fake drives or whatever.

Intel Pentium M 1.5 Ghz
512 Mb Ram
DirectX 9.0b

Mobility Radeon 9200
ATI
32 Mb

 

[Jakodinn]

Hi, I live in Iceland and I bought Play the World and Civilization III here (in Iceland that is) and there's some problem with PTW. Everytime I've played the game for a little while (I haven't even gotten more than maybe six to eight Science advance things) an error message pops up, something about some file missing, so I decided to update the game but I dont know what patch to download. I downloaded the newest patch in that ftp shizzle and it didn't have any letters but the name of the patch (the other files in the folder had I and S etc. letters behind them wich matched all the beginning letters in the localized versions of the patch(Spain and Italy etc.)), but then I couldn't enter the game and got another error message wich said something about an IFC file missing so I downloaded an IFC file that was the excact IFC file that was missing but then I got a "Please insert disc" message and couldn't enter the game and I reinstalled all that shizza and the same problems came up so I made a nick here desperately seeking help from someone who knows anything about this and I hope your the right guy to ask.

I just started playing the game for the first time, cause when I bought it there was so much stuff going on and then alot of other games came out when I was gonna play this game so I forgot it and didn't play till just now and Im ridiculously excited about it, the first impressions made me almost piss myself and the reviews I read made me even more excited and then this bullshizzle comes up and I cant play it.

Im really mother****ing irritated.

I wanna buy Conquests but I dont know if it really improves the game and I dont wanna spend money on something not worth it seeing as Civ 4 is coming out sometime this year I heard. I have absolutely no idea when though so if you do, I'd really appreciate you telling me that too.

I got all the latest updates for my drivers and I got Windows XP, ATI Radeon 9500 PRO/9700 and enough memory so that can't be the problem.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

I would try a clean reinstall and downloading the patches from here. This site is very trust worthy, and you only need to download the latest patch for your area (ie; if you have the US version of PTW, the US patch, UK version, UK patch, etc). It sounds like either your install was corrupted for the science errors and/or the patch you downloaded was not the right one.

About Conquests: with the latest patches and everything, it is fine. Both games work equally well without problems if you get the right patches and the install works fine. It's at least 9-10 months before Civ4, so I would buy Conquests if I were you, but then again, it's not that long of a wait.

 

[Apropos]

Hello sk0tie

I just wanted to thank you, i have loved civ since the first one, and currently playing 3 1.29f, and i diabled the startup video (all i did was throw a _ at the beginning of the file name and it doesn't load, but also saves any kind of file missing notice, it works for other games) but i consistantly had issues with civ3 constantly giving me an error message whenever i tried to startup, it would do the preload then when i tried to load the menu screen, it would always crash. well after many different attempts at different fixes, i finally came across this thread and in the first page i found my solution! all i needed to do was flip my resolultion down to 640x480 16 bit and it works fine! i don't know if this is the correct solution, or just one that would work for me and Axraxes.

but without this thread i could have gotten so fead up i might have started uninstalling things and that is never good. thank you for having this here, and good luck to everyone searching for help!

thank you again


edit: one side bonus, so far it seams that my game has spead up, at least a little bit, one thing i know is i have learned to NEVER choose raging hordes barbarians when i plan on not exploring off my continent till about 500BC

 

[ExSudburyGuy]

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone's tried to play Civ3, using a wide-screen, high-definition TV as a monitor.
Since I got rid of my old monitor, and switched to using the (Samsung) high-definition TV as my monitor, I haven't been able to launch Civ3. I went out and bought Civ Complete and that doesn't work either.
The problem seems to be that the monitor only displays in 1280x720 (32 bit) or 800 x 600 (16 bit) formats. Now, I'm not sure if that's a TV issue or the video card issue. I have a Radeon 7000, 64 mb, video card.
All my other games, programs, etc. work just fine btw.
Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[ainwood]

Try the ini file parameters in his thread, as that allows you to force different resolutions (might work).

However, it is strange that you can't even launch. Are you sure that the monitor is the only thing you changed? Are you now using the TV out from your video card instead of the video out channel?

 

[ExSudburyGuy]

I'll check the ini thread. Thanks.

And I'm still using a 15-pin computer video cable. The TV has a computer video plug in, since it's built to be used as a computer monitor as well.

 

[A.S.T.R.]

I've got a Civilization III Limited Edition that refuses to start. I go through the start menu, select Civ III, and nothing happens. No changing screens, no frozen cinematic, just nothing. Upon calling up my tasklist, Civ III wont be listed as an application, but I'll see it in the processes list. Any ideas on how I can fix this? I've updated my sound and video drivers, run windows update, and even got the damn patch.

Any ideas?

At a guess, you are running Windows 2000? I was trying earlier today to fix a hang problem I have, and tried to run Civ 3 in Compatibility mode (all three of them: 95, 98, and NT 4.0). Nothing happened with any of those, but the processes were running, though taking no CPU time. You may want to log in as Administrator, open properties on your shortcut(s) or even the executable itself, and check out the compatibility tab (it's only visible as Admin). I at least got the splash screen back when I switched back to standard Win2K mode.

On a similar thread, is there anyone out there running Civ 3 (Limited or Gold, not sure which, but I got it in the fancy metal tin) under Windows 2000 with a Savage video card of any kind? I'm only getting the splash screen, then the computer switches video modes a couple of times, ending on 640x480, and hangs with the CPU maxed according to Task Manager. The screen is black, and I never see the opening video. I'm on a Pentium II-equivalent (AMD) ~533 MHz with 120 MB RAM. The video card is a Savage4. I seem to have seen one or two other threads here and on Apolyton implying trouble with those video cards, but those posters never narrowed it down to the card either.

Thanks in advance for any help.
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EDIT: Last night I got it working by renaming the intro video as someone had suggested, by putting an underscore '_' in front of the name. That got it started, though I'd still like to know why it hung on the video, and if it will hang if it tries to play any of the other movies. Also, after a couple hours of play (I'm in the 1780's, Warlord, beginning of Industrial Age I think), the white circle around my active unit no longer twists back and forth. What's up with that?