Civilization III Fixes (PLEASE READ)

[kevin2350]

I recently bought Civ 3 complete and a laptop to play it on after always being a mac guy hence not being able to get Conquests.
Is there any way to make a backup of "disk 1" and use that to play, keeping the original in reserve?
Not a problem on mac but does not work with windows.

 

[Turner]

If you can find a way to back it up, then kudoes to you. While we're allowed to do it via the EULA, the copy protection prevents copies from being made.

 

[Choffy]

Issue with font. Playing C3C 1.22 on Windows XP. I suddenly had this issue : Font display is bad and space between lines widden. See Screenshot.

Issue appears suddenly without known reason. I have reinstalled Civ but issue remains.
I have also added the civ font available on the CD to windows font.

Thanks for your help

 

[Catnip]

When trying to install Civ III (original version), the install hangs on intro.bik for the typical install, but the minimum installs fine. No big deal, I just wondered if this was common.

 

[Morcant]

[EDIT] Delete, wrong post

 

[shawn-m]

Howdy everybody,

I picked up a slug of games a couple months back including Civilization III Complete and played musical chairs with limited HD space. Initial installation went off without a hitch, but I can’t recall if I ever actually loaded the game although I did register it. Civ3C was uninstalled within a week of its installation. A registry cleaner also deleted a few extra files along the way, although I can’t say what those files were. No mods of any kind were downloaded or installed during the brief time Civ3C was on the PC, although I would have patched it if an update were available.

So the time’s come to re-install (community and mods found here helped put a fire under my seat), but I’m getting the following errors from the install disk (disk I):

· Error 1316. A network error occurred while attempting to read from the file: C:\windows\installer\civilization III complete edition.Msi

· Error 1603 Fatal error during installation. Consult windows installer help (Msi.chm) for more information.

Prior to getting these messages, the installer uninstalls Civ3C components I thought were history –I can’t find anything associated with Civ3C in the Program Files. Like others who’ve posted here, Remove Programs still lists Civ3. Resetting screen res to 1024 x 768 (normally higher) doesn’t help nor can I find “AppName=Civilization III” in any InstallShield Info folder documents. Admittedly, I’m no PC expert so I’ve also been unable to find and reference the Msi.chm file.

Don’t know if this will help, but here’s a few specs:

OS: XP Home (SP 2)
DirectX: 9.0c
CPU: AMD Athlon 64, 2000 Mhz
Chipset: VIA K8M800, AMD Hammer
HD Space: 69GB free (had much more crud on the PC during the initial installation, HD’s space has since been freed up)
RAM: 1024MB
Video Adapter: Nvidia GeForce FX 5500 (256 MB)
Audio Adapter: Via AC97
Monitor: SyncMaster 17” LCD

System is networked with an older ME OS machine.

Anti-virus software was disabled during failed re-installation attempts.

Nvidia and all other drivers, I think, are up to date... Help would be greatly appreciated. I’d like to avoid HD reformatting although I’m beginning to wonder if that will help. Any advice?

 

[shawn-m]

Alright.

Following advice I’ve found elsewhere on this board, I’ve visited Atari’s website. Their RegEdit uninstall method sounds easy enough but for one thing: It’s not possible to delete {0AD84416-63A4-4CF3-BDDF-8FA866711FB0} if it doesn’t first exist.

well, crud... can’t believe it’s this difficult.

 

[shawn-m]

The long, arduous road to
SUCCESS!
(for me, anyway)​

For those like myself who’ve followed the advice on this board and from Atari but still can’t re-install Civilazation III Complete, well, here’s what worked for me:

Back up that registry (and everything else you can) before attempting this. It’s too stinkin’ easy to scrap the wrong file when your bleary-eyed and in the middle of deleting hundreds of entries. If you have other Atari/Infogrames/Civ3 mods and titles installed on your system then be aware that the following actions will undoubtedly destroy them –unless you know exactly what you’re doing and what to look for. And if you do blow out your system? Well, that’s what backups are for. Lastly, perform this at your own risk since I’m no computer guru and can’t possibly foresee what will happen on other systems with different configurations and software. Hey, I’m not even sure about my own setup.

Still interested? Then here we go:

For starters, I used XP’s search function for hidden files using the keywords, Atari, Infogrames, Civ3 & Civilization. Yes, a few files were found and then deleted, but Civilization III Complete remained listed in Add/Remove Programs and the re-install still didn’t take. Then I performed the same searches in RegEdit.

I launched RegEdit and used the “Find” and “Find Again” commands with the following terms:

Atari

Infogrames

Civ3

Civilization

Loads of entry hits from across the registry took hours to remove. I deleted entire folders if they essentially contained nothing but Civilization III Complete keys. If the folder housed other information, I’d simply delete Civilization references and leave the rest of the folder’s contents intact.

Far and away the largest deposit of Civilization III Complete entries was located in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components. Deleting entries from this location alone took me somewhere between one and two hours. Civilization III Complete disappeared from Add/Remove Programs and Civ3 finally re-installed perfectly –nor did it ask to be removed during the installation process. I haven’t used any patches or installed any mods yet, but the game does load properly. The rest of my system (so far) is perfectly stable. I’ll leave any subsequent game problems to another day, if and when they’re found.

Now here’s my question for others to answer: Keeping in mind that fixes from this board and Atari were tried first, could I have simply removed folders, keys and values from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components without deleting registry entires found elsewhere to achieve the same result? If so, it would make a long process somewhat shorter.

and with that, this noob is signing off for the day.

 

[amir1981]

hi
when i'm playing civ3,suddenly in some circumstances the game crAsheshs
and show the illigal operation.... msg
i do many thing such as disabling 3d parties , difragment the hard disk and etc
but don't work
i have a
2400 athelon xp
windows xp profisional
geforce4 nvidia 5200 fx
ac97 onboard soundcard
60 gb hard
256 mg ram
what is worng???

 

[Kragfergus]

I bought Civ3 recently and am playing my first game. Problem is that Civ3 crashes deterministically when I enter the 3rd (industrial) age. I have the latest patch.
The event viewer reports:
Faulting application civilization3.exe, version 0.0.0.0, faulting module civilization3.exe, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x00003046.
Any suggestions?

 

[goyal]

I WAS previously having the out of freq. problem with the monitor so i added a line refresh -= xx in my .ini file..which did solve the problem...FOR PTW

but now when i have installed CIV 3 conquest the game is running but the graphics r too distorted for me too play.....PLssssssss help fast....i was frust of defeating deity on PTW wanna give a try to SID on conquest........

win XP - OS

 

[Padma]

have you added the "refresh=xx" line to your conquests.ini file?

 

[goyal]

YAAA i did tht..
AS i said the game is running(it's not going out of freq) it's not the refresh rate problem ne more..
it is just tht the graphics r distorted a bit..i don't think it is the graphics card problem as PTW was running nicely...

 

[Sparrow37]

Hi, I am sorry i dont have time to read this entire thread right now, but in breif the peoblem I am having is when i try to run Civ 3 complete on my new PC the Civ 3 logo comes up and it stalls there, the game just dosent load, i was able to install with no problems at all. I am running Windows xp-64 and I am thinking this might be part of the problem, is there a fix for this?

as a side note i dont think it should be causing the issue but i ahvent yet installed the sound drivers on ym machine.

 

[Turner]

It might be an issue if you haven't turned the sounds off in the .ini file.

Install the sound drivers, and if it still doesn't work let us know.

 

[Sparrow37]

I got it working, aparently it just took like 15 minutes to load up the first time..... after i let it wait for a while it loaded now it loads in a reasonable time. weird but hey im not complaining.

 

[Madcivilian]

I just bought civ gold, and I have conquests on the way, but the problem is I'm having the same refresh problem as some of you seem to have been having. I'm not as computer literate as some of you, and can't find this .ini file to alter even. Does it exist in gold? if so, where do I have to modify it?
I have a Nvidia Geforce 6200 graphics card and windows XP.

Just thought I'd volunteer so more info.

The monitor I'm using currently is horribly out of date, spent all my cash on the comp and a new graphics card. My moniter is an old circa 1996 acerview 54e 13" crt-which I heard became BenQ with a max refresh of 60-70. I don't know how to hack the registry and would like to avoid doing anything that won't let me upgrade the monitor as soon as I can afford it. Thanks

 

[Turner]

Well, the file doesn't exist until you actually start a game. But you can create it, and the game will append to the file.

Look and see if you have a 'PTW' directory. If so, create the file ptw.ini in that directory. In that file all you need is Refresh=XX where XX is your desired refresh rate.

 

[FeezNuts]

I am recieving a msi.chm windows installer error while trying to install off the 3rd disc. I don't believe civ3 has been installed on my computer before and i am sure all my drivers are updated. Please help with any thoughts!

 

[Morcant]

I have the most bizzare problem ever, probably. Okay, so after finding out that the 1.20 patch for conqests corrupts certin music files (while i'm playing, the music plays and it instantly quits, on the same song...) So I DON'T install any patches (cause 1.15 ruins the forbidden palace.) and now the game closes at random times during the middle ages, and modern times, but not ancient times, or industrial age. Is there ANY idea what is going on before i compleatly rip this computer apart for breaking down in the dumbest, unheard of ways.