conquests crashes on start up

[-C1]

The atari splash shows and then the game unexpectedly crashes back to the desktop. what is going on?

 

[Turner]

What resolution are you running the game at? And what Refresh rate? What OS are you on?

 

[Mortai]

I'm having the same problem. I launch the game, Atari and Opening videos play, then it closes to desktop without loading the menu. I can skip the videos by pressing a key or clicking, but it still closes to desktop.

I've tried running the game at the resolutions 1280x1024, 1024x768, and 800x600. Makes no difference, neither do compatibility settings (in fact, changing the compatibility doesn't allow the program to run at all... it can be found under "Processes" in Task Manager, but nothing happens).

I'm in Windows XP and 60 Hertz refresh rate.

I know I've run this game on this very computer a while back, but it's not working now.

 

[Turner]

The game won't run @ 800x600. If you haven't messed with the conquests.ini it's probably trying to force 1024x768 @ 60hz refresh. You can edit the conquests.ini and the switches for it are located here. I'm assuming you're playing Conquests and not Complete. I'm not sure what the executable is for Complete, but the .ini would be <executablename>.ini in the same directory as the executable. Anyways, try forcing the resolution to 1280x1024 or 1024x768 and maybe a refresh rate that's compatible with your display.

 

[Mortai]

The edit I made in the Conquests.ini:

[Conquests]
Voice Quality=0
Video Mode=1280
Refresh=75

and...

[Conquests]
Voice Quality=0
Video Mode=1024
Refresh=60

Same problem for both.

Usually, I run my computer at 1280x1024 @ 60 Hertz.

I'm playing Complete, but the shortcut links to "Civ3Conquests.exe".

 

[Turner]

Try taking out Video Mode and put in KeepRes=1.

 

[Mortai]

I uninstalled and reinstalled and it's working now.

One thing I noticed that was different afterwards was that the screen resolution changed from 1280x1024 (what I usually have it at) to 1024x768 prior to going full-screen and playing the intro clips. Before, the program went straight to the clips without changing the resolution.

I checked the .ini file after reinstall. It only shows:

[Conquests]
Voice Quality=0
ScrollSpeed=1

I probably should have gone ahead and tried uninstalling and reinstalling before coming to the tech support forum, but I wanted to see if there was any solutions here. Oh well. It was nice to have a quick response. Thanks anyway.

 

[Turner]

I uninstalled and reinstalled and it's working now.

Good deal.

One thing I noticed that was different afterwards was that the screen resolution changed from 1280x1024 (what I usually have it at) to 1024x768 prior to going full-screen and playing the intro clips. Before, the program went straight to the clips without changing the resolution.

I checked the .ini file after reinstall. It only shows:

[Conquests]
Voice Quality=0
ScrollSpeed=1

You might want to try adding the KeepRes=1 line to the .ini. This should keep your desktop resolution. I'm not sure why it changed the res to 1024x768 before the movie, because the movie runs @ 800x600... It also doesn't fully create the .ini until you start a game.

I probably should have gone ahead and tried uninstalling and reinstalling before coming to the tech support forum, but I wanted to see if there was any solutions here. Oh well. It was nice to have a quick response. Thanks anyway.

No biggie....we probably would have got to that eventually.

 

[Mortai]

(sigh) It stopped working again... same problem. I did what you said, copying the line "KeepRes=1" into the .ini, but it still crashes. The main difference is that now, my desktop icons disappear after the crash.

I don't really feel like reinstalling it again... three disks is a lot. Plus, I'm getting a Windows 7 laptop soon, so I'll wait to solve the problems associated with that. But just to clarify for others: re-installation works... for a while. I just wonder when/why it starts crashing again...