Game Crashes upon Launching a LAN Multiplayer Session

[1230james]

When you create an account just to get help

Earlier today, me and a friend tried to start a (virtual) LAN game. He was hosting, and we had 5 civs (Two were me and my friend, the other three were computers playing as India, the Aztecs, and Zululand). My buddy hit the launch button, and the countdown started. When the countdown reached zero, my game crashed, but his didn't.

Here's some screenshots I took when I started a LAN game by myself:
(These are all links, btw)
Sitting in the lobby
Countdown
Crashed

Screenshot of dxdiag (shows my specs):
Most of my specs...
...and my graphics card

In case you need to know:

• We were using Tunngle to play
• We both have copies of Civ III Complete from Steam
• We aren't using Internet to play because I'm not logged into Steam while I play (Long-ish story)
• Version 1.22 (So says the bottom-left of our screens)

Please help? We were really looking forward to this. Everything seems to work except my computer.

 

[Nathiri]

Since its a steam copy, try Verifying Game Cache to make sure none of your files are corrupt. This will analyze your game files and replace any corrupted files.

 

[1230james]

Well... about that...

See, the reason why I'm not logged into Steam in the first place is because someone hijacked my Steam account about five weeks ago (as of when this was written), and Steam Support has yet to return my account to me. Have no idea how Civ III launches without being logged in.

Anyway, I'll see if I can convince my friend to verify his game cache, then send me a copy of the game files and see if that will work.

 

[Nathiri]

Steam does allow you to play the games on your steam library offline if the game has offline support. This is why civ3 launches when in offline mode.

I'm not sure if that will work as every attempt I have had in copying steam game files over to another computer so I can play my steam games over there without redownloading them, has failed and steam didnt recognise them. Also you said your friend didnt have a problem? then there isnt really a reason for him to do the Verify Game Cache.

 

[1230james]

Ah. That makes sense.
But then how come I can't play Civ IV, then?

Yes, my friend did not have the problem.
I planned on asking him to verify his game cache just to be safe. I guess I could try it without him doing so.

 

[Nathiri]

I'm not sure about Civ4 as I dont have that game for steam, but all my games that do not require online, can be played in offline mode.

 

[1230james]

Hm. Interesting.
Could talk more on this topic, but then... that's being off-topic.

 

[Lanzelot]

My buddy hit the launch button, and the countdown started. When the countdown reached zero, my game crashed, but his didn't.

When I first tried the multiplayer feature (must have been around 2004), I had the same symptom. Whenever I entered the LAN modus, the game crashed on my PC. I sent a mail to Firaxis support desk, but never got a reply...

Much much later (2007) I found out by coincidence, what caused the problem: as I never used sound, I had not bothered to install a driver for my soundcard. At some point I decided it would be good to listen to CDs on my PC, so I dug out the old motherboard driver CD and installed the soundcard driver. At that point suddenly C3C multiplayer started working as well!

The issue can still be reproduced by going into the "Windows Device Manager" and disabling the soundcard: again game crashes when entering multiplayer. Go back to the Device Manager, re-enable the soundcard and voila: multiplayer works like a charme again...

(Note: I'm using Win XP.)

 

[1230james]

Go back to the Device Manager, re-enable the soundcard and voila: multiplayer works like a charme again...

https://gyazo.com/baa5dc63e96b183f6124f6f427f12709
...Help?
I'm assuming the second thing is my sound card? It obviously isn't the mic, so...
(The physical card itself is probably an integrated thing on my motherboard instead of a dedicated sound card. Oh well.)

And it says it's already enabled.
Also tried to see if I was able to update the drivers. They're "up to date," so says Windows Vista.

 

[1230james]

Since its a steam copy, try Verifying Game Cache to make sure none of your files are corrupt. This will analyze your game files and replace any corrupted files.

Got my account back from Steam Support.
Verified Game Cache.
Multiplayer seems to work now. Thanks, mate!

 

[TalosValheru]

As the last post was eight months ago I will hope many of you are still out there. My son & I wanted to play an online game together, and we loved Civilization, so we got Civ3 from Steam. We wanted to play a multiplayer game and I tried both LAN and Internet, however his laptop wont load the multiplayer version. It says it cannot load DirectPlay and we end up with an error 0x80070005 when we try to install DirectX. I will have him try checking his Game Cache but not sure that's the problem. I am hoping it's just a setting we need to adjust to 'see' each other online. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

UPDATE: Game Cache was verified. I try to run the Multiplayer game and a window pops up to install DirectPlay, but when I do the error message is "Access is denied, error code 0x80070005" I've googled it and followed steps to repair it but they haven't worked. I need an Obi-Wan Kenobi to get me out of this.

 

[1230james]

Try the following:

Delete the "C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games" folder (assuming that where you installed it), delete the "C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4" folder if it is still there.

Go into the registry (Start->Run->regedit) and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software. If this is the only game you have from Firaxis delete the key called "Firaxis Games" otherwise delete any sub keys of Firaxis Games" starting with "Sid Meier's Civilization 4". Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Uninstall and delete the following keys {4377F918-E6C9-4ECA-A7F5-754B310B7ED8}, {CFBCE791-2D53-4FCE-B3FB-D6E01F4112E8}, {3E4B349F-10B5-4586-9D99-489A90A8B228} and {32E4F0D2-C135-475E-A841-1D59A0D22989}.


Also delete the following folders if they exist:
"C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{CFBCE791-2D53-4FCE-B3FB-D6E01F4112E8}"

NB. The InstallShield folder is hidden by default. You will need to configure Windows Explorer to show hidden files and folders.

Reboot, reinstall Civ4 and reboot again. With luck that will get you back to a known state. After that you can apply the DirectX update from Microsoft & then the 1.74 patch.

No guarantees but it has worked for a number of people.

I found this. Give that a try.
Obviously swap out Civ4 with Civ3.
Not sure if it'll even apply to Civ3, though, but it's worth a shot.

Also, this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/968003

 

[mr.Kyrre]

hi i have same problem. when i og into the game i og too multiplayer lan and then host, when i do this the game crashes. has anyone any help to me? sorry bad english

 

[mr.Kyrre]

has someone figured this out?