Help: Game Crashes At 1990

A

Apollo XI

Chieftain
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Nov 5, 2005
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Civ IV: BtS has been running beautifully on my laptop. No slow-downs or anything. 2GB of RAM, AMD Turion x2 Processor, NVidia Graphics Card (forgot model number).

So, it's been running flawlessly...
...until 1990AD.

At the end of the turn the game ALWAYS crashes. I don't know why. I've tried lowering the graphics to the lowest settings and it still happens. First time this has ever happened since I've played BtS on this laptop.

Has anyone else had this problem and/or can you tell me what's causing it and how to fix it? I'd really appreciate it. The game I've been playing has a been a really good game, and I'd like to finish it.
 
Only error message is the generic Windows one: "Civilization IV has stopped working" and it asks me to try to diagnose the problem or just close the program.

And, I don't know what the Windows Event Manager is or how to look at it.
 
I've had the same problem as the OP. It just crashes to the desktop and says it needs to be shut down.

I found that I would get it at a certain date, mine being 1750 AD when it crashed to the desktop. When I try to load an autosave on that date or 4 turns before, it won't work, it just crashes.

So I went back through the autosaves and it turns out the only autosave that works from that game was at 1660. Any subsequent autosaves crashes.

I even tried the savedgame on another computer just in case. I think the file is corrupted. Maybe the AI was doing something it wasn't suppose to be doing to cause some sort of glitch? I'm no computer wiz, so i'm clueless.

This doesn't happen in all my games -- using Wolfshanze mod w/ BTS.
 
Okay. I've identified what is causing the problem, through some experimentation

Background info: I have a 1,000 point lead ahead of the 2nd best Civ. (I am about 5000.) I have my own continent in the Western Hemisphere, and I am the biggest Civ in the game. Everyone else is 3500, 3000, 2500, etc. Basically, as long as nothing unpredictable happens, I'm set.

Yet, as you would have it, something unpredictable happened.

Mansa Musa, who is behind me by 1000, has recently been rising like a dictator. The Mali are the 2nd biggest country in the game. His score suddenly jumped over the Ethiopian's, who used to be 2nd. He recently took in the Ottomans (score 2200) has a Vassal, and, at 1990, he declared war on the Dutch, who are tiny and weak (Dutch's score is 2000, Mali's is 3900). All of these other countries are on the Eastern hemisphere.

Then, there's the Ethiopians. They are near Mali's level, but behind by 300 or 400. And, I have a pretty good tech lead, so I wanted to have the Ethiopian's go to war against the Mali and the Ottomans, 1. To distract them, so they don't obliterate the Dutch before I can get there, 2. They all tear at each others throat's, dragging themselves down while I sit peacefully on my own continent, and 3. To buy myself time to get to the other continent.

I experimented by not having the Ethiopian's go after the Mali in 1990AD.

Then...

DUN DUN DUUUUUN...

...the game went on to 1991AD.

So, in 1991AD, I tried to do the same thing: give a tech to Ethiopia for war against Mansa.

1992...game crashed.

Loaded 1991 again and I didn't do the deal with Ethiopia: game went on.

I thought it might be because, despite the deal, I'm still at peace with Mali. I tried declaring war on Mali, too, after my deal with Ethiopia, and the game still crashes.

Does anyone have any clue as to how a diplomatic deal could cause my game to crash?

I've uploaded two saves: "1990" is before the deal, "1990-8" is after the deal.

If I wait until 1991, Dutch approaches me for war against the Mali. If I agree and make the deal with the Ethiopians after, game still crashes.

I wonder if I make a Defense Pact or something like that with the Ethiopians, and then have the Dutch approach me, if that will work?
 

Attachments

Hmm, I tried your saved games, and i couldn't get it to crash. I could be doing it wrong though.

By the way, how do you make those notations in game where you wrote that all of Mali's oil were in that one place.:)
 
Hmm. Did you wait for the turn to end? That's when my game always crashes: not right after the deal but when the turn ends.

All you need to do is just make the deal and that's what makes the game crash. Other factors don't matter. I'm sure you did it right, though.

Maybe I need to just try reinstalling? Tried clearing civ iv cache but that did nothing. Out of ideas. I definitely know that, for whatever reason, the ethiopian deal makes my game crash when the turn ends. The history gods seem to be against me saving the dutch.

As for the marks, if you zoom the camera out so you get the earth view, the buttons on the score window changes. The first of them is the "strategy" button that allows you to make marks like that.
 
I just tried your 1990-8 save game again after the deal is done. No crash. I was able to turn to 1991 and 1992 no problem.

Then I went back to your 1990 saved before the war between Mali and Ethiopia. How did u get them to go to war. I couldn't get them to go to war even after giving them tech. No matter what i tried, Zara said "are you joking" (as in Mansa was red) and when I tried to get Mansa to get to war with Zara it said "enough on our hands right now"

I'm pretty new to this game so I could be missing something...

I have no idea how to fix it either. I've given up on mine, and hopefully it wont happen again on a new game.
 
That's weird.

In my 1990 save, I talked to them in the Diplo Screen, brought up "War with Mansa Musa", asked them what they would need for it, they asked me for Stealth, and I gave it to them. In all the different permutations I have tried to do of this scenario, it's differed from Stealth to Gold, but they always wanted something I had.

This is getting more and more bizarre. x_x
 
I see the same thing as JackOneill. On the 1990 save, war with Mansa Musa is redlined (because Zara doesn't want to declare on someone with nukes) and the 1990-8 save does not crash (although the AIs throw around a good dozen nukes on the next turn :p).

At what patch level is your game and are there any mods?
 
Ya, I was using patch 3.17. They do some weird names with the patches so I'm not sure if 3.0.3.1 = 3.13 or 3.17. Perhaps all you have to do is patch it and the problem might go away. Hope it works out.:crazyeye:
 
Thanks for the suggestion, guys. Upgraded to 3.13 and it works perfectly now.

And I got to witness the nuclear destruction myself. O_O

Hope I made the right decision, lol.
 
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