Help please - F4 screen probs

[Andronicus]

I have been having occasional problems with diplomacy screen which in my current COTM have significantly increased.

They seem to be of 2 sorts.

Very occasionally for no apparent reason the civ3 program crashes (closes) on pressing F4.
The first time this happened I thought in retrospect that I must have accidentally had the shift key depressed at the time, but on 2 subsequent occassions I am certain that this was not so.

The other problem, which is becoming more frequent, is the appearance of the message "warning, maximum hypertext links exceeded" (or similar). This occurs when trying to check deals in the diplomacy screen. Following this I have had a variety of outcomes including a ghosting of the diplomacy screen remaining after closing it and more problematic is the occurence where all units appear to have not ended their turn even though they have. I can switch from unit to unit by mouse clicking on them but am unable to hit enter to end turn because the program appears to register units not ending their turn.

The only way I have been able to get around this is to reload the last autosave but when this happened 4 times this game I am concerned about my reload count. Further, in GOTM46 when reloading I got a much better outcome despite trying to repeat my moves (leader in early battle against Greece) so felt unfair to submit. I dont want this happening again - any advice please?

I havnt submitted any save as it is a current COTM and would be a spoiler.

 

[ainwood]

Is this a COTM or a GOTM problem?

Have you installed any custom leaderhead artwork or anything like that? It might be crashing trying to display a corrupted picture.

 

[Niklas]

I've had some problems with a ghosting diplomacy screen too, but nothing as serious as you mention.

I can switch from unit to unit by mouse clicking on them but am unable to hit enter to end turn because the program appears to register units not ending their turn.

Not a solution, but maybe some first aid:
Could you not click the end-turn button? If you click on that elliptical thing that blinks orange when it's time to end the turn, you end your turn regardless of whether there are units with movement left or not. But maybe that doesn't work for you either?

 

[Andronicus]

Is this a COTM or a GOTM problem?

Have you installed any custom leaderhead artwork or anything like that? It might be crashing trying to display a corrupted picture.

It is affecting my current COTM - Celts, but it did spoil a prev GOTM - 46

I did try installing the snoopy graphic mod quite some time ago but I could never get it to work so just gave up - I guess its sitting somewhere (I suspect I didnt install it in correct place). I think I might try looking for it and un-installing. I have not the computer savvy to instal any custom artwork of my own .

PS would it be OK to post a screenie of diplomacy window with error message? - it does contain info on what civs still left in game and who I was at war / allied with but nil else - or is this spoiler-ish?
(from middle ages in current COTM)

 

[AlanH]

Have you tried reinstalling C3C? It sounds like a very corrupt installation to me. The screenshot does sound spoilerish unless you clip it to just show the message. Or maybe you can transcrbe the error message text to a post?

 

[CKS]

I haven't really had a problem with crashes from F4 (though I have occasionally had everything disappear, and I can't say for sure this wasn't why). I do however have the other problems. I end up with the diplomacy screen overlayed on other screens very occasionally. I lose all the lines indicating relationships (war or peace, RoP, etc.) rather more often. Sometimes these things fix themselves, sometimes they only go away when I save and restart.

The units refusing to end their turn thing is really annoying. However, I have always been able to save, exit the game, and restart from my manual save. I haven't needed to use the autosave.

I get the maximum links exceeded message at other times, too, whereupon it usually leads to a lockup.

I have noticed, though, that usually things start to slow down before I get the error message - most specifically, Mapstat becomes much slower to appear at the beginning of the turn. My new plan is to save and restart any time I can get a move in before Mapstat appears. I haven't had the opportunity to try this much, though, so I don't know if it will solve the problem.

 

[Andronicus]

Thanks for the replies - I think I will try re-installing (perhaps this is the excuse I have been looking for to lash out on civ4?)
I've had 1 more crash with no warning when I pressed F4 tonight. I think the problems are getting worse.
I havnt noticed Mapstat go slow, but I do get quite frequent freezes of civassist - the little icon goes blue to indicate busy and does not respond, but works OK if shut it down and restart - perhaps these are all symptoms of corrupt install?

 

[CKS]

Let us know how it goes. If it works I might be tempted to reinstall mine.

 

[Wotan]

I lose all the lines indicating relationships (war or peace, RoP, etc.) rather more often.

Are you running XP on your PC? If so and you use "Fast User Switching" to switch users on the same PC with Civ still running you will lose all "lines" in the F4 screen when going back to the user running Civ.

 

[Mwoimp]

I've gotten the "maximum hypertext links exceeded" message before usually when I've been repeatedly looking at deals in the diplomacy screen, but I've always just been able to continue with no ill effects. I haven't had any of the other problems mentioned, however, I have had problems with the military advisor screen (F3), when I'm viewing by unit type, and I'm scrolled over in a list of units but shouldn't be because there are no longer enough units of that type to call for a scroll bar (usually I've upgraded units outside of this screen recently). When I scroll back over, when the scroll bar disappears I lose the use of my mouse. I'm able to get out of the screen with the keyboard controls, and can perform actions using the keyboard and the cursor will move it just doesn't respond to clicking. This happened once during the recent COTM but when I loaded the autosave it was at the exact same place as where I'd left off so I didn't repeat anything.

 

[Andronicus]

Have you tried reinstalling C3C? It sounds like a very corrupt installation to me. The screenshot does sound spoilerish unless you clip it to just show the message. Or maybe you can transcrbe the error message text to a post?

Thanks

Reinstalled C3C and worked a treat during COTM9 - only problem is now I want to go play CIV