I can't start "New Games" in Civ 4.

[Veristek]

I'm quite stuck when I try to start my first Civ 4 game, unfortunately. I was hoping some of you Civ 4 guys could help me out here.

Here's what I do step by step.

Step 1: I double click on the Civ 4 shortcut icon on my desktop.

Step 2: The Civ 4 program starts up. Then initalizes.

Step 3: I either watch or skip through all the intro movies, and arrive at the main screen.

PROBLEM 1: My cursor flickers endlessly here and from this point onwards. My cursor is the yellow arrow thing, I believe- a Civ 4 graphic cursor.

Step 4: I go to Single Player.

Step 5: I create custom world. The customization screen comes up with all the options. World Type, Civilizations, Leaders, Sea Level, Victory Conditions, Special Conditions, and so forth.

Step 6: I click "LAUNCH".

Step 7: The Launch screen comes on, and I see a green bar fill up with advice text under it. The geen bar reaches 100% and the screen says "DONE".

PROBLEM 2: The game either crashes to desktop or goes into a hard freeze in this point. This means I can't even play any Civ 4 games, or even start my 1st turn in 4000 B.C.

PROBLEM 3: I sometimes check out the Civilopedia, and whenever I check the leader faces, they aren't visible. I get the Cheshire Cat Syndrome, with the leader teeth, hat, or whatever showing, but not their faces. This must also mean I will have black map if I ever can get my 1st Civ 4 game going.

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I tried the PAK unzipping thing, but so far it hasn't made any difference, I believe. Besides, the PAK didn't apparently unzip anything into my Assets folder as the Assets folder remains empty except for the Art file and the various folders in there.

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I'm getting a little frustrated as I honestly do not know what to do. Is there anyone that can help me identify and fix these 3 problems I have?

By the way, here's my computer stats.

Computer Type = Laptop
RAM = 1022 MB (1 GB)
Hard Drive = 80 GB
Processor = Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.06 GHZ
Video Card = Mobile Radeon 9000
DirectX = 9.0c installed from the Civ 4 CD.

More information:

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System Information
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Time of this report: 10/30/2005, 01:38:02
Machine name: LAPTOP01
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 1 (2600.xpsp2.030422-1633)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: TOSCPL
System Model: BrkdlePE
BIOS: PhoenixBIOS 4.0 Release 6.0
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.06GHz, ~3.1GHz
Memory: 1022MB RAM
Page File: 222MB used, 3777MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.0001.0904 32bit Unicode

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Display Devices
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Card name: MOBILITY RADEON 9000
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: Mobility Radeon 9000 (LF)
DAC type: Internal DAC(350MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4C66&SUBSYS_001214C0&REV_01
Display Memory: 64.0 MB
Current Mode: 800 x 600 (16 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Default Monitor
Monitor Max Res:
Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version: 6.13.0010.6200 (English)
DDI Version: 8
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 10/12/2002 13:14:00, 241536 bytes



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Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Veristek]

Bump for responses.

 

[triso_fr]

Hello Veristek,

I have a laptop with a Radeon 9200 (32Mo), and I experience issues similar to your problem 2.
I tried to launch CIV4 dozens of times, playing with graphical options within the game and tweaking Windows driver, and it miraculously worked only 1 or 2 times (on duel or very small maps), independent from the options I selected.

However I noticed that before the game crashes, it is able to do an automatic save. And as stange as it may seem, loading this game works fine 90% of the time, allowing you to resume and play the game as if you just created it.

May be it will work for you.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

However I noticed that before the game crashes, it is able to do an automatic save. And as stange as it may seem, loading this game works fine 90% of the time, allowing you to resume and play the game as if you just created it.

Mine did the same thing... almost. It would power down my monitor requiring me to reboot the machine. But, it did autosave at 4000 B.C.. allowing me to reload the game and play.

We've also played two full games with no desktop crashes since... So who knows what excatly is going on. Someone get Sid on the phone!