Savegame error: DataIO operation System Error: CITY

[tommysl]

Hello all, I hope someone can help me. I have played for a while, playing huge world vs 15 computeres on emperor-difficulty.
I ended (saved) the game and night, and the next day when I was going to continue on this game, I couldn't load my safe game. All 5 autosaves and my 3 latest manual safegames give me the same error after 60% of load:
DataIO operation System Error: CITY
and then the game is back in the main menu. However I tried to load an even older game and that worked. From here (That is inside a started game) I tried to load one of the savegames that didn't work, and I got the same error message. But instead of returning to the main menu, it actually started the game, but there was no cities on the map. I figured it can't be a diskcrash or failed save, since 8 savegames reveal the same error.

Hope someone can help me.

-Tommy

 

[Nemo]

firaxis acknoweldged this as a gaming issue. they found the problem, and have already created a fix. however, the fix is not due out until the patch, IIRC
in the mean time, you have to go back to the last good game, and start from there. yes, it sucks big time, i know, i had to go back almost 300 years i only ever played two games that ever did this...CTP and CIV3 (yes, firaxis, i just compared civ3 to ctp...you should be assamed!)...they should have done a tight nit public beta and this would not have happened!

 

[tommysl]

Thanks for the reply Nemo.

It sounds great that this problem will be fixed. Do you know if the patch also fixes the broken games?
I really don't want to play this all over, about 4 hours of play I think.

And did you game work well after the 300 years after you "restarted" it?

 

[SITS]

Firaxis have said if you keep the saved game before it corrupts then you will be able to play on when the patch is released. I went back a few turns before it currupted and it is fine. I suspect it happened when a Civ eliminated another Civ so when I reloaded it I tried to keep them apart and the game has worked since.

 

[Nemo]

Originally posted by tommysl
Thanks for the reply Nemo.

It sounds great that this problem will be fixed. Do you know if the patch also fixes the broken games?

np. i am not sure, but i suspect not.

And did you game work well after the 300 years after you "restarted" it?

yes, my game worked, and i have since by passed all 300 years that i had to replay as well without any further problems. once i found the last good game, i deleted all courupt saved games, just so i would not accidentally write over them and have the problem again.

 

[Crippler]

Well, I have had this problem as well, at least I'm not alone. I am so sick of these games coming out, have *****. Excuse my language, but I am so tired of playing games, for hours on end, only to find out that I can not finsh my game I worked so hard at. Do game companies actually have play testers, or what? And the way I see it, if the game can corrupt my file, then they better find a way to uncorrupt it. Civ3 was not a cheap game to purchase, and I expect a little more for my gaming dollar. And before everyone starts flaming me, I'm just mad. I love Civ3, and its a good game, but you would be mad too if you lost about 2-3 hours of game play for nothing.

 

[kelper]

Crippler, I have the same problem, and it pisses me off just as much, can NOT wait for the patch

 

[Nemo]

it is said by oneof the Firaxis' people that it is caused by the death of a settler on board a transport. if that settler is the last (potential) city, then when you kill it the game sometimes goes to -1 which causes the corruption (or something to that effect). so, if you have killed all of the cities and you find that theya re not dead, then latter come upon a transport, dont kill it...it probably has a settler onboard, and by killing it, it iwill cuase the save game corrruption.

 

[Crippler]

Hmmmm, that does sound about right. I do remember that in order to defeat one civilization, I had to hunt down their last ship and destroy it. But I don't know if it had a settler on board or not.

What about everyone else having this problem, does this explanation sound right?

I still think if the game can cause the problem, why can't they fix it. I don't just mean keep the problem from happening, but create a utility that restores corrupted sav files.

But anyway, thanks for the info. I appreciate it.

 

[MorningStar]

Originally posted by Crippler
What about everyone else having this problem, does this explanation sound right?

Yup. The Zulu had a galley hidden behind my continent. The Persians and Romans were trying to wipe them out and were in hot pursuit of the ship. I thought there might have been a settler on it since they were still in the game and didn’t have any cities. To think I was going to go send privateers to get them myself when I should have given them safe passage.

Also I called Infogrames tech support yesterday (11/12/01) and the guy said that I was the first person he heard that problem from and couldn’t give me a solution to work around it.

 

[Crippler]

Well, maybe we now know how to prevent this problem from occurring. Thanks for Replying MorningStar.

Also I called Infogrames tech support yesterday (11/12/01) and the guy said that I was the first person he heard that problem from and couldn’t give me a solution to work around it.

That scares me. I sure hope this problem we are experiencing isn't an isolated incident. In a strange way, I hope that more people have this problem, in order for them to take notice and fix this problem. Not because I'm vindictive, or want other people to be extremely frustrated, like myself.

If anyone else has had a similar experience, or knows any info please let us know. Maybe the more we talk about it, the better chance it will be fixed, soon. I hope.

Crippler

 

[kelper]

Yep, that sounds right to me...one of the civs (damn the Egyptians!) was wiped out, but didn't "die" later, they died all of a sudden...they didn't have a city, i guess the computer killed them

 

[OurDecay]

In my last two games I had multiple instances of this. Come to think of it, I killed a galley around 1936, which ended the Aztec civilization - probably not a good thing. Any of the saved game files since do not work and bring up the error you describe. Very frustrating, as I won via Space Race in 1975 and destroyed three civs between 1932-1975. Much work lost. I was sort of hoping on loading up my 1974 saved file and aborting the space race to go for a different victory. Guess that won't be happening.

 

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Seems I got my wires crossed, folks. Saves that are affected by this bug probably will not work with the patch. If you have an autosave that is good that was saved before the bug corrupts the save data, the patched executable will fix the problem and prevent the savegame from being corrupted.

Sorry for the mistake


Dan

 

[Crippler]

Oh really? So what am I supposed to do with my game that I spent over 3 hours on, and now I can't play it because of a lack of QA? I am so SICK of games coming out half ***. There is no excuse, none. I'm making a stand, today. I am no longer purchasing games the 1st day they come out, in the hopes that when I finally do purchase them that they will work, correctly. I say there should be a lemon law against this kind of garbage. No other industry would allow such an unjust practice to continue. I don't care if people flame me or not. I am just tired as a consumer, buying incomplete and buggy programs. I think I'll stick with my Gameboy, at least I can play and save those games, and resume them without fear of losing 3 hours of my time.

Plus, I love Infogrames technical support. I e-mailed them 3 days ago and still nothing. You know what folks, these video game industries could care less about providing quality games to the public. It all comes down to making money, so why should they make good games, or even games that work right, when people like us will buy them. And, once they got our money, why should they provide any kind of support? They already got our money, so it doesn't matter. :suicide:

At this point, whatever. That's all I can say. Whatever.

 

[MorningStar]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
Saves that are affected by this bug probably will not work with the patch.

Dang. I was hoping to get back to that game. I continually saved the game to the same file and all the autosaves were corrupted as well. Very disconcerting. I'm now using the default file name to save in my latest game. Some much for saving HD space.

 

[argolite]

I got snagged with this error myself last night. As someone reported, it occured immediately after a cityless civ got killed off. I know for a fact that the civ in question did have a settler and a galleon left after all its cities were captured. Unfortunately there is no hope of me preventing the destruction of that civ, but I suppose I can count myself lucky that when the patch comes out, I will only lose about 6 rounds. Here's to frequent reloading.

Any idea when the fix/patch will come out? Its hard to play any new games with this problem hanging over our heads. After investing an enormous amount of time to create and manage my empire, I hate to lose it to a f*****g bug!

 

[Nemo]

Originally posted by Crippler
Oh really? So what am I supposed to do with my game that I spent over 3 hours on, and now I can't play it because of a lack of QA? I am so SICK of games coming out half ***. There is no excuse, none. I'm making a stand, today. I am no longer purchasing games the 1st day they come out, in the hopes that when I finally do purchase them that they will work, correctly. I say there should be a lemon law against this kind of garbage. No other industry would allow such an unjust practice to continue. I don't care if people flame me or not. I am just tired as a consumer, buying incomplete and buggy programs. I think I'll stick with my Gameboy, at least I can play and save those games, and resume them without fear of losing 3 hours of my time.

Plus, I love Infogrames technical support. I e-mailed them 3 days ago and still nothing. You know what folks, these video game industries could care less about providing quality games to the public. It all comes down to making money, so why should they make good games, or even games that work right, when people like us will buy them. And, once they got our money, why should they provide any kind of support? They already got our money, so it doesn't matter. :suicide:

At this point, whatever. That's all I can say. Whatever.

yeah, me too. i am tired of this sh!t. the last 3 games i bought, all had serious issues, and were obviously pushed out the door, and not properly tested. civ3 is the last game i am buying. $50 for this sh!t is rediculous. if the corperations want to rip me off, i can do the same to them. fu<k 'em, this is BS. i cant scroll, i cant save, i cant precision bomb, i cant defend against air raids, and it has memory leaks...this is completely unplayable nonsense.

 

[Mike B.]

I have looked into this problem further and I have now updated the code so that, once the patch is available, you will be able to load your corrupted saves -- but only if you are getting the DataIO CITY error.
(Note that Dan's earlier post contrary to this was correct at the time of his post -- I've only recently made this change).

 

[lumbert]

Ok, I can live with bugs in the game. No problem. But how can this game pass the QA with this save game bug???? Damn, I am really tired of this. Fireaxis has to fix this NOW, I don't play a game where I can't load my last game after 40 hours of playing.

And yes, thanks for the last message that we are able to load old save games with the CITY bug. I have a UNIT bug, and now??

I can promise that it was the last time I pay for games from Fireaxis!