Vista Problems with Civ III and PTW

[thesongisover]

I recently got a new laptop and I attempted to install Civilization III (on the original standalone CD) and PTW (on a separate standalone CD). These CD's, which have worked for me for years and have provided countless hours of diversion, install, but I cannot play the games. My first problem occurred after I installed the original (no expansion packs) Civ III and tried to play it. I noticed that the text on the home screen was jumbled together, and upon selecting quick start and building a city I got an error message: "Unable to allocate draw-buffer". Other times, when I tried to start a new game, the game would crash and I would be forced to exit.

I decided to not worry about Civ III and try to play PTW and see if that worked. I installed PTW (on its own original disc, not part of the later bundles that included Conquests, PTW, and Civ III), started the game, and got the error message "FONT ERROR Error loading font (Error Code: 13)!". I researched this error, and figured out it might have something to do with LSANS.ftt and LSANS.fot. I took some advice I saw on other forums, and copied LSANS.ftt into my C:\Windows\Fonts folder. No dice. Same error (13). Then I discovered that, even after installing and uninstalling PTW several times, I did not have an LSANS.fot file at all. Luckily, I had this file on an older computer, so took it from the old computer and put it in the Civ3PTW folder on this new laptop. Now, when I started the game, my error message was changed to "Error loading fontError code 28)!!" Progress, I thought. I can handle this. The sticky at the top of this page tells me how to fix this. So I tried changing LSANS.fot to a different name, but then when i opened the game i got error code 13 again. When I deleted the LSANS.fot file outright, I still got error code 13. I tried to copy LSANS.fot into my C:\Windows\Fonts folder, which I thought might work, but it says that LSANS.fot cannot be properly installed as a font. So now I am stuck. I can't play Civ III or its expansion pack PTW. I really want to play this game. Can anyone help?

[notyoueither]

I doubt very much that Civ3 (any of them) would work with Vista.

[vmxa1]

I did not install my Vista update, so I do not know. I would go to Microsofts site and search. I suspect they will have some people with those issues.

[BlackCat]

This might explain your problem :

http://thunderpeel2001.blogspot.com/2007/03/small-update-civilization.html

Your problem could be that you don't have a LucidaSans font installed on your system.

[thesongisover]

I tried renaming LSANS.fot and all that happens is that the error code changes from 13 to 28. It seems like Civ possibly can't read LSANS.fot when I change it to a different name. Any other ideas?

[BlackCat]

You misunderstood me (and that page). It's your system that don't have lucidaSans at all and therefore the program can't find one.

Try look in your mashines configuration (can't guide you because mine speaks danish) - somewhere there is a list of fonts installed and I guess that LS isn't there.

[Ozymandias]

I realize I'm leaping late into an old conversation here, but I found that turning off UAC ("User Access Control") lets everything run fine, albeit with somewhat diminished security.

Best,

Oz

[simspacey]

I doubt very much that Civ3 (any of them) would work with Vista.

I play Civ III on Windows Vista Business and it works fine for me. My version is the one from the Civilization Chronicles box.

[Ozymandias]

Ah, Back Again ...

Just in case this issue is still plagueing anyone:

(1) You must be running a user account with Admin priveleges.

(2) RIGHT CLICK to "Run As Administrator".

-Oz

[Mad Bomber]

I get this error quite often and I'm not running Vista so its not anything to do with UAC or running the game as an admin.

From what I have read up on and experienced its some type of error in reading or writing the data either in loading or saving. In my particular experience it crashes after multiple turns and occurs most often during the auto-save at the end of turns. I also have PC performance issues so it could be a problem with my RAM or processor.

[Ozymandias]

Whenever I win a game in PTW on my computer with Vista and try to go beyond the screen where the guy hits the hammer, the screen goes blank and the game crashes. I don't have the problem in Conquests and also didn't have the problem on a computer with XP.

I tried a search for this issue but didn't find anything helpful. If anyone could give me some advice on how to fix this, I would be most appreciative.

Are you running the game in Administrator mode? (right click on the program icon; if you've given yourself those privileges it'll be an option on the list).

[BlackCat]

Maybe this could be a help.

I dusted off my old copy of Imperium Galactica II recently and tried to run on a XP but with no luck - there was a font missing. After some experimenting, googling, reading the doc pdf mm, suddently the program started and worked fine (and my night was spoiled). Next day, the problem was back

Finally, I found out why it worked. When I opened the documentation pdf on the cd, the missing font was loaded and the program could find it. Maybe the same could cure CIII's problem.

[Mad Bomber]

Are you running the game in Administrator mode? (right click on the program icon; if you've given yourself those privileges it'll be an option on the list).

if it was an admin problem then he wouldnt be able to load the game to play it. This is most likely a problem with a corrupted or missing file. Save any save files you want on a disk or flash drive and re-install.

[Ben Kenobi]

Thanks Ozzy! It looks like the later patches to Vista have cleared this all up.

[tgold65]

I realize I'm leaping late into an old conversation here, but I found that turning off UAC ("User Access Control") lets everything run fine, albeit with somewhat diminished security.

Best,

Oz

Thanks Oz! That worked for me as well.

For those of you who don't know how to turn off UAC. Just search in the help and support for VISTA under "UAC". The first result should be about turning UAC on or off and will link you to the location in VISTA where you can turn it off.