HELP!!! Civ 3 wont run

[Samudragupt]

Help me fellow rulers . Apparantly computer game companies are so scared of piracy that they have included the SAFE DISK V2 copy protection program in CIV 3 . Because of this my Dirve wont read the CD. It installs it perfectly though !!! But when I run it it "tries" and then nothing happen . Just Nothing. My drive isnt that old either - It is a Pioneer DVD 104S. And it runs other CD's perfectly well except for ones protected by Safe Disk V2. If any of you have any helpful suggestions - let me know . Or else give me the name of a CD drive ( not too fast - say 24x) on which you know fact that the game runs.
thanks

[cavebear]

For what is is worth, I am having the same problem. My computer matches the claimed requirements, but the opening screen comes up (the CivIII one, not the menu screen) and everything just freezes.

I have removed as much "startup" software as I can, I have plenty of drive space, I've tried disabling the virus-scan as I install, I've tried the "minimum" install, I have adjusted my graphics accelerator to "zero" (and points up to full), I have only 86 fonts, and I have let the opening screen on civ3 sit for 30 minutes just in case the first time was slow to register.

The disc works. I loaded it on my office computer, and it worked just fine (had a great time playing a tutorial session). I'm utterly baffled. The only thing I can think of to do is upgrade everything. Bring my RAM from 64 to 128, upgrade my video and sound card (no telling what small problem is the problem), upgrade my CD from 4x4x20 to something much higher.

I've run out of ideas other than that.

[Childe Roland]

Happened to me too! I hated it. I have an old cdrom drive and no games with this protection play! (Black and White comes to mind).


The fix! Go to a hacker site like www.gamecopyworld.com and download the no cd hack. Worked for me and I was playing in minutes.

Some people argue that those sites are for nothing but piracy! I tell you what, if it weren't for that site, I (a customer who payed for this game) would not be able to play. Enjoy!

[Samudragupt]

Thanks both of you . But IF I go and get the NO CD patch - I guess I cant I guess one loses all the multimedia bells and whistles which (I guess) are read directly from the CD. Let me know if that is not the case . Or wait maybe I will find out on my own
But this really sucks - 3rd time in a row - Max Payne, B&W and now this

[Childe Roland]

Well, do a full install and you'll still see everything. I get the music, the opening movie, the half second wonder movies (not much in the way of multimedia content here). I seem to get everything. I also don't have to fumble with the cd everytime I play.

[cavebear]

Well, I finally got running. I needed the fixed.exe file from gamecopyworld and the winace program to read, but it worked.

My problem was that I couldn't get the fix.exe file to download properly. With Netscape, I just got a text file opened, but with IE I could save it to disk. Winace opened it, I copied it to my civ3 folder (saving the original under a new name), and I'm playing now!

[cavebear]

Someone should offer the extracted "civilization3.exe" fix file somewhere to save us all the conversion aggrevation. I have it now,and the game is working (so far) but I don't have a webpage to upload it to.

[Samudragupt]

yes the fixed.exe from gamecopyworld worked for me to - but then I have had previous practice trying to get Max Payne and B&W to run. But didnt want to do it for Civ 3 - leaves a ****ty taste in the mouth, wdnt u say?

[cavebear]

Actually, it left a pretty clean taste in my computer, considering all the horrible things I did to it *trying* to get the game to run. It may never forgive me, and I probably have some annoying surprises to be discovered.