Is every game destined to crash eventually?

[Archfalcon]

I like playing my games out long after the "ending" until I achieve complete and total world domination. I wonder of there is some kind of limitation on how long games can go on.

But yet it seems that EVERY game crashes eventually.

I had a great game going as the Egyptians. The Romans had been annoying me for at least 1000 years, and I was TWO turns away from utterly destroying them when Civ3 kept crashing.

I went back to a way earlier save and tried to replay it, but it crashed anyway. I have the .sav available for download here. It's at the end of the turn, just hit enter, and it will crash. This is a 1.21f save with default rules.

I tried again with the Iroquois and it crashed too. I'm really getting upset with not being able to play out my games. Find the Iroquois one here. This game was especially annoying since I never had any aluminum. It all belonged to the English, who had about 5 sources of it.

Does anyone have any idea what I can do to make these games work? Any ideas at all?

[Pythagoras]

It would be helpful if you provided:

1) System Specs

2) Any mods you are implementing

[Der PH]

Does it crash during the AI turns?
That's what I am experiencing in every game sooner or later (Last time in the modern age, but in other games as soon as the medieval age).
Until now I believed it was one of the mods I made (additional units, govs, ...), but since it happens at totally different periods of the game I could not yet identify the problem.

[Travathian]

I've had a couple games where it would crash on the AI's turn. Usually going back a few turns and doing things differently fixes it.

In my most recent game this hasnt worked, on the AI's turn it simply crashes to the desktop. But I would have won anyway, so no big deal.

So that's 3 total games out of . . . . I think over 40 now. Not too bad, but could always be better.

[Sava]

Games usually crash due to the different configuration of peoples' systems. Usually it isn't the game itself, its the game in connection with something else.

I have only had Civ III crash twice, and that was due to a messed up mod.

[Archfalcon]

specs

My system specs are:

AthlonXP 1700
512 MB DDR RAM
Epox 8KHA+ Mobo
Toshiba DVD-ROM
GeForce 4 4600 Video Card with latest WinXP Detonator Drivers

Machine running WinXP Home edition.

There are NO mods, just the latest official civ3 patch.

And both games crash during the AI turns.

If it matters, both games were already won as a cultural victory, and both games involved nukes. I tried replaying them both from 10 or 20 turns earlier, and it didn't seem to help.

[jdjdjd]

Do you have Auto Save on, then you could always go back to the last completed turn.

[Sava]

WIN XP is probably your problem. On my other computer (with XP) I have problems with Civ, among other things.

[Pythagoras]

Originally posted by Sava
WIN XP is probably your problem. On my other computer (with XP) I have problems with Civ, among other things.

Agreed, Ill stick to windows 2000 until it gets extremly outdated. Every windows upgrated requires doubling your RAM, programmers are so uneconomical these days.

[Travathian]

Amazingly enough, I have to agree.

I use W2K and have had very few problems. Under 98SE I had about as many problems as any other game. Yet by and far WinXP seems to generate the most questions in the help section.

Do a search for XP specific things and look in the known issues/fixes, maybe you'll find an answer there.

[Thinker]

Insight on Crashes

I recently started seeing a crash everytime the computer's turn came up at exactly the same event. It was save game related and if I went far enough back on save games the crash went away. I further isolated the crash to the "call-up" of a specific civilization; in my case it happened to be India. The crash would occur on the turn when India wanted to renegotiate a trade deal. This crash had also occured earlier in the same game with the Zulus under the same situation. I also determined that the crash would occur whenever I tried to contact the revelant civilization whether it be by my initiative or the computers.

This brings me to the theoretical solution which I am still verifying- I theorized that the problem had to do with the presence of all three patches on top of each other (.16,.17 & .21) since the problem started soon after the last patch. When I reinstalled the game and patched with only the last patch (.21) the "Zulu" crash went away. But of course, the "India" crash later occured in the same game. I figured that maybe the current "thread" of save games was somehow corrupted beyond hope and if I started a new game after the reinstall the problem might not return. I have not been able to confirmed this theory. Let me know what you all think....(um..sorry about the pun..)

Thinker

[W4r_Machine]

I've crash the game more than I care to count. Thank god for the Autosave! Turning my antivirus off, reduced the "illegal operation" thing from occuring. After I win a space race, the game crashes after the clip. I'ld say some games are destined to crash!

[trickey]

my civ runs fine on xp

[Raion]

Well, other people have had problems with games with WinXP. Although, Microsoft will say it is compatible, I think you have to work with XP and games to get it to work.

But, I bought a GeForce type 2 card, and Civ runs fine, but IGII will not, it runs, but the graphics are all rectangles.
So, to play, IGII, I would have to stick in my ATI card, maybe because of some 3-D graphic problem with the GeForce card that the cheap clone does not include or something.
But with the ATI card, and only an Expert 128, the drivers corrupt a couple of files with Civ III.


The only thing I can think of with playing games, is to use the lowest acceraleration of the graphic card that will allow it to work. That's the middle setting for me for all programs.

[Palleon]

It's not just an XP problem. I run 2k, and the past 4 games I've played, the game crashes to desktop around the year 2036. I won't be able to win conquest, but I will win a histograph victory. However, I've never been able to, because I've never gotten a game to go to the year 2050 without a crash. You can check out my save file here, maybe you can figure out if I'm doing something wrong? My comp definatly meets and exceeds Civ's system reqs, so I don't think that's the problem. Just go through the rest of this turn, a trade embargo request comes up, and than the game crashes before I get my turn back. If it makes any difference, I am using the Huge Earth Scenario with all civs, except most are wiped out by this point.