Don't Buy Civ3!!!

[Steve Clark]

TechWins: Nice post. I look forward for the release of a patch or two so you can enjoy Civ3 like many of us here are doing.

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by TechWins
I was able to get it at Best Buy today, surprisingly enough. I think I had been lied to on the phone previously and is the reason for me not receiving the game earlier. I guess who really cares because the game sucks for me. Oh wait here is the problem - "It seems to be happening mostly on systems with older or improperly installed monitors." I mean it couldn't possibly be the coding as somebody else stated in a different thread.

To answer your question Wittlich:
Windows 2000 (updated with the newest service pack)
Celeron 500
384 MB RAM
4 MB Rage Pro Video Card
Monitor capable of 1024x784
Can't think of any other relevant info

My computer may not be the greatest but it is not that bad. Plus it is only one year old. My 'old' or 'improperly' installed monitor has always seemed to work fine on other games, with much higher requirements. But I will always trust old faithful (Firaxis) and believe the problem is my PC and not their lazy ass coding.

If you're getting the "out of scan range" or some error like that where the intro video may play but then the screen goes black but the game is still apparently playing, do this.

Update the drivers for your video card.

Reason I say this is I had a 16 MB Vodoo 3000 card and had this exact same problem trying to load and play Icewind Dale, and this after I had loaded and played the game fine prior to rebuilding my machine.

I found and installed the most modern drivers for my card and viola, the problem was resolved.

See if this works for you. Oh, and do NOT think that the W2K video drivers are the most recent or the best for your card because they may not be. Video card manufacturers routinely update their card drivers as new OS's come out, etc.

[FexFX]

A small addendum to Ozymandous' post:
Your Video Card manufacturer is NOT always the best place to get the newest drivers. Very often you will find newer drivers from the chipset manufacturer. Example: Viper V770u from Diamond Multimedia...The best drivers fo rthis card are not from Diamond, but from nVidia, the makers of the TNT2u chipset on that card.

[gremalkin]

I've had similar issues with games before.. Definitely a video card problem.

Update the drivers...

[Boris Godunov]

Re: Horse, I WILL say it!

Originally posted by Exile
I TOLD YOU SO!

I warned everyone about firaxis months ago. I told anyone who wanted to listen that this company was inept and deaf. Every single game I have ever purchased from firaxis DOES NOT FUNCTION CORRECTLY. Not one. Not two. Every single one!

This is a lie. It works fine on my PC, totally. I have a Celeron 400 Mhz with 128 MB Ram and and a 16 MB Banshee video card. It's 2 year + old system. Works fine.

I do not regret buying Civ3, as IT HAS BEEN THE MOST FUN GAME I'VE BOUGHT IN AGES. So your "told-you-sos" are meaningless to me.

Out of all the people posting, it looks to me like the vast majority are running the game fine, and only a minority are having issues. This will be true of ANY game since all systems are different and have their quirks. Welcome to the modern era. Wait for the patch or return the game, but don't rain on my parade...I'm having a blast! Woohoo!!!

[Max Webster]

No problems here, it runs great.

[DarkCloud]

How is a 500 MHZ Celeron not a good computer- Civ III has TOO HIGH SYSTEM REQS.

Firaxis were fiends for requiring much higher than a 300 mhz computer. "Oh! we'll add good graphics."

Who cares about graphics. ToT and CTP's graphics were horrible... but they were "closer to 3D" than Civ II's.

... I enjoyed Civ II's look- the other games were horrible.

Get off TechWins case.

[Slunko]

I might know how to fix this

Ok, I think I've had the same problem as you It was a little tricky to figure out how to solve it.
The problem is what many already pointed out: civ3 tries to set an invalid video resolution and/or sync. rate.
I'm also using Windows2000 SP2 with directx8 so this should apply to your problem.
I first switched the video depth to 1024x768 and 16 bpp (Civ3 requires 16bpp, no less and no more)
Then after starting Civ3 for the first time (which crashed for you) you'll get a file named "Civilization3.Ini" in the same directory as Civ3 is installed in. Edit this file in notepad and add the line "KeepRes=1", position in file shouldn't matter as long as it is below the "[Civilization III]" line.

Then Civ3 should work.

Ofcourse your recommendation not to buy Civ3 holds valid even when you've got it working. This is really a rushed piece of buggy crap and you should invest $15 of your $50 in Civnet, Civ2 or any other game but Civ3.

[Ming]

I don't know what everybody is talking about... it runs fine on my computer... and the more I play it, the more interesting it gets

[Ecthy]

Do the OT mods have a plan about when one is playing Civ3, the other 2 are watching the OT or anything? I mean, it would be pretty easy for spammers to ruin the OT nowadays that you guys play Civ3 instead of watching the OT

[Ralf]

Originally posted by TechWins
Why shouldn't you buy Civ3? Well because you probably won't be able to play it with all the bugs running around with the game. I have been trying to play the game for three hours now and I still can't play because of the video problem.

There are many people here who have played the game for hours and hours without a single glitch. Your video-problems isnt fun at all, but these kind of problems is more or less impossible to avoid all together. There are simply too many hardware/software combinations and configurations out there.

Anyway; just report your problems and it will be fixed. Besides; you not the only one - I couldnt even start the Europa Univeralis game, the very first time I booted it.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
Do the OT mods have a plan about when one is playing Civ3, the other 2 are watching the OT or anything? I mean, it would be pretty easy for spammers to ruin the OT nowadays that you guys play Civ3 instead of watching the OT

Huh... I'm playing Civ III right now... watching football... and performing my moderator duties... your point

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
Do the OT mods have a plan about when one is playing Civ3, the other 2 are watching the OT or anything? I mean, it would be pretty easy for spammers to ruin the OT nowadays that you guys play Civ3 instead of watching the OT

How hard is it to do that? You just randomly ban someone, let a few spammers start a thread about the banning then give the Spammers PCR !!! Easy !!! Then straight back to civ 3 !!!!

[bondetamp]

I installed it on my old IBM aptiva with 350MHZ cpu, 128 RAM and 4mb video and it runs fine. I got some problems when trying to run huge maps, though, so I'm still looking into getting a new computer.