Grandma has strange problem with CTP2

[scloopy]

My Grandson just gave me this game because I love CIV II. The problem is two fold.

1- The game freezes after a few minutes of play

2 - For some reason I can only use the mouse and none of the keyboard shortcuts work.

I know I have messed up somewhere, but don't know where.

Bye the bye I am running XP Home 2.4 Ghz if that makes a difference.

[Gilgamensch]

Re: Grandma has strange problem with CTP2

Originally posted by scloopy
My Grandson just gave me this game because I love CIV II. The problem is two fold.

1- The game freezes after a few minutes of play

2 - For some reason I can only use the mouse and none of the keyboard shortcuts work.

I know I have messed up somewhere, but don't know where.

Bye the bye I am running XP Home 2.4 Ghz if that makes a difference.

Hi grandma

good to see that it is not only the young ones playing computer

For your problem:

Which mouse are you using? (which driver)
As you have a fairly new PC I assume you have more than 128Mbyte of memory?
Which language version are you using for CTP2 and XP?
Did you install the official apolyton patch click here to download

Do you take the CD out after the game started?

[child of Thor]

did you play CivII on this same computer? If not i suggest playing CTP2 on the same pc you played CivII on(just check that that pc is powerfull enough!).

CTP2 is an old game(like CivII) and as such the new fangled machines of today(and operating systems like XP) dont always like to run them well

Atleast this is the easiest solution unless you are comfortable with PC's and messing around with files to change settings to get these older games to run etc...

[scloopy]

Re: Re: Grandma has strange problem with CTP2

Originally posted by Gilgamensch


Hi grandma

good to see that it is not only the young ones playing computer

For your problem:

Which mouse are you using? (which driver)
As you have a fairly new PC I assume you have more than 128Mbyte of memory?
Which language version are you using for CTP2 and XP?
Did you install the official apolyton patch click here to download

Do you take the CD out after the game started?

I use a Logitec cordless trackball mouse with the latest update to the driver.

I have 512 Mbyte of memory.

I assume I am using the English language version for both CTp2 and XP as everything is in english.

I did not install the patch. But I will go get it now.
Thanks much

[scloopy]

Originally posted by child of Thor
did you play CivII on this same computer? If not i suggest playing CTP2 on the same pc you played CivII on(just check that that pc is powerfull enough!).

CTP2 is an old game(like CivII) and as such the new fangled machines of today(and operating systems like XP) dont always like to run them well

Atleast this is the easiest solution unless you are comfortable with PC's and messing around with files to change settings to get these older games to run etc...

This is the same computer I play Civ II on.

I piddle around with building computers (self taught - trial and many errors). I built 4 successfully so far and another in progress - slllooooowww progress.

[scloopy]

Question:

I downloaded the patch. Which directory do I unzip it into.

Also I forgot to say that I leave the disk in the drive when I am playing the game.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by scloopy
Question:

I downloaded the patch. Which directory do I unzip it into.

If it is the official patch by Activision it comes with an installer, execute the file and it should install into the right directory. If you got one of these *zip versions, install it into your default CTP2 directory, if you didn't change the path during installation it is your C:\Program Files\Activision\Call to Power 2\ directory.

Originally posted by scloopy
Also I forgot to say that I leave the disk in the drive when I am playing the game.

Without the CD you wouldn't be able to start a game and if you want to listen to the music on the CD or see the wonder movies you shouldn't remove the CD during the game.

Originally posted by scloopy
1- The game freezes after a few minutes of play

That is indeed bad you could also head over to the source code forum and become a play tester.

Originally posted by scloopy
2 - For some reason I can only use the mouse and none of the keyboard shortcuts work.

I guess you mean the num pad and the i and r keys. CTP2 is indeed a little bit different than Civ2, for instance if you want to move a unit/army you click on the unit but keep the left mouse button down and you can pull away the mouse from the unit, and you see the path that the unit will take if you let off the left mouse button. Similar to the goto function in Civ2 but more confortable and more powerfull then the num pad.

The i and r command don't exist in CTP2, your settlers don't build roads and infrastructure. From a tile improvement panel you can select which tile improvement should be build and with the mouse you can place it within your city radius. Of course you need some public works. To collect PW you need to set your PW tax at the beginning I think it is set to 20%. This way you don't have to move around with hundrets of settlers to improve your terrain.

-Martin

[centrifuge]

scloopy,

have you tried playing the game in '95 or '98 compatability mode? If not, I give that a try... It worked fairly well for me, but ubnfortunatly the game did run a bit slower.

[scloopy]

Will give that a shot and see if it helps.

Question:
Any idea why the number pad does not move the units?

[Immortal Wombat]

Try with Num Lock on/off?

[scloopy]

Tried it both ways. Will just have to get used to the mouse.

Which now I think I need to uninstall and reinstall as I have a corrupted file in the Activision directory and the blooming thing won't work at all. For an impatient persion this is getting close to the limit. This game came out after Civ II did it not?

[Gilgamensch]

It came out (IIRC, if I remember correctly) 2 years after CTP1. So it must have been 4-5 years after Civ II.

Quick question:

If you press Enter on the numpad area, does the game still progress one turn?
Are you using any program in the background, which might do some 'translation' for the numpad keys?

One more for the crashing:

Do you run Antivirus-SW/whatever in the background? If so turn them off. Meaning that you shall not see 'anything' in the bottom right of the Window task bar.

[scloopy]

That was it. When I turned off the antivirus software and my weather live update everything went great.

Thanks so much to you all. Maybe now I will be able to enjoy the game. It will take some getting used to, the differences between this and II and III.

Thanks again.

[child of Thor]

Yes it is a very different game to ol Civ - but once you've got used to the changes you'll find it still has that civ feel of empire control and expansion through the ages