Technical Issues FAQ

[GlobexCo 33]

This thread has been opened for common issues (especially ones related to modding), with CXL 2009 and 2011.

If you want to ask a question, or make a comment about a feature of the game, then create a new topic. Here we record only problems and solutions related to the correct functioning of the existing features. This includes bugs and obvious malfunctions (like a house not filling with residents despite favorable conditions), but it doesn't include things like the coverage of hospitals that you think should be larger, or the fact that leisure buildings don't generate profit, but cost your city money.  

If you solved a problem, then please post here your issue and the solution, so other people with same problem can find the answer here.

In order to get better help, please follow this list:

* explain your issue

"Game crashes" is not enough. Try to explain how, when (and maybe why) your game crashed / had problems.

* add details

Adding details means a faster and correct solution. If you can, post PC specs and a list of mods in your folder.

* add a log

If your game crashes (when playing, or before login), submit a "log".

You can find a log here:

(enable hidden folders)

C:\Documents and settings\Username\AppData\Local\Monte Cristo\Cities XL\log (XP)

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Monte Cristo\Cities XL\log (Vista/7)

Try to reproduce the crash, then go to that folder and find the latest .log file. If the file is too big to attach in forums, then open it with notepad and copy/paste in forums the last lines (more than 1 please).

Before asking, check these things:

* make sure you don't have incompatible mods installed

* make sure you have got the latest version of citiesXL (1.1.0.457)

* make sure your mods are updated

* if you downloaded a mod from STEX, then try to download it again

* if game crashes when opening a city, then try create a new one and see what happens

* many of the CXL 2009 mods currently prevent CXL 2011 from functioning correctly, and/or introduce  bugs/problems. This is not an issue to bring with Focus Home, but an issue related to the mod you're trying to use. So, before reporting a problem, try to uninstall the mod, or check here for an update of the mod.

[GlobexCo 33]

Common issues for CXL 2009:

* I just installed my game, and I can't login

manually update the game by downloading the patch from the official site

* CitiesXL.exe - Fatal error: CLR error: 80004005. The program will now terminate

Download the latest .NET framework from here, remove old beta versions of .NET frameworks and install the one you downloaded.

[soltangris 42]

Here's the correct procedure for reinstalling CXL 2009 now that the old MC system is not working anymore:

1. Install the game. After you finish and try to start it, the familiar log in screen appears, but it tries to connect to the old MC system, which is no longer available. 'Unable to connect, service unavailable', etc. Game won't start.

2. Find the solo patch. There are still a number of download sites where you could get it (OUTSIDE the old MC system, and also the new CXL 2011 site). I personally found it on Fileplanet here, but there are also other options. Just do a Google search for 'Cities XL solo patch'

.... and of course  there's this link in the new Focus Home forum

3. Download and install the patch. It's a manual process, just click the patch file and it should start patching no matter where it's placed on the hard drive. 

4. After you've done all this, try to start the game again. The log in screen will appear - type in your old user and password (from the time you played the game with MC), and Connect. I'm not sure if the thing actually connects anywhere (it shouldn't - it's supposed to be a solo game already), but afterwards the 'Connect' button changes to 'Play'. There you go.

A short guide to installing and activating CXL 2011 (Metaboli download version):

1. Buy and download the game (they're not selling hard copies as of yet, so far as I know). You should also receive an e-mail from Fecus Home/Metaboli with your CD key. Don't get confused by a weird name like Multiplayer key - this is what you need to play the game.

2. Try to start the game. The activation window will appear (for me it said something like 'Online activation failed. You need to activate the game manually'). There are several boxes there, in one you should put your CD key. Another says something like 'Unlock code' - leave it empty for now. Somewhere in the window there will be a link to the activation site - click it. (of course, you need an Internet connection to access it)

3. Once in the activation site, you'll see three empty boxes. In one you need to enter again your CD key, in the second you need to enter (or copy-paste) the 'Unlock request code' - this is a long string of symbols that appears back in the activation window of the game. In the last box you need to enter one of those pesky 'security codes' that appear on an image. DON'T DISPAIR if an error occurs several times! It seems the SecuRom site is full of crap - you have the right codes, the site simply gets confused by the friggin security code. So, try several times in a row, entering the different security code - eventually you'll get the 'Unlock code'

4. Go back to the game activation window and type (copy-paste) the Unlock code that you just got from the activation site. Click on 'Activate'. There you go.

5. Enjoy the game. You won't need to do this again on starting it, unless you reinstall it. In the e-mail I received it said that I could activate the game 5 times, after which I should contact Metaboli customer support.

[soltangris 42]

Cities XL 2011 tech requirements:

OS: WINDOWS XP SP3 / WINDOWS VISTA SP1 / WINDOWS 7

PROCESSOR: INTEL CORE 2 AT 2.5GHZ / AMD ATHLON64 X2 AT 2.5GHZ

RAM MEMORY: 1 GB (XP)/1.5 GB (VISTA/7)

GRAPHICS CARD: 512 MB 100% DIRECTX 9 COMPATIBLE

ATI RADEON HD 3850/NVIDIA GEFORCE 8800 OR HIGHER*

DVD-ROM: 2X DRIVE

HARD DISK SPACE: 8 GB

SOUND CARD: DIRECTX 9 COMPATIBLE

INTERNET CONNECTION REQUIRED TO ACTIVATE THE GAME

*INTEL/SIS/VIA-S3G GRAPHICS CONTROLLERS ARE NOT SUPPORTED

- Note: Both Windows 7 32/64 bits are supported. If you have such OS and there's a problem, report it.

- Note 2: Experience shows that a 512 Mb video card is not required, it's just reccomended. The game will run on cards with less memory, and also on slower CPUs.

- Note 3: The game seems to require a lot of CPU speed, so performance will improve with faster CPUs. HOWEVER, there's no real multicore support, so don't expect your latest quad-core to be 15 times faster than a normal Dual core.

- Note 4: There is still a 'memory leak' - performance slows down after some time. General opinion is that the slowdown is much less than before, and exiting and reentering the city should fix the issue.

- Note 5: IT IS NOT NORMAL for your game to be very slow, to crash all the time, or to have interface issues. If you have that, report it to Focus Tech Support as a bug/problem. Please don't start another thread here, or if you absolutely feel that you have to share your problem, make sure someone else hasn't already posted the same problem here.

[soltangris 42]

Bugs/problems experienced with CXL 2011 so far:

- Game crashes:
Most of the crashes reported happen with a particular city, whenever you try to load that city again. Some crashes reportedly start after building a blueprint. A few crashes when trying to start the entire game, or on the Planet view. I also saw a crash when building a metro station.
Most mods are still incompatible with CXL 2011, so please do not report a problem if you're playing with mods, or if you imported a CXL 2009 city where you used mods.

- Problems with save files:
Incorrect saves and/or loads of cities. Warning! Pay attention to the save interface! If you open the 'Saves' menu, you'll see three tumbnails - the first one is the option to start over your city, not to save it! The second one is the autosave file, and it's load-only (can't save manually there); the last one is the manual save. If you clock the tumbnail, it will LOAD the save, not overwrite it! To overwrite the manual save, click the disquette button in the lower part of the tumbnail.   

- Trading problems/bugs:
There are glitches with the trading interface; sometimes attempted trades yield more cash tokens than they're supposed to, or less. All those happen when trading with Omnicorp; untill now I haven't seen any problems when trading between cities.
- There are messages 'Token trade with city X .....' appearing constantly. This might be a bug, but it could be also a gameplay problem when you're having a workers/industries issues that temporarily diminish the production of a certain token.

- Slow interface issues:
Most of those are related to the initial problem with the Steam version, which should have been solved automatically already. If not, take a look at the sticky in the Tech Forum main page.
The other interface issues are related to the infamous 'memory leak' (which might be improperly named after all, because it seems it's not related to memory at all). Anyway, it consists in slow access to interface buttons after some time of playing the same city, especially when the city has a big population. It is a know issue that has no real solution so far (it's probably due to bad coding), but it helps if you exit the city and enter it again.

- Graphical glitches:
Parts of the ground invading roads is the most common problem. Focus has stated that it might be related to graphical drivers, so try to update them.
- Cars vanishing at roundabouts: this is probably not a bug, but the same graphical problem as cars vanishing or stopping at highway connection pieces. It amounts to the fact that the graphical engine obviously considers those places road intersections, where cars are supposed to stop. It also relates to another problem with roundabouts (see below).
- Cars going only one line at a time when the light opens - again not a bug, but a graphical problem that needs to be resolved.
- Nightlights are dull

- Gameplay bugs/problems
- The skilled workers' residences from the American pack don't fill
- All residences from the China pack are described as being for Skilled, despite half of them functioning correctly as Unskilled
- The shops from the Old England pack seem to provide a negligent amount of shopping satisfaction in the area, while in the same time producing a normal amount of retail resource. This results in low satisfaction of citizens in the area, while at the same time overall retail production skyrockets. 
- The metro rate of fill is too low - although this might not be exactly a problem/bug, the fact is that the metro can't perform its intended function as a major traffic  relief, sinse too few people use it. Rebalancing needed. 
- Roundabouts can't be included in zones - probably related to the fact that they're not really a part of the road network, and thus the zoning engine reports an error when you try to click on them and include them as part of the zone borders.
Again, it might not be a bug, but it is clearly a problem barring the normal functioning of roundabouts. 
Ssome roads of size that should fit with the roundabout are actually unable to connect with it. This is valid for both sizes and both types (normal/grassy). Example: large avenues connect with large roundabouts, so do wide uptown avenue, but not large uptown avenues (which have basically the same width and traffic flow abilities as the other two).  Again, it might not be a bug but a poor/incomplete designer work.  

 

[soltangris 42]

Regarding a future patch for Cities XL 2011:

Focus Home Interactive are currently working on a patch to adress the issues we all know about. We still don't know what exactly the patch will adress, and when exactly it will come out, but we know that they are working on it. So:

Focus hasn't abandoned the game and a patch is comming!

For all of you too impatient to wait, be aware that there have been hundreds of similar posts ("Where is the friggin' patch? You Focus are worse than MC... "etc.), and that there is NO POINT in creating more. So, we will deal with any such posts as we deal with all repetitive and pointless content on the site. The patch will come when it comes.

Here's the link to an official statement by Focus Home regarding the patch and future developments of the game:

http://forum.citiesxl.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2092

And the statement itself:

Hello everybody,

First of all, thanks a lot to the moderators for passing the questions you were wondering on to us. We received your concerns and wanted to take some time to give you the clearest and most complete answers possible.

We understand your questions on the game, principally about a patch for Cities XL 2011, the modding and the future of Cities XL. We did not let aside the other questions, but it seemed preferable for us to begin by talking about those important subjects.

A patch for Cities XL 2011

We are working on a patch for cities XL 2011. It will bring some fixes to the game, we can’t give you the exact list of fixes for the moment. It hasn’t been finalized yet. This patch will be available on the official website and automatically downloaded and installed for steam users. We will certainly need to test the patch before its release, so be sure we will keep you informed about the content of the patch or any info about it as soon as we know it.

This patch won’t contain any adding content. We can’t officially announce anything about additionnal content for the moment but we plan to do it in the coming months.

Modding in Cities XL 2011

We want to support modding, by giving you as much information as possible and the best tools we can. By nature, modding is a community-based activity. We hope that the thousands players of Cities XL 2011 will build on the existing modding communities and the motivated newcomers to create all the mods you would wish to have. Our goal, in order to support you, is to allow you to organize yourself and try to answer to your specific needs, within the limits of our possibilities of course. Above all we do not want to hold you back in your creations. However it is difficult for us to share your creations on the official website, it would be too difficult for us to control the contents of all of them. But you can count on us to point up original creations and to ease your work on certain points if we can.

The future of the Cities XL series

City series by Monte Cristo is a series we have been involved in for many years. They are games we believe in and want to bring to the greater number. The sales of Cities XL 2011 in store and its success on the internet allow us to think with equanimity of future developments for Cities XL and of additional content. We will surely make announcements in the coming months.

We hope this answers to your principle questions. Cities XL is a very important series for us, and we will always do the most we can to make it live the best possible. We can only invite you to stay tuned on the official websites and forums, chasing the future announces.

Best,

The Focus Team

[soltangris 42]

CITIES XL 2011 Patch 1.5

The new patch is live! Download it here.

- Note: For people that installed the Beta patch, there's a small problem: the 'official' patch won't displace the 'beta' patch! The game version in both patches is the same, so when you try to install the 'official' patch, you'll receive a message 'The game is up to date'. The only workaround, for now, is to uninstall the whole game, then reinstall and run the correct patch.

Also, I don't know if there are any differences between the versions, but it's a good guess that there are. After all, they put a good 2 weeks of work into the final version.... I read a comment that the final version does the same things as the beta, only it does them better.

[soltangris 42]

Cities XL 2012

This is an expansion for Cities XL 2011, which some people call also DLC (downloadable content), because there aren't gameplay changes, just additional maps and buildings. Note that it is sold in two separate versions:

- An expansion pack for owners of CXL 2011 - it requires this game installed. This version is priced around $15 (varies in parts of the world)

- A standalone game, which doesn't require CXL 2011. This version is sold at full-game price, around $40.

The expansion contains 300 new buildings, spread around all building categories, and including the Beach and Mountain (Ski) pack buildings. We also have special buildings that add resource bonuses (for example +20% Office production, etc), but there are no new Megastructures or Landmarks. Finally, there are 15 new very nice maps. Again, there are NO functionality changes, or gameplay additions, so please don't post here asking where are those.

There have been reports by some players that CXL 2012 runs a bit smoother with high population cities, but this is unconfirmed. According to official information, there have been to engine improvements.

- Note that the Beach and Mountain packs are NOT GEMs! The packs only include the buildings, with normal functionality (most of them are either Leisure, or Shops).

- Installation:

You just need to download and start the Setup file. If you're expanding CXL 2011, you might run into a bug that prevents Beach and Mountain packs from appearing in the menu. I had to uninstall both games, and re install them again (CXL 2011 first, then 2012) - don't worry, this procedure won't cost you an activation. When prompted whether you want to revoke your activation during the uninstall process, answer YES.

- Importing CXL 2011 cities:

CXL 2012 won't recognize automatically cities from 2011. You'll need to import them manually. The procedure is as follows:

1. Locate the folder where your cities are saved: c:/Users/[your name]/AppData/Local/Focus Home Interactive/Cities XL 2011/live/offline/solo

2. Each of the folders here represent one saved city. Unfortunately, it won't show the city name, just the map it's on. I assume you'll want all your cities imported, so just go ahead and copy all contents of the folder

3. Install CXL 2012

4. Locate the corresponding file (the same path, just switch Cities XL 2011 with Cities XL 2012), and copy all data there (replacing the original three files that appear - they represent the trading settings and are necessary).

5. You should now see and be able to play all your 2011 cities in CXL 2012

Known issues:

There are a number of new buildings presenting problems:

- Some residences never connect to a road, and are thus non-functional (they appear already with the 'Not connected to City Hall' icon). We have noticed specifically a Medium density Skilled residence, and a High density Executive residence.

- There are issues currently with the residences, included in the Beach and Mountain packs - they don't fill up with citizens. This is a bug, the same as the American pack Skilled houses.

- Some of the new Service buildings don't function properly, for example a Clinic displays a maintenance price of 16000, but when built doesn't cost you anything, and also has no Health effect.

- There are graphical glitches with some buildings - they spread outside their lot, covering roads or even other buildings.

- The Pier connections included in the Beach pack don't function properly, and don't connect anything.

[EnteresaNNN 0]

hello what's the problem my be downloaded patch files in the game does not work

  Edited January 31, 2012 by EnteresaNNN