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As I understand it, the crashing issue affects those playing on Win7, and I've been experiencing it for a year, since the very first day of the game. What's especially frustrating is that I don't have much time to play, and when I finally do, I end up stuck because of the crashes. I haven't noticed any patterns in the crashes; they seem to happen randomly, possibly triggered by any mouse click. After each new patch, the crashes start happening very frequently, but the more I play, the fewer they become, until the next patch – and then the cycle repeats.

As for the chessboard, my situation is the opposite: it was present from the moment I installed the game until patch 1.8, and then it disappeared – now I just enjoy the views of the cities.