About turn 150, I received the familiar error message we all tend to get eventually.
I then returned to desktop and reloaded the latest save, played the turn through and did not get the error message.
This time, before hitting the end turn button, I saved (B4EndTurn or however you choose to call it), hit the end turn btn., & when the new turn came around, saved it as "Backup", & played another round, saving at the end of the turn over the B4EndTurn save slot once again & hit the turn btn. When my turn once again came around, I saved that with a save called "B4Quit", & exited to desktop, reloaded "B4Quit" & carried on.
I continued with the above sequence until the AI, at turn 233, conceded defeat.
It seems that one can get by, through exiting back to desktop every 2 turns, without running into the error messages. By the time the first error messages begin to surface, it's not that inconvenient to exit to desktop every 2 turns since there's usually so much to deal with each turn anyway. (for all I know, maybe you can go for 3 or 4 turns)
I don't know diddly about computers & such, but I've heard that the problem with the game has to do with something about a memory leak. Maybe playing only 2 turns doesn't "overload" the memory thingy, & going back to desktop and reloading the game clears out/refreshes whatever culprit causes the error messages.
Anyway, it's there for you to try out, or not...

THe solution for problem with 150 turns in MAX is using dos32a instead of preinstalled in dosbox DOS4.

That way you can play without technical problems, also recommended using D-Fend Reloaded environment for DOSBox. tested and proved working.

Agreed.

Additional things to change are to specify higher RAM value (64mb) in dosbox settings.
Also, simultaneous turns may work better in larger games than standard turn-based.

And, of-course, save frequently.
Reloading in case of crash reoptimises RAM usage for a few turns.

One more recommendation is to disable the enhanced graphics option in the main menu options. The game does not save this setting so it needs to be done on every startup. When the game is zoomed in the difference is barely noticeable in graphics quality. This conserves enough RAM space that the game AI will not run out of heap memory.

Also note that the game does not save the computer players' task lists which means that reloading the game turn after turn kills most of the AI intelligence.

Can I simply shut off the enhanced graphics later in a game to get the benefit of lower RAM usage?

Hello Sarxis, yes.

The enhanced graphics option can be disabled from the main menu. Just save your game, exit to main menu, disable enhanced graphics, load back saved game and you are done. Sometimes running out of memory corrupts game state which might not go away by reloading the game from the main menu. So if you observe a strange anomaly and you manage to exit back to main menu to disable enhanced graphics and continue playing, my recommendation is to restart the entire game to be on the safe side.

Thank you for the advice! And thank you for your work on MAX Port. I've read through your site
and some of the information you put out here at the forums and it's interesting to get a glimpse at the inner workings of one of my favorite '90s games. ::insert thumbs-up here::

What's the best way of saying this...
If you find yourself playing this game and taking more than 100 turns to win any game, you're probably playing it wrong.

I get it,
my first years playing this game I used to play very defensively and scared like a little chicken LOL
You will be doing a disservice to yourself by doing that.

MAX 2 fixed this kind of behavior by using the Energy limit system. It also helps the AI to stop spamming new buildings all over the map.

It's like Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 players, they can't control their tendencies to hoarding and stop carrying any useless item on their inventory, making them encumbered at all times. Some people can't control their hoarding tendencies and reflects in the way they play their games.