I generally have the same technique, and I just had my ass handed to me in my first game on Prince (well, second game if you count the unfortunate incident where Washington D.C. was ransacked by panthers…)
Once we all figger this thing out, we should have a SD multiplayer by email game.
Coming for the Mac eventually:
http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/10/27/civ3/index.php
Brian
I finally just got a copy. Compusa here still doesn’t have it in stock. I’m looking forward to playing this tonight.
Everything I’ve read online says that even experienced Civ folks won’t be able to just jump right into Higher difficulty games.
I know I may be in trouble… Hehehe…
One thing I really like after just a few hours of play is the end to the ‘patchwork of roads’ exploit – now it only makes sense to build roads to places you need to go (i.e. cities) and to resources (mines, etc). The hamlet/village/town improvement is a neat accomodation for the loss of commerce and actually makes more sense in that a country isn’t just a few huge cities. You can’t put them everywhere of course, but that’s OK.
Hm. What with this and Hearts of Iron 2 not ready yet, having a Mac is almost intolerable.
But maybe I get more other things done this way. 
I didn’t go to work today. For a video game. I’m 29 years old and I called in sick to play a video game.
Weeee, just got mine by UPS, three days late (after pre-ordering it Oct.5) IMHO!
Works great with my aged ATI Radeon 8500 card!
Currently (circa 1300 A.D.) am Uno, monarch of the Greek peoples, worshipers of Confucious, destroyer (hopefully one day) of Persians, then the world!!! 
haven’t actually fought anyone yet, phalanx is still my best unit at this late date, heh
sniffs
My hero.
I tried finding Civ IV in my two nearest Best Buys to no avail. Not even space on the shelf where it would have been.
So, what’s the problem?
This isn’t just a video game, dude. This is CIVILIZATION.
Bwahaha! Take that Napoleon, Catherine and Alexander. You thought your feeble defensive alliance would thwart me? Three turns later my Panzers rolled through Paris, Moscow, and Athens. A bit of mop up duty remains, then on through the third world powers, but destiny is now clear; I will be victorious!
No, not really. The minimum requirements are just that - if you don’t have at least those specs on your machine, there’s no guarantee the game will work properly. Intel video chipsets aren’t designed for games, and don’t have the full range of capabilities that higher end video cards do. It may be possible to change some settings that will let you run the game on Intel video, but Take Two isn’t obligated to provide support for something they never claimed. ATI owners have every right to be pissed though.
I got my copy today and have been fiddling around with it. Fun.
I like Nimoy’s narration of the quotations for each discovery. Some of them are very funny.
Is that Al Gore on the Internet discovery icon?
Seems like they’re ignoring a large part of their market though. I don’t need a high end graphics card - I don’t play shooters, I don’t play flight games, etc. If it’s necessary for me to go buy a high end graphics card just to play one game, well, as sad as I will be not to play it, I’ll just do without the game.
I get your point, but I gotta say one of the most “magical” things about computers IMO are their nifty graphics, without which we might as well go back to pen and paper games.
Did anything change in regards to terrain and its effects on units? For example can a tank still merrily run through 4 squares of mountains, across some rivers and attack a city 15 squares into my territory? Can you kill with bombard?
Okay, I’ll explain better. First, you gotta realize I’m not savvy when it comes to video cards or random things like that. I went off the back of the computer box, which is extremely small type, and everything is mentioned in five lines in size 2 font. But that’s really beside the point. The damn box starts off saying you need an intel 4 processor or better. I thought, “Hey, I have Intel 8. Okay…” Sue me for not being savvy, I guess.
That still doesn’t explain why some people with intel 9 work. Or why some people can try 3d analyzer and work. Or randomly getting terrains to appear (on an ‘sucky’ intel computer) after playing for 3-4 hours.
And, if this is indicative of how many people thought it would work, I bring you this:
and
and here:
and:
and:
and:
and:
Seven threads on the first page of their forums alone. Each with 1-3 pages of replies of people having the same problem.
So at least I’m not alone in my stupidity, I guess. God forbid they not alienate a chunk of their playerbase, and refuse to address the issue on their own website. 
/S
Meh, don’t be so hard on yourself fellow, wrestling with 'puters isn’t rocket science, but it’s pretty close.
[QUOTE=mobo85]
I like Nimoy’s narration of the quotations for each discovery. Some of them are very funny.
QUOTE]
There are SMAC-esque quotes for discoveries? AWESOME!
It took a couple of days for the game to make it through customs up to Vancouver. EB Games and Future Shop both sold out in about an hour. Even though I reserved a copy on Tuesday, the guy who took the reservation wasn’t working today, and said reservation was lost in the shuffle. I remain sans Civ IV; possibly until tomorrow morning, possibly for another week. I am annoyed at Future Shop, and playing Civ III to get my Civ fix. It just ain’t the same.
Grrr…