Hokay, I got mine fixed. I'm not sure which of my steps fixed the problem, but here they are:

Saved copies of Save and Scenario folders to destop.

Uninstalled Civ 3.

deleted older 1.16f patch.

loaded DirectX 8.1 drivers from Microsoft's update windows website.

Rebooted.

Loaded Civ3 from CD.

Restored Save and Scenario folder contents.

Got 1.16f patch dated today from civ3.com

Loaded it and rebooted.




I can now play my crashing saved games. I'm not certain if this really fixed things, as reloading Civ may have merely reset my random number generation. I'll let you all know if I start getting crashed again. It is still taking forever ( 4 minutes plus ) to finish post 1 AD turns on huge maps, however....

I took this action over the weekend, but I confess in my impatience I just started a fresh game. I have played past many many turns and wars are going on everywhere, and battles, and dozens of troops going hither and yon.

And no crashes yet.

I will try one of the crashing games again tonight, if I have time.

Now I just have to find a way to deal with about a dozen horsemen attacking every city every other turn.

This did not clear up the problem for me. A saved game and a new game have now both crashed at some point. See my post in "What's up with civilization3.e.exe..." thread.