Maybe someone has an idea as to why this is happening...

I've got custom files installed in the ~/Documents/Civilization IV Warlords/CustomAssets/

and when I just have Blue Marble installed... it caches successfully and starts up really fast 2nd time and beyond... but once I add EDU, it's a no go...

Any thoughts?

Caching is a law unto itself. Most mods just don't seem to get cached... or are not reloaded from the cache. I doubt if it's Mac-specific as the cache logic will be built into the game software. I've stopped worrying about it. If you really want to get into it and investigate, then the cached files are in ~/Library/Application Support/Civilization IV/Cache/ (or ~/Library/Application Support/Civilization IV Warlords/Cache/ for Warlords).

OK... it's not really an issue - was just curious...

Thanks!