I downloaded the 1.21f patch, and attempted to install it. It defaulted to creating a subdirectory within my Civ3 directory. I accepted that, and installed it. Running the game, though, continued to display version 1.07. There appeared to be no updating executable in the new subdirectory; so I tried uninstalling the patch, and reinstalling it in the main Civ3 directory.

That simply caused the game to crash while loading. I had to uninstall 'em both, then reinstall Civ3. I've actually tried this entire arrangement twice, just to make sure.

Any recommendations, other than hiring an exorcist? :(

My first question is, which 1.21f patch? ;)

If you are trying to install the PTW 1.21f patch over a Civ3 game, then yes, that will fail. The PTW 1.21f patch installs to the PTW directory, which is by default under the Civ3 directory. The Civ3 1.21f (and other patches) installs directly to the Civ3 directory.

If you only own Civ3, you want to install the 1.29f patch.

If you own PTW you want to install either the 1.21f PTW patch (U.S. version of PTW) or the 1.14f PTW patch (all other versions of PTW).

You correctly surmised my difficulty: I was not paying attention to the flavor of the patch. Thanks very much. I've now installed the correct US 1.29f patch.

But another problem has arisen. Whenever I click the desktop icon to play, I'm asked to insert my CD to play. Now, my CD is already in the computer, but the game doesn't seem to recognize this. The problem didn't exist with the unpatched version. The CD drive is accessed by the game when it first starts up; I can tell by the blinking light on the CD-ROM drive. I'd appreciate your suggestions (or those of anybody else who has encountered this difficulty).

Note, I'm running on Win98 with an old Radeon 7300 card (which, not more than 18 months ago, was prized very highly, hah). I strongly suspect this isn't a video mode problem, anyway.

Nevermind. I just searched through this forum, and discovered that it's almost certainly the safedisk protection scheme. Apparently to get the game to run, now, I have to provide Infogrames with a ton of information about my computer. Much of it seems completely extraneous to the problem I'm having.

While I can understand any game producer wanting to protect their product, I'm not in the habit of of acting as an unwilling subject for demagraphic studies. I'll return my copy to the store, tomorrow.

Thanks, anyway, for your assistance. :)