Here's a nice scenario file (you'll need my WW2 scenario in the sig installed): There are no units on the map, and the game goes on for about 10 turns before it crashes to the desktop without a comment!!....

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/nounits.zip

The game will crash the first time the governor wants to suggest a unit build if there are no units to build. This was true for PTW and Civ vanilla as well.

not that they are no units to build, they just are no cities....

I don't want to download a full scenario and then a save file to check it -- if there are no cities and no units, ghow does the game even begin? Doesn't the AI (or the human player) get a starting unit or starting city?

that's part of what made me post this here.... someting I also don't understand.. the map is absolutely empty, no units, no cities... only 26 civs... I just imported the rules of the scenario to a new map...

And the point of this is???

the point of this, is why does the game crash????? or why does it even start,.... this is the way bugs affecting other things are detected and can be traced