I have never seen this problem before

OK.. soo anyways i have civ3 conquests, play world, and civ3 all installed. Civ 3 conquests has a problem with playing multi player games. I usually just want to play hotseat games. When i click multi player the menu opens. i then click hotseat... the game opens. it loads but it doesnt allow me to change anything. Where the arrows usaully are, there are gray squares, when i click on them nuthin happens. I can change game details, I can type in the message box, but i cant go, set up players, change rules or exit. When i click the "X" it lights up but nothing happens.. can any of you help me.

P.S: Im on a Dell 2004 windows XP

sounds like a fixed game map, are you using random maps? or home made ones?

Hi Shavonik,

I had the same problem and I think it is something to do with with the way that civ3 verifies communication settings using UPnP (sorry I'm not a techie). After trying many different solutions I eventually solved it by disabling UPnP on my router (Linksys WRT54G) - strange I know!.
If you are connected to the internet by a router, this may be the cause. Of course playing hotseat games shouldn't use the internet connection - can anyone explain why civ3 checks this?

You could also try disconnecting from the internet altogether - this should also work for hotseat only but is less flexible and you can't play on-line !!!!!.

hope it helps