How I Got Civ3 to work with XP

[cpadpl]

I know I'm probably the last one to have resolved this problem, but I figured I would post just in case it is of any use to anyone.

I initially had a problem with Civ3 in XP coming up with a wacko skewed screen, so I had gone ahead and placed it in Win95 compatability mode and the problem was fixed. When the patch came out and I did the patch, the game would no longer come up at all or would just show the Firaxis screen (in compatibility mode - in XP mode it still did the wacko screen). Based on suggestions here, this is what I did, and now it works fine:

1) Download the patch, uninstall Civ3, reinstall Civ3 from the CD
2) Go into Windows Explorer Civ3 folder and change its property status from read only (otherwise you get this error from the patch that it can't unlock the Civ3.exe file)
3) Install the patch
4) MANUALLY go into the Civ3.INI file (you might have to change your XP settings to show file extensions if you can't find the INI file) and make the first line Refresh=60, and then save.
5) Change it so the game runs in XP mode (i.e. undo any compatibility mode you had enabled for it to run as if it was running in Windows 95/98/ME/2000).

It worked for me. I'm sorry for those of you who still have a problem, as I know how frustrating it is. I just had decided to play without the patch until I was about to employ my tactic for a "groundless" war in order to stop Chinese aggression. With 7 carriers of stealth bombers (I'm playing one a small planet size, so that's a lot), I planned on 1) cutting off their resources to oil, uranium, and aluminum (so no more weapons for them!) and 2) precision bombing them back into the Stone Age....And low and behold, NO PRECISION BOMBING! That's when I got the patch and made it work...