I downloaded a PDF of the Civ 3 manual from somewhere. It is a good manual. But mostly I'm still playing civ 5 and 6; haven't done much with 3. The biggest turn-off is I have to select an action every turn for every unit (including move to a new square)
You don't have to do that in Civ5 or Civ6 (I never played them)? So, what, those games
force the player to let the game-AI decide where units go/ what they do? Wow, no wonder a lot of longtime Civ-players were/are annoyed at Firaxis...
That said, Civ3 also offers this ability, so -- if you don't want to -- you're not actually obliged to move each unit individually, 1 tile/turn at a time in this game either. Bear in mind though, the Civ3 game-AI is pretty dumb, so you may not always (read: ever!) get optimal results if you rely on it to make your decisions for you.
For all units, you can use the 'GoTo' command ('G'*, or just click on the destination-tile) to get a unit to 'remember' where it's supposed to go, if getting there will take more than 1 turn. (But if you choose to auto-move your Settlers, make sure your road is clear of barb-camps/ hostile units first!). You can also apply a GoTo command to a unit-stack, either as a full stack (hit 'J' or 'X'), or by unit-type ('Ctrl-J' or Ctrl-X'). Finally, in the late game (preferably after you have a full rail-net, so you don't waste unit-moves), you can use 'Rally Points' (one RP per town) or 'Continental Rally Points' (one per civ, I think, but it might be one CRP per continent) to send a newly completed unit(s) to its intended destination(s). For ordinary RPs, right-click on the city(s) building a unit(s) that you want to assemble into a stack, click on 'Set Rally Point', then click on the tile where you want to assemble your unit-stack; for CRPs, right-click on any land-tile, click on 'Set Continental Rally Point', then click on your chosen tile.
And for Workers, you can use one of the many 'Automate [Worker-job]' commands (hit 'Ctrl-P' to get into the Game Preferences menu, then check the box 'Show Advanced Unit-action Buttons' to see all the possible Worker-commands displayed on the main screen). Though as I say, if you do this, your tiles won't necessarily get improved in any logical order/ useful fashion, so don't expect any easy wins at anything above about Warlord-Regent levels (where the human player gets a 33% [IIRC] to 0% production-discount relative to the AI-controlled Civs).
At Emp and above, AI-Civs get a ≥20% production-discount, plus (multiple) extra units to start (including extra Workers, and extra Settler(s) at DemiGod+), so it's usually best to avoid automating any units --
especially your Workers -- during the early game, and/or before your territory is fully Railed.
*
Clicking the Unit-action buttons by mouse can get tedious, and also risks misclicks as the game cycles through the units, so I tend to use the keyboard to give my units their orders -- especially my Workers. Although I'm pretty sure all the Civ3 keyboard-commands were/are detailed in the Manual, hovering your cursor over any Unit-action button will also show you the specific key-combo for that action. Somewhere on CFC -- maybe here? -- there is (or was) a PDF-download which also lists them (along with lots of other useful 'at-a-glance' info).
