newb questions

[elonin]

I've been playing for awhile but am getting inconsistent results, sometimes winning by massive margins and other times becoming mired down and not doing so well.

Is there a video that demonstrates how to throw down my circle grid of cities during expansion? Also, I've noticed that because of the limited map at the beginning more times than not, my grid will be askew causing wasted tiles.

How do I prevent other civs from placing cities within my ring structure if I don't have a bottle neck?

 

[Lanzelot]

Not a video, but vmxa has written a very nice tutorial:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=296512

It's a nice evenening's read. He walks you through a game on Regent level, teaching you many of the basics you need for a consistent and well-founded Civ3 strategy. I don't know at what difficulty level you are comfortable, but I think this might help you improve.

BTW: don't worry too much about perfect city location in the beginning. (Unless you are trying to win on Sid...) In my experience much more important is a good knack at early worker management: making sure you have enough of them and that they are building the right things that your empire needs at that moment!

There is also a nice treaty on early worker management, but that's already a bit more advanced, and it takes a couple of days to read & digest...:
http://www.civfanatics.com/content/civ3/strategy/cracker/civ3_starts/index.htm

If you want more specific advice, post a .sav file from a game where you got into a bad situation, and we can try to work out what went wrong in that game.