Welcome to CFC, Nevlok! 
And that is what this thread is for: to answer your questions politely, no matter how many times they've been asked before. After all, we were all newbies once.
A good tutorial is cracker's Improving Your Opening Play, although it looks like you *might* have found that already.

And that is what this thread is for: to answer your questions politely, no matter how many times they've been asked before. After all, we were all newbies once.

Good question! The most "advanced" players do it all (or mostly) by hand. The reason being the AI is stupid, and will do incredibly stupid things when you let it control your workers. But remember, the amount of manual control is up to the player, and to his/her level of enjoyment. If you are just playing a casual game for your own pleasure, automate all you want!Do most of you controll your workers manually?
A good tutorial is cracker's Improving Your Opening Play, although it looks like you *might* have found that already.

Yes, you should be able to load any of the GOTMs with the current patch, although this has changed with the latest ones, which have specific versions for Civ3 v1.29f and PTW. If you are having trouble, email or PM cracker.Is it possible to load Crackers GOTMs that were recorder on earlier patches.