Yo DJG what are your specs? Because I'm running v1.61 beautifully and I'm using an athalon 1600, a 64mb geforce 2 ti, and dial-up!
and by the way, hi to all. Name's Nate, been playing civ since 1994. Thought civIII left much to be desired, but this one rocks my socks off.
I read (all of) RB1; I'd highly reccomend it for noobs. check my sig for a link.