I'm a 'late adopter', so I bought Civ II about a year after it came out and LOVED it.

I bought Civ III a little over a year ago. It took some getting used to (and a better computer to run it on), and I'm always looking around for some new/better strategies.

My Kingdom lies in the  Shore Points of New Jersey...but seek me not, for I am elusive and at times...invisible....

You'll find most of the information you need here,and what we don't have we know how to find. 

  If CivII was your hook, then Try placing your cities closer together in CivIII  as it solves several "problems" that arise in the game machanics...  Also think of some the cities as expendable...  For more on that read the threads in that forum, but those are the two things that really changed between the two games.  Civ2 you built for Fat-X terraforming, Civ3 removed that, and added corruption the further you got from the capital... so close cities early helped combat that...  If you play with say nine or ten tiles a city until hospitals, and remove cities to leave fat-x, once you get them, it fights that early game gold drain.  Heck higher then monarch I rarely built hospitals other than my core five or so cities.  Well enjoy your time here.  I know I have.