Hi all.. been playing this game for years and recently just downloaded to play again and for the life of me I can not remember if it's possible to minimize or split the screen so I can do other things while playing..

thanks in advance for any info..

You can use windowed mode, but I wouldn't recommend doing this, as it could cause random bugs. Even by setting windowed mode, you still can't do anything else, the game keeps the focus.

A discussion on Window Mode

https://www.gog.com/forum/pharaoh_cleopatra/q_is_there_a_way_to_activate_the_windowed_mode

Sorry for the necro, but for anybody else looking for this: I found DxWnd (to be found at sourceforge) and now use it to play Pharaoh windowed.
Problems:
- It also pauses whenever the mouse is not over the window; not a problem, however, if reading or typing since the cursor can be manipulated with the keyboard
- It runs slower than fullscreen; not necessarily a problem, subject to preference.
Other than that, it works well.

Try Windowed Mode with DXWnd
www.gog.com/forum/caesar_series/caesar_3_wont_launch/post5
www.reddit.com/r/impressionsgames/comments/5kwbzx/how_to_get_caesar_iii_to_run_in_windowed_mode_on/

Windowed mode via DXWnd allows you to bypass some rules:
- removes the window frame, which is so annoying for many in Windowed mode;
- you can drag the Game window to another monitor (the mouse will not stop working);
- bypass "noWindowed" bug in widescreen patches;
- bypass Color Rendering NOT 16bit for Windows7;
- (perhaps bypass Scaling is NOT 100% ;)