so.
i already had a couple of emails with the support-team but we couldn't find a solution; but i wanted to ask you guys as well if you have a solution :)
i already read through the whole forum and found at least 2 other (but unsolved, or the solution(s) did not work for me) threads with the same or a similar problem;

so i think it is quite a commen issue:
i instal the game, want to start it and for a moment the screen is black, then a small black window for another moment aand nothing happens.

-

we already tried:

.)starting as admin
.)multiple re-instal
.)make the game an exceptional in windows-firewall and anti-virus-program
i also tried starting the game after disabeling the anti-virus-program (hm but i forgot to try turning off the win-firewall; might that help?)
.)installing the game Not in the default-GoG-Galaxy-folder but in an extra folder directly on C:
.)updating DirectX
.)updating graphic-drivers (more on that later)
.)starting the game with a virtuel-2nd-monitor
.)i always run my display on 60Hz but we tried that as well
.)the data execution prevention is in standard mode
.) i also tried everything with the user account control i could imagine
.) and as the last solution we tried a clean-windows-start; sadly it did not work

-

i run a
Win7 Professional Service Pack 1 64-Bit
and my graphic card is
Intel(R) HD Graphic

-

i have, or at least had, the Caesar III original-disc too but i can't find it at the moment.
i installed the game, with the original-cd, on this laptop a while ago and had the excact same problem but couln't find a solution back then; might that first install (from the original cd) interfier? i don't think there was anything left of it on the pc before i tried installing it with GoGGalaxy.
i was hoping, that when i buy the game on GoG it would fix it :/

with kind regards :)

ps: i'm new to GoG in generel, and so to the forum - so i hope i did well creating this post :) if not, please tell me :)

one question right away:
how could i have made this post a question-post? with a yellow light and not a green one?
could not find the option anywhere, sorry o:

Might be an extreme approach, but you could try to run the game through something like virtual PC with windows XP installed.

Other than that, on the off chance the intro video, or videos in general are the problem you could try to backup and delete the logo and intro .smk files in the smk folder. Or perhaps just temporarily rename the folder so the game can't find it at startup just to see what happens.

Two other things to try is to get it to run in your native widescreen resolution, or in windowed mode. For the former you just have to copy the widescreen-version of the executable into the game folder and run that. But, then you have to set the resolution ingame to 1024x768 to get the widescreen resolution. So if you can't actually get in the game then you have to find out where the resolution setting is stored. Perhaps in a configuration file somewhere, though I couldn't find it.
Similarly you can set the game to windowed mode ingame. Perhaps support might now how to set the resolution and windowed mode settomgs outside of the game.
Or you could try this: https://www.reddit.com/r/impressionsgames/comments/5kwbzx/how_to_get_caesar_iii_to_run_in_windowed_mode_on/

Another idea is to set your desktop resolution to the default resolutions the game uses when first starting up: 640x480 or 800x600, and then running the game.

If it looks like the game actually starts up with sounds in the background only with a blank screen, then I could give you the solution that worked for me in other games. But it doesn't sound like that's quite what your problem is.

wow thank you :)!
i will try these things within the week :)

If you get quite desperate, I'll have you know that it runs just fine in Wine, but that requires a Linux flavor.

hm o:
i read about this 'Wine' quite often now - Linux "flavour" is what excatly ? :)

so i did not try this because i have quite negative experiences with creating virtual PCs and Displays.
but: these one i tried - sadly no change : / thank you for even looking trough the congif-files! - i did Not try this one out (yet), because i do not 100% understand "to copy the widescreen-version of the executable into the game folder and run that." : /
and if you could not find it i don't think i can.
but isn't that what is descried at the reddit post you linked in the next solution? about DXWnd: i already had read about this program somewhere else, but i wasn't sure if the program is to be trusted - so i did not try this one yet. sadly i only have 2options for my resolution and they are both too high to try this : / sadly not : / no there is no sound goin on ore anything - it just pops up and disappears again.
it even shows up in the taskmngr - but only for a moment.

It means various distributions. Linux is Linux, but due to the open nature of it, a lot of people like to make a lot of tweaks to it. Fedora and Slackware can run a lot of the same programs, but they do things a lot differently.

i see :)
nice way of saying it :)

it worked :D! Thank You ! you gotta love Reddit * o*

Glad to hear it, such an excellent game :)