most text difficult to see

There's a UI size option. I'm not sure if that changes the text. Give Medium or Large a try.

My UI was on small so I upped it to medium which is the only option available at my resolution.

It didn't make any difference.

I found the root cause of the poor font visibility isn't the font itself.

Text which can be dragged (ie. tooltips) reveals the much deeper problem.

When you drag text boxes, the text "vibrates" in clarity.

Depending on WHERE text is located on the screen, there is a 50/50 chance of it being illegible.

It probably can't be fixed; probably why noone has mentioned it before now.

It might be your monitor? Nobody else mentioned anything here, most people focus on the content rather than actual fonts themselves.

My monitor has never has any issues in the 6 years I've had it.

Every bit of software/video and my 50+ gaming library all look terrific.

Galciv 3 is the only lemon as far as text goes.

It is one of the more advanced games. It uses more hardware than other games.

ya'know admiral, you just gave me an idea:

I've never gone in the nvidia controls to manually alter any of the default settings. Perhaps that's the solution?

Anyone know what graphics settings are most likely to create the problem I have been describing?

Possibly using the wrong resolution for your display. Make sure your game resolution is set to the optimal display resolution.

I changed the resolution in the game options menu to the highest resolution the game offered me - 1600x1250 - and it didn't make any difference after a restart.

Then I changed the resolution in windows 7 from the one I always use (1280x960) to 1600x1250 and now the text in the game looks perfect.

So it is my resolution that was a problem. And the Windows resolution setting overrides the in-game setting.

So now I have a new problem:

How do I run the game at 1600x1250 AND keep my desktop at 1280x960?

It's possible that the resolution you were using before in the desktop was not the optimal one. So your icons and text would look slightly blurry. The ratio of the 1600 to 1280 is 1.25 but 1250 to 960 is 1.33, so you might have not noticed it was set at the wrong resolution! You can go back and check with 1600x1250 and see which one is clearer. You can check your monitor's settings/manual to see which one is the optimal one. 

The reason i go with 1280x960 normally is because everything is larger on my desktop; my vision isn't what it used to be.

Since my last post I've discovered that Nvidia's GeForce Experience doesn't support any of the GalCiv games.

I'm sure there must be some way (?) to switch resolutions without having to do it manually every time I want to play GalCiv 3.

There should be a link in the resolutions settings that takes you to a window where you can enlarge your text and icons without reducing your resolution.

you can stick with the higher  resolution and change the size of the text and,icons  http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/make-text-screen-larger-smaller/?v=t

Ok. I've switched to 1600x1250 for my Windows resolution.

I did as suggested with the Windows setting - enlarging text/icons to medium (125%).

Now everything is readable, well, everything except my gadgets.

Now I'm finally able to play GalCiv 3 --- Yae!!!

Thank you guys for all the help

Good, enjoy the clear text!!