Okay, the big question of the day: Civilization IV or Age of Empires III?

Actually, the bigger question is will either run on either of my laptops?

The newer laptop has better processor, memory, graphics card… but the graphics card overheats (or something) and screws up the display after a period of intensive use (games and to a lesser extent videos). So whilst I could play, for example, Doom III on the newer laptop I could only play for a limited period before I needed to shut the computer down and leave it for a few hours to recover.

The older laptop is lower spec and has a general overheating problem which means I need to make sure it’s well ventilated if I want to play without the risk of a abrupt shutdown. But so long as I avoid that I can play for ages within the limits of the machines performance.

Guess I need to get hold of the demos and see what happens. Or maybe I need to find the space and money for a desktop. Now that we’ve moved to a bigger flat (though the yarn mountain means that it doesn’t feel as big as when we moved in) and now that I’m no longer working from home, my computer needs have changed. I don’t need a laptop for work purposes any more so maybe a gaming machine makes sense.

Recently I’ve been playing Civ III a lot on the old machine (another, unrelated, bug stops it from working at all on the newer one). Last night I won without fighting a single war. Playing as the Arabs I built the United Nations and was elected Secretary General by all the other nations (except the other candidate who obviously voted for himself). Especially pleasing to avoid conflict as my territory contained no coal, rubber, oil or aluminium so I was totally stuffed for modern resources.

I have no idea how to end this post.