strategy for 1G laptop?

who007

Can anyone recommend a good strategy game for a laptop with 1G RAM operating on Vista?
Want a simple yet absorbing, highlight, point, click kinda thing... (oh and a cheap one!)
Haven't a clue where to start - followed lots f Google link that just left me confused!

Sephiroth_dude

We need to know what other specs you have,e.g graphics card,processor,but the game id recommend would be company of heros,I saw it in zavvi today for 15 quid.

who007

oh ok - didn't realise you would need that info - I'll check it out when I get home and post again. Thanks for the recommendation in the meantime

Pyr0

Company of Heroes can be very demanding on a machine I think ! I'd try Cossacks European War, nice 16th-18th century strategy, thousands of units on the field etc.

Or even any of the Galactic Civilisation 2 games, like Dread Lords/Dark Avatar and the new released Twilight of the Arnor, very like the Civilisation games, but well..in space !

the Stronghold series is excellent, especially Stronghold Crusader which i feel is the best of the lot, you can pick up a nice pack with Stronghold, Stronghold Crusader/Warchest and Stronghold 2 all in one. Its a great Castle Sim, build up your castle and kill everyone else !

who007

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

We need to know what other specs you have,e.g graphics card,processor,but the game id recommend would be company of heros,I saw it in zavvi today for 15 quid.

Ok thanks

The processor is (and sorry if I am giving wrong info but I'm not the best at figuring out some of the tech stuff)
Intel Celeron 530 1.73 Ghz, 32 bit Vista
Graphics card is a mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset (?)
1G RAM - dunno if Readyboost actually makes any difference here or if it's only for faster webpage loading etc.
120G Hard Drive with 17.5G free on the C:Drive

Sephiroth_dude

On second thoughts I doubt if you'd be able to run company of heros :-/,you should probbly try really old games like starcraft,age of empires 2,possible 3,your graphics card and processor are'nt the greatest (no offence intended) try the games ive recommened anyway see how you get on .

Pyr0

The games I listed above will play on that machine no problem.

who007

Ok cool - thanks for the help... I'm not a big PC gamer, generally prefer PS2 or Wii but it would be nice to have a good strategy game for my pc... (I knew it wouldn't be a great machine for gaming so hence the focus on strategy rather than more graphics intensive games)
anyway I shall go and investigate those game !

Sephiroth_dude

Good man yourself bai,report back and let us know what you think of them.

who007

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Good man yourself bai,report back and let us know what you think of them.

hmmm.. I read the reviews for those games and pickd Galactic Civilisation 2 - took about 5 hours to download, played it for about 3 hours and when I finished I found that everything was running slow on my PC.. didn't like the game either so ended up uninstalling it. What a tedious way of downloading a game too! Having to download and join a games centre before even getting to download the game.. anyway - no, not my sort of thing. I think maybe I should say - previous strategy games that I've played and enjoyed are along the lines of Risk and Star Trek Armada... so anyone got any other ideas?

Starcraft looks ok - but says it plays on XP - that mean it won't play on Vista? That's somethin that confuses me....

Pyr0

As far as I know, games that say they run on XP will also run on Vista, but you might run into some problems as opposed to the game saying it runs on Vista if and being more playable/operational if ya get me ?

Sephiroth_dude

I wonder would sins of a solar empire work on ur laptop,great space strategy game,different to galactic civilizations too,in that its not turnbased,its real time.

who007

Pyr0 wrote: »

As far as I know, games that say they run on XP will also run on Vista, but you might run into some problems as opposed to the game saying it runs on Vista if and being more playable/operational if ya get me ?

OK thanks - had shop asistants tellin me that XP stuff wouldn't work on Vista so was confused.. I downloaded the Warcraft 3 demo and it worked perfectly and I like it! So have bought the full game.

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

I wonder would sins of a solar empire work on ur laptop,great space strategy game,different to galactic civilizations too,in that its not turnbased,its real time.

I heard that was good... gonna go look for a demo now.. thanks

who007

well I downloaded the demo but find it hard to figure out tbh cos in the tutorial it says to scroll down and I can't scroll on my laptop - no mouse...
but it looks good if I can figure it out.

Suppose I should mention, it's realtime strategy that interests me rather than turn based..

Tod Unctious

generals zero hour might run on it id say

Tenger

who007 wrote: »

Can anyone recommend a good strategy game for a laptop with 1G RAM operating on Vista!

If you like Warcraft try to pick up a Starcraft boxed set. Its 10 years old so its will be cheap,its one of the best selling PC games of all time.

kenyard

running vista on a 1gig laptop with low HDD space is always gonna give u trouble for speed etc!
my advice wud be to upgrade to 2Gb for ~50 quid and see where you get then. vista takes a hell of a lot of memory up to run. esp with antivirus, and others running also..

id go with age of empires II as stated above.. if u have a few friends its a gr8 game for LAN also...
i really enjoyed stronghold crusader also. great games both with age of empires getting the vote IMO

both should be less than a tenor in shops or probably get a good DL easy enuf and small in size. i have it running off HDD direct with no install necessary and taking 220Mb of space

Cunny-Funt

Don't forget homeworld 1/2 !! :eek:

Single Malt

Early C&C games, Tiberium Sun of Red Alert 1 and 2. None of them are particularly resource heavy, and they are great fun.

Mariiikar

starcraft starcraft starcraft!! Best rts ever!! Still play it!!

evercloserunion

All these new-fangled RTS are beyond me and will probably suck the life out of your laptop anyway. Try some of the classics, Age of Empires II is good but if you like that game a similar but better one IMO is Rise of Nations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_nations

Try the Total War series as well. Shogun is probably the least demanding on your PC and makes great playing, but the best Total War has to be Rome: Total War, which will play fine with your specs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome:_Total_War Definitely try it, I'm currently addicted to it.

Probably goes without saying but an external mouse is essential for playing RTS on laptops.

evercloserunion

Also, if it's not specifically RTS you're looking for, I'd strongly recommend Battle for Wesnoth. It's turn based as opposed to real time, so you don't really need an external mouse. The gameplay and graphics are very simple compared to some of the other games around, but it's still fun to play, has good potential for online play and isn't too demanding on your laptop. And the best thing is it's completely free!