Hmmm, well the whole point of 'not' overclocking is that i don't have to worry about all that crap,,, but since i have to worry about it anyway.... may as well overclock!

It doesn't really matter what's at fault, there are lots of laptops out there that can generate more heat than they can dissipate f you run them flat out. It tends to be less of a problem with desktops, just because they are easier to cool. 

If things work properly, there is no heat issue. after a year when fans are dusty... You hope the Cpu and GPU can under clock themselves gracefully and not just crash. 

The FAQ says 10 or 11, but in the Q&A somebody said it was 11 in a question and they weren't corrected. I don't know beyond that.

With my old case, which was too small, my gpu card could go up to 96 C and the the computer would crash and switch off. After I changed to a roomier one, hey presto, all was well. And I wasn't overclocking, hence my posts.

To get back on thread, I suspect a five year old computer that was state of the art back then would probably run the game (as they said in the Q&A that they would like it to play on a 2 year old laptop). Don't expect to play it at the highest settings though!

A mid range from 5 years ago might have some difficulty...

Hope you know everything I wrote is purely speculation and not based on anything stated by Stardock, I was just posting examples I was hoping for, which they stated they won't know until alpha/beta.  All my current computers are old,

10 year old win xp upgraded to win 7 32 bit won't work.

4 year old win 7 laptop possibly would work but doubt it

2 year old win 7 laptop maybe would work

*new* that I'm building will work

The only reason i would have windows 8.1 is if i had ordered it with a new computer - I would never throw money away buying it on its own, that's just crazy talk! Currently i only have Vista 64 bit.

Based on a similar original investment, a 2 year old laptop would likely be equivalent of a five year old desktop! That means investing in a gaming laptop you will get less than half the useful life as a desktop for the same money,,, On the other hand, given the popularity of laptops, i would expect that improvements in laptop technology is probably exceeding that of desktops??

"Windows 7 is vastly superior to Vista" - Everyone Ever

Windows 8.1 is marginally better over 7, and much better than 8. Seriously though, at least get Windows 7; there're already programs being released that require "Windows 7 or higher".

EDIT; I said Windows 8.1 was worse than Windows 8. lol

No. And for those that are really old, only run on DOS, I am using DOSBOX. Even there, some run fine, others show small glitches that make then unplayable.

Non DOS types, some will not install because "the OS does not support it" (probably because Win8 doesn't have XP support, so I am told), others install but won't start (click icon, nothing but air), some show small glitches that make them unplayable.

I've had it work on my windows 7 home 64 bit to play win xp games such as mall tycoon, where it wouldn't work in win 7 but running in compatibility for xp did work.

Not going to lie, you're literally the first person I've seen saying this. Everyone reviles Vista for being useless garbage.

I dunno', maybe it's a bias of the community, but Windows 7 is considered to be a considerable improvement over Vista

How important will cores and graphic cards be? I just have a dual core, and upgrading that is going to be expensive. I.e can a good graphic card compensate somewhat for just 2 cores or will it just be for prettiness mostly? 

Vista was useless garbage out of the box, hence all the "reviling". With SP1 and some config tweaks it works fine. People get too emotional about software sometimes when it does not work properly right away

Get 8.1, it's a large improvement over the default and as the plus of actually being made for desktops

The AI in Galactic Civilizations 3 will have multiple threads for each AI, all of which can be relegated to other processor cores for better performance. That being said, games historically are pretty bad at utilizing more than 4 cores.

If you're looking to upgrade and want the best performance for the dollars you spend, you're probably better off getting a Quad-core AMD chip, or if your mobo is incompatible, get an equivalent Intel. You're looking at a $185-230 price tag on Newegg :3 That being said, hexa and octuple cores will offer better performance, but they suffer from diminishing returns in cost.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899 < This is the one I just installed, and it should be sufficient for basically anything if you overclock it (It runs Crysis 3 at above 60 FPS with max settings when coupled with my GTX 780). Previous generations are almost as good however and should be more than sufficient for this game.