That's just it though, I don't want to blame my laptop. This thing has played much more powerful games before (StarTrekOnline, BattleStarGalactica Online, Runescape, Galaxy Online II, Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity, Sim City 4, Microsoft Train Simulator, (list goes on) and it still can play all of these even to this day. Video Drivers are all updated, lastest software updates, it meets the requirements of Glest (in general), I just don't understand these crashes, lags, or freezes. Truthfully Glest isn't all high-powered and it's a very versatile game, which bogs my mind why I can't seem to play it much. Vanilla Glest by far lasted the longest on here, but MG and GAE refuse to cooperate. As far as V-G goes, it plays no matter how long I'm using it, but as soon as I do more than 4 consecutive matches (against AI of course), I get major lag and am forced to just close it down and do something else.
I've isolated the issue (in-game) to being centered around the big 4 player maps, also aerial units (Dragons, Ornithopters, Airships) are present in numbers exceeding 3-per-player, the lag starts, but ends briefly when they are defeated, or take cover behind the 'fog of war' effect. One on one matches seem to work perfectly fine, no matter how many I do. *shrugs* Maybe I just can't play with so many players on one map. But I really enjoy 3 and 4 way matches. Perhaps I should just give up...