Ok, so in the end I just jumped in on eBay and clicked away! :)

Assuming it all works and all is happy clappy

Was this a good buy for £270 (£255 but then postage), and will it play my crappy old games :)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120614257757

Toshiba Satellite P200-144 Laptop

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7200, 2.0GHz Processor
2048MB RAM (1GB+1GB)
400GB Hard Drive (200GB+200GB)
DVD Super Multi Drive With Double Layer Support
6 in 1 Integrated Digital Media Reader
17.1" TruBrite WXGA+ TFT Display (1440x900 Resolution)
Integrated Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/Draft-N
56k Modem
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 Graphics
Windows Vista Home Premium
Built-In Harman Kardon Speakers
Integrated 1.3 Mega Pixel Webcam & Microphone
Weight: 3.3KG approx

Ok, so in the end I just jumped in on eBay and clicked away! :)

Assuming it all works and all is happy clappy

Was this a good buy for £270 (£255 but then postage), and will it play my crappy old games :)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120614257757

Will be more than fine for Civ4. Should have no problems with most games older than 4-5 years and should work with some more recent games. You might even try to give the Civ5 demo a shot ;)

The screen resolution would bother me quite a bit because it's so low-res on a 17" screen. Other than that, looks good. Nice specs, good CPU (Its an actual C2D, not a Core 2 Pentium) and a fairly decent GPU too.

Cheers guy, was a bit of a rushed purchase, but I could have been looking at laptops forever if I didn't act!!

It'll run a lot, really. Maybe not new stuff, maybe some of it wont be at max graphics - but definitely anything released until now will probably work, barring stuff like Civ5 and Final Fantasy XIV. Try the Civ5 demo - see if it runs it well enough for you, if you want Civ5, that is. Civ4 will run no problem at all.

I used to use a 7600, albeit the desktop version and had zero problems with it - my last AGP card, if I recall. Seeing as yours is most likely PCI-E, even better.

If you do find your performance lagging, try putting Windows XP on there, you may see an improvement, as you don't need a 64-bit OS, and your card doesnt do DX10 anyway. (I'm of the opinion that there's no need for Vista/7 unless you want a 64-bit OS, or you want DX10/11.

It's good for it's price point, and from what I recall, it'll be quite alright for what you wanted to do with it :)