Thanks Kovacsflo for the write up. Looking at it i see my error: teching to jumbos before striking. I start attacking at around 100AD, instead i should try to pin down a couple AIs camping their metal and HA them in the BCs. Also i should NOT include mansa in this, the bastard advance everybody too quickly, in my game he got feudalism around 200bc despite being at war with shaka.
As for your crash issues, yes win7 is pretty good (hope you're using 64bit), but looks like yours aren't software problems. Civ CTD are memory issues, being it HD/RAM or possibly cache/CPU related. You should try stress test your components and see what results you get, programs like HDtune for hard disk and prime95 for RAM and CPU. If you're able to stress test these componets (make a night long test for each component) without errors, the you should consider formatting and reinstalling everything. You could also increase voltage to RAM in the BIOS setup, but beware: it will increase heat generation i won't do that unless you have a good cooling system and in any case i won't go over 2,1/2,2V. Tweaking BIOS settings can help a lot, but premade PCs/laptops won't have much customization there.
As for your crash issues, yes win7 is pretty good (hope you're using 64bit), but looks like yours aren't software problems. Civ CTD are memory issues, being it HD/RAM or possibly cache/CPU related. You should try stress test your components and see what results you get, programs like HDtune for hard disk and prime95 for RAM and CPU. If you're able to stress test these componets (make a night long test for each component) without errors, the you should consider formatting and reinstalling everything. You could also increase voltage to RAM in the BIOS setup, but beware: it will increase heat generation i won't do that unless you have a good cooling system and in any case i won't go over 2,1/2,2V. Tweaking BIOS settings can help a lot, but premade PCs/laptops won't have much customization there.