Age of Empires III
For those installing Age of Empires III remember that the expansion, War Chiefs, requires you to add a folder to the start menu because that is how it checks to make sure you can install it (stupid). Please note that in Windows 7 the directory for doing this is “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\” which is NOT how it is in Vista. I had to create the directory elsewhere (I used my Desktop) and copy/move it in to avoid UAC problems.

Also be sure to update the game before running it. You can search for the patches on GameSpot or other sites. You may also wish to run it in compatibility mode.

Civilization IV
Civ IV wasn’t nearly as hard. It installed without any problems but after an update said it was missing a DLL. Go to the DirectX page and download the web installer. I know it seems backwards but it will do the trick. After installing have fun crushing enemy nations into oblivion! Update: After playing the game for about eight hours today it has suffered no less than three crashes. If you are playing Civ IV on Se7en save early and save often.

Sim City 4
Sim City 4 (I have the Deluxe Edition) installed without a single problem and even ran immediately without any problems. After nuking the region to start with a flat area I started my city and ran into a wall. It seems as though SC4 runs horridly on Windows 7. While it was not the smoothest game on Vista, I could at least run it with the settings maxed in Windowed mode with relatively few hitches. In Windows 7 with the same settings the game just skips all over the place. While turning down the settings fixes the issue, the reason is mind boggling. The major question producing factor was that when I first ran the game with my favorite settings the slowness started affecting other windows. Dragging XChat around became slow, rendering in IE8 was incredibly slow and overall responsiveness dropped like a boulder out of a plane. Hopefully it is just a driver issue and not a deep rooted problem.