need help starting game

[Mobhack]

Play with the misc tab settings in the GameOptions launcher
1) Graphic delay - reduce this by about half, see what happens, reduce further if required
2) Unit Move Delay - ditto for faster troop movement sequences
3) Also - you may want to play with the map scroll speed settings.

Turning Sound off may help on a slow machine (which laptops tend to be compared with desktops):
A) Switch Interface Mouse click to OFF in the gameoptions misc tab
B) Enter the game and in the preferences screen - switch BATTLE FX and SOUND FX off as well
If that helps speed things up - your sound system is a problem (in some manner) and so you should investigate its options before turning sound back on.

Also - you may want to play with message delay in the game preferences, reducing it perhaps (mine is at about the bottom of the scale)

And also - if your laptop has shared graphics memory, then investigate allocating more memory to the video card in its setup menu. Also look at the various settings to see if hardware acceleration is turned on (it might not be!). See your video card's help for that.

cheers
Andy