Thanks! I will remember your offer well, although things seem to be working ok for the moment.
I was trying to hook up our wireless network to the laptop at home and the new desktop computer's CD reader did not mix well with my old beat up civ cds. As a result, they would not install the whole game properly. I finally got conquests rolling, but PTW was still having problems.
Dell's staff actually helped rather promptly. They gave me a link to a site that allowed me to run a flash procedure and the desktop drive has worked fine ever since.