I bought Sid Meier's Pirates- charming game, seems like a good laptop game- most of the game can be played entirely from the keyboard, the mouse is useful for menus. A game pad isn't required, so it's good for traveling light. One problem though is the mini game sequences like ballroom dancing use diagonal movements, which means the player doesn't get full advantage of a 10 key pad. In the end the game starts feeling repetitive, not much more excitement once you kill all the other famous pirates except for going around on a treasure hunt to end the main quest and just go trading from port to port. It is challenging because tactical choices you make earlier start manifesting itself later in strategic problems- it gets harder keep a crew happy on long voyages if you find all the buried treasure too early, as there won't be as much later in the game.

Any other fun games for a laptop?

Jagged Alliance 2, provided your laptop has a touchpad.

Darn near any RTS or FPS if your laptop has sufficent horsepower.

FC

I've said it before and I'll say it again: War in the Pacific. www.matrixgames.com

Another is Combat Mission series (Afrika Corps in particular). Stay away from CMSF.

I have WITP Admirals Edition too, but honestly, I like WITP better because is it less complex.

I have close combat installed on my laptop. Old but still fun so long as you can have some sound.

I've run these very well on my netbook, most on high settings, so a laptop with more than a 1.66GHz Atom and 2 GB memory should do even better:

Defcon (excellent RTS, based on global thermonuclear war from War Games)
Freespace 2 with the FSO mod (looks great)
Haegeonia (space RTS, very nice)
Battlezone 1 & 2
Apache vs Havoc and EECH
Independence War 2 - Edge of Chaos (space sim)
Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals (point/click sci fi adventure, and pretty new at that)
Blade Runner
Dangerous Waters
Heavy Gear (1, don't think I got 2 to run well for some reason)
Dune 2000


Here is a tracking thread with a ton of games for netbooks with some comments, so a laptop should be even better off:

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/netbook_playability_thread/_/1

Gog.com is a good place to find older games very cheap (like EECH).

Have you tried reversi?

Or maybe its to heavy for a laptop?

I'll second WITP but it isn't a wargame for the faint of heart. Easy it isn't. It is even better if you can find someone to play PBEM with.

Only if you have a full keyboard or external numeric keypad, "Orbiter".
Sid Meyer's Railroads, Command & Conquer The First Decade and Red Alert 3 Uprising are there as well, and I have Silent Hunter IV installed but never really played.

JA2 is still one of the best turned based tactical games out there let alone for a laptop, the fact that it still has a busy modding community, is still pulling in new players and is in fact still on sale over 10 years after its inital release says a lot.