I work in a boring job with very little to do other than mess about on my laptop. There's no space for a mouse and I can't have sound on.

Can anybody recommend any games to me that can be played with the laptop touchpad mouse thingy (so no mousewheel and not requiring fast reactions), don't require sound to be enjoyed and can run on a 3 year old laptop that was never that great in the first place? I've more or less exhausted Civ4 so anything other than that

Thanks in advance for any replies

I find defense grid: the awakening to be highly enjoyable even w/o a mouse.  It's a fairly deep tower defense game. 

Are you done with turn based in general? Europa Universalis III is similar to Civ 4, but more along the line of risk.

Also vvvvvv and trackmania nations forever(free) are great. All can be found on steam.

Heroes of Might and Magic 3 ?

Puzzle Quest sounds perfect for your situation.Bejeweled with a RPG twist.Huge,fun and addictive.

Some of the older Western RPGs would work if you're into them:

Baldurs Gate 1 & 2

Neverwinter Nights

Fallout 1 & 2

Planescape Torment

Icewind Dale

Some other Strategy/God games:

Older Total War games (Medieval, Shogun, Rome possibly)

Caesar III

Pharoah

Age of Empires II & Age of Mythology

Darwinia

AI War: Fleet Command (you may actually need the mouse wheel for this so check because I can't remember!)

Point & Click Adventure games:

Grim Fandango

Broken Sword

Platform:

Braid

Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light (although this might be difficult with the track pad)

Farmville.. definitely Farmville...

Europa Universalis 3 would be perfect but I'm not sure it's the most fit for a job, I mean, it's not a game you can play in 5 minute bursts. it's a very complex RTS. Still, if you can manage with your job, by all means go for it.

Football Manager 2011 if you like football (or any FM)

You could also try Catan if you're more into a board game that heavily resembles a TBS

True, you could play any of those with a touch pad, but the experience would be pretty awful for most of them.  I would suggest anything you can play with a controller and anything turn based (like Heroes of Might and Magic and possibly Civ). 

For things like Neverwinter Nights or anything like it, ugh, I'd through the laptop through a window.

Lol, possibly, but I think the pausing would help slow the game down if you had the patience for it. I think you'd just learn to cope with it after a while, especially if the games are top quality. I know a couple of my mates used to play AOE2 on a trackpad (although not competitively, just vs AI). Hell, one of my mates plays Mirrors Edge on trackpad... no idea how!

And Total War can be played entirely turn based if you skip the battles. Not ideal admitedly.

Play Rome Total War, still one of the greatest games ever