Is there a possibility that Galactic Civ III fries graphic cards?

I haven't seen any signs that GalCiv is particularly hard on a graphics card.  I run a pretty graphics intensive custom shipset with heavily animated ship models.  I use Insane maps with dozens of opponents and plenty of planets. There is some commitment going on with the central processor that sometimes interferes with incoming simultaneous video streaming, but that is definitely a system scheduling conflict with my browser and not graphics driven.

There is obviously no way for me to know with long distance trouble shooting, but I think it is highly unlikely that GalCiv ate your graphics card.  It was just guilty of being there while it happened. That happens to me in my real life, guilty of being there while something goes down. Gets me in a lot of trouble.

NO game/software would likely "fry" a graphics card (unless designed to).

That being said, a graphics card will likely "cook" when over heating if your PC has poor ventilation, did a fan stop working, was something blocking the air intake?

Also unless you have an old (low level) graphics card, I doubt GCIII would put the level of load on graphics card to "over heat it". Most graphic cards today are designed to handle FPS particle physics, which GCIII really doesn't have (with maybe exception for battles). (though I could be wrong - it really doesn't seem to tax my graphics at all). It's more CPU computations than anything else for all the different factions/ships/production/etc.

This, based on what I see on the Intel web site, is a second generation CPU chipset that was launched in 4Q 2011, and is past "end of life" as Intel calls it. It also has an integrated GPU chip. During the EA of Galciv 3 there were many problems discovered with the drivers for Intel chips made for laptops that had integrated GPUs, which Stardock and Intel had to work together to correct. You may wish to check the Intel website to see if they released any new (within the last year) drivers for this chipset. It may have been too old for them to do so, but it may be worth the try. If not, it could be that the age of your Intel chipset is, indeed, a factor. You may also wish to check for a new driver for the AMD card as well.

BTW, "fried" graphics chips do not work at all.  CPU and GPU chips are, and have been for many years, designed to prevent damage from overheating. If, since you have two GPU chips on your laptop (the one integrated into the Intel CPU chipset and the one on the AMD graphics card) and only one of them had burned up, your computer might still function, perhaps to a limited extent, perhaps not, but from what you describe, I think it is highly unlikely that you have a "fried" GPU chip.

1) Laptops are notorious for poor ventilation.... especially if you sit it on a soft surface like carpet or bedding!

2) Computers will only run at their maximum speed they are designed to run regardless if software is a much heavier load beyond its capability... it will simply force the software to run crapfully with low framerate.

3) Overclocking can change the above rule number 2.... and that can certainly 'fry' stuff.... that's why overclockers are always raving about their custom cooling systems

Thanks for your views. As I said, I'm not blaming Galactic Civ III, I just would like to understand what happened.

Regarding ventilation: The laptop was standing on a table, nothing was blocking air intake, ventilation was audible (not broken) and at least on the surface it didn't get that hot. No overclocking.

Regarding Lucky_Jack: Intel Core i7-2720QM, launched in 4Q 2011: Yes, that's when I bought it, and it does have an onboard GPU. The onboard GPU is what seems to be still working now. When I activate the drivers for the AMD graphics card in safe mode and then try to start Windows, it doesn't start up. When I deactivate the AMD graphics card, I do get Windows to start. (In both cases using a projector instead of the screen, the screen stays dead either way.)

This surprises me. Does the screen light up at all or is it always totally black? I was under the impression that the screen would work with either GPU. Have you tried removing the AMD card from the laptop and booting it without the projector? Could it be that the screen itself has expired? (What I am getting into here is more detailed diagnostics. Perhaps you should see a technician, unless you are ready to buy a new laptop.)

To answer your title question, I have never heard of any game frying a GPU built to detect and counter overheating (this is often done by de-clocking).

That's my assumption. The screen stays totally black. I haven't removed the AMD card yet, but that's a good idea and I'll try that this weekend.

Since the simplest answer is more often the best answer, I think you have your problem isolated. The screen as outlasted its expected life time. While there can be a few causes to a totally dead screen, with a laptop, there is only one fix -- replacement of the whole laptop.

At this point I would have to see further evidence pointing to a failure in the AMD card before I could assume it is faulty. I would expect normal display operation through the projector until proven otherwise.

Now, as to the strange display behavior you were seeing, I have to guess that you were seeing this in the image from the projector. Right? If so, this takes me back again to the problems seen by others during EA with laptops with two GPUs, one integrated and one display driver card -- and all of the trouble people had with the driver update programs refusing to install newer Intel drivers. Your questions here are: 1) did Intel provide an update driver for their I7-2720QM that is newer than the one on your laptop? 2) If so, can you use the driver update function to install it or do you have to use the bypass method to do so? (The bypass method was given on the Intel web site. If you find you need it and can't find it, let me know and I will try to find it again.)