Network Game Help

I've been trying to get a network game going with my brother but our internet connection is really dodgy, culminating in lost connection time and again. Firstly, is there any way to improve this problem (I should mention that we are both on laptops, sitting in the same room two feet away from each other. Secondly is there any way (assume I know absolutely nothing about computers) to link two laptops so we can both play in the same game but on different computers? Surely there must be some way of doing this?

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