I don’t often get time to play games any more but when I do a quick multiplayer game of Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors is still one of my favourites. Each time I come to play at least one of the computers in the house has been reinstalled and requires AOE to be setup on it again.
The problem I always come across, and one that many others seem to have come across, is that the computers can’t find the game. None of them have firewalls activated and they are all able to communicate with each other for other tasks
The trick is in the connection type when setting up and joining the game. It seems like a really odd choice but select “IPX Connection for Direct Play“. The most obvious choice would be a “TCP/IP Local Area Network” connection but no games are ever found.
To use the IPX protocol you may have to set it up in the network settings for your LAN connection. This can be done in a few simple steps:
- Go to the “Control Panel”.
- Double-click on “Network connections”.
- Right click on your LAN Connection and choose Properties.
- In the list of protocols, choose Add.
- Click Microsoft, and then click IPX/SPX Compatible Protocol
- Click ok to add the protocol
- You may need to restart
If I remember correctly this was also a problem for Age Of Empires 2 without the Conquerors expansion as well. Its always best to double check firewall settings as well because they seem have a habit of blocking things you’ve already asked them not to.
Warning: Declaration of Social_Walker_Comment::start_lvl(&$output, $depth, $args) should be compatible with Walker_Comment::start_lvl(&$output, $depth = 0, $args = Array) in /home/customer/www/arronwoods.com/public_html/blog/wp-content/plugins/social/lib/social/walker/comment.php on line 18
Warning: Declaration of Social_Walker_Comment::end_lvl(&$output, $depth, $args) should be compatible with Walker_Comment::end_lvl(&$output, $depth = 0, $args = Array) in /home/customer/www/arronwoods.com/public_html/blog/wp-content/plugins/social/lib/social/walker/comment.php on line 42
Search for your Firewall in Control Panel. Allow everything Age of Empires 2. It’ll work.
Been trying to work this out for days and finally found the solution. The game was very erratic – sometimes connected 4 PC’s, sometimes 3 PC’s, sometimes 2 PC’s, sometimes none. Disabling UPnP on the router seems to have done the trick.
Suggest that the advice in previous posts re firewall be checked if the UPnP modification doesn’t work, as firewall issues will definitely cause you problems – best way to test this is to turn off all firewalls (after removing internet connection – ie take the plug out of the modem) and see if that makes a difference.
My research indicates that there are no patches beyond 1.0c which are likely to fix this problem, so forget that blind alley. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this post.
Just to add to this… I was having problems with the network gaming on AOE – The Conquerors with the games not being found (on a XP and WIN7 devices) and to get around the problem was to set a static IP address for each computer as AOE seems to have a problem with DHCP. Alternatively you should be able to set the MAC Address on the router to set a static IP address for each device and this should allow the network game to work
Note I have not tested the MAC address on the router yet…however, I believe it should work.
Great post. I have to agree with this post – gaming can be a great stress reliever when you’ve had a busy day at work
Thanks for sharing with us, keep posting.
WOWWWWW I WANT TO KISS YOU MANN!!!!! THANK YOU
THE WORLD NEEDSS PEOPLE LIKE YOU. GREATINGS FROM BRAZLLL!!!