Age of Conquerors Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay problem

Hi, Jimmy!

Thanks for that tip. I'm not NATted, according to that utility, although I
was fairly certain that I wasn't, since the 68.83/16 rests outside the RFC
1918 address space reserved for NAT. Also, I pay for public IPs, so I'd have
been upset to have discovered that the service provided wasn't what I paid
for.

In order to eliminate the ISP from the equipment string, here's what I did
next:

1. Isolate three machines on a LAN on a 100mbps switch, disconnected from
the Internet, and give them all IP addresses in the 192.168.0/24 with the
default gateways set as the local interface (this will cause the ARPs to be
propagated locally, and since there's no routing going on, this is exactly
what we want).

2. Attempt to create a game and connect from each machine to the other. It
didn't work. LAN TCP/IP connection looks for a game indefinitely and will
never find one. If I switch modes to Internet TCP/IP connection for
DirectPlay and specify an IP address, I get the same symptom I got before,
where a blank game is returned.

Now, here are some additional interesting symptoms:

1. ping works between all machines.
2. a telnet to port 47624 on all machines hosting a game returns a "could
not connect to host" error that would indicate a filtered port
3. all firewalls are turned off
4. A Macintosh appears to see a multiplayer game on one of the machines
(when it's acting as a client), but then can't join the game and returns a
failure.

Any more ideas?

This is very odd. I'm inclined to suspect SP2, which has made my life so
difficult in other ares.

Does Age of Conquerors attempt to use raw sockets to connect?

Is there anyone out there who has managed to get Age of Conquerors to work
with TCP/IP connections, either on the LAN or across the Internet on Windows
XP SP2?

Again, I could really use some ideas. I've got a fairly solid lab set up
here, and I'm willing to experiment.

Cheers!
Nathan

"Jimmy S." wrote:

> Hi Nathan,
>
> One or both of you might be affected by NAT.
> Possibly even by your own Internet Provider!
> To be sure, try the NAT or NOT test here:
> http://www.u.arizona.edu/~trw/games/nat_or_not.php
>
> --
> Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
> Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
>
> Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
> Visit my MSN Zone.com and Gaming Help Site: http://mvps.org/nibblesnbits
> MS Assisted Support: http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=assistance
> My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
> _________________________________________________________
>
> "Nathan Dornbrook" <NathanDornbrook.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:78D09AA9-4121-45B8-A1E1-1754A664A124@microsoft.com...
> > Hi, guys!
> >
> > I've bought several copies of Age of Kings: The Conquerors for me and my
> > friends to play. One of them is in Edinburgh.
> >
> > We tried to use the Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay feature, but it didn't
> > work. Neither machine can recognize the games started on the other machine.
> >
> > Both machines are XP Pro SP2.
> >
> > The problem occurs whether there is a firewall on or not.
> >
> > Both machines are connected to the Internet directly and have public IP
> > addresses.
> >
> > We can establish a chat session using dxdiag, but still can't see each
> > other's games.
> >
> > What's going on? Any ideas?
> >
> > Cheers!
> > - Nathan
>
>
>
 >> Stay informed about: Age of Conquerors Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay problem 

Hi Nathan,

You've done some exceptional troubleshooting. Here are some
Additional Resources:

Deploying Windows Firewall Settings for Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4454e0e1-61fa...7a-bdcd

Manually Configuring Windows Firewall in Windows XP Service Pack 2
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/cableguy/cg0204.mspx

--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my MSN Zone.com and Gaming Help Site: http://mvps.org/nibblesnbits
MS Assisted Support: http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=assistance
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________

"Nathan Dornbrook" <NathanDornbrook.RemoveThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6F0517CF-D585-41A5-95BE-3619B08EF477@microsoft.com...
> Hi, Jimmy!
>
> Thanks for that tip. I'm not NATted, according to that utility, although I
> was fairly certain that I wasn't, since the 68.83/16 rests outside the RFC
> 1918 address space reserved for NAT. Also, I pay for public IPs, so I'd have
> been upset to have discovered that the service provided wasn't what I paid
> for.
>
> In order to eliminate the ISP from the equipment string, here's what I did
> next:
>
> 1. Isolate three machines on a LAN on a 100mbps switch, disconnected from
> the Internet, and give them all IP addresses in the 192.168.0/24 with the
> default gateways set as the local interface (this will cause the ARPs to be
> propagated locally, and since there's no routing going on, this is exactly
> what we want).
>
> 2. Attempt to create a game and connect from each machine to the other. It
> didn't work. LAN TCP/IP connection looks for a game indefinitely and will
> never find one. If I switch modes to Internet TCP/IP connection for
> DirectPlay and specify an IP address, I get the same symptom I got before,
> where a blank game is returned.
>
> Now, here are some additional interesting symptoms:
>
> 1. ping works between all machines.
> 2. a telnet to port 47624 on all machines hosting a game returns a "could
> not connect to host" error that would indicate a filtered port
> 3. all firewalls are turned off
> 4. A Macintosh appears to see a multiplayer game on one of the machines
> (when it's acting as a client), but then can't join the game and returns a
> failure.
>
> Any more ideas?
>
> This is very odd. I'm inclined to suspect SP2, which has made my life so
> difficult in other ares.
>
> Does Age of Conquerors attempt to use raw sockets to connect?
>
> Is there anyone out there who has managed to get Age of Conquerors to work
> with TCP/IP connections, either on the LAN or across the Internet on Windows
> XP SP2?
>
> Again, I could really use some ideas. I've got a fairly solid lab set up
> here, and I'm willing to experiment.
>
> Cheers!
> Nathan
>
> "Jimmy S." wrote:
>
>> Hi Nathan,
>>
>> One or both of you might be affected by NAT.
>> Possibly even by your own Internet Provider!
>> To be sure, try the NAT or NOT test here:
>> http://www.u.arizona.edu/~trw/games/nat_or_not.php
>>
>> --
>> Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
>> Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
>>
>> Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
>> Visit my MSN Zone.com and Gaming Help Site: http://mvps.org/nibblesnbits
>> MS Assisted Support: http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=assistance
>> My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
>> _________________________________________________________
>>
>> "Nathan Dornbrook" <NathanDornbrook.RemoveThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:78D09AA9-4121-45B8-A1E1-1754A664A124@microsoft.com...
>> > Hi, guys!
>> >
>> > I've bought several copies of Age of Kings: The Conquerors for me and my
>> > friends to play. One of them is in Edinburgh.
>> >
>> > We tried to use the Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay feature, but it didn't
>> > work. Neither machine can recognize the games started on the other machine.
>> >
>> > Both machines are XP Pro SP2.
>> >
>> > The problem occurs whether there is a firewall on or not.
>> >
>> > Both machines are connected to the Internet directly and have public IP
>> > addresses.
>> >
>> > We can establish a chat session using dxdiag, but still can't see each
>> > other's games.
>> >
>> > What's going on? Any ideas?
>> >
>> > Cheers!
>> > - Nathan
>>
>>
>>
 >> Stay informed about: Age of Conquerors Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay problem 

Hi, Jimmy!

Thanks for the links to configuring the SP2 firewall. When I went to add the
application, I discovered it already existed as an exception, which makes
sense, since when the ZoneAlarm style pop-up window asked me if I wanted to
allow or block Age of Empires II, I allowed it.

But I'm suspicious of this exception. Examination shows that the Windows
firewall is insufficiently flexible to allow a port range, and Age of Empires
II is port agile, using a process borrowed from DCE-RPC to connect on 47624
and then map to a subsequent port between 2300-2400. The Windows firewall
doesn't allow port ranges to be allowed through and doesn't make any
allowances for port agility inbound. I assume that it makes allowances for
outbound port agility by using whatever the Windows equivalent of lsof is.

I've gotten Age of Empires II to work across one-to-one NAT, PAT, satellite
T1 shots with high latency, dial up connections with high latency and low
bandwidth, Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP SP1, Mac OS X and even XP SP2 - it
works in Edinburgh between XP SP2 machines.

I've synchronised the services (they are both running the same services)
between the XP SP2 box in Alexandria and the XP SP2 box in Edinburgh, but
still no joy. The box in Alexandria was running three services I had never
seen before, ForceWare IP services, which some cursory web research shows to
be Nvidia's hardware firewall. I tried to use the built in web interface,
which should be running locally on 3724, but it wasn't there. Netstat showed
no httpd listening on any port, and I turned all three services off.

Here's another symtpom: on the XP SP2 box in Alexandria, no connections ever
show up in netstat. Very strange.

In addition, the Zone doesn't recognize the Age of Empires II installation,
no matter how many times I re-install it.

I've now used several different virus scanners to search for viruses (and
then uninstalled them, leaving behind Trend PC-Cillin). I've used AdAware to
look for spyware and malware and The Cleaner to look for Trojans. All
machines come back clean (even Alexa is still removed) - although I didn't
spend money on tools for the Mac.

Next steps:

1. use nmap against all the boxes to see if they really are listening on
47624, even if netstat doesn't report that they are

2. configure a bespoke telnet server to listen on 47624 and then netcat
traffic to it to verify that there isn't some kind of hardware firewall
interfering

3. Build VPN servers in Edinburgh and Alexandria and use the VPN to bypass
any kind of ISP filtering (remember, although, that this doesn't work locally
in Alexandria unless the server is a Windows 2000 box)

4. Roll back to SP1 on the boxes in a patterned way to see if SP1 will work,
then roll forward to see if SP2 breaks it

5. Although multiple reinstalls have taken place, reinstall after each above
step.

I'm flying to Edinburgh with a Windows 2000 laptop (IBM T23), a Windows XP
SP2 laptop (IBM T42), a Mac PowerBook G4 and five copies of the game, two for
Mac and three for Windows, as well as copies of every OS from Windows 2000
forward and OS 9 up.

If you have any additional ideas about what to test, specifically, I'd be
very interested. In addition, if anyone knows how to contact the Windows HQL
or the Microsoft internal testers who must have performed something similar,
I'd like to talk to them and I'm happy to pay for their support.

Sincerely,
Nathan Dornbrook

"Jimmy S." wrote:

> Hi Nathan,
>
> You've done some exceptional troubleshooting. Here are some
> Additional Resources:
>
> Deploying Windows Firewall Settings for Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4454e0e1-61fa...7a-bdcd
>
> Manually Configuring Windows Firewall in Windows XP Service Pack 2
> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/cableguy/cg0204.mspx
>
> --
> Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
> Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
>
> Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
> Visit my MSN Zone.com and Gaming Help Site: http://mvps.org/nibblesnbits
> MS Assisted Support: http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=assistance
> My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
> _________________________________________________________
>
> "Nathan Dornbrook" <NathanDornbrook RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:6F0517CF-D585-41A5-95BE-3619B08EF477@microsoft.com...
> > Hi, Jimmy!
> >
> > Thanks for that tip. I'm not NATted, according to that utility, although I
> > was fairly certain that I wasn't, since the 68.83/16 rests outside the RFC
> > 1918 address space reserved for NAT. Also, I pay for public IPs, so I'd have
> > been upset to have discovered that the service provided wasn't what I paid
> > for.
> >
> > In order to eliminate the ISP from the equipment string, here's what I did
> > next:
> >
> > 1. Isolate three machines on a LAN on a 100mbps switch, disconnected from
> > the Internet, and give them all IP addresses in the 192.168.0/24 with the
> > default gateways set as the local interface (this will cause the ARPs to be
> > propagated locally, and since there's no routing going on, this is exactly
> > what we want).
> >
> > 2. Attempt to create a game and connect from each machine to the other. It
> > didn't work. LAN TCP/IP connection looks for a game indefinitely and will
> > never find one. If I switch modes to Internet TCP/IP connection for
> > DirectPlay and specify an IP address, I get the same symptom I got before,
> > where a blank game is returned.
> >
> > Now, here are some additional interesting symptoms:
> >
> > 1. ping works between all machines.
> > 2. a telnet to port 47624 on all machines hosting a game returns a "could
> > not connect to host" error that would indicate a filtered port
> > 3. all firewalls are turned off
> > 4. A Macintosh appears to see a multiplayer game on one of the machines
> > (when it's acting as a client), but then can't join the game and returns a
> > failure.
> >
> > Any more ideas?
> >
> > This is very odd. I'm inclined to suspect SP2, which has made my life so
> > difficult in other ares.
> >
> > Does Age of Conquerors attempt to use raw sockets to connect?
> >
> > Is there anyone out there who has managed to get Age of Conquerors to work
> > with TCP/IP connections, either on the LAN or across the Internet on Windows
> > XP SP2?
> >
> > Again, I could really use some ideas. I've got a fairly solid lab set up
> > here, and I'm willing to experiment.
> >
> > Cheers!
> > Nathan
> >
> > "Jimmy S." wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Nathan,
> >>
> >> One or both of you might be affected by NAT.
> >> Possibly even by your own Internet Provider!
> >> To be sure, try the NAT or NOT test here:
> >> http://www.u.arizona.edu/~trw/games/nat_or_not.php
> >>
> >> --
> >> Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
> >> Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
> >>
> >> Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
> >> Visit my MSN Zone.com and Gaming Help Site: http://mvps.org/nibblesnbits
> >> MS Assisted Support: http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=assistance
> >> My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
> >> _________________________________________________________
> >>
> >> "Nathan Dornbrook" <NathanDornbrook RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> >> news:78D09AA9-4121-45B8-A1E1-1754A664A124@microsoft.com...
> >> > Hi, guys!
> >> >
> >> > I've bought several copies of Age of Kings: The Conquerors for me and my
> >> > friends to play. One of them is in Edinburgh.
> >> >
> >> > We tried to use the Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay feature, but it didn't
> >> > work. Neither machine can recognize the games started on the other machine.
> >> >
> >> > Both machines are XP Pro SP2.
> >> >
> >> > The problem occurs whether there is a firewall on or not.
> >> >
> >> > Both machines are connected to the Internet directly and have public IP
> >> > addresses.
> >> >
> >> > We can establish a chat session using dxdiag, but still can't see each
> >> > other's games.
> >> >
> >> > What's going on? Any ideas?
> >> >
> >> > Cheers!
> >> > - Nathan
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
>
 >> Stay informed about: Age of Conquerors Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay problem 

"Nathan Dornbrook" <Nathan Dornbrook RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7FBC6634-F371-47DF-9B15-7356D7E3662B@microsoft.com...
| Hi, Jimmy!
|
| Thanks for the links to configuring the SP2 firewall. When I went to add the
| application, I discovered it already existed as an exception, which makes
| sense, since when the ZoneAlarm style pop-up window asked me if I wanted to
| allow or block Age of Empires II, I allowed it.
|
| But I'm suspicious of this exception. Examination shows that the Windows
| firewall is insufficiently flexible to allow a port range, and Age of Empires
| II is port agile, using a process borrowed from DCE-RPC to connect on 47624
| and then map to a subsequent port between 2300-2400. The Windows firewall
| doesn't allow port ranges to be allowed through and doesn't make any
| allowances for port agility inbound. I assume that it makes allowances for
| outbound port agility by using whatever the Windows equivalent of lsof is.
|
| I've gotten Age of Empires II to work across one-to-one NAT, PAT, satellite
| T1 shots with high latency, dial up connections with high latency and low
| bandwidth, Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP SP1, Mac OS X and even XP SP2 - it
| works in Edinburgh between XP SP2 machines.
|
| I've synchronised the services (they are both running the same services)
| between the XP SP2 box in Alexandria and the XP SP2 box in Edinburgh, but
| still no joy. The box in Alexandria was running three services I had never
| seen before, ForceWare IP services, which some cursory web research shows to
| be Nvidia's hardware firewall. I tried to use the built in web interface,
| which should be running locally on 3724, but it wasn't there. Netstat showed
| no httpd listening on any port, and I turned all three services off.
|
| Here's another symtpom: on the XP SP2 box in Alexandria, no connections ever
| show up in netstat. Very strange.
|
| In addition, the Zone doesn't recognize the Age of Empires II installation,
| no matter how many times I re-install it.
|
| I've now used several different virus scanners to search for viruses (and
| then uninstalled them, leaving behind Trend PC-Cillin). I've used AdAware to
| look for spyware and malware and The Cleaner to look for Trojans. All
| machines come back clean (even Alexa is still removed) - although I didn't
| spend money on tools for the Mac.
|
| Next steps:
|
| 1. use nmap against all the boxes to see if they really are listening on
| 47624, even if netstat doesn't report that they are
|
| 2. configure a bespoke telnet server to listen on 47624 and then netcat
| traffic to it to verify that there isn't some kind of hardware firewall
| interfering
|
| 3. Build VPN servers in Edinburgh and Alexandria and use the VPN to bypass
| any kind of ISP filtering (remember, although, that this doesn't work locally
| in Alexandria unless the server is a Windows 2000 box)
|
| 4. Roll back to SP1 on the boxes in a patterned way to see if SP1 will work,
| then roll forward to see if SP2 breaks it
|
| 5. Although multiple reinstalls have taken place, reinstall after each above
| step.
|
| I'm flying to Edinburgh with a Windows 2000 laptop (IBM T23), a Windows XP
| SP2 laptop (IBM T42), a Mac PowerBook G4 and five copies of the game, two for
| Mac and three for Windows, as well as copies of every OS from Windows 2000
| forward and OS 9 up.
|
| If you have any additional ideas about what to test, specifically, I'd be
| very interested. In addition, if anyone knows how to contact the Windows HQL
| or the Microsoft internal testers who must have performed something similar,
| I'd like to talk to them and I'm happy to pay for their support.
|
| Sincerely,
| Nathan Dornbrook
|
| "Jimmy S." wrote:
|
| > Hi Nathan,
| >
| > You've done some exceptional troubleshooting. Here are some
| > Additional Resources:
| >
| > Deploying Windows Firewall Settings for Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2
| >
| > http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4454e0e1-61fa...7a-bdcd
| >
| > Manually Configuring Windows Firewall in Windows XP Service Pack 2
| > http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/cableguy/cg0204.mspx
| >
| > --
| > Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
| > Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
| >
| > Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
| > Visit my MSN Zone.com and Gaming Help Site: http://mvps.org/nibblesnbits
| > MS Assisted Support: http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=assistance
| > My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
| > _________________________________________________________
| >
| > "Nathan Dornbrook" <NathanDornbrook RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
| > news:6F0517CF-D585-41A5-95BE-3619B08EF477@microsoft.com...
| > > Hi, Jimmy!
| > >
| > > Thanks for that tip. I'm not NATted, according to that utility, although I
| > > was fairly certain that I wasn't, since the 68.83/16 rests outside the RFC
| > > 1918 address space reserved for NAT. Also, I pay for public IPs, so I'd have
| > > been upset to have discovered that the service provided wasn't what I paid
| > > for.
| > >
| > > In order to eliminate the ISP from the equipment string, here's what I did
| > > next:
| > >
| > > 1. Isolate three machines on a LAN on a 100mbps switch, disconnected from
| > > the Internet, and give them all IP addresses in the 192.168.0/24 with the
| > > default gateways set as the local interface (this will cause the ARPs to be
| > > propagated locally, and since there's no routing going on, this is exactly
| > > what we want).
| > >
| > > 2. Attempt to create a game and connect from each machine to the other. It
| > > didn't work. LAN TCP/IP connection looks for a game indefinitely and will
| > > never find one. If I switch modes to Internet TCP/IP connection for
| > > DirectPlay and specify an IP address, I get the same symptom I got before,
| > > where a blank game is returned.
| > >
| > > Now, here are some additional interesting symptoms:
| > >
| > > 1. ping works between all machines.
| > > 2. a telnet to port 47624 on all machines hosting a game returns a "could
| > > not connect to host" error that would indicate a filtered port
| > > 3. all firewalls are turned off
| > > 4. A Macintosh appears to see a multiplayer game on one of the machines
| > > (when it's acting as a client), but then can't join the game and returns a
| > > failure.
| > >
| > > Any more ideas?
| > >
| > > This is very odd. I'm inclined to suspect SP2, which has made my life so
| > > difficult in other ares.
| > >
| > > Does Age of Conquerors attempt to use raw sockets to connect?
| > >
| > > Is there anyone out there who has managed to get Age of Conquerors to work
| > > with TCP/IP connections, either on the LAN or across the Internet on Windows
| > > XP SP2?
| > >
| > > Again, I could really use some ideas. I've got a fairly solid lab set up
| > > here, and I'm willing to experiment.
| > >
| > > Cheers!
| > > Nathan
| > >
| > > "Jimmy S." wrote:
| > >
| > >> Hi Nathan,
| > >>
| > >> One or both of you might be affected by NAT.
| > >> Possibly even by your own Internet Provider!
| > >> To be sure, try the NAT or NOT test here:
| > >> http://www.u.arizona.edu/~trw/games/nat_or_not.php
| > >>
| > >> --
| > >> Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
| > >> Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
| > >>
| > >> Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
| > >> Visit my MSN Zone.com and Gaming Help Site: http://mvps.org/nibblesnbits
| > >> MS Assisted Support: http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=assistance
| > >> My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
| > >> _________________________________________________________
| > >>
| > >> "Nathan Dornbrook" <NathanDornbrook RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
| > >> news:78D09AA9-4121-45B8-A1E1-1754A664A124@microsoft.com...
| > >> > Hi, guys!
| > >> >
| > >> > I've bought several copies of Age of Kings: The Conquerors for me and my
| > >> > friends to play. One of them is in Edinburgh.
| > >> >
| > >> > We tried to use the Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay feature, but it didn't
| > >> > work. Neither machine can recognize the games started on the other machine.
| > >> >
| > >> > Both machines are XP Pro SP2.
| > >> >
| > >> > The problem occurs whether there is a firewall on or not.
| > >> >
| > >> > Both machines are connected to the Internet directly and have public IP
| > >> > addresses.
| > >> >
| > >> > We can establish a chat session using dxdiag, but still can't see each
| > >> > other's games.
| > >> >
| > >> > What's going on? Any ideas?
| > >> >
| > >> > Cheers!
| > >> > - Nathan
| > >>
| > >>
| > >>
| >
| >
| >

Hi Nathan,

You have canvased a lot of possiblities in your troublshooting already,
to follow up you could try the following newsgroup:
microsoft.public.directx.networking

Cheers,
Jimmy.
 >> Stay informed about: Age of Conquerors Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay problem 

Hi, Jimmy (& rest of newsgroup!)

I'm in Edinburgh now, settling in to stay until I've got this problem
solved. What a beautiful city. The newsgroup for directx.networking is
largely defunct (one post from last month, one from a year ago; c'est la
vie).

In any event, I think I'm going to go ahead and take this back to first
principles. Having read through the boards and poked about the Internet,
there seems to be a lot of problems with how Age of Empires II networks.
Lots of folks are having difficulties along these lines.

Age of Empires II is still a popular game and is still selling for $30
retail; Microsoft is still making a good profit off this title. It needs
more and better support, and I'll noise them up about this, too.

Sincerely,
Nathan
>
> Hi Nathan,
>
> You have canvased a lot of possiblities in your troublshooting already,
> to follow up you could try the following newsgroup:
> microsoft.public.directx.networking
>
> Cheers,
> Jimmy.
>
>
 >> Stay informed about: Age of Conquerors Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay problem 

hi jimmy

i used to play age on LAN as well as on wan
1.u have to install tcp/ip scan
2.run age
3.c which ports it is using
4.open that port on your router against your ip(i believe its 2900 onward)
5. host the game
6. go to whatismyip.com
7.give the other person the ip u just read
8.the other person will enter that wan ip
9.and he can join u in the game
Problems
there are sum problem i am facing
1.we were two frens on a lan and another frend was in his home
2.when we connect only two person can join
keep this in mind
------------------------------------------------------------
on lan
u all shud have the same subnet
and rest is the same



"Nathan Dornbrook" wrote:

> Hi, guys!
>
> I've bought several copies of Age of Kings: The Conquerors for me and my
> friends to play. One of them is in Edinburgh.
>
> We tried to use the Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay feature, but it didn't
> work. Neither machine can recognize the games started on the other machine.
>
> Both machines are XP Pro SP2.
>
> The problem occurs whether there is a firewall on or not.
>
> Both machines are connected to the Internet directly and have public IP
> addresses.
>
> We can establish a chat session using dxdiag, but still can't see each
> other's games.
>
> What's going on? Any ideas?
>
> Cheers!
> - Nathan
 >> Stay informed about: Age of Conquerors Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay problem 

I had a very similar problem, but using the LAN connection. I tried both the Lan and the TCP/IP connection nothing worked... I even tried to install IPX/SPX. Still no go.

Like you, the dxdiag was able to establish a connection no problem, and both XP machines showed that they had the latest version of directx installed.

I re-installed the latest version directx from Microsoft on BOTH machines EVEN THOUGH BOTH MACHINES SHOWED AS CURRENT, AND WORKING... and then I was able to connect and play without any further trouble.
 >> Stay informed about: Age of Conquerors Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay problem