Poor connectivity. Sigh.

[Dic Tator]

Me and my girlfriend have made a habit of playing some AoWIII during the weekends, but for the past three weeks I've been stuck with poor connectivty. I didn't play much online prior to that, but the first few times we played we didn't have any problems.

Until three weeks ago. Poor connectivty. That's strange, I thought, since I have a good connection everywhere else. I turned off my VPN and then it worked fine, after which I've never even activated the VPN prior to playing. But that turned out to be a temporary fix. Two weeks ago we both had poor connectivty and couldn't play at all, but her error has fixed itself since then.

Now, I've googled the problem many times but never found a solution. I have a 100/100 Mbit connection, a good router (though it doesn't work even if I connect directly to the modem), UPnP is enabled and ports are manually forwarded, and I haven't made any changes to the computer that should've caused this kind of problem. The game is allowed through the firewall so... I'm at a loss.

Any suggestions on what I might've missed?

[Chucky Tosser]

I am in the same boat, poor connectivity, not able to host matches. I have great internet, computer and a new modem and it hasn't been right for months (since around the undead expansion). It's the only game out of over 100 that has any problems for me on steam and it's one of my favorites. Any patch/assistance would be great.

[Aster]

I've been having this problem for months. Even when one of our group has good connectivity we can't join because "Session Unavailable." I want to play this game, but no.

[Sgt. Steiner]

Yep, I can't even register.

[günie]

kiefersuppie
Hab das Spiel schon länger,spiel jetzt öfters gegen meinen Bruder online.Hab seit ein paar wochen das selbe Problem.Trotz 50000 Leitung bekomme ich keine grüne Mehrspieler verbindung bei dem Spiel.

[Stardustfire]

does ANYBODY here read PINNED threads?

[günie]

yes e am but my english is very bad

[sikbok]

Sorry to hear there are people with connectivity issues.

Please have a look at our Multiplayer Connection Guide[ageofwonders.com] to see if that helps you fix the issue.
Also, please note that AoW3 uses a peer-to-peer system. So for AoW3 connectivity is poor when other people have trouble connecting to your computer. I.e. typically bandwidth, ping, etc are not the issue.

[Arnout]

@Sgt. Steiner Sounds like a different problem then the opening post. If you can't register (e.g. create a Triumph Account) please send an email to [e-mail] describing how this exactly goes wrong.

[Chucky Tosser]

Thanks for the response Sikbok :) But i was playing this game with friends easily since i bought it, (275hrs on record, nearly all mp) and hosting too. Then all of a sudden i was unable to host a mp game and i was the one that always hosted. I just figured that something happened in the fall/late summer that changed in the game? My net plan and everything. Have you heard of windows 10 problems with hosting mp games? that is the only thing that has changed on my side.

[sikbok]

Hi Mollari,


We've not changed netcode for a good long while.

I've not heard of mp issues with win10 myself, but I can imagine an os upgrade could cause issues. We've also had issues reported where the isp made changes that made connecting via the ports we use hard.

[Dic Tator]

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

does ANYBODY here read PINNED threads?

Yes. None of those fixes worked for me, so here I am.

Originally posted by sikbok:

Sorry to hear there are people with connectivity issues.

Please have a look at our Multiplayer Connection Guide[ageofwonders.com] to see if that helps you fix the issue.
Also, please note that AoW3 uses a peer-to-peer system. So for AoW3 connectivity is poor when other people have trouble connecting to your computer. I.e. typically bandwidth, ping, etc are not the issue.

That was my first stop, but alas, none of them worked. I also have a friend who works for my ISP and according to him they've made no changes that should affect that.
It worked fine just a few weeks ago, that's why I'm so confused as to why it's like this now.

[Arnout]

Most likely something changed on your local network like a different local IP or that you need to update your Router's configuration. Some routers might also have a full NAT table or Ram at some point which also could explain it (turning it off for 5 min would flush this). Hopefully you are using a wired connection?

Originally posted by Ursus:

UPnP is enabled and ports are manually forwarded

Best to choose one just of these options. I would recommend disabling UPnP and manually forward your ports (using this guide[aow.triumph.net]) on your Router.


Also make sure that the Age of Wonders III executables are allowed in your firewall (just to be sure delete the existing entries and add them again). Also open TCP port 14800 in your Firewall. You change this here: Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Windows Firewall\Allowed applications

Do you have Anti-Virus installed? You might need to whitelist the game's executables (and perhaps port 14800) here as well.

Other causes of poor connections might be programs that interfere with steam or all kind of 'updater' programs on your computer. These applications open large amounts of sockets purely for passive listening and eat up alot of your computers available bandwidth.

Please also note that playing Age of Wonders III multiplayer requires that all people that join one session have an open connection. One player with a poor connection is allowed. However if you join a Multiplayer session after this player has joined, you’ll have poor connection as well. This could explain your poor connection as well.

[günie]

Habe wieder Gute verbindung(!grün Super
Habe aber nichts verändert.mann muss manch mal halt nur ein Paar Wochen warten

[Stormcrow]

Impossible to play for me without Tunngle. Even Hamachi doesn't work for some reason.

[The Cure]

Yeah, they make it a pain in the ass to host.