Age Of Mythology EE Multiplayer Guide

Interim guide for playing Age Of Mythology Online and Lan.

Preperation

1. Firewall
Make sure your firewall has allowed Age Of Mythology through. You may also need to add aom.exe and launcher.exe if not already added when you first launched teh game. the files found are located where the Steam game is installed:
X:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Age of Mythology
X:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\Age of Mythology

2, Software Firewall Ports
The following ports are used by Steam and AOM EE

Original Age Of Mythology Ports:

TCP 28800-28805
UDP 2300-2400
UDP 6073

Steam Ports:

TCP 27014-27050 (Steam downloads)
UDP 27000-27015 (Game client traffic)
UDP 27015-27030 (Typically Matchmaking and HLTV)
UDP 4380

Dedicated/Listen Servers:

TCP 27015 (SRCDS Rcon port)

Steamworks P2P Networking and Steam Voice Chat Ports:

UDP 3478 (Outbound)
UDP 4379 (Outbound)
UDP 4380 (Outbound)



3. Router Settings

uPnP must be enabled when playing via LAN and Online. So if you have two PC's on the same network trying to play Online uPnP must be enabled.

Quality Of Service (QoS) normally found in Traffic Management on mid to high end Routers:
A temporary fix may result by giving extremely high priority to packets from gaming traffic. The problem will be you can not download someone's maps or scenarios, or atleast it will take a very long time.

Port Trigger and Port Forward
NEVER Port forward or unblock your Router Firewall, unless you really have to!
If you need use Port Triggers these will only be good for one PC. These will open ports needed as listed above for one user at a time. Port forward open for all users on the same band or network.
If you decide to port forward on your router keep in mind that you should try to experiement and see if the software firewall can be put back to normal leaving only the the aomx.exe and launcher.exe. The reason being that the hardware firewall of your router is the best you will ever get, and the software fiewall is probably of less importance. Fooling around with a software firewall is ok, but it is dangerous to open ports on a physical router. So you should try and atleast have one or the other working. The ports forwarded on your router are teh same listed above.

4. Static LAN IP
Consult the user manual for your router. Your PC should have a physical Static IP that never changes. This can be set by the router and by request of your PC. The PC side is done through editing the properties of your Network Adapter:

Right click on system tray on Network Icon, Network Adpter and right click on active Network Adapter, select properties and then edit the TCP iPv4 so that you set the IP, Network mask and Gateway to the values needed by your router. Please see Microsoft or Mac for further details on the computer side settings.

Mods, Third Party and Other Issues

Game Modifications
If you use game mods, especially ones that make use of sound and special FX files, you run a higher chance of causing Multiplayer problems.

The Upgrades Mod and many others are problematic and should not be used online. They may appear fine over LAN but will cause problems Online.

Modifications to the UI are only OK if they do not break functionality like for instances being able to use a market when no market is available in Archaic, Classical or Heroic. Avoid UI's that add features not found in the default UI. Generally speaking UI's that minimise or simply offer aesthetic value are OK for online gaming. UI's that mess with functionality by adding buttons that are not normally available, will have problems.

Anti virus and Malware protection
Often these programs monitor various usages on the Network. This is why they can actually slow Network traffic down. It is sensible to only use the minimal required secuirty as opposed to running several security programs. Never turn off Anti-virus software permanently but test it by turning it off to see if it improves gaming. While you can add the aomx.exe to it's exceptions list, it is not a good idea to do so. Also good anti virus programs monitor network traffic which means if it is very agressive you may experience slowing down. The only option if this is the case is to find an alternative Anti virus program.


Audio Drivers, Video Codecs and MIDI synthesisers
Most of us have some kind of third party drivers installed to handle XVideo and other modern video compression playback. FFDShow and other similar to it can cause problems because they kick in everytime a video is played. This may cause problems generally in Single player and Multiplayer mode. Also Audio synthesiser software that makes MIDI sound more realistic can intefere with teh game in general and also with sound playback during gametime. The best option for Audio is to find specific drivers ideal for your system and to use with highest preference anything offered by teh Audio chipset or card you are using.

Out Of Memory
Many of us have moved on to 64Bit systems and have 8GB or more of RAM. But the game is a 32Bit game and uses at most 3GB of memory. If you load a map and find using the mini map causes crashes because you flick from one corner of the map to another, it means that you game and computer and not setup properly for gaming. You will need to tweak the computer to ensure:
1. You do not have any third party memory hogs like MS Access, MS Outlook or other programs running.
2. Waste of time services are turned off, these will vary per person. SSD users will have a different requirement to HDD users and each Operating system is different.
3. Make sure you have turned off other Operating System features like Aero, System Backup, Windows File Search and other features off. Use a very lean User Interface without hevay video reliance.

Turn all the additional Graphic features OFF
Everything in the AOM Options that affects graphics should be turned Off, Bloom, Shadows, Water reflection, everything should be turned off no matter how great you PC is. The reason for this is that for some weird reason it also affects your network connection and the amount of data transported. No idea why it would other than it maybe sending packets to update visual effects. You may have noticed in game that God powers, Text, and taunts all slow down a game and cause lag. This is all related and while it may not be noticed in single player, the network handling of these things is rather poor.

Modern Router and QoS

Most people who have purchased a router in the last few years would have seen the ability to shape traffic through their router. This feature is built into most mdoern routers and the mid to high level modems. If you have this feature on your router you may be able to give high priority traffic to the game ports. The feature known as Quality Of Service, QoS or ezQoS on some routers can be modified to improve your game connection. The way it is done is by entering your router's configuration page. There you can add the ports mentioned above, leave the IP adress blank if you have multiple users playing AOM, and then give your AOM EE and Steam Ports the highest priority.

As an example:

Rule Name	Ports	IP	Mode	Speed kB/s	Priority
AOM EE TCP	28800:28805	-	TCP	0-1000	Highest
AOM EE UDP	6073, 2300:2400	-	UDP	0-1000	Highest
Steam Download	27014:27050	-	TCP	0-1000	Highest
Steam Client	27000:27015	-	UDP	0-1000	Highest

Continue placing all the required Steam ports into the QoS settings. The above example gives all the gaming and Steam ports the highest priority and they can use upto 1000kb/s down. These settings along with a LAN Static IP can help your AOM multiplayer gaming significantly.

Although I mentioned this briefly above, the feature is reasonably new and is available on routers for good reason. In the quest for higher download speed our connections have lost some quality due to the loading or overloaded of our connections with a huge array of devices. Many router setups today may have numerous phones, iPad, notebooks and PC's connected to them. With so much load some form of Traffic Management is needed. QoS is an important feature of routers that has been added to address the growing need to manage and control how internet traffic is used. It is a modern feature for modern problems.

[Spartan Hoplite]

Sanic start with a fresh version of the game and add the mods that you like one at a time. Play a game after each mod that you add. If you have any problems after enabling a mod, then disable or uninstall it.

[Arisanick]

I LOAD A LOT OF MODS, BUT, I CAN´T WATCH THE NEW THINGS AND I CAN´T PLAY ANY SERVER, CUZ I NEED THE SAME MODS THAN I HAVE. I ACTIVATED THEM, BUT IS THE SAME.
HOW CAN I USE THE MODS?

[pepeega]

THANKS ANYWAY

[pepeega]

WHY SO HARD

[tapatava]

:)