Man, I’ve been pulling my hair out for the past few days trying to get “Rise of Nations” to work online. You know, it’s that classic strategy game, a real blast from the past. I’ve been itching to play it with some buddies, but the multiplayer just wouldn’t cooperate.
I started by firing up the game and trying to host a match. No dice. My friends couldn’t see my game at all. Then I tried joining their games – nothing. It was like I was invisible on the internet.
So, I did what any sane person would do: I dove into the depths of the internet for answers. I found all sorts of forum posts and articles about “Rise of Nations” network issues. Apparently, it’s a common problem with older games.
First, I messed with my router’s settings. Port forwarding, they called it. I felt like a hacker, typing in all these numbers and hoping I didn’t accidentally launch a missile or something. I followed some guides that listed the specific ports “Rise of Nations” uses. It was a bit of a headache, honestly, because every router has a different interface.
But guess what? It didn’t work. Still couldn’t connect. I even tried disabling my firewall, which felt super risky. I was basically inviting all the internet gremlins into my computer. Still no luck.
Then I stumbled upon something about UPnP – Universal Plug and Play. Supposedly, it helps devices on your network discover each other. My router had it enabled, but I toggled it off and on again, just for kicks. Nope, still nothing.
Feeling defeated, I even tried reinstalling the game. Maybe some files got corrupted, I thought. I cleared my DNS cache, thinking maybe it’s the network setting issue. But after it’s done, no improvement at all. I started wondering if I should just give up, It will always remind me of the error message “Your connection was interrupted” from Chrome.
Then, I noticed something about the game’s compatibility settings. I right-clicked the game’s shortcut, went to properties, and messed around with the compatibility mode. I tried running it as an administrator, too. I checked the signature of the file, and tried turning off the secure boot, It seemed not working either.
Finally, I went back to the router settings. I double-checked the ports I had forwarded, and then I noticed something I had missed before. There was an option to specify the protocol – TCP or UDP. The guide I was following said “Rise of Nations” uses both, so I had to create separate rules for each protocol. I did some cleaning about my USB ports settings, not sure if it’s related, but I just did it anyway.
And that was it! After saving the changes and restarting the router, I could finally host and join games. It was like magic. All that struggle for such a simple fix. I even launched a Twitch stream to show off a little bit.
So, if you’re ever pulling your hair out trying to get an old game to work online, don’t give up! It might just be a tiny setting hiding somewhere, waiting to be tweaked. It took some serious digging, but I’m glad I finally figured it out.