AOE3 Forums

_____Patch 1.03_____

Q. What are some common troubleshooting tips I should be aware of when installing and running patch 1.03?
Please see the general Age Of Empires 3 FAQ for common troubleshooting tips
Also for additional support please visit Microsoft Games Support.

Q. Do I need to install the 1.01 or 1.02 patches first?
No you do not. You should be able to patch up to 1.03 from a fresh installation, from 1.01 or from 1.02.

Q. How much free space does the patch require?
The 1.03 patch does require approximately 1.4gigs of free space. If you do not have enough space you may encounter an error message during the patch process.

Q. The patch installation froze up?
The patching process may take longer than you expect, be patient and give the patcher more time to complete.

Q. I have been waiting a long time and the patcher did not continue or the patcher stopped unexpectedly; what should I do?
There are a few things that may help out:

• Make sure you have enough free space. The patch needs approximately 1.5gig of free space to work with during the installation.
  
• Defrag your hard disks before installing.
  
• Undo any edits that have been made to any age3 game files in the installation folder; default c:\program files\age of empires 3\. Then restart the patch process.
  
• Disable any appications running in the background such as; virus scanners, spyware stoppers, etc.
  
• Make a backup before of the My Documents\My games\Age3 folder then delete it, and restart the patch process.
  
• Try logging into WindowsXP with a different Administrator account than the one you first tried. You may have to create a brand new administrator user.
  
• Completely uninstall the game, remove all game folders from My Documents, then reboot your computer. Log in with an admin user, install the game then launch and update.

Q. I installed the patch but now can not connect to eso, or if I do connect I can not join games
The new patch includes a new version age3.exe file, because of this you might need to tell your firewall or router to allow the new version to pass through. Consult your firewall or router documentation for assistance.

Q. The patch installed ok, but when I try to log into ESO I am told my game version is not supported by ESO. What can I do?
The safest thing to do in is completely uninstall and reinstall the game.

If you feel comfortable using regedit you can manually check which game version is listed in the registry.
Edit your registry at your own risk. Make a backups before editing.
1. Run regedit
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires 3\1.0
3. Look at the version entry. If you properly completed installing the 1.03 patch, then 1.03 should be displayed as the version.
4. If the version number says something other than 1.03, Modify the entry so it does. [Edited on 12/20/2005]

_____Patch 1.03_____

Q. I installed the patch but now most of the games in the patch list are displaying a CRC mismatch. What is wrong?
Patch 1.02 introduced additional security measures, which will result in CRC mismatches if certain game files have been altered. These checks are still present in 1.03.

If you (or a mod you installed) edited any of age3 game files (such as .con or .xml) you may now receive CRC mismatch error. Undo ANY changes made to your .xml game files game files in the installation folder;
default c:\program files\age of empires 3\ and the problem should be fixed. If this does not work you may have to uninstall the game, remove the age3 folder from "My documents\my games" (make backups of any savegames, recordedgames, and screenshots)and reinstall the game and patch.

Q. I was able to join and host games before the 1.03 patch but since I installed I am having trouble, what should I do?
Please first try the suggestions in ESO connectivity section of the General Age 3 FAQ.
We have found several people who were having problems joing/hosting games solved them by trying these suggestions. Some of these, were people who had solved their router issues in the past and others did not encounter issues until now.

Q.What are the user.cfg commands to assist with router IP/port issues that were added in 1.02 and how do I use them?
OverridePort
OverridePort will allow you to specify a port to use instead of relying on UPnP or our port discovery process. This is useful when you have multiple PCs behind the same NAT and you want to use port forwarding.

Example: You are on a network with several other people trying to play age3 and you have access to the router settings. So you override the game on each computer to use a different port;
Computer A gets overrideport="2300", computerB gets overrideport="2301", etc. Then you setup the port forwarding on the router to properly forward data sent on those ports to corresponding ip address of the machine.

To use:
1. First browse to the My Documents\My Games\Age of Empires 3\startup
2. If there is not a user.cfg file there create one.
3. Open the user.cfg file with a text editor; like notepad
4. enter OverridePort="[the port number you want to use]"
5. save the file and close it.
6. Configure your Router to foward the port you specified to the ipaddress of the computer you are playing on.

OverrideAddress
OverrideAddress will allow you to specify an external IP address of your computer to use instead of relying on the address that comes back from our address server or in the case of LAN the internal IP that we use.

Example: Your computer's listed IP address is 192.168.0.2 and your external address is 123.142.1.21
Now lets say the game wants to use the internal IP and you keep failing to get into games. So you might try overriding the game's findings using the command overrideaddress="123.142.1.21"

To use:
1. First browse to the My Documents\My Games\Age of Empires 3\startup
2. If there is not a user.cfg file there create one.
3. Open the user.cfg file with a text editor; like notepad
4. enter OverrideAddress="[the IP address you want the game to use]"
5. save the file and close it. [Edited on 1/18/2006]

***Patch 1.03 FAQ ***

Q. How can I map the TAB key? How can I manually edit my hotkeys?
The reason we made TAB a reserved key is that it is used to cycle between the selected unit groups in the unit selection panel. Allowing it to be remapped would cause both the cycle and the new action to happen. That said, I'm sure there are a few people don't mind this (obviously if you had previously remapped the TAB key), so you'll be relieved to know there is still a way to work around this.

When you change a key's mapping, a new entry is added to the NewProfile.xml file (in MyDocuments\MyGames\Age of Empires 3\Users). You can modify this entry.

1. Go into the hotkey editor, change the function you want to some open key and say ok.
2. Exit the game.
3. Edit NewProfile.xml
4. Look at the bottom of the file and find the proper group under "KeyMapGroups"
5. Change the * to tab (* = whatever you temporarily mapped it to.)
6. Save and close the file
7. Run the game

It's a little more complex than before, but should get you back to the most of the keys you are used to.

Q. You took attack move away! I want it back what can I do?
Note that there are known issues with the attack move function and it is currently an unsupported function.

If you still want to enable attack move and map it to a key, 'a' for example, do the following:
1. Browse to My Documents\My Games\Age of Empires 3\startup
2. If a user.con file does not exist, create one (it is just a text file)
3. Open the user.con file up and add the following line: map ("a", "game", "enterAttackMoveMode")
4. Save the file and close it.
5. Launch the game. [Edited on 12/20/2005]

Hi,

When I tried upgrading to 1.03 from 1.00, the updater always got stuck on art/Art.bar. What should I do?

Posted by: georgecm3 Hi, When I tried upgrading to 1.03 from 1.00, the updater always got stuck on art/Art.bar. What should I do?

Wait until tomorrow and upgrade to 1.08 !!

yes, why are you updating to 1.03? 1.08 comes tommorrow.