You know the feeling ... you've finally got your hands on your very own copy of AOM and hastily gone to install it on your PC ... only to find that it won't work for you!  While most of the Age series have been relatively undemanding on your pc, the introduction of 3-D graphics in AOM has certainly changed that situation. 

Ensembles and Microsoft offer numerous solutions and the forums are full of threads on how to overcome that particular problem that's blocking you from enjoying this great game.  As a first port of call we suggest you go here to MFO where they have gathered all the links, articles, and "help me's" in one easy to use post. The issues have been broken down into categories and link from the introduction to the post. You can look for the issue you are having and click through to the page in a very short time.

If that doesn't help then we suggest you visit some of the forums at the AOM sites (found from our links page) to see if you can get the help you need. Of course, if all else fails, you could try and call ESO and get the support you have paid for!

AOM is not an easy beastie to get running in Direct IP mode especially if you are behind a firewall. The game also gets confused if your machine is part of a network and has more than one LAN card installed ... or if you are accessing the internet through ADSL where you have to use a network adaptor to hook up. ES seems to have not been too concerned about this area because they maintain that connections work fine through ESO .. and of course that means you are going through their CD serial checking system.

Fortunately the 1.01 patch to AOM provided some improved Direct IP support IP for users who are running behind a NAT, firewall, or proxy server. There are two ways to access this support.

• If you want AOM to automatically configure itself for DirectIP, add the following line to the Age of Mythology shortcut:
  
  AddressServer="repeater.aom.eso.com"
  
  This will cause AOM to automatically configure your external IP address information any time you select a DirectIP or LAN game ( by querying the ESO Address Server.) If you want to host games behind a router, NAT or firewall, you will also need to map/open UDP port 2301 to the host machine or place the host machine on the DMZ.


OR


• If you want to define/override your external IP address manually, add the following line to the Age of Mythology shortcut:
  
  OverrideAddress="X.X.X.X"
  
  This option is for advanced users who don’t have a public internet connection to ESO, or don’t want the game to attempt to contact the servers at all. Replace X.X.X.X with the external IP address of your machine. For instance, if your machine has an internal “fake" IP address of 10.10.0.1, but an external “real" IP address of 208.100.50.5, you would add OverrideAddress="208.100.50.5" to your AOM shortcut. If you want to host games, please map/open UDP port 2301 to the host machine or place the host machine on the DMZ.

The 2,4 error has frustrated users of AOM ever since it was launched. AOM stores the statistics from any game you play in a file with an extension of ".zsl". At the end of a game on ESO the system is supposed to upload the file reporting the results of your game to ESO so your rating and player profile can be updated. Note that ".zsl" files are created for non-rated as well as rated games but only the latter will affect your rating.

Unfortunately for many players their system has been unable to upload their ".zsl" files at the end of the game and they get what is know as the "2,4" error when their upload times out - this mainly affects users with a dial-up internet account. Because only the winning player (or team) in a game uploads the stats file, this has meant that many player's rankings do not reflect their true skill level - their losses are uploaded but their wins are not.

There are a number of reported solutions to this problem which you may like to try:

• MFO have reported an apparent 100% working fix that originated from Alliance Francophone (http://www.jeux-strategie.com/aom/). Basically you need to set your browser to use your ISP's Proxy. Apparently this is already default on most Broadband services but very few Dial Up ISP's have a need to set this up.
  
  Full details can be found here at MFO.



• MFO have also posted a StatUploader on their downloads page.  This is a simple stand alone program to upload ZSL game files to ESO.



• ESO have also posted a solution for some sufferers of the 2,4 problem on their FAQ site. Just follow the links for the 2,4 error and you will find a method that allows you to adjust the time that your system allows for the upload of ".zsl" files.



• Finally a player called Makeiham has come up with a java program that is supposed to allow you to upload your ".zsl" files. You can read his solution here over at MFO and the java program is available from our AOM downloads page here.
  

Have you ever wondered how the ESO system calculates the points you won (or lost) from that rated game you just finished? Well Captn Kidd posted some useful information over at AOM Heaven that gives us some insight into how it all works.

"OK, here's a summary, starting with the simple case of 1v1.

(Rating1 - Rating2) gives us predicted odds of winning.

If the ratings match, it's 50%. If Rating1 is 100 points higher, it's about 90% odds.

A total of 40 points are at stake, and they're split according to the odds. So, in an even match, player 1 will win or lose 20. In a 90% favored match, player 1 will win about 4 or lose about 36.

If the point delta is more than 150 points, the game is not rated, and the lower-rated player gets a handicap bonus of 12% per 100 points difference. In team games, each player's rating is scored as if he won or lost to an opponent with a rating equal to the average of the other team. So the higher-ranked partner wins fewer points than the lower-ranked one. (This discourages 1900 experts from partnering with 1600 smurfs to pad their scores.)

Unfortunately, handicapping kicks in when any one player is 150 points below the highest, and appears to only adjust those players who are 150 below the leader. (Someone 151 points below gets a big boost, someone 149 points below gets no boost.)"

Based on this a player called IB_Agilulfus did some calculating and reckons that the forumla behind the ESO rating system is:

"The Elo formula for winning chance is:

P = 1/(1+10^(-D/100))

where D is the difference in ratings: winner-loser

Score earned is K(1-P)where K are the points at stake, the winners gains the points the loser loses them."

Creating or editing your own custom hotkeys is quite a simple process. The standard hotkeys can be edited through the Options menu when you are in AOM (although sometimes this seems to generate some funny results) but it is very simple to create totally new hotkeys or extend the use of existing ones. The best introduction to this has been written by CheeZy Monkey here over at the Dragon Gaming Design Network. His article covers all the basics and even shows you some useful custom hotkey commands. One important thing to note is that you should create a new file called "user.con" in your \Startup directory to contain your custom hotkey setting rather than editing the main "game.con" file. The game.con file defines all the hotkeys for the game. It's useful to have a look at it some time to see what is in there - you will find some keys that exist but aren't visible through the game options menu (for example the hotkey for stop is "q").

Now that you understand the basics of creating your own hotkeys we can show you how to set yourself to have hotkeys for four useful functions: patrol, guard repair and flare.

If you haven't already created a user.con file fire up Notepad (in Programs-Accessories on your Start menu) and create a new blank file. In the file type the following text:

// user.con
//
// This file defines the custom console commands run when the game starts.
//
//
map ("g", "game", "editMode(\"guard\")")
map ("p", "game", "editMode(\"patrol\")")
map ("r", "game", "editMode(\"repair\")")
map ("`", "game", "editMode(\"flare\")")

Select "save as..." and navigate to the \Startup directory in your AOM installation and save the file as "user.con".

Now if you have a military unit highlighted and you want it to patrol just press "p" and then lay down the waypoints like you would for normal movement (using shift-click to lay multiple points). Remember if you are assigning multiple patrol waypoints don't let go of the shift key for the last waypoint. You can always add extra legs to your patrol later by selecting the unit, pressing "p" again and using shift-click.

Similarly to guard or repair select the unit, press "g" or "r" as appropriate and then click on the item to be guarded or repaired. To send a flare press "`" and then click where you want the flare to be displayed.

Using these custom mappings results in behaviour that is the same as if you had pressed the icon in your AOM control panel. This is a legal way of setting up hotkeys and won't sync anything out (unlike the zoom exploit that was popular before the 1.01 patch came out). The commands are already built into the game but just not mapped to the hotkeys. Obviously you can use any keys you want for you own hotkeys and you need to be careful that you don't short out any of your other villager build or military hotkeys (for example I use "g" for my gold mine so I have to use something else for my guard hotkey).

MicroSlave has posted a useful list of all the possible hotkeys that you can create over at MFO. The link can be found on the AOM Downloads page of the site.

"Drop-Tricking" was a constant problem in AOK:TC and unfortunately it continues to be a problem in AOM. I'm sure many of you have had the experience while playing a rated game - if you haven't you are bound to encounter it at some stage. Your playing well and getting on top of your opponent when suddenly the game either freezes or your opponent pauses and goes unresponsive. After a wait it looks like your opponent has resign or dropped and you exit only to find that ESO has awarded you with the loss and he has got your hard-earned points! At it's worst you get a few minutes into the game and the same thing happens.

StaR_ do not condone drop-tricking and don't want to help the proliferation of this practice.  However we do think it is in everyone's best interest to have some idea about how this works so that you can try to counter it. Importantly, the way drop-tricking seems to work in AOM is reported to be different to AOK:TC so the old solution of pausing and waiting it out in the game doesn't work - in fact it may play right into the hands of the drop-tricker.

So how does someone drop-trick you? We don't intend to tell you exactly how (I don't know and have never tried it) but a number of posts on the various forums have given some insight into the process. When someone wants to drop-trick you they:

• Pause the game
• Disable their internet connection
• Unpause the game and wait for the "player not responding" screen to appear
• Select to drop you from the game
• Re-enable their network connection

Then they exit the game and collect the points. If you stay on pause in the game and then unpause and eventually drop the other player you will also exit and try to report a win to ESO. Unfortunately the drop-tricker has got there before you and the ESO server will ignore your upload.

So how can you counter the drop-tricker? Looking at the way they operate it would seem that the only solution is to get out of the game and report your win before he does. So if you think this is happening immediately unpause the game, and hit wait continuously at the drop screen until you see the player's name disappear.  Then select drop player as quickly as you can, and exit the game - hopefully you will be faster than they are.

It is also worth noting that there is another aspect of the game that you should be careful of. When a player pauses the game they are still able to issue commands to the game which will be immediately implemented when the game is unpaused. So if your opponent is in a tough spot, or they are doing something micro-intensive, they may get a sudden "telephone call" and have to pause the game to give them time to get back on track. It's up to you to judge whether you think a request for a pause is reasonable or not.

MiCroSlave has come up with a useful utility to upgrade the standard tooltips that AOM provides by giving more specific information. You can find the full post here over at MFO. You will need to install Vachu's AOM Text Editor before you can install the Enhanced ToolTips. The Text Editor and the Enhanced ToolTips zip file are both available on the AOM downloads page.

Once you have got that installed _StorM_Siegfried_ posted another patch over here at MFO which really cleans up the messages you receive in game. The file is available from the link or through our AOM downloads page.

Once you have installed it you won't get annoying messages like:
- An additional %s required to research %s.
- An additional %s required to train another %s.
- %s required to build another %s.
- No population room for %s; training will be suspended.

But these important messages will be displayed in red:
- %s advances to the % Age by %
- %s claim / lose a settlement
- %s defeated / resign / win by %
- %s cast GP
- %s researched spy
- %s start / finish / destroy a Wonder
- %s lost Nidhogg / SoO

And these messages will still be displayed but not in red:
- current player advances to the % Age by %
- current player claim a settlement
- current player win
- game OOS

To round it all off _StorM_Siegfried_ also posted a better User Interface patch here also at MFO. This tool relocates the InGame text and allows you to check how many villagers are gathering food/wood/gold and favor. It works on ESO (for now).

Do you long to have your players displayed in your own custom colors?  Well ... thanks to Vachu and AOM Center you can.  Get the file here from AOM Center.  While you are at it have a look here at for a full list of the downloads available at AOM Centre.

Nomad_oWn and _StorM_Siegfried_ have put up a post here in the MFO forums which gives tables of build times for each of the civilisations and shows the impact of putting multiple builders onto the same task. You will find the table for Egypt's empowered building on the 3rd page of the posting.

Queueing units from your military buildings is much easier in AOM. To assign a building to a hotkey just select it and then hit control-# where '#' is the number you want to use. As you build more of the same type of building (e.g. barracks) highlight it, press shift-# and then control-# to add it to the hotkey. Pretty standard from AOC days ... but here is the good part ... select the buildings by pressing the hotkey and then hit the hotkey to queue a unit and you will get one queued up in every building on the hotkey (subject to resources of course). This makes military booming so much easier. You can also instantly change the gather point for your buildings by pressing the hotkey and then right-clicking a new gather point.

Villagers also have greater queueing capabilities in AOM. With a villager selected you can assign a string of tasks by using the shift key. This is particularly useful for hunters because in AOM they will automatically shift onto the next animal available unless the animal is counted as "offensive" - that is it will fight back when attacked. So to get around this select your hunters and right click on the first animal then shift-right click on the rest and they will work their way through the pack. You can go even further and add a shift command to build a gold mine, two houses, a wood pit .... what ever you want

Empowering with the Eqyptians does not make them collect resources faster. What happens is that when resources are dropped off at the collection point empowering gives you a bonus 20% (except for Ra Pharoah who gives 25%) resource credit. In this way empowering is a bit like being the Mayans of the good old AOC days. You not only get more resources ... they last you longer for the same amount harvested.