1.) Here is a direct link to an AOE3 router / firewall list from a website I used to setup my ports. It was very easy and highly recommended:
PORT FORWARD Now just find the router you are using and follow the router specific directions.
2.) Here is a link from Microsoft. I never used this but it is Microsoft, so it should work (but may be harder than it needs to be):
Ports that you must open in Windows Firewall to play or to host an Age of Empires III multiplayer gameHere is how to set up your router to correctly work with AoE3:
First off, if you are running the god forsaken pieces of software known as Norton or Mcafee get rid of them right now. No, I mean it, get rid of them NOW. There are tons of free alternatives that work better in every way (better virus detection, less memory usage, won't bug you ever 3 seconds about "Process X is trying to connect to port 80!!!!!!!!", etc).
I personally use AVG anti virus home edition and Kerio Personal Firewall. Other good choices include Panda soft Antivirus, Clamshell Antivir, and Zone Alarm Personal Firewall. All of those are 100% free for home users, just make sure you get the home edition (maybe called free edition, something like that) if you get AVG, they have a pay for corporate version too.
And a quick note about Kerio, yes it also comes with some popup blocking stuff, and some webbrowser security stuff, but that stuff is trial only and if you don't want to pay for it it disables in 30 days. But the firewall part still works fine, and is totally free. To turn the other stuff off after you install Kerio right click on the icon and go to Configuration then go to the Web tab and uncheck the Advertisements and Popups check boxes. I would also suggest you go to the Intrusions tab and turn off everything in there too if you don't know what it's for. If you do know what it's for you won't need me to tell you what to do.
Ok so now you've purged yourself of that Norton/Mcafee junk, time to configure your router. Now I can't specifically tell you how to configure your exact router model, because each are slightly different, but the basic premise goes like this:
First, go to the Start menu, then click Run... . In the box type cmd and a DOS shell will come up. Now type ipconfig and a bunch of text will scroll up. The only ones we are concerned with right now are the lines that say
IP Address.... xxx.xxx.xxx
Default Gateway..... xxx.xxx.xxx
where the xxx.xxx.xxx will be something like 192.168.1.1. The Gateway address is the address of your router on the local network. The IP address is your computers address on the local network.
Now to mess with the router settings pretty much any router made in the last 5 years has a web browser based setup, so open up Firefox or Opera (or if you must, that piece of junk called IE) and type in the Gateway number in the URL bar at the top.
It will probably ask for a login name and password. Again, I can't tell you what those are, it varies from model to model, but you should be able to find out the default name and password from the manual that came with the router. If you don't have that manual you can probably also find it on the manufacturers website. For all 3 linksys routers I have owned they all have as default a blank login name and a password of admin. Anyway, once you get the correct info and type it into those boxes and hit enter it should take you into the router setup screen.
Now, as I said, each router is different, so I can't tell you exactly what menus or tabs to click on, I can only tell you what the options are called in 99% of the router setups I've seen, so if these exact directions don't help then look around for something that sounds similar, or again check the manual or the manufacturers website for help.
You want to first go to port forwarding. That can usually be found under a category called something like applications and games, or maybe something like advanced configuration. Once there you want to forward the following ports to your computers IP address (remember, we know which address your computer is on from earlier with the ipconfig command):
2300 - 2340 UDP and TCP/IP (usually an option called Both)
6073 again Both
Other stuff to check in your routers setup are UPnP and DMZ. If you have these options ES suggests turning them both off. But you can mess with them, some people get them to work, others can't. It won't hurt anything to turn them off, except that at worst you might have to turn them back on for other games. For me, I just turned them off and never looked back, but your mileage may vary.
Once you have the router setup correctly try getting in to games with other people that you know have routers that are set up correctly. I'm one of those people. If two people with routers correctly setup work, then when you come across others that are invisible to you you will know they are the ones with the incorrect setup, not you.
However, if setting up the router like that did not work there are still a few more options you can turn on which might help. These are specific settings for AoE3. The first one is overriding the IP address that AoE3 uses. To do this:
1. go to C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows Profile Name>\My Documents\My Games\Age of Empires 3\Startup\ and if you don't already have one there create a file called user.cfg. It helps if you turn off the "hide known file type extensions" option so that you can see the file and make sure windows doesn't decide to make it user.cfg.txt or some stupid junk like that.
2. edit the user.cfg file with notepad or GVim or some other simple text editor. DO NOT use Word or Wordpad, these will rewrite the file as a different type. You want the file to be a flat text file, not a doc, or an rtf, or anything like that. Inside the file you want to add the line:
overrideaddress="xxx.xxx.xxx"
where xxx.xxx.xxx will be your actual IP, and this time leave the quotes there, they are needed. If you don't know your actual IP (this is NOT the same as the one from ipconfig) then go to the website:
http://www.whatismyip.com/and if you can't find it on there just kill yourself now. Just a note though, if you aren't paying for a static IP (and very few people are) then your IP can change, especially if your on dial up. If your on Dial up it will change every time you connect to the internet. If your on cable/dsl usually it is set to change once every week, or every 3 days, or whatever. So if this option works for you for a while then stops working your IP probably changed, so visit the website again and put the new number in the user.cfg file.
You can also use the option:
overrideport=2301
where the 2301 can be any number you choose, just make sure it's a port you have open on your router. Again this goes in the user.cfg file. I don't use this one, but you might find it helpful.
Ok, now the last thing I'm thinking of right now is a windows configuration change. You need to turn on UPnP in Windows. Yes, thats right, you turn UPnP on in Windows and off in the router, don't ask me why. Talk to ES about their crappy netcode. Anyway, first you must be logged in as Admin to do this. Here are the steps.
1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. Click Add or Remove Programs, and then click Add/Remove Windows Components.
3. In the Components list, click to select the Networking Services check box, and then click Details.
4. In the Networking Services dialog box, click to select the Internet Gateway Device Discovery and Control Client check box.
5. Click to select the UPnP User Interface check box, and then click OK.
6. Click Next, and then click Finish.
