Port Forwarding Guide For Multiplayer Games

*In order to play: Age Of Empires 1 & 2, Flight Simulator Series and other DirectPlay games (Most Zone.com CD-Rom Games) you must have your router set up correctly, regardless if you are on a wireless connection or not. If you are not willing to set up your router correctly then you cannot host games and you [MAY] be able to join games.

Step 1: Creating a Static IP

The first thing you would want to do is create a Static IP, this means that you can expect your IP address to stay the same even if you disconnect from the Internet and reconnect to it later. This is very to set up, Click on Your Operating System below and instructions on how to create a Static IP will be there.

Static IP Instructions: Windows 98
Static IP Instructions: Windows 2000
Static IP Instructions: Windows ME
Static IP Instructions: Windows XP
Static IP Instructions: Window Vista

Step 2: Configuring Your Router

After creating a Static IP sucessfully, find the model number of your router and write this down. After writing it down, select the model number from this list.

After doing this you will be presented with a list of applications, Click on the Age Of Empires link, Even if you do not own Age Of Empires the ports for it are the exact same ports for other common DirectPlay games. Follow the instructions for your router, forward the ports and play away! Here is a list of common ports for other games that have multiplayer.

Step 3: Configuring your Firewall (If needed)

If everything is working properly after the first two steps then this is not needed. But if you did everything correctly in the first two steps and you still have no luck you may have a firewall blocking the ports. Click here to see a list of Firewall appliactions, After choosing the one thats installed on your computer it will take you to instructions on how to allow ports incoming and outgoing. Thanks to Portforward.com for providing these great webpages.