Age of Empires 3 LAN with two different versions?

[Icyculyr]

Hi,

I've got Age of Empires 3 and the two expansions, the warchiefs, and the asian dynasties.
I'm wanting to play with my dad over LAN, I've installed all three of the versions on both his and my computer, I insert Warchiefs into his disc drive and create the LAN game, I insert dynasties into my disc drive and go and look for the game, but it isn't there.

I'm not expecting to play with the asian dynasties expansion (content), I did however think with the dynasties disc inserted that it would be backward compatible with the other two versions.

Is this possible? I'd prefer not to have to buy another collection of TAD games just so we can play, if it isn't possible I might try just buying a new copy of TAD, so I have two discs.

 

[Slapshot136]

it's not possible to have a dynasties disk play with a warchiefs disk, but I think you can insert the disk, launch the game, and then move the disk over to the other computer and then start it like that

 

[Icyculyr]

I'll give that a shot, but I don't think so. I've found previously if I take the disc out, I get a "please insert the disc and retry" message.

I thought about doing a no cd crack, but, all the sites are incredibly questionable, and no doubt loaded with stuff I don't want.

Is it illegal to make a copy of the disc for this purpose? I'm leaning towards yes...

 

[13lade619]

i think having an iso of the disk in the other pc and running it virtual drive wouldnt be a problem..

 

[Slapshot136]

I'll give that a shot, but I don't think so. I've found previously if I take the disc out, I get a "please insert the disc and retry" message.

that wasn't the case for me with age of empires 2, but I haven't tried it with 3 yet

if that fails, im not sure how you it would work on a mac, but if both computers were running windows, you could share the entire cd drive over the network and thus both computers could use it at once

 

[Icyculyr]

i think having an iso of the disk in the other pc and running it virtual drive wouldnt be a problem..

How would I do that?

that wasn't the case for me with age of empires 2, but I haven't tried it with 3 yet

if that fails, im not sure how you it would work on a mac, but if both computers were running windows, you could share the entire cd drive over the network and thus both computers could use it at once

Did I mention we're both using Windows 7 ?

How do I do that? Sounds pretty good... would it work though? What does the disc actually do? If the game is reading files from it wouldn't it conflict or something?

 

[Immolation]

You sure you updated it to the latest patch? I believe that removes the need of the disk, not sure though,

 

[Icyculyr]

Yeah, I dl'd by going to ES online it auto downloads the latest before I can see the login screen.

 

[Slapshot136]

How would I do that?

Did I mention we're both using Windows 7 ?

on the computer that has the disk you would go to start -> computer and then right click on the age of empires disk, then properties, then go to the sharing tab, advanced sharing, and then check "share this folder"

on the other computer, you would go to "network" then find the computer that has the disk, then double click on the disk to launch age of empires from there

it shouldn't conflict because it's only reading from the disk, and even then I don't think it reads from the disk while actually playing the game, since it's faster to read from the hard drive - I guess it depends on if you did a full install or not'

if you wanted to go the iso route, I would use IsoRecorder to make an iso from the disk, then move the iso file over to the other computer, and then use something like magicIso or powerIso to mount it, but I don't know if this would actually work since the disks are usually protected to prevent this kind of thing

 

[Icyculyr]

Ah ok, the sharing the drive thing sounds like a good idea.

Couldn't I copy all the files off it and burn them to a disc? and then use that second disc as a way to let it run on my dads computer?

 

[Slapshot136]

Couldn't I copy all the files off it and burn them to a disc? and then use that second disc as a way to let it run on my dads computer?

that's the same as the iso route except for that an iso is a container that holds all the files from the disk, burning an iso and then using that disk or just mounting it is the exact same

 

[Icyculyr]

ah ok, cool... thanks guys

 

[Icyculyr]

Ha, it worked! TYVM!

I tried it with my BF 2142 disc and it didn't work though, o well.

 

[13lade619]

what exactly? the newtork sharing fix?

 

[Icyculyr]

Ah yes, it was that. I shared my D drive, connected to my computer from dad's so it was accessible, and voila.

 

[Icyculyr]

I don't know why, but TAD is letting me open it without the disc. I'm thinking it was like this all along lol :banghead:... I was sure it needed it though, maybe sharing the drive did something... idk.