Age of Empires 3 no longer works

Germany HerrDrumson
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Age of Empires 3 no longer works

Post by HerrDrumson »

Hey,
maybe you can help me with a problem.

So I recently got 'Age of Empires Complete Collection' on Steam and unfortunately found that the extensions are running but the base game itself isn't.
As soon as I start this, a window appears saying 'Age of Empires 3 no longer works'.

I've already spoken to the Steam Support team and they think I should contact X Box Game Studio Support or the developers "Ensemble Studios".
I contacted both support teams and even Microsoft myself, but I didn't get any helpful information and "Ensemble Studios" doesn't exist anymore.

I have already tried the following:
-Uninstall and reinstall the game
-Run the game as an administrator
-Compatibility mode to Windows XP Service pack 3
compatibility mode to Windows Vista Service Pack 2
-in Windows Features, enable the legacy components and DirectPlay also
-Windows updated at the latest
-Driver updated
-in the system configuration all services are deactivated and then the game starts

I don't know what else I can do. And sry for my bad english.
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Re: Age of Empires 3 no longer works

Post by j_t_kirk »

Hi Drumson :lol:
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Czech Republic Googol
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Re: Age of Empires 3 no longer works

Post by Googol »

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Kiribati princeofcarthage
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Re: Age of Empires 3 no longer works

Post by princeofcarthage »

Try reinstalling graphic drivers
Fine line to something great is a strange change.
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Re: Age of Empires 3 no longer works

Post by Sergeant_Recker »

@HerrDrumson You got this game on steam. So how do you launch it? From the Steam or directly by clicking on age3y.exe? Because once this problem occurred to me when i launched the game from the steam. I went to this folder, Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/Age of Empires 3/bin/age3y.exe and changed the compatibility to windows XP SP 3 and launched it directly instead of launching from steam. That worked for me and I made a desktop shortcut of age3y.exe to make it more simpler to launch. If it's possible, send a screenshot of the problem here.
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Re: Age of Empires 3 no longer works

Post by HerrDrumson »

@Sergeant_Recker I've already tried this. Here a screenshot.
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New Zealand zoom
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Re: Age of Empires 3 no longer works

Post by zoom »

BRING ME EAGLEMUT!!
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Re: Age of Empires 3 no longer works

Post by HerrDrumson »

@Sergeant_Recker It says: Age of Empires 3 no longer works

The program is not running properly due to an error. The program will be closed and you will be notified when a solution is available.
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Re: Age of Empires 3 no longer works

Post by princeofcarthage »

Can you teamviewer or anydesk
Fine line to something great is a strange change.
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Re: Age of Empires 3 no longer works

Post by Sergeant_Recker »

HerrDrumson wrote:@Sergeant_Recker It says: Age of Empires 3 no longer works

The program is not running properly due to an error. The program will be closed and you will be notified when a solution is available.

Exactly, I had this problem before because I am also running the game on Windows 10. I didn't launch the game from Steam because it messes up with the compatibility mode. Instead, I tried this:

1. Go to Age of Empires III installation directory. By default it should be C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Age Of Empires 3\bin.
2. In the installation directory locate the age3y.exe and right click it.
3. Choose Properties from the menu and when Properties window opens go to Compatibility tab.
4. Check Run this program for compatibility mode for and choose Windows Vista SP2/ Windows XP SP3/ Windows 7 from the menu.
5. Check Run as Administrator as well.
6. Click Apply and OK to save the changes.
7. Run the game directly by opening the age3y.exe

You sure you tried this? Because it worked for me.
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Czech Republic EAGLEMUT
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Re: Age of Empires 3 no longer works

Post by EAGLEMUT »

Two different issues being talked about here.

@Sergeant_Recker 's issue is caused by Voobly injecting incompatible code into the game. Recommended solution is to not use AoE3 Voobly, run the ESOC Patch installer which deletes the broken Voobly code, and finally set the compatibility options back to optimal state (Windows XP SP3).

@HerrDrumson 's issue is quite common - vanilla just fails to launch on some newer systems, while the expansions work fine. I don't know of a way to fix that.

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