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Age of Empires 2 HD Guide

Discussion in 'Guides' started by Daerandin, Jan 4, 2015.

  • by Daerandin, Jan 4, 2015 at 2:58 PM
  • Daerandin

    Daerandin Well-Known Member

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    Age of Empires 2 is an old classic among strategy games. You advance through different medieval stages where your available troops and technologies become better as you advance in "age". The game features a lot of historical single player campaigns, as well as random maps and a map editor.

    aoe2_title.jpg

    The guide will explain how to setup Steam in PlayOnLinux so that you can install and play the game in steam.

    Tips & Specs

    To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual: PlayOnLinux explained

    Arch Linux 64-bit
    PlayOnLinux 4.2.5
    Wine 1.7.33

    Setup PlayOnLinux

    Launch PlayOnLinux and select 'Tools' and 'Manage Wine versions'

    In the new window that appears, scroll through the 'Available Wine versions' box to find '1.7.33' and click on the right pointing arrow to install it, afterwards it will appear on the right side under 'Installed Wine versions'
    If you have a 64-bits system, make sure you have selected the 'Wine versions (x86)' tab above, although it works well on 64-bit as well to my experience, I just will not cover it in this guide

    aoe2_01.jpg

    Just close the window. Back at the main PlayOnLinux window, select 'Install'

    Click on 'Install a non-listed program'

    aoe2_02.jpg

    Select 'Install a program in a new virtual drive'

    aoe2_03.jpg

    Name the virtual drive "steam_age2"

    aoe2_04.jpg

    On the next window, select 'Use another version of Wine', 'Configure wine' and 'Install some libraries'

    aoe2_05.jpg

    On the wine selection window, select the 1.7.33 version and click 'Next'. Make sure you select '32-bits window installation' if you are on a 64-bit system, although as mentioned earlier, it should also work using a 64-bit virtual drive if so desired.

    aoe2_06.jpg

    When the wine configuration window appear, select the 'Graphics' tab, and click the checkbox for all four options. Make sure that you set the resolution to your desktop resolution. My desktop is at 1920 x 1080, so I set that for the wine virtual desktop resolution.

    Note that you can set the resolution lower if you want the game to appear as a window in your desktop. Just keep in mind that the lowest resolution you can use is 1024 x 768. If you set anything lower than that, the game will crash on start.

    aoe2_07.jpg

    Note: Even though the language is Norwegian in my screenshot, the layout will look the same for you

    Next we will do a workaround for an issue with the Steam overlay. For some people it appears to be fixed, but there are still people reporting it as an issue on WineHQ, so it is best to disable the Steam overlay.

    Now select the 'Libraries' tab, and under 'New override for library:' type in "gameoverlayrenderer" and click 'Add'

    overlay.png

    Now find and select it on the list below, then click on 'Edit'

    overlay02.png

    In the new window that appears, select 'Disable', then simply click OK to close the wine config window.

    overlay03.png

    When you come to the selection of libraries, select POL_Install_steam

    aoe2_08.jpg

    Then click Next

    You have to go through the Steam install process manually. I always prefer to install Steam by using this library in PlayOnLinux since it takes care of the missing font issue in Steam, while also installing the corefonts library so it looks better than just a manual Steam install.

    Just click Next

    aoe2_09.jpg

    Click to accept the license, pick your preferred language, and just let it install to the default location and click Install

    aoe2_10.jpg

    When the Steam installation is finished, make sure you uncheck the box for starting Steam, we do not want to start Steam at this point.

    After you have unchecked the box for starting Steam, you can click on Finished

    aoe2_11.jpg

    When it asks you for the install file to run, click on 'Cancel'

    aoe2_12.jpg

    The virtual drive has already been set up by this point and there is no need to run any install file. Now back at the main PlayOnLinux window, click on 'Configure', it does not matter what game shortcut is selected when you click 'Configure' so don't worry about that.

    On the left side, find the virtual drive you just set up, it will be listed with the same name you typed in during set-up. Look for 'steam_age2'. Select the virtual drive, then click 'Make a new shortcut from this virtual drive'

    aoe2_13.jpg

    Check the screenshot above for reference. It is very important that you select the virtual drive you just set up before clicking to make a new shortcut.

    Select Steam.exe and click next. You can name the shortcut "Steam - Age of Empires 2 HD" then click 'I don't want to make another shortcut' and click next.

    aoe2_14.jpg

    Now click on the 'Display' tab on the top. Change 'Video memory size' to reflect your GPU memory.

    aoe2_15.jpg

    At this point you can close the PlayOnLinix configuration window and start Steam from the Shortcut in the main PlayOnLinux window. First Steam will update

    aoe2_16.jpg

    Then you can log in to your Steam account

    aoe2_17.jpg

    Now just find the game in your game library, and click Install

    aoe2_18.jpg

    Once the game is done installing, you should click on Play. However, the game is not going to launch and you will most likely see this

    aoe2_19.jpg

    Just close the error message. It should pop up again a second time, and you should close this one too. Once the First time install dialogue has stopped running, you should close Steam.

    Back at the main PlayOnLinux window, right click on the game shortcut for Steam - Age of Empires 2 HD and select 'Open the application's directory'

    aoe2_20.jpg

    Now you should open the folders: steamapps -> common -> Age2HD

    When you are in the Age2HD directory, you should see the files and folders indicated in my screenshot below.

    aoe2_21.jpg

    Now find the file called "Launcher.exe" and rename this file. You shoudl rename it to "Launcher.exe.bak"

    aoe2_22.jpg

    Once you have renamed that file, find "AoK HD.exe" You should rename this file to "Launcher.exe"

    aoe2_23.jpg

    This will let you launch the game from Steam. Now to get rid of the crashes when attempting to launch the game. Find the folder "_CommonRedist" and open it.

    aoe2_24.jpg

    Now open the folder "vcredist", there should be two more folders in here, called 2010 and 2012. Both of these folders will have a file called "installscript.vdf" You should delete this file from both the 2010 an the 2012 folders.

    aoe2_25.jpg

    You can now close the File manager window and launch the game shortcut from PlayOnLinux. These changes we have made might be undone if the game receives an update on Steam, so you may want to right click on the game name within Steam and select Properties. From there you can disable updates for this particular game.

    If you have The Forgotten expansion for this game on Steam, then you need to switch between the expansion and the classic game from the main menu. You can do the switch at the top of the main menu, between "Learn to Play" and "Single Player"

    aoe2_switch.jpg

    If you have The Forgotten expansion enabled, then the classic and Conquerors campaigns will not be available. So simply click to switch if you want to play the old campaigns.

    Screenshots

    aoe2_sc01.jpg aoe2_sc02.jpg
    aoe2_sc03.jpg aoe2_sc04.jpg
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2015
    mrdeathjr28 likes this.

Comments

Discussion in 'Guides' started by Daerandin, Jan 4, 2015.

  1. mrdeathjr28
    Very good guide and good for add graphic steps for rename launcher, installscript.vdf step is very interesting maybe test with others steam titles

    Something more try add note about this game, crash on startup if use screen resolution minor 1024x768

    :)
  2. allenskd
    One of the good ol' games. A blast from the past! I spent hours and hours playing AOE2 and Age of Mythology. I wish RTS were more appreciated in our current time :(
  3. mrdeathjr28
    Yes very good game, in my case have classic age of empires 2 and age of mythologies and both works without problem in wine, and works too in low resolution without problem and without need any net framework dependency
  4. booman
    Daerandin - Did I get the categories right? Tactical and Role Playing Games? Or is it more Strategy?

    I see you have removed your Wine themes, now its looking more generic :cool:

    Does the In-Game Overlay work in Wine 1.7.33? I noticed you didn't include steps to disable it.

    Nice touch with the vdf script. I have been deleting those as well if there are problems with libraries or launching the game. Some games will hang on installing libraries because it doesn't detect that you already installed them. Otherwise, it the game plays fine then I don't bother.
  5. Daerandin
    I don't even care to guess how many hours I've spent playing years ago.

    I actually forgot to include the steps for the overlay, thanks for pointing that out. I still get crashes with overlay enabled. I'll edit the guide to include those steps.

    @mrdeathjr28 I'll try what you mention about the lower resolution. The old Age og Empires 2 could run on very low resolution, kind of strange if this does not work on lower resolutions. Then again, it's the HD release of the game so perhaps they simply didn't think of that.
  6. Daerandin
    As for the category, since this a lot of the focus in this game is on efficient building and resource management, I'd say this is more of a strategy game, definitely not a role playing game.
  7. mrdeathjr28
    With this i refer to Age II HD dont run if you use desktop resolution lower to 1024x768*

    And this is correct classic age II runs in lower resolutions

    *this only for tip if anyone try test in some resolution minor to 1024x768

    :)
  8. Daerandin
    I just tested it myself and it does indeed crash if the virtual desktop resolution is less than 1024*768. I will include this in the guide.
    mrdeathjr28 likes this.
  9. booman
    that is pretty strange. I always set the virtual desktop to 1024x768 anyways, but I know the default is 800x600 so this may be a problem if you don't specify the virtual desktop resolution
  10. Aremis
    I have a bug where I need to go out of the window and back in to get hotkeys to work but when I do that it shoots the camera off in one direction.

    Any ideas?
  11. booman
    Are you using Alt+Tab switch windows?
    I found that switching to a different desktop is better. Alt+Tab has been buggy in many games in Wine.
  12. Aremis
    Actually I found a very very very bad bug in the game via wine. If I alt tab to my friends list or whatever to join a game and click the window to get back it will shoot the cameras off in one direction. The mouse isn't at the edge, the camera just goes and I can't stop it. I have to Alt+Tab only or join the game and let the game start itself.
  13. booman
    Yeah, that is a common bug with some older games. Specially if the menu is only 800x600 or smaller. Try playing windowed but make sure the game windowed setting matches your Linux Desktop resolution. This way the game fills the screen, but you can interact with other windows.

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