You receive the "Unable to connect with ESO" error message when you try to play a multiplayer game of Age of Mythology

While you are playing Microsoft Age of Mythology, you cannot connect to the Ensemble Studios Online (ESO) server to play a multiplayer game of Age of Mythology. When you try to connect to ESO, you receive the following error message: Additionally, you may receive the following error message before you receive the first error message:

This problem may occur if the following conditions are true:

• Your access to the Internet is through a router.
• Your router assigns an internal Network Address Translation (NAT) address that cannot be resolved by the ESO server.

Additionally, Age of Mythology may not be able to connect to ESO if your router uses a perimeter network (also known as DMZ, demilitarized zone, and screened subnet) to isolate your internal network from the Internet.

Note A perimeter network is a collection of devices and subnets that are positioned between a private network and the Internet to help protect the private network from unauthorized Internet users. Contact your router manufacturer to correctly set up a perimeter network.

To work around this problem, add the following parameter to the Age of Mythology shortcut icon on your desktop: In this parameter, www.xxx.yyy.zzz is the IP address that is assigned to your router. To add the parameter to the Age of Mythology shortcut icon, follow these steps.

Note You must determine the IP address of your router. To do this, access the router configuration information. For more information, see the documentation that was provided with your router.

1. Right-click the Age of Mythology shortcut icon, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Shortcut tab.
3. In the Target box, change "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Mythology\aom.exe" to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Mythology\aom.exe" OverrideAddress=www.xxx.yyy.zzz.
4. Click OK.

After you complete these steps, if you want to play Multiplayer Age of Mythology over the ESO server, start Age of Mythology. To do this, double-click the modified shortcut icon on your desktop.

For more information about multiplayer issues in Age of Mythology, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Note To check the server status, visit the following Ensemble Studios Web site: