How to Play Age of Empires 2 Online

Age of Empires II: Age of Kings is a real-time strategy game released by Ensemble Studios (Developer) and Microsoft (Publisher) in 1999. Age of Kings (or AoK) places the player in control of one of 13 civilizations, with the goal of gathering resources and expanding to defeat other civilizations.

Instructions

1. To play AoK online, you will need a copy of the game installed on your computer. If you installed the game from a CD, you will need a valid CD key during the installation. Once the game is installed, you may need to update the game to have the most up-to-date patch.

2. Go to Microsoft.com. Search for "Age of Empires II: Age of Kings" and click the first link that the search yields. This will take you to the official AoK page. Once there, click the "Downloads" tab on the upper left to navigate to the Downloads page. Scroll down until you see "The Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings Update 2.0a." Scroll down and download this file in your language, saving it to your desktop. Run the file when it finishes or by double clicking the file on your desktop. Click "Next" until the installation starts, then click "Finish" when it ends.

3. With the game installed and updated, the next step is finding a place to play. Open your browser and go to the International Gaming Zone (IGZ) website (igzones.com/). Click "Create New Account" on the right under the "User login" tab. Using your email address and a password of your choosing, create a new account and verify it from your email account.

4. Once your account is activated, go to the International Gaming Zone's Downloads page by clicking on the "Downloads" tab at the top right of the page. Download the latest version of its game client using the same methods you used to download the AoK patch.

5. Once the client is installed, run the client and log in using your IGZ account. From there you should have no trouble finding an AoK game or hosting your own.