AoE2 on Linux in 2023

Disclaimer: the length of the page may give the impression that this is going to be difficult. It really isn't. Keep on reading :)

Which version of AoE2 should I play?

As of 2023, there are three mutually-incompatible versions of Age of Empires II:

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, released in 2019 for PC and 2023 for Xbox and available on Steam (Linux-friendly), on the Microsoft store (not Linux-friendly) and through the Xbox game pass (not Linux-friendly)
Age of Empires II: HD Edition, released in 2013 and available on Steam (Linux-friendly)
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings / The Conquerors, released in 1999 and available on CD (Linux-friendly) through various resellers

There's very little debate about which version is the best, and they all run on Linux equally well, so let's get straight to the answer: play the Definitive Edition and get it on Steam.

There are some fair points to be made about playing an older version, though:

If your friends play an older version and you want to play with them, play their version.
If your hardware can't run the Definitive Edition, and you can't aford upgrading, try an older version (keep in mind that if you've poor network connectivity, the Definitive Edition is better for online multiplayer).
If you don't have Internet or want to make sure you'll be able to play forever, play The Age of Kings / The Conquerors, because latter versions require an Internet connection (and a server running somewhere at Microsoft).

If none of these is particularly important to you, again: play the Definitive Edition and get it on Steam (NB: you'll be able to play with your friends who got it on the Microsoft Store or through the Xbox game pass, don't worry).

Can I play AoE2 on a Steam Deck?

Yes: the Steam Deck is just a (small) PC running SteamOS, a Linux distribution based on ArchLinux. What follows is applicable to the Steam Deck as to any other PC running Linux. You'll probably want to plug a mouse and a keyboard to your Steam Deck to play, though.

How do I play Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition on Linux?

Single player

Install Steam (the Linux version).
Start Steam and log in.
Open the “Steam” menu (1), then “Settings” (2).

Screenshot of the Steam client with the “Steam” menu open, and the “Settings” entry highlighted

Go to the “Steam Play” section (1) and check the “Enable Steam Play for all other titles” box (2). You can leave the “Run other titles with” dropdown list (3) to its default value (the latest hopefully the better — Proton 8.0-1, 8.0-2 and Experimental may require reasonably recent GPUs, 7.0-5 was fine with even older GPUs).

Screenshot of the Steam client “Settings” window, on the “Steam Play” tab, with the “Enable Steam Play for all other titles” box checked

Now, AoE2:DE should be available in your Steam library as it would be if you were on Windows. Install the game.
If you chose Proton 8.0-1, 8.0-2 or Experimental at step 4, or if you don't want the introduction video, go to your “Library” (1), right click “Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition” (2), click “Properties” (3), then “General“ (4) and type SKIPINTRO in the “Launch options”.

Start the game.

At this point, the game should work fine in single player mode. If you want to play online multiplayer, however, keep on reading.

Online multiplayer

Ignoring what follows won't prevent you from enjoying single player mode, but you'll encounter synchronization issues after a few seconds of playing online.

Quit the game (it is important that you have started it at least once before the next step).
Open a terminal.
Execute the following commands (every single character is important, including the quotes):
- cd "$(mktemp -d)"
- wget "https://download.microsoft.com/download/9/3/F/93FCF1E7-E6A4-478B-96E7-D4B285925B00/vc_redist.x64.exe"
- cabextract vc_redist.x64.exe
- cabextract a10
- chmod u+w ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/813780/pfx/drive_c/windows/system32/ucrtbase.dll
- yes | cp ucrtbase.dll ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/813780/pfx/drive_c/windows/system32
Start the game again.

At this point, the game should work fine in online multiplayer as well. Once in the game, you shouldn't see any difference compared to when playing on Windows.

The above commands will only work if you have wget and cabextract installed. Fortunately, most Linux distributions make it very straightforward to install them.

For example, on ArchLinux and Manjaro, you'd install them as follow:

Open a terminal.
Execute the following command:
- sudo pacman -S wget cabextract

On Debian, Ubuntu, Mint and Pop!_OS, you'd install them as follow:

Open a terminal.
Execute the following command:
- sudo apt install wget cabextract

It is a bit more complex on a Steam Deck with SteamOS, because the filesystem is read-only by default, so you'd install them as follow:

Open a terminal.
Execute the following commands:
- sudo steamos-readonly disable
- sudo pacman-key --init
- sudo pacman-key --populate archlinux
- sudo pacman -S wget cabextract
- sudo steamos-readonly enable

Spectating games or joining lobbies by clicking `aoe2de://` links.

The most interoperable way to have aoe2de:// links opened in the game is probably to configure an XDG scheme handler for that.

Create a file called ~/.local/share/applications/aoe2de.desktop with the following content:

              [Desktop Entry]
              Type=Application
              Name=Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
              Exec=steam -applaunch 813780 %u
              MimeType=x-scheme-handler/aoe2de;

Execute the following command:
- xdg-settings set default-url-scheme-handler aoe2de aoe2de.desktop
Make sure the program in which you click links (web browser, chat client…) uses xdg-open to handle unknown schemes (or at least the aoe2de scheme). That should be the case for most modern programs.

At this point, clicking an aoe2de:// link should start Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (if not already started) and automatically spectate the game or join the lobby.

Troubleshooting

The game disappears after the splash screen on a Nvidia Optimus laptop

Sometimes, it disappears silently, sometimes with an error message about graphics display resolution, minimum requirements and “CreateSwapChain() failed!”.

Nvidia Optimus laptops have two GPUs: one Intel iGPU within the CPU and one Nvidia dGPU in a graphics card. The iGPU is power-efficient and preferred for light tasks (like web browsing) whereas the dGPU is powerful and prefered for heavy tasks (like gaming).

With some combinations of AoE2:DE and Proton, there's a known bug which causes Proton to use an Intel Vulkan ICD on the Nvidia dGPU, which obviously can't work.

The only reliable workaround I'm aware of unfortunately prevents you from using the Intel Vulkan ICD. But, well… it works.

Open a terminal.
Execute the following command:
- sudo mv /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/intel_icd.x86_64.json /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/intel_icd.x86_64.json.disabled
Start the game again.

At this point, the game should work fine… until a driver update restores the Intel Vulkan ICD (at which point you just have to run the same command again).

The above workaround is a “I want to play NOW”-level workaround: it makes the Intel Vulkan ICD temporarily unusable, but doesn't remove it completely from the system. If you think you don't need the Intel Vulkan ICD at all, a cleaner approach would be to uninstall it. Unfortunately, some Linux distributions put all Vulkan ICDs in a single package, making it impossible to uninstall only one of them (for example, Debian, Ubuntu, Mint and Pop!_OS ship the Intel, the Radeon and the Lavapipe ICDs together in the same mesa-vulkan-drivers package).

On a Linux distribution which ships Vulkan ICDs in separate packages, uninstalling the unused ICDs would work around the problem with the advantage of not having the unused ICDs restored every time there's a driver update.

For example, on ArchLinux and Manjaro, the cleaner workaround would be:

Open a terminal.
Execute the following command:
- sudo pacman -R vulkan-intel
Start the game again.

The game disappears after the splash screen after changing my graphics card

Sometimes, it disappears silently, sometimes with an error message about graphics display resolution, minimum requirements and “CreateSwapChain() failed!”.

When you change your graphics card, you may switch to another GPU vendor in the process (eg. you had a Nvidia GPU-based graphics card and switch to an AMD GPU-based graphics card).

With some combinations of AoE2:DE and Proton, there's a known bug which causes Proton to use the Vulkan ICD for the old GPU (eg. Nvidia) instead of the one for the new GPU (eg. AMD), which obviously can't work.

The only reliable workaround I'm aware of unfortunately prevents you from using two Vulkan ICDs at the same time. But, well… it works.

Open a terminal.
Execute one of the following commands (depending on your graphics cards):
- sudo mv /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.x86_64.json /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.x86_64.json.disabled (if you switch from Nvidia to AMD)
- sudo mv /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json.disabled (if you switch from AMD to Nvidia)
Start the game again.

Note: depending on what GPU you were using before, and also on previous upgrades of your operating system, you may have more useless ICDs than just the ones mentionned above. Make sure only the useful ICD is present in /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/ and you should be fine.

At this point, the game should work fine… but you should make sure you've uninstalled the drivers for the old GPU, otherwise a driver update will restore the old Vulkan ICD (at which point you just have to run the same command again).

The above workaround is a “I want to play NOW”-level workaround: it makes the unused Vulkan ICD temporarily unusable, but doesn't remove it completely from the system. Unless you keep both GPUs in your system, you certainly want to uninstall the drivers for the old GPU. Unfortunately, some Linux distributions put all Vulkan ICDs in a single package, making it impossible to uninstall only one of them (for example, Debian, Ubuntu, Mint and Pop!_OS ship the Intel, the Radeon and the Lavapipe ICDs together in the same mesa-vulkan-drivers package).

On a Linux distribution which ships Vulkan ICDs in separate packages, uninstalling the unused ICDs will prevent them from being restored every time there's a driver update.

For example, on ArchLinux and Manjaro, the cleaner workaround would be:

Open a terminal.
Execute one of the following commands:
- sudo pacman -R nvidia-utils (if you switch from Nvidia to AMD)
- sudo pacman -R vulkan-radeon (if you switch from AMD to Nvidia)
Start the game again.

How do I play Age of Empires II: HD Edition on Linux?

Follow the instructions for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, and it should work pretty much the same, I think.

How do I play Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings / The Conquerors on Linux?

Sorry, I haven't written this section yet. It works, though.

A few pointers:

You can use Wine directly; there's no need for Steam Play or Proton.
You'll need to start the game from its installation directory. Running it from anywhere else will cause it to crash right from the start.

How do I play Age of Empires II on LAN on Linux?

Playing on LAN is a way to use the computer of one of the players as the server, when most people use a server provided by Microsoft instead.

This is a feature which is available in all versions of the game, but while it's reachable right from the menu in The Age of Kings / The Conquerors, it's a bit hidden in the UI in later versions.

With Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, LAN mode is available when you create a lobby and select “local LAN” as server. This uses a program called BattleServer.exe on the lobby creator's computer. Unfortunately, as far as I know, nobody has been able to use BattleServer.exe on Linux (the “local LAN” option is not even available in the list of servers).

Keep in mind that the player running the server has to make sure some ports are open on his computer (and not blocked by a firewall, or hidden behind a NAT device, like a router). Also be sure to use TCP/IP and UDP/IP as protocol, as some of the other protocols available in The Age of Kings / The Conquerors (like IPX) are probably not supported anymore by most operating systems, routers…

Why `BattleServer.exe` doesn't work on Linux (technical)

As far as I'm aware, the reason why BattleServer.exe doesn't work on Linux remains unknown.

My own hypothesis (as of August 2022, with Proton 6.3-8) is that it tries communicate with the game over UDP on port 9999 by using the broadcast IP address 255.255.255.255, but does so by using a TCP socket, which may be legal on Windows (I don't know) but isn't on Linux. One can see the following warning message in the console which briefly opens when BattleServer.exe starts:

              2022/08/06 23:20:33 #288 [Warning] Socks::Connect: failed; errno=10013 errstr='ATLAS_NOTINTABLE: Undefined error.'

And at the same time, one can see the following output using strace:

              [pid 125190] bind(10, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(8888), sin_addr=inet_addr("0.0.0.0")}, 16) = 0
              [pid 125190] close(10)                  = 0
              [pid 125190] listen(10, 1000)           = 0
              …
              [pid 125190] dup(10)                    = 11
              [pid 125190] connect(11, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(9999), sin_addr=inet_addr("255.255.255.255")}, 16) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
              [pid 125190] close(11)                  = 0

TCP:8888 and UDP:9999 are two ports which are documented to be used to play the game on LAN, and indeed, we can see that the latter is being used, in the output of lsof -nP -i :9999:

              COMMAND   PID             USER    FD  TYPE  DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAM
              wineserve 131455 nonfreegaming  310u  IPv4 2197508      0t0  UDP *:9999
              AoE2DE_s. 131519 nonfreegaming   55u  IPv4 2197508      0t0  UDP *:9999

I therefore assume that BattleServer.exe is supposed to let the game connect to itself on port 8888 and to broadcast its presence to all running games on the LAN on port 9999, but can't do the latter because instead of creating a new socket of type SOCK_DGRAM for UDP, it uses a copy of a SOCK_STREAM socket designed for TCP.

If you've been able to dig further into the issue, please let me know.

How do I use CaptureAge on Linux?

CaptureAge is a very powerful tool to watch saved gamed with an overlay of information.

Unfortunately, as far as I know, nobody has been able to use it on Linux. With little effort, one can start it, connect to the game and start replaying a saved game, but it won't show in the custom overlay.

To increase the chances of getting CaptureAge on Linux, you can vote for it (as of 2023, Linux support is the second most voted suggestion for CaptureAge).

Why CaptureAge doesn't work on Linux (technical)

As far as I'm aware, the reason why CaptureAge doesn't work on Linux remains unknown.

My own hypothesis (as of August 2021) is that the problem is related to the encryption of IPCs between CaptureAge and the game. Indeed, by looking at the logs, one can see that the initial IPCs are using Windows named pipes (and everything works fine), but then switch to SSL when replaying a saved game (and it breaks here):

              Pipe \\.\pipe\captureage_prod_ipc_REDACTED_domApp instance 0 state: connecting
              Connecting to pipe \\.\pipe\captureage_prod_ipc_REDACTED_domApp
              App event: application heartbeat outOfGame
              Pipe \\.\pipe\captureage_prod_ipc_REDACTED_domApp instance 0 state: reading
              App event: gameIntegration loadRec fromCadeExpanded
              telling game to load replay C:\users\steamuser\Games\Age of Empires 2 DE\REDACTED\savegame.aoe2record
              E0807 15:03:47.671000000   740 ssl_transport_security.cc:507] Corruption detected.
              E0807 15:03:47.671000000   740 ssl_transport_security.cc:483] error:1408F119:SSL routines:ssl3_get_record:decryption failed or bad record mac
              E0807 15:03:47.672000000   740 secure_endpoint.cc:208] Decryption error: TSI_DATA_CORRUPTED
              E0807 15:03:47.672000000   740 ssl_transport_security.cc:534] SSL_write failed with error SSL_ERROR_SYSCALL.

If you've been able to dig further into the issue, please let me know.

Should I play on Linux?

That's an interesting question. I assumed you already had an opinion on this, but if you don't, here are some thoughts:

AoE2 won't work better on Linux than on Windows. If you observe slightly better performance than on Windows, that's because the operating system itself, or other programs running on it (antivirus, bloatware, malware…) were interfering with the game.
AoE2 won't work worse on Linux than on Windows. That being said, as the game is developed for Windows and not for Linux, you may have to apply some tweaks (discussed above) and possibly apply them again every time there's an update.
Linux-based operating systems and Windows are, well, different operating systems. Don't expect them to work exactly the same. If you already use Linux or want to switch to it, then you have the possibility to play AoE2 just fine on it — you don't need to use Windows. If you don't want to switch to Linux, then AoE2 alone is not a good reason to change your mind (there are, however, many valid reasons to want to switch to a Linux-based operating system, but that's off-topic).

All in all, I'd say: play on your operating system of choice; don't let anybody else chose your operating system for you.

Acknowledgements

There's a very long list of people to thank for being able to play AoE2 on Linux. Of course, this would not have been possible without the efforts behind the Wine project since 1993 and behind the DXVK and Proton projects since 2017. But individuals from the AoE2 on Linux community have been helping a lot as well, through Wine's AppDB, ProtonDB, GitHub, Reddit, Discord…

Everything described on this page is the result of many people tireless attempts at making the game work on Linux and their willingness to share their discoveries with everybody.

Thanks everyone, GL HF!

Last update (changelog) on 2023-05-19 (RoR 83607)

§ Which version of AoE2 should I play?

§ Can I play AoE2 on a Steam Deck?

§ How do I play Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition on Linux?

§ Single player

§ Online multiplayer

§ Spectating games or joining lobbies by clicking aoe2de:// links.

§ Troubleshooting

§ The game disappears after the splash screen on a Nvidia Optimus laptop

§ The game disappears after the splash screen after changing my graphics card

§ How do I play Age of Empires II: HD Edition on Linux?

§ How do I play Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings / The Conquerors on Linux?

§ How do I play Age of Empires II on LAN on Linux?

§ How do I use CaptureAge on Linux?

§ Should I play on Linux?

§ Acknowledgements