Issue: Cannot play Arena of the Gods while internet is not connected.
Trigger Event: Game will force you back to title screen and give you a notification that you’re disconnected from the internet and will not allow you to play the gamemode.
Repro Steps:
I have the same problem, with the same game version/build number/platform/OS as the original poster.
My uploaded screenshot, from a clean offline startup of AoM Retold without any internet connection, shows the error and an error message.
A text-based version of the error message is as follows:
"Arena of the Gods
Initialization Failed
0001-0001-fffffffe"
The Arena of the Gods icon is greyed out and says “Arena of the Gods is currently not available”. Multiplayer is also greyed out, and Campaign and Skirmish are both accessible, as all three ought to be, so this is an issue purely with Arena of the Gods.
After reading about other people with the same issue, my suspicion is that the game is erroneously treating Arena of the Gods as a co-op lobby/game even when playing single-player mode. It also functions like a multiplayer game in other ways; e.g. cheat codes are completely disabled and saving the game is not possible, unlike skirmish mode where both are allowed.
If it were up to me, I’d make the main Arena of the Gods button access the single-player version of AotG, while co-op AotG would be accessed through either the current Multiplayer button or a dedicated co-op button.
Game Version: Version 100.17.51177.0
Build Number: 509929R
Platform: Steam
Operating System: Windows 10
The glitch was not resolved in the new update, and continues to break single-player Arena of the Gods.