If you buy AOE: DE once can you install it on 2 of your local PCs and LAN?

Hi all,

I just purchased the ‘pre order’. I have 2 PCs at home which we currently use a LAN to play AOE 2 and AOE 3 using purchased copies.

Do i have to have 2 separate MS account logins and buy the game twice? Or if i login to my other PC (windows 7 based) and install via my current MS account it will let me LAN the two?

Cheers all.

Good question. Upvoted.

Will there be LAN at all or will everything be online?

I would love to know the answer to this as well. My friends and I still get together to play the originals on the LAN. It would be nice to know if the DE versions will support this still.

Your first issue is you will be unable to play it on your window 7 machine, its only window 10 compatible, secondly, if you purchased it on one account its is shareable on all computers on that account.

The question is whether we can play on lan using the same account.

@Urabus555 said:
Hi all,

I just purchased the ‘pre order’. I have 2 PCs at home which we currently use a LAN to play AOE 2 and AOE 3 using purchased copies.

Do i have to have 2 separate MS account logins and buy the game twice? Or if i login to my other PC (windows 7 based) and install via my current MS account it will let me LAN the two?

Cheers all.

You definitely won’t be able to play it on Win 7. But in case of 2 Win10 PCs that’s actually a very interesting question!

I seriously hope so.

Myself, my older brother and twin sister all loved playing the originals.

However, It would be a bit of a downer if we all had to buy the game on our own accounts. On the other hand, I’m not sure how it would work.

Little idea, maybe have a add guest button in LAN games? If you’re all connected to the same WIFI / Internet connection then it could detect another computer device which has the game installed and is capable of running AOED.

Obviously for Online games and connecting with your friends then you’ll all need a copy. But for a LAN game, I think it would be great to have this option.

The Windows Store page says, “Install on a Windows 10 PC plus have access when you’re connected to your Microsoft Account.”

I think the restriction is that you won’t be able to play the game using the same Microsoft Account on multiple PCs at once. One license per Microsoft Account.

If you share PCs with your family or significant other, I don’t see a problem with installing the game on them all because you’ll only be able to play the game on one PC at a time with one license.

Thanks for the discussion and valuable information.

Ill be updating our other PC to Windows 10 and hope what some have suggested that we can actually “play it on a LAN using the same MS account on 2 different Win10 PCs”

The original had the functionality of 3 people per CD, so you could use the “demo” version to play mp. Personally I’d hope this becomes 3 computers per MS account, as you need to be logged in, to even get the download, you’d hope this would be possible. Or to add guests somehow. The issue may be that the whole xbox live account is used to rank people or do achievements. The game would need a local play option over wifi or LAN, such that stats are not valid for those games.

Actually a good reason to make the AOE DE versions free to play with e.g. one civ. They can join in Online or LAN with just that civ and could even play ranked games if they want.