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will AoE4 ever run?
ExpandingMan Oct 28, 2021
I saw on protondb that the latest posts saying this is borked was over a month ago so I figured what the hell, I'll give it a shot. I was somewhat surprised that it doesn't launch at all (surprised only because there are so few games I can't get to launch... this is the only one at the moment), tried on both latest Proton Experimental and latest GloriousEggroll.

Of course Microsoft is the publisher here, so I wouldn't be surprised if there is some sumbaggery at work. Is there a known anti-cheat on it?

I don't see an issue for it on the proton repo yet, figured I'd wait for more information before opening one myself. I'd like to launch it from the command line so I can see logging output, but I'm still struggling with what are the correct ways of running stuff (I have a question about that in another forum post).

I'm mildly hopeful that with steam-deck coming up valve is going to be really pissed off about whatever MS likely did to prevent this from running and will put some kind of priority on getting it running as I suspect it'll be pretty popular.

Figured I'd start a thread to collect and share information anyone might have on this game.
whizse Oct 28, 2021
No big conspiracy. It was an unimplemented function in Wine and some issues in vkd3d.

Bugs does not get fixed if people doesn't report the issues (in the correct place).

See https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/5258
ExpandingMan Oct 28, 2021
Cool! Really glad it's not any anti-cheat shenanigans, looking forward to playing it eventually.
Spl-it Nov 1, 2021
Have a look at this:

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/5258

The game works with proton-experimental [bleeding-edge]

Apply the same "fix" that's needed for AoE2 multiplayer:
 
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
cp ucrtbase.dll $APPROPRIATE_PATH_WITHIN_PROTON_DIRECTORY


I'm playing the game right now, works fine after this
ExpandingMan Nov 10, 2021
Sorry all, I sort of forgot about this forum and did not update. The game was working for me as of a proton experimental patch to steam a couple of days after release.

Still get a couple of sporadic crashes *only* in campaign, which is a bit weird since I now have a good 6 or 7 hours in random maps with no issues whatsoever. Perhaps it has something to do with loading assets? (I have not checked as of yesterdays patch whether it still crashes.)
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