Quote Originally Posted by Jochi Khan View Post
When I first installed this game, opened router ports, set firewalls to allow access to the game etc I was able to host games and join other players hosted games.

Since the first 'auto' patch I have been unable to join or host games.
But can join Quick Battles, where Steam selects your army and opponent. Veeery strange.

I have checked and double checked ALL settings and still without success.

The dreaded Unable to join game. No response from Host.
Some thoughts that may or not be helpful.

Preconceptions can be your worst enemy at this stage of troubleshooting.

For example, “it worked before, so it should work now”.

It may have worked before as a fluke, other people were having other major problems, and when the other problems were solved by the patch, the fluke that should have never happened in the first place, went away.

You see what I mean?

And there have been three patches, your current situation showed up on the second patch. I hoped the third would have corrected it, but not so.

Quick Games operate through the Steam Server (and why they are limited games), where the hosted games require linking with the game host. That is very likely why you can have one and not the other.

Empire Total War is not a server based game like many of the other games on Steam. GameSpy and Electronic Arts before them got the same bad rap when it was never of them either.

Total War games have always been host based games. The fact you do not even have to be connected to Steam to play multiplayer (you can play via Hamachi), should tell you something...

http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...71#post9574471
It seems that the hosting computer is not recognizing you computer, or your computer is not able to receive the response from the host. The result is you get no answer to your request to join, and then your program efficiently times out and tells you that, with the error message.

Btw have you checked with BT Broadband Desktop Help?

http://www.btopenworld.com/drivers