This will allow you to play Age of Wonders III while bypassing the launcher. It is up to you if this is useful.

What you need to know.
You need to know where your Age Of Wonders III is installed. For me it is "C:\GOG Games\Age of Wonders III\AoW3.exe" If you installed to a different directory then you will need to figure this out on your own and make that alteration in your .bat file.

You need to have already created a profile with Triumph Studios know what your profile name is. Replace PROFILENAME below with your profile name. This is probably case sensitive.

Decide if you want to play offline or online. You MUST play offline if you use the GUEST account.

1) Create an ascii or UTF-8 text file with the file extension ending with .bat (i.e. run.bat). In Notepad you can save the file as "run.bat" WITH THE QUOTES to force it to save it as a .bat file.

2) Copy the following two lines to the first line of the .bat file.
@ECHO OFF
CD "C:\GOG Games\Age of Wonders III\"

3a) ONLINE MODE: Copy the following line to to the second line of the .bat file.
Edited on 7 April, 2014 to allow the .bat file to be located anywhere and not just from the game's directory.

"C:\GOG Games\Age of Wonders III\AoW3.exe" -profile "PROFILENAME" -no_registration

3b) OFFLINE MODE: Copy the following line to to the second line of the .bat file.
"C:\GOG Games\Age of Wonders III\AoW3.exe" -profile "PROFILENAME" -offline

3c) GUEST MODE: Copy the following line to to the second line of the .bat file.
"C:\GOG Games\Age of Wonders III\AoW3.exe" -profile "GUEST" -offline

4) Save the changes. You should probably also close the text editor.

If you want to play online and your Triumph Studios profile name is "StudBeefpile" then your .bat file should look like the one below. (Yes, that is an Escape Velocity reference).

@ECHO OFF
CD "C:\GOG Games\Age of Wonders III\"
"C:\GOG Games\Age of Wonders III\AoW3.exe" -profile "StudBeefpile" -no_registration

Note: Graphics and Audio settings are saved and loaded with your profile.

Thank you very much for this bat file! Works like charm!

Thank you.

I got worried when I saw the instructions for creating a 2 line .bat file was about a page long.


I also forgot to finish typing the following sentence in the original post. I'll remove now as it isn't needed for creating the bat file.

"I assume the -no_registration parameter means 'skip the create profile step' although the launcher (and not the game) will let you create a profile if you click the 'Create Triumph Account' button."

Any chance someone can sticky this?

Oh neat thank you!

So will this create a new profile if specified? I really dislike the whole "guest" thing they have set up and would prefer a real profile name created myself.

No, It does not create a new profile. It launches with an existing profile.

If you specify a profile that does not exist then the game may crash. (Well, it crashes my laptop when I tried this).

NOTE: The GUEST account must already exist for the .bat file to work as well (create with the launcher first).

The profile name is barely visible in the game, mostly (or maybe completely) on the main screen where it will let you change your profile from a dropdown menu.

This .bat file will make launching the game as a guest painless, although being able to have multiple local profiles would be nice for those with multiple siblings.

Yes that is really what I am after, not having multiple profiles seems really odd. Hopefully they will add it later as it is a very common feature.

The best work-a-round I can offer at this time is to use separate Windows log-in accounts.
The game will save the Profile data in the currently logged-in user's document directory.

The other thing you could try is to write batch scripts for each person which renames the guest profiles so each person has their own guest profile when they run the game via a .bat file.

The reason we can't just rename a copy of the GUEST profile is because there is a hash or checksum in the .APD file that will detect such a change and crash the game.

Thanks MrNybbles!

I just tried this in steam.
After editing the target with your parameters I coud start AoW directly from steam, including the ingame overlay.
i just added the -password parameter so now it looks like “E:\Spiele\Age of Wonders III\AoW3.exe” -profile “HierKoennteIhrNameStehen” -password “VollSicheresPasswort”

So I get logged in successfull and can play online with my friends after they see me in steam playing AoW. Thanks again!

hi

the bat file not work for me :(

after a d.clic on the run.bat
correctly saved "run.bat"

i have this incredible message:

do you have a profil? It might be corrupted. delete .APD and .APS files in the profile folder.

XD

i dont have this files in my profile,my profil folder is empty! i try this tweak for : create a profil XD

WHAT is so complicated ? :( :( :(
it is a DRM procedure ??? in such case, i'm sure i want buy my next game on steam !

i cant understand how to register the game ( i have my serial key game buyed in gog) but i cant launch the game...i try 3 days ago and i'm very tired XD

a solution please ?

my code lines:
@ECHO OFF CD "C:\GOG Games\Age of Wonders III\"
"C:\GOG Games\Age of Wonders III\AoW3.exe" -profile "GUEST" -offline

and i try with

@ECHO OFF CD "C:\GOG Games\Age of Wonders III\"
"C:\GOG Games\Age of Wonders III\AoW3.exe" -profile "PROFILNAME" -offline

of course PROFILNAME is my user name in a account created in Triumph Studios.com...it is just that? an account created in the Triumph Studios forums ? 0_0

i cant understand how to register my game...? and i cant launch the game ><

(sorry for my english) and THANK YOU !