Anyway, I downloaded the software and jumped into a room full of rookies, ready to start swinging. Anyway, I immediately got an error message, to the effect that I have an outdated version of the game, and that I have to download a newer version to play. So I downloaded the patch, only to get the same message.
Stymied, I just gave up. Until I saw a post at Planet AOE that described just such a problem. That writer said he corrected the problem by downloading a newer version of IE. After installing Explorer 5.5 the problem was fixed.
Now, I use Netscape 4.7 as my default, but I have v. 6 as well. I don't even know what version of IE I have, since I rarely use it. I'm going to play around and see if I can access a room with Netscape 6. If not, I'll download IE 5.5. It's just that my phone connection has been so bad of late I haven't bothered.