General

• Fixed an issue where Scouts can skip their reload animations.

AI Updates

• Unique AI names have been shortened to use less screen space.

AI Updates (Nomad Mode)

• Fixed a problem in Nomad mode where building your Town Center close to an AI’s Town Center could cause the AI to stop playing. Now, the AI will still start building again in a different location.

UX/UI & Menus (All Platforms)

• Added a separate Free-For-All map pool which contains Megarandom and Land Megarandom only. This pool has one veto and is used when a Free-For-All match is found in Quick Match. We plan to look at how best to expand this pool in future with maps which are more appropriate for the Free-For-All experience.
• Fixed an issue on Xbox consoles where a permission dialogue would show for settings other than cross play when adjusting Cross Play settings.
• Fix an issue on Xbox consoles where Pages of History failed to display.
• Fixed a bug where if the player views a replay from someone else’s profile, after the replay they were viewing their own profile. Now, after a replay, players will view the profile they originally started the replay from.
• Reduced rose sigil size.
• Fixed a softlock that may occur when accepting an invite while in a loading screen of the tutorial mission.

Remappable Hotkeys

• It’s now possible to bind the keys Ctrl+NumLock, Ctrl+Pause and Ctrl+ScrollLock.

General Changes & Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that required using parameters on Steam for older PCs to avoid a crash during launch.
• Fixed an issue where Springalds received extra damage from Horseman and Mangonels.
• Fixed an issue where the HRE Prelate UI counter wasn’t displayed. 
• Fixed a Sync Error that would occur when using the “It Was Known” cheat in a multiplayer match.

All Civilizations

• Arrow ships Food cost reduced from 90 to 80.
• Springald ship Food cost reduced from 120 to 110.

                        Abbasid Dynasty

• Culture Wing – Medical Centers now applies a healing aura to Town Centers as well as Keeps.

                             Ayyubids

(Variant Civilization: Abbasid Dynasty)

• Corrected an issue where Tower of the Sultan would lose Blacksmith upgrades after researching incendiary arrows.

                             Byzantines

• Increased the Mercenary Contract research time from 0 to 10 seconds to allow for adjustment in case of a mis-click.  
• Dromon Food cost reduced from 110 to 100.

                                  English

• Campfire has been removed from the Man-at-Arms and can now be found on the Scout.
• Campfire now shines brighter with an increase in sight from 3 to 5 tiles.
• Campfire now has team color on the minimap.
• Abbey of Kings Landmark now automatically queues a free King upon completion of the Landmark.
• Berkshire Palace Landmark weapon range bonus reduced from 15 tiles to 14.5 tiles.
• Wynguard Palace Landmark
  • Wynguard Footman cost changed from 200 Food, 500 Gold to 300 Food, 400 Gold.
  • Ranger and Footman train time reduced from 50 to 45 seconds.

                              French

• War Cog Food cost reduced from 85 to 75.

                            Jeanne d'Arc

(Variant Civilization: French)

• Smithy’s Grace, the French Civilization bonus that provides free Blacksmith Upgrades, is no longer granted to Jeanne d’Arc.

                     Order of the Dragon

(Variant Civilization: Holy Roman Empire)

• Battering Ram build time reduced from 70 seconds to 45 seconds.
• Siege Tower build time reduced from 30 to 19.5 seconds.

                              Ottomans

• Grand Galley Food cost reduced from 150 to 135.

                                Rus

• Kremlin’s default arrow and garrison arrow weapon range reduced from 8 to 7 tiles.

Investigation

Known Issue

We’ve seen reports of players attempting to queue for Free-For-All (FFA) in a party receiving a server error message. Party play is currently not supported while queueing for a FFA match and the option to select the FFA match type should be disabled while in a party. Currently, the option is not disabled properly, and the server error is preventing teams from entering the FFA queue. This is intended, and we plan to make a future fix to disable the FFA option in these circumstances.

Community-Reported Issues:

• Your reports continue being crucial to our prioritization and implementation of fixes and features in the game. Keep them coming!
  

For other known issues, please visit this page to see what’s being tracked!

Coming Up…

We’re working on our next update and look forward to sharing more soon.

New! Limited-time Scenario: The Siege

Introducing The Siege, a new multiplayer limited-time scenario! Play 2v2, co-op vs AI, or solo vs AI as the Turks or Byzantines at the epic 1453 Siege of Constantinople.
Turks must build up their army to take the Monument before time runs out. Byzantines have defenses but limited resources to hold on as long as they can. Both sides do battle over the massive and historically-inspired city of Constantinople.
Play against other players, team up against the AI, or play solo as either side of the battle.
And if you love The Siege, the new Victors and Vanquished expansion includes two solo scenarios that expand on the battle with voice acting, more objectives, scripted events, and more!

Stability & Performance

• Fixed an out of sync issue which could occur in games with AI players.
• Fixed a pathfinding crash introduced in Update 107882.

Hotkeys

• Fixed an issue where non-standard keys from different keyboard layouts would not be registered.
• Seek Shelter hotkey now works correctly for Mule Carts.
• Hotkeys for training units on the other Dock page now work correctly when holding down Shift.

Recorded Games & Spectator

• Players on the scoreboard are no longer occasionally falsely displayed as resigned (crossed out).

Multiplayer

• Starting a LAN server no longer causes a disconnect from multiplayer services.

Xbox

• A significant drop in performance no longer occurs when opening Command Menu for a unit.
• Fixed an issue where the wrong loading screen would appear for campaign missions.
• Campaign difficulty icons now appear next to the labels of campaign missions on the “Victors and Vanquished” campaign screen.
• Added a visual indicator in the campaign menu to show ownership status of the Victors and Vanquished DLC.
• Fixed an issue where the building requirements for the next age would disappear when hovering over the age-up button.
• Fixed an issue where pressing “A” on a building would set the rally point to itself.

General

• Upon ungarrisoning from siege weapons, units with a projectile attack must now go through a reload time before attacking.

Fixes

• Units tasked to garrison or looking for shelter will now walk towards buildings with no free garrison space instead of staying idle.
• Villagers can no longer convert resources into food when using the Drop Off command.
• Villagers now go to the correct dropsite depending on the resource they are carrying, and can no longer drop resources at the wrong dropsites.
• Drop Resources command now works correctly for builders carrying resources.
• Groups of units in formation will no longer sometimes stop for a moment before starting to attack their target unit.
• Units will no longer ignore previous waypoints when receiving a queued garrison command.
• All Back to Work and Send Villagers Back to Work commands are no longer disallowed when having civilian and military buildings selected together.

General

• Fixed an issue where objectives depending on Tributes would not work in certain Campaign missions, such as Barbarossa, Pachacuti, Dukes of the West.

Campaign Missions

• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Ragnar’:
  • Varangian traders (Trade Cogs) can now pick up and deliver gold from Docks.
  • Fixed an issue where ships could get stuck behind a dock due to decorations around it.
  • Assigned “Pagan Shrines” the correct default hotkey in the build menu.
  • (Xbox) Disabled quick commands for the “Pagan Shrine” object.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Mstislav’:
  • Player can no longer leave the area of the main base on the north before completing the initial objective.
  • All units of the “Mongol Trap” will now successfully attack the player’s base.
  • The Lithuanian Priests will now remain in the area they spawned and not steal relics from the map.
  • (Xbox) Fixed an issue where the site radial menu allowed selecting villagers that should not be selectable.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Temujin’:
  • (Xbox) Added a map marker for the objective to meet Ong Khan.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Nobunaga’:
  • (Xbox) HUD elements now change their color as expected when choosing a clan.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Karlsefni’:
  • (Xbox) The in-game narrator now reads all the dialogue prompts.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Robert’:
  • Changed the AI behavior to sell stone less frequently, so the player cannot repeatedly buy stone and tribute it to gain support of the AI.
  • (Xbox) All objectives will now be shown on the right-hand side objective panel.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Drake’:
  • “Donkeys” will now have an appropriate animation.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Stephen’:
  • (Xbox) Fixed an issue with the introduction narration, so it’s on parity with the PC version now and the pop-up messages appear sequentially.
• Ascent of Egypt 12: ‘Siege in Canaan’:
  • AI script error no longer appears at the start of the scenario.

General

• Fixed an issue where Custom Scenario game mode wasn’t available in Return of Rome lobbies.

General

• The CD/HD version of the AI will now work properly again when playing on the “Huge” map size.

Scripting

• GIANT-MAP and “giant” are now defined as the “Huge” map size for legacy AI support.
• For the (map-size) fact, the following constants are now defined for the new map sizes: miniature-map, tiny-map, small-map, medium-map, normal-map, large-map, huge-map, giant-map, massive-map, enormous-map, colossal-map, incredible-map, monstrous-map, ludicrous-map.
• For the map size dependent #load-ifs, the following are now defined for the new map sizes: MINIATURE-MAP-SIZE, TINY-MAP-SIZE, SMALL-MAP-SIZE, MEDIUM-MAP-SIZE, NORMAL-MAP-SIZE, LARGE-MAP-SIZE, HUGE-MAP-SIZE, GIANT-MAP-SIZE, MASSIVE-MAP-SIZE, ENORMOUS-MAP-SIZE, COLOSSAL-MAP-SIZE, INCREDIBLE-MAP-SIZE, MONSTROUS-MAP-SIZE, LUDICROUS-MAP-SIZE
• (players-tribute) and (players-tribute-memory) no longer return incorrect values and now perform as expected.

Investigation

As always, we are continuing to track issues reported by the community for future updates.

For other known issues, please visit this page to see what’s being tracked!

Known Issues

• Shepherds will not switch to a new sheep automatically once the current one is depleted, if “Drop Off” resources command was used.
• Hunters may turn into lumberjacks and begin cutting trees, after all deer are depleted, if “Drop Off” resources command was used.

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where using the “Drop Off” command under certain circumstances could cause villagers to “hunt” trees down and gather food from them.
• Hunters will no longer turn into Lumberjacks after dropping off food manually by right-clicking the Town Center.
• After depleting a Boar, Hunters will no longer automatically hunt another live Boar if the “Drop Off” resources command was used.
• After depleting a Sheep, Shepherds will automatically go to another Sheep even if “Drop Off” command was used.
• After using the “Drop Off” or “Back to Work” commands, villagers will go back to the same target they were previously working on, instead of picking a new one. If villagers were previously standing idle, they will go back to that location consistently.

Achievements

• Return of Rome achievements should be triggering once again.

Stability & Performance

• Fixed a crash which could occur when loading a saved scenario game.
• Fixed a desync that can occasionally occur with ranged unit animations on different framerates.
• Fixed a crash which would occur when a player joins a lobby and the host adds an AI.

Graphics

• Fish Traps now display outlines when visually obstructed by buildings.

Audio

• The correct music track now plays for Romans, Armenians and Georgians when having them selected in History section.
• Horse and Hunnic Horse move sounds no longer play at the edge of the map.
• Background music now correctly loops in Return of Rome campaign menu.
• After purchasing a DLC from the Store, its campaign audio will now correctly load without having to reboot the game.

UI

• Updated the checkbox graphics for main and secondary objectives.
• The availability/upgrade level bars in technology tree preview now have more distinguishable colors.
• Relics no longer have armor display on their UI with Extended Unit Stats enabled.
• Javelina in Return of Rome now has correct icon.
• Pending Invitations screen no longer displays ‘Create Warrior Priest’ text instead of ‘Name’.
• The HUD will no longer display units garrisoned in transports if many land units are simultaneously selected.
• The names of map size options now display their base dimension.

Hotkeys

• Ungarrison hotkey now consistently works for Rams when having several garrisoned and ungarrisoned Rams selected together.
• Convert hotkey for military units now functions correctly.

Multiplayer

• The match will no longer terminate for all players when one player in a game with more than two players goes out of sync – only the desynced player will be dropped.
• Fixed an issue where it was possible to pause the game endlessly in Multiplayer, instead of being limited to 10 pauses.

Xbox

• Changed UI Crossplay checkbox to be un-interactable if the cross-network play is blocked in the Xbox privacy settings.
• Create lobby submenu now shouldn’t remain open if the player is disconnected after hosting game and before lobby browser is opened.
• When the Minimap Camera Lock Behavior is set to Fast Pan the [Y] display button on the minimap is no longer shown.
• The [Y] Quick Command does no longer appear when you try to build, but cannot afford a Lumber Camp using the site based radial menu.
• Conversion related warning messages about Atonement and Redemption are now shown in the notification area on the left on Xbox.
• Fortified Church is now shown correctly as age-up requirement for Armenians and Georgians in the Xbox version when using a controller.
• University now has the correct icon in the age-up requirement display.
• The Set Gather Point command is no longer shown in the Donjon’s radial menu on Xbox when using a controller.
• Buildings can now be commanded to attack enemy buildings.
• Fixed an issue on Xbox where “ Treason” was not available in the Castle’s radial menu in the Regicide game mode.
• Fixed an issue on Xbox where the [LT] button icon was not shown at the bottom of the Spectator Mode section in the Help Index.
• Fixed an issue where setting a hotkey for Delete Unit command wasn’t working correctly.
• Fixed an issue on Xbox where the game would crash when trying to select a “Granary”-object with Extended Unit Stats turned on.
• Fixed an issue on Xbox where players could bypass the pause limit on multiplayer matches.

General

• Added a new Drop Off Resources command for villagers and fishing ships. It makes the units take the resources they are carrying to the nearest drop-off building and return to work right away.

• Added a new Seek Shelter command for villagers. The behavior is similar to town bell but only the selected villagers will seek to garrison into nearby buildings. This new feature is only supported on PC for now, Xbox will be supported soon.

• Added a new All Back to Work command for garrisonable buildings. The command sends back to work all garrisoned villagers from this building and all nearby buildings within 25 tiles range (same range as for town bell). Using Shift + “Back to Work” will also act as “All Back to Work” command.
  Castles and Fortified Churches don’t display an “All Back to Work” button but have both hotkey and Shift + “Back to Work”. This new feature is only supported on PC for now, Xbox will be supported soon.

• Units in line formation will only regroup into a column after a move or attack move command of more than 30 tiles, instead of 10 tiles previously. Patrol command keeps its previous behavior of always forming a column, regardless of distance.
• Upon ringing town bell, villagers that have no available garrison slot for them will still walk to the nearest garrisonable building and stay idle. Deactivating the town bell or using all back to work command will send these villagers back to their tasks.
• When tasking a group of units to garrison into a siege unit or a Transport Ship, units will automatically spread themselves out to garrison into nearby siege or transports of the same type. The old behavior of only garrisoning into the single target is now controlled by holding Ctrl when clicking on the garrison target.

• Drag selection when holding down Alt with Selection Modifier Hotkeys setting enabled will no longer select Mule Carts and herdable animals. Now only civilian unit classes are selected (villagers, fishing ships, trade units). Herdables can still be selected when there are no civilian units in selection, though.
• Healing a damaged Mule Cart by garrisoning it into a building no longer costs resources.
• Units with splash damage now consistently deal full damage with a direct hit on their target.
• Town Centers will hit closer targets more reliably now.
• Drop Relic button and hotkey are now available when having Monks and Monks with Relics selected together. Pressing the button or hotkey will make one of the Monks drop the Relic.
• All previously event-exclusive cheat codes are now available to all players.
• Added a new cheat code: flemish reformation – Transforms all villagers into monks.

Fixes

• Researching Spies technology as Chinese no longer subtracts more resources than intended.
• Warrior Priests no longer stop automatically healing other units after being tasked in a group.
• Fixed an issue where Monks were unable to put the relic into a Monastery when using the command queue to pick the relic up with the New Waypoint Behaviour toggled off.
• Placing a building foundation on top of a Boar-like animal no longer prevents it from returning to its original location.
• Researching times of queued technologies are now correctly considered for splitting into the bulding with the shortest queue when queueing technologies from several selected buildings.
• Villagers will no longer attack other violent huntable animals nearby when they can’t reach the one they’re specifically tasked to.
• Description of “Hoardings” changed to: “Strengthens Castles, Kreposts, and Donjons by providing +1000 hit points.”
• Ranged units can no longer get stuck in their firing animation and will fire continuously.
• Right-clicking a target multiple times will no longer hinder ranged units from attacking the target as expected.
• Fishing Ships will no longer become idle when finishing constructing a Fish Trap together with a Villager.
• Fixed an issue where standing units would re-group into formation every time when a unit leaves the group.
• Vertical and horizontal gate foundations can no longer get destroyed in one hit when their corner parts are hit with splash damage.
• Stone Gate foundations no longer receive an incorrect HP increase when advancing to Castle Age.
• Fixed an issue where Mangonels would not automatically attack buildings at max range.
• All monks will now lose their faith when a group of monks completes a conversion without “Theocracy” researched.
• Fixed an issue where player could get the same civilization multiple times in a row when playing with random civilzations preferred in the ranked/quick match queue.
• Fixed a legacy issue where units with multiple-projectile volleys (such as Chu Ko Nu), when switched from one attack target to another amidst the attack, would result in loss of damage due to not correctly applying primary projectile damage on the new target.
• Fixed an issue where defensive structures such as Castles could output more damage than intended when switching targets.

General

• Changed population limits for the player in several scenarios to match the intended values:
  • Le Loi 6: ‘The Final Fortress’: 250 instead of 200.
  • Sundjata 2: ‘The Sting of the Scorpion‘: 150 instead of 200.
  • Yodit 2: ‘The Right Partner‘: 150 instead of 200.
  • Yodit 5: ‘Welcome Home’: 125 instead of 150.

Campaign Missions

• Almeida 3: ‘Ruins of Empires’: The Bantu will now spawn new forces only as long as they are not defeated.
• Attila 1: ‘The Scourge of God’: The game continues as intended if the player makes the boar attack Bleda but leaves the forest at the same time.
• Bari 2: ‘The Rebellion of Melus’: Dromons are now disabled for the player.
• Bayinnaung 5: ‘The Old Tiger’: Defeating South Rakhine no longer also defeats West Rakhine.
• El Cid 2: ‘The Enemy of my Enemy’: All Toledo villagers leave the map and no longer get stuck on other units.
• Historical Battles: ‘Manzikert’: The player no longer has Pavilions the enemy cannot access.
• Joan of Arc 2: ‘The Maid of Orleans’: Orleans no longer resigns at the game start.
• Montezuma 3: ‘Quetzalcoatl’: Several changes to make achievement “Hot & Spicy” easier to complete:
  • Tabasco defends more intelligently – assigns repairers to its TC when it has low HP.
  • Spanish attack with lower amount of units on lower difficulties.
  • Cannon galleons are held back until 200/275/350 seconds on standard/moderate/hard difficulty.
  • The player starts with slightly more food and gold.
• Thoros 2: ‘The Emperor’s Revenge’: On Console, player is no longer able to use Radial Menu during the initial objective.
• Voices of Babylon 1: ‘The Holy Man’: The Lion that is tasked to hunt the Gazelle in the beginning of the mission will no longer fall idle before the Gazelle is dead.

Georgians

• No longer start the game with a -50 food penalty.
• Cavalry regenerates 5/10/15 HP per minute in Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age civilization bonus changed → Cavalry regenerates 15% HP per minute, starting in Feudal Age.
• (Elite) Monaspa train time increased from 11 seconds → 14 seconds.
• (Elite) Monaspa nearby unit requirement for additional attack increased from 5 units → 7 units.

Incas

• Fixed a bug where the food discount wasn’t resulting in correct cost values for Eagle Warriors and Skirmisher-line (new food costs: 21 in Feudal Age, 20 in Castle Age, 19 in Imperial Age).

Italians

• Genoese Crossbowman train time decreased from 18 seconds → 14 seconds.

Tatars

• Flaming Camel no longer requires Timurid Siegecraft to be trained at Castles but now becomes instantly available at the Siege Workshop when reaching the Imperial Age.
• Flaming Camel train time increased from 20 seconds → 30 seconds.

General

• Changed the name of the map size with 240 tiles dimension from Giant to Huge.
• Added MORE_MAP_SIZES launch parameter to unlock new map sizes in Editor and Lobbies: Miniature [80], Giant [252], Massive [276], Enormous [300], Colossal [320], Incredible [360], Monstrous [400]. Note that some standard random maps may not correctly support the new map sizes yet.

General

• Fixed an issue where the lobby would not be private after selecting “Visibility: Private” when creating a lobby.

General

• AIs will no longer idle a villager when attempting to repair siege weapons.
• AI now requires at least one non-allied player in the game to resign.
• Advanced players now have the option to use hidden taunt 205 to induce the AI to resign earlier.
• Extreme AI: AI will now consider Fortified Churches and Donjons a threat and either retreat or attempt to avoid them in the early stage of the game.
• DE, CD, and HD AIs now obtain Devotion in appropriate situations.
• Fixed a bug where the scout would inappropriately retreat to the town center or guard a villager when playing as Georgians in certain situations.
• Extreme AI: When group micro is active and the AI has many spears against a scout rush, some of these spears will be sent to guard camps in defensive stance instead of supporting the main army.
• Extreme AI: Fixed some rare bugs where the AI would idle its units when group micro is active.
• Fixed a rare bug where the AI would inappropriately use advanced scout micro on lower difficulties.

Pathfinding

• Military units will now more readily attack a specific right-clicked unit instead of freezing or attacking an alternate unit. However, units will still attack alternate units as usual if they are part of a large group or the intended target is impossible to reach.
• When a right click attack command is sent to a unit that is temporarily not possible to path to, units on stand ground will attempt to attack the selected target for longer before attempting to switch to another target.

Scripting

• sn-gold-dropsite-distance now works as intended, allowing AIs to choose whether to place their first camp at gold or stone.
• The editor can now load AIs from all file locations.
• Fixed an issue where the game would prefer loading AIs from one location when “Test Scenario” was pressed and preferring another when the scenario was packed into a campaign.
• A default name for a unit line can now be added to unitlines.json.

General

• Added the tool for building widgetui atlases to Tools_Builds folder. It can be used by executing build_all_atlases.ps1 script located in widgetui folder (which can be edited to generate only specific atlases). The tool will build an atlas with the textures defined in AtlasDef of the atlas in materials.json. The correct coordinates of textures in the atlas will be set in materials.json during the atlas generation.
• Added “UnlockScenarios” parameter for campaign layout json files. Setting this parameter to true will immediately allow access to all scenarios in the campaign, opposed to allowing to access the next scenario only after the previous scenario is won.
• Fixed an issue where new unit lines with IDs outside of the unit line ID range in the official unitlines.json were not functioning. Now unit lines can have any ID from -399 to -200.
• Unit lines for buildings now use “Building” parameter in unitlines.json.
• Added “Identifier” parameter in unitlines.json for defining AI constants for unit lines.
• Added “unique_unit_line” parameter for each civilization in civilizations.json for defining previously hardcoded civilization’s unique unit line ID.
• Missing civilization settings (such as the new “unique_unit_line” field) in a modded civilizations.json file will now automatically fallback to the unmodified civilizations.json fields for the respective civilization, as long as the civilization’s data name matches. This makes it possible to only override certain parameters of a civilization.
• Directed blast damage mode (Blast Attack Level flag 128) can now work with substraction type blast damage (negative Blast Damage attribute value).
• Power up task no longer allows invalid right click tasking of power up-providing buildings to the object IDs specified in the task.
• Resources tracking player stats (such as P1 Kills, Razed by P3, etc.) now support Gaia, and have been relocated to the 300-499 range. Any existing references in older Scenario Triggers will update automatically, and the XS Constants for such resources will use new values.

Scenario Editor

• The game can now boot directly into the Scenario Editor if the EDITOR launch parameter is specified. This can be combined with other parameters (e.g. EDITOR LAUNCH_GAME_VARIANT=AOE1).
• Added an option in Players tab to lock the player to the selected AI personality – players will not be able to change the AI personality for this player when setting up a game.
• Technologies modified by a “Change Technology Cost” trigger effect can no longer be researched when not having enough resources.
• Fixed the frame count for Statue (Civilization) object, allowing to access previously inaccessible statue variations.

XS Scripting

• The XS error checker now checks for a greater variety of syntax errors, and the level of detail in error messages has been increased.
• The x256tech script has been updated to its final version, and a variant called x9tech is now available.

Investigation

• LAN lobbies not working: We have identified the cause of the problem, and will be providing a fix in an upcoming update.

As always, we are continuing to track issues reported by the community for future updates.

For other known issues, please visit this page to see what’s being tracked!

COMING UP…

Hello Community!

If you tuned into our recent New Year, New Age event, you’re pretty up to speed on all of the activity going on within World’s Edge – we’re doing an awful lot, which makes us pretty thrilled! Sitting back and watching that as the AoE II: DE team, it’s hard not to be really proud of this community and the ways in which your continued enthusiasm and support has enabled so much of this. Indeed, for those of us that have been making videogames for a longer while, the Age community stands out – you’re a pretty special bunch and we’re delighted with how you choose to interact with us as well as each other. It’s a pretty positive and uplifting space and we feel like it’s our continued privilege to be on this side of things and working hard to give you some meaningful joy. It felt like a good idea to start this by saying thank you and that we’re soooooo looking forward to those do-your-best-at-guessing surprises still around the corner!

Victors and Vanquished, the new DLC for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, officially launches tomorrow! Woo-hoo! But if you haven’t yet laid eyes on some of the other highlights from the show, check these out –

• Age of Mythology: Retold has got us seriously, seriously hyped! The team working on Myth is doing some jaw-dropping things. And also, how do we get that AR setup in our studio conference rooms? Hmm…
• Age of Empires: Mobile is particularly exciting for us as our first move into this space and we couldn’t be happier with how that’s progressing!
• There’s also a really great Developer Diary segment showing you more about everything that’s going into bringing your favorite franchise to your phone – TiMi has been an excellent partner and we’re thankful for the dedication and gravity they’ve brought to this challenge! They definitely deserve your excitement because we think they’re doing something pretty special.
• Oh, and did you know there are even more Updates coming to Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition + Age of Empires IV? This includes new DLC coming for AoE III: DE and Season 7 coming to AoE IV!
• And finally, we snuck in a 2023 Year in Review, which gave everyone at the studio a bit of an emotional reminder about just how much work we’ve been getting done and how much we’ve been able to deliver – it can be difficult to keep that in your head when you’re always busy working on the next cool secret thing 🙂

It’s also worth noting that many of the Developers at World’s Edge and within our partner teams at Forgotten Empires, Tantalus, and CaptureAge, are often working across the franchise on most of what we’re busy with, so there’s really a community of people dedicated broadly to these various games and their unique qualities. We’re less segmented than you might imagine and generally all-in across the board on making sure you get the best experiences we can deliver. We basically eat, sleep, and live Age in all of its forms 🙂

With Victors and Vanquished in particular, we’re trying something new. There are no new Civs in this DLC and that’s intentional – it’s an effort on our part to diversify the kind of content we’re able to bring to you and figure out how we can continue to keep your experience vibrant in new and interesting ways. A surprisingly large portion of those playing AoE II: DE are spending their time playing/replaying Campaigns and Skirmish matches, rarely tackling Ranked or Custom Multiplayer. We also see a lot of excitement and engagement around our occasional Challenge Scenarios like Mangudai Madness, and before that both Barbarossa Brawl and Mongol Raiders, alongside the Mods and Custom Scenarios you’re downloading and playing. For many of you, these are the best parts of AoE II: DE and we’re hearing your demand for more of these types of content.

Now, boiler-plate business logic would suggest that we’d be the most successful with this kind of effort if we packed Civs into every offering so that there’s value for everyone, because new Civs tend to be the domain of player groups that prefer competitive play. It can be hard to argue against that – the more broadly appealing something is, the better it can perform, right? Well… we’re not sure that’s true, and what we’re starting to do with Victors and Vanquished is experiment with content releases that are more targeted in what they deliver for different groups of players and what you want the most. It also gives us room to speed up this process and figure out a calendar for you that’s hopefully full of more fun and more things to look forward to!

We’ve got some big surprises still waiting for you along these lines and they’ll take their own form as we continue to work on entertaining you in new ways, so to the extent that you enjoy and support Victors and Vanquished, we fully intend to keep Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition like a year-long Christmas tree with the presents piled high (without getting clothes from Grandma – cool toys only). Note: this doesn’t at all mean that the DLC you love is going away, but it definitely means we’re trying new things in an effort to make you even more happy.

As much as it feels like we’ve already done so much in the 4+ years since launch in November, 2019 – heck, we even went through a global pandemic together and had this game to give us some good vibes during difficult times – there’s also this way in which it feels like you’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg still, because the releases we already have planned into 2025 kind of blow our minds.

And yes, it’s only March of 2024 and we definitely just said 2025… 😉

Another thing that’s pretty special about Victors and Vanquished is where it comes from. Our own Ramsey Abdulrahim originated this content and pitched us internally on evolving what he’d done into this DLC project. This effort represents a much larger story that’s been at the heart of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition from its inception, which is YOU! Our partners at Forgotten Empires are themselves a series of community creators that built a business on the back of passion and found a way to turn what they love into a full-time pursuit. Creators from mod communities working their way into professional Game Development isn’t a new idea, but when it happens it tends to represent the best of what videogames can be – a relatively unencumbered opportunity for people to take a hobby they love and turn it into a lifetime of opportunity and creative expression. Here at World’s Edge, this is something we pay a lot of attention to and value immensely. We’re often hiring out of our community to bring you the content you’ve been playing for years now. We recognize that the love you have for this game is as valuable to others as it is to us, and we’re often anxious to grow our own teams in this spirit and with people across the world that care deeply about Age of Empires.

This is your encouragement to dream big and grab that Scenario Editor. Ramsey was you at one point and if you’ve got a similar passion to build, we’d be happy to see you age-up doing something you love. The coolest part of writing this is that someone reading it will probably do exactly that and be one of our co-workers someday, and that makes us super happy. How cool is that!? Answer: it’s pretty cool!

Forgive the Illiad, we’ll be done now and say see you again soon with another Update full of fun stuff. In the meantime, please enjoy Victors and Vanquished and the excitement of everything yet to come, and thank you for being such a wonderful audience, we’re very lucky to have you – you help us live our dreams. <3

DISCLAIMER

Please note that this list is subject to change and should not be considered a comprehensive list of all the known issues we’re tracking. The above is to inform you of the team’s current priorities, which will change as other issues arise or take precedence.

For the latest updates and announcements, please visit our social channels.

New! Spring Tournaments Event

Spring is here at last and what better time for a seasonal event? Prepare to login May 21 at 10:00 AM PT (1:00 PM ET / 17:00 UTC) through June 18 at 10:00 AM PT (1:00 PM ET / 17:00 UTC) for the Spring Tournaments rewards.

Login Rewards

Ranked Season Seven

To arms! Ranked play kicks off for Season Seven on March 19 at 12:00 pm PT (3:00 pm ET / 20:00 UTC)! Age up through the ranks and earn rewards!

Map Pool Rotation

Season Seven brings another refresh on both map pools. This rotation gives some maps a much-needed break while we reintroduce maps that are excited to meet the new civilizations. High View, Lipany, and Danube River return to Solo Ranked while Prairie and Lipany return to Team Ranked.

See you on the ladder!

1v1 Ranked Map Pool 

• Dry Arabia
• Cliffside
• Rocky River
• Forts
• Gorge
• High View
• Danube River
• Lipany
• Four Lakes

New Team Ranked Map Pool

• Dry Arabia 
• Cliffside 
• Rocky River 
• Prairie 
• Gorge 
• Hill and Dale 
• Lipany 
• Migration 
• Waterholes 

Cross-Play is Now Available on PC and Console

You can join your console and PC friends and adversaries on the battlefield with cross-play!

Team Ranked is Now Available on Console

You can now jump into Team Ranked mode on console! 

Condensed Victory Objectives

We’ve created an alternate version of win conditions that take up as little screen space as possible, these are enabled by default and can be changed back in the game UI options.

Quick Match Updates

• The Nomad Game Mode was added as a new option and comes with several improvements. 
• A new Free for All option has been added, allowing you to queue for 8 Player free for all matches. 
  • Quick match Free for All matches are played using the new “Dominion” win condition.
• Land Mega Random has been added to quick match. 

A Note on Leaderboards and Hidden Elo

Free For All will have a new leaderboard and track your hidden Elo separately, this means that matchmaking will result in more balanced games over time. In FFA mode, the winner is the only player to gain Elo and all other players lose Elo based on an even split equal to the amount of Elo that the winner gains.

Additionally, Nomad mode will share a leaderboard with Standard Mode. This means that when you queue for Nomad for the first time, you’ll be more likely to be matched with players close to your skill level.

Nomad Improvements

• Starting Villagers increased from 3 to 5.
• Villagers’ starting distance increased.
• Holy Roman Empire Prelate, Zhu Xi’s Legacy Official, and Mongols Ger are granted upon Town Center construction and not at the start of the match.
• English Villager bows and Chinese Villager build speed bonus are deactivated at the start of the game, reactivated upon Town Center construction.
• Jeanne d’Arc Civilization starts with 3 Villagers plus Jeanne d’Arc.
• Order of the Dragon Civilization starts with 4 Villagers.

New “Dominion” Win Condition

• Enabled/disabled in custom games via the Game Mode Win Conditions section (disabled by default).
• Compatible with Standard, Empire Wars, and Nomad Game Modes as well as all other win condition types.
• Players start with a Monarch that must be protected at all costs, losing a Monarch leads to the instant elimination of the owning player.
  • Eliminating an enemy Monarch grants +50 maximum population.
  • If a player is eliminated by Landmark victory, their Monarch remains on the field. Eliminating a neutral Monarch continues to grant +50 maximum population.
• Monarchs have two primary abilities:
  • Sprint: Temporarily move faster.
  • Treason: Reveal the location of enemy Monarchs and ping them on the minimap.
• Monarchs are visible on the minimap with a crown icon.
• AI players will garrison their Monarch into a safe building.
• When loading into a game with no other players or AI, the Dominion win condition will automatically deactivate and not spawn a Monarch at the start.

Quality of Life Improvements

• Walls under construction can now be converted into gates via an ability on the placed blueprint. Conversion to a gate can happen at any time before the wall section is finished construction, after which it is no longer possible to convert directly, and a Villager must be used. The cost of the conversion is the difference between the cost of the wall and gate. 
• When ungarrisoning from a building, units will exit the building from the location closest to the rally point direction.

AI

• AI players now have a unique identifying number in the pinned player information.
• AI villagers now flee when attacked by enemy units.
• Corrected an issue where certain buildings would prioritize Battering Rams as targets.
• Japanese AI now makes better use of Shinobi units.
• Malian AI no longer get hyper focused on building a pit mine to the exclusion of all else.
• Fixed an issue with Mongol AI not unpacking their starting Town Center.
• Byzantine AI now place more cisterns.
• Ottoman AI will no longer turn off military school production.
• Easy AI no longer produces more than one Scout.

Developer Note: We have found that Easy AI can sometimes be too efficient at using Scouts to explore and take Sheep at this difficulty. We hope this change allows players to have more chances at securing Sheep when exploring the map.

• Adjusted how the Easy and Intermediate AI chooses to advance to the next Age.
• Easy AI is now adaptive, speeding up or slowing down its Age-up based on the other players in the match. The Easy AI will never surpass the Age of another player in the game.
• Intermediate AI Ages up slower but can also adapt to faster Age-ups and catch up if needed.
• Easy AI can now research Wheelbarrow and tier 1 economy technologies.
• Easy AI can now research tier 1 Blacksmith technologies.
• Intermediate AI can now only research tier 1 and 2 economy technologies.
• Intermediate AI can now research tier 1 and 2 Blacksmith technologies.
• Hard AI can now research all economy technologies.
• Developer Note: Easy and Intermediate AI are being tuned to help players with ramp up in difficulty. The Easy AI would previously Age up too slow where the Intermediate AI would do so too fast. Additionally, Intermediate AI would research much more Blacksmith, economy, and other technologies compared to the Easy AI. These changes aim to create a more natural difficulty progression.

Audio

• Improved Simplified Chinese voice overs in The Sultans Ascend cinematics. 

Xbox Console

• Manjaniq weapon toggles are now correctly displayed on the radial menu.
• Fixed a bug where the lobby screen displayed other player’s scroll bars as interactable.
• Fixed incorrect text that appeared when joining an existing custom match.
• Fixed an issue where an emblem overlapped text on the ranked page.

General

• Shore Fish can no longer be permanently removed when placing structures on them and will automatically return when the building is deleted or destroyed. 
• Fixed an issue where Villagers seeking shelter would sometimes fail to choose the nearest available Outpost for shelter. 
• When unloading units from a garrison, they now exit on the side closest to their destination. 
• It’s now easier to target a live animal with a Villager when the animal overlaps a construction plan. 
• Fixed an exploit where Monks could duplicate Relics when removing them from Monasteries. 
• Fixed an issue where Lightweight Beams would not reduce construction times for some civilizations. 
• Previously, if a siege unit lost sight of a building it was attacking, it would go idle. Now it will move closer to regain vision and resume its attack. 
• Fixed a bug where Deer would get stuck together after colliding. 
• Landmarks no longer retain their garrison arrows after being destroyed and repaired. 
• Now, if a Siege Tower or Ram containing units passes over a stamped building, it will not cancel the building. 
• When a player is defeated, their units will now fully cease their current actions when they turn neutral. 
• Monks ordered to capture a Sacred Site will now remain until it’s captured before executing queued commands. 
• Fixed a bug where Villagers would idle instead of returning to work when their previous job was gathering from a Boar. 
• Explosive Ship kills are now counted in post-game statistics. 
• The post-game statistics now correctly reflect units lost when a Transport Ship sinks.  
• Units inside a Ram or Siege Tower inside a Transport Ship will now die if the ship is destroyed. 
• Fixed a crash that could occur when exiting the Acre mission. 
• The Inna Jiffy cheat now applies to Ayyubid cavalry and Ghulam units. 
• Fixed a crash that could happen when playing on Canal with two teams of unequal player count. 
• Fixed an issue where water borders were harsh or jagged on some maps. 
• Fixed an issue with Forts where the wrong size of map was used for team games. This caused starting bases to overlap with enemies and allies in rare cases.  
• Fixed an issue with Black Forest where the wrong size was used for solo and team games. This caused the middle lanes to be generated incorrectly. 
• Fixed an issue with Migration where the wrong size was used for team games. This created a much smaller island to fight over once you have migrated to the main island. 
• Fixed a crash that could occur when entering a match. 
• Fixed a crash that could occur when switching control groups quickly while mousing over the command card.

UI

• Fixed a bug where if a party host leaves, the new host would not be able to invite new players to the party. 
• Fixed an issue where codex items were incorrectly clipped. 
• Added functionality for players to block chat communication and see who they have blocked. 
• Player stats can now be viewed on the Quick Match screen. 
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from scrolling the games list page under certain circumstances. 
• The Byzantine Selection Card background pattern is no longer missing. 
• Fixed an issue where using Shift + clicking on the idle / working villager buttons would not select all idle villagers or villagers working on the specific resource.  

Achievements, Challenges & Masteries

• Revamped Masteries to improve difficulty balance. 
• Changed “Test of Strength” challenges from requiring the defeat of AI to winning games with the associated civilization. 
• Fixed a bug where building extra landmarks to activate dynasties as the Chinese was being counted as aging up for the Achievement “Through the Ages”. 
• Some Achievements that were previously untranslated into Turkish, Finnish, Polish and Russian are now translated. 
• Fixed a bug where the “Transcontinental Empire” Achievement was not properly displaying progress. 
• An issue with some Achievements not unlocking on Steam has been fixed. 

General

• Ram health increased from 340 to 370. 
• Ram build time decreased from 80 to 70 seconds. 
• Workshop Ram train time reduced from 40 to 35 seconds. 
• Mangonel and Nest of Bees health reduced from 140 to 130. 
• Springald bonus damage vs Siege increased from 60 to 65. 
• Bombard, Great Bombard, and Cannon ranged armor increased from 35 to 40. 
• Previously, some garrison-able buildings, units, and transports displayed each garrison weapon as individual weapons and have been merged for a cleaner weapon information card. 
• Corrected some issues where Elite Army Tactics and Incendiary Arrows were not affecting all intended units. 
• Stone earned from Relics in Pagoda’s reduced by 50% and Food/Wood has been increased in its place. 
  • Now generates 100 Gold, 62 Food, 62 Wood, 25 Stone 
• Corrected an issue where loaded Battering Rams were missing the unload garrison ability for HRE and OoTD. 
• Corrected an issue where Merchant Guilds could be researched twice for French and Jeanne d’Arc. 

                        Abbasid Dynasty

• Fresh Foodstuffs moved from the Town Center to the Mill. 
• Camel Archer cost reduced from 180 Food to 170 Food. 
• Fertile Crescent Wood discount increased from 25% to 30%. 
• Spice Roads upgrade now correctly modifies gold income for all traders. 

                             Ayyubids

(Variant Civilization: Abbasid Dynasty)

• Tower of the Sultan: 
  • No longer has Ram melee vulnerability. 
  • Build time reduced from 200 to 140 seconds. 
  • Garrisoned units increase movement speed for each unit garrisoned. 
• Atabeg’s Supervision and Biology are now multiplicative. 
• Corrected an issue where Desert Raiders ranged weapon was not fully benefitting from their Golden Age 5 attack speed bonus. 

                             Byzantines

• Chierosiphon cost reduced from 200 Wood 100 Gold to 200 Wood 60 Gold. 
• Chierosiphon health increased from 280 to 310. 
• Chierosiphon ranged armor increased from 30 to 50. 
• Chierosiphon bonus damage vs Walls increased from 0 to 5. 
• First Mercenary contract choice is now free and instant, saving 100 Olive Oil and 20 seconds of research time. 
• Veteran Mercenary upgrade cost reduced from 100 Food 250 Gold to 50 Food 125 Gold and research time reduced from 60 to 30 seconds.  
• Limitanei Shield wall damage reduction reduced from 40% to 30%. 
• Mangonel Emplacement damage reduced from 8 to 7. 
• Corrected an issue where Mercenary Sipahi and Mercenary Camel Riders would receive Gold from Expilatores upgrade when killing Villagers. 
• Greek Fire Projectiles help-text now mentions that patches of Greek Fire can’t stack.

                               Chinese

• Barbican of the Sun now accepts your tax donations.

                           Delhi Sultanate

• Ghazi Raiders are no longer missing bonus damage versus siege engines. 
• Lightweight Beams now has the correct research time in the Imperial Age.

                                  English

• Berkshire Palace weapons are no longer duplicated on their UI. Corrected an issue where one garrison arrow was normal instead of incendiary. 

                              French

• French Keeps now cost 10% less stone to build.  
• Keep Influence range increased by 1 tile.

                    Holy Roman Empire

• Marching Drills is now a civilization bonus and is granted for free at the start of the game, it no longer affects Prelates. 
• Inspired Warriors now increases the move speed of Prelates. 
• Prelate inspiration range increased by 1 tile. 
• Meinwerk Palace bonus increased from 40% to 50% cost and research time. 

                              Japanese

• Castle of the Crow issue corrected where projectiles would be blocked when attacked from certain angles. 
• Castle of the Crow help-text now explains that bonus Stone is reduced compared to Food, Gold, and Wood. 
• Previously missing Towara, Takezaiku, and Fudasashi economy pips now appear. 

                            Jeanne d'Arc

(Variant Civilization: French)

• Consecrate help-text now updates after researching Ordinance Company. 

                           Mongols

• Ovoo Stone income in the Dark Age reduced from 80 to 70 per minute. 
• Moving buildings rotation rate reduced so that they do not instantly snap when changing direction. 
• Khaganate Palace: Rus Knights now properly use Poleaxe.  
• Horse Archers now properly use the Gallop ability. 
• Nest of Bees units now receive the Additional Barrels upgrade. 
• Prayer Tents no longer grant vision on pre-placement after researching Monastic Shrines. 
• Fixed an issue where units could get trapped in a Mongol landmark when its owner was eliminated. 
• A crash relating to The Silver Tree landmark has been fixed. 
• Allies of a Mongol player can now set the Silver Tree as a trade destination while it’s packed up and Traders will only move to it when it’s unpacked. 

                     Order of the Dragon

(Variant Civilization: Holy Roman Empire)

• Aachen Chapel bonus increased from 10% to 15%. 
• Meinwerk Palace bonus increased from 40% to 50% cost and research time. 
• Golden Cuirass cost increased from 50 Food 125 Gold to 100 Food 200 Gold (50 Food 100 Gold discount). 
• Zornhau cost increased from 100 Food 250 Gold to 150 Food 350 Gold (75 Food 175 Gold discount). 
• Bodkin Bolts cost increased from 200 Food 500 Gold to 300 Food 700 Gold (150 Food 350 Gold discount). 
• Corrected Gilded Handcannons missing projectile and muzzle effects. 

                              Ottomans

• Great Bombard health reduced from 350 to 300. 
• Great Bombard ranged armor increased by +5. 
• Vizier experience requirements for each level increased from 60/80/120/200/320 to 60/100/150/240/320 
• Military School production speed reduced from 4.5x to 5x the standard production rate. 

                                Rus

• Hunting Cabin build time increased from 25 to 35 seconds. 
• Boyars Fortitude cost increased from 100 Food, 250 Gold to 150 Food, 350 Gold. 
• Corrected an issue where Horse Archers would not retain the Mounted Precision bonuses when advancing to the next tier. 

Known Issues

For known issues, please visit this page to see what’s being tracked. 

Investigation

Community-Reported Issues:

• Your reports continue being crucial to our prioritization and implementation of fixes and features in the game. Keep them coming!

Coming Up…

We’re working on our next update and look forward to sharing more soon.