Good day, fellow tacticians!
May marks the six-month milestone since the arrival of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition this past November, and we’re just as excited today as we were on day one—even as we now work, play, and enjoy the game from the safety of our homes. We hope you’re staying healthy, safe, and taking the time to play and escape from the world when it’s needed the most!
Today’s update introduces new changes, content, and improvements to keep up with our growing community: including a new in-game event to test your skills as well as major improvements to the stability and playability of the game. Here’s the tl;dr list of the highlights:
- Fixed the infamous “5 Minute Disconnect!”
- The Malay now prioritize speed over stamina when Aging Up!
- Implemented various balance changes and fixes for civilizations, units, and maps!
- Improved the AI to put up a better fight (or be a better partner) on the battlefield!
- Added several localization fixes for several languages!
- Introducing the May-hem Event: celebrating the quirkiness of Age of Empires II!
As always, the full list of changes can be found below while the conversation happens over on our community channels!
Be safe, everyone, and we hope you enjoy the latest changes to Age of Empires II!
—The Age of Empires Team
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Having trouble downloading or playing the build? Visit our support page!
BUILD SPOTLIGHT
While there is plenty of notable fixes and features to which to look forward in today’s build, here are some of the big highlights coming with the May update:
The May-hem Event!
💥 May 27 – June 9 💥
It’s that time again! With the May update comes a brand-new festival for you to enjoy—THE “MAY-HEM” EVENT—when we’re celebrating the love of the game by spotlighting the community’s unique approaches, discoveries, and favorite moments in Age of Empires over the last 20+ years.
Here’s what we’ve pulled together for you to enjoy during the event:
- Three new Profile Icons!
- Three event-exclusive visual mods!
- Train your sheep to be even better scouts!
- Discover unique, Age-themed Easter Eggs hidden in the game!
- Unlock the new Mayhem Menu Background for the duration of the event.
Starting TODAY through JUNE 9, check back daily to unlock new challenges and new event content:
🎯 Sign into Xbox Live.
🏆 Unlocks the Mayhem La Hire profile icon.
🎯 Play the ‘Early Economy’ Art of War mission and obtain a Silver or Gold medal.
🏆 Unlocks the Town Center Trophies Decoration mod.
🎯 Train at least three monks.
🏆 Unlocks the Mayhem Scout Sheep profile icon and the Monk Unit Conversion FX mod.
🎯 Train at least 99 villagers over the course of any number of games.
🏆 Unlocks the Calculating Research FX mod.
🎯 Build at least 20 wall sections over the course of any number of games.
🏆 Unlocks the Mayhem Teuton profile icon.
🎯 Use a sheep to scout an animal.
🏆 Unlocks the Sheep Scouting behavior: your sheep will magically learn the auto-scout ability in campaign missions and single player matches.
There are also four new Easter Eggs to seek out in the game—two of which are permanent additions! Can you find them all?
🔲 🐘 ???
🔲 👑 ???
🔲 🥌 ??? (Event Exclusive)
🔲 🕚 ??? (Event Exclusive)
Don’t forget to sign into Xbox Live; doing so will ensure that you get to keep all the mods and profile icons you unlock during the event! We hope you enjoy this celebration of the community, as well as everything else coming with today’s update!
—The Age of Empires Team
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Event F.A.Q.
The "5-Minute Disconnect" Fix
After months of back-and-forth collaboration with the community, we’ve managed to isolate and implement several fixes for the notorious “5-Minute Disconnect” issue
- Fixed an issue which resulted in specific routers disconnecting from the servers 4-5 minutes after starting a match.
The team worked hard to uncover all of the potential causes of the problem, but could not have reached this conclusion without the help of those affected. We appreciate the time and energy spent by everyone who participated in the conversation, shared their experience with the issue, or who simply kept us updated about its impact on the community!
GAME STABILITY
- The game will no longer crash when using the “marco,” “polo,” or “i r winner” cheat codes when playing a custom campaign.
- Implemented fixes to address a variety of crashes.
GAMEPLAY
- Fixed an issue where players could research technologies instantaneously, at no cost, and/or more than once.
- The Malay now properly advance through the Ages 66% faster than other civs instead of with 166% more style.
- Doubled the maximum scrolling speed threshold for players who want to see more of the map in less time.
- Siege Workshops constructed next to walls can no longer be used to spawn units on the opposite side of said walls in certain circumstances.
- Khmer Villagers will now continue constructing houses after garrisoning and being sent back to work.
- Fixed a visual issue where the rubble of destroyed buildings could be seen through the Fog of War.
- Fixed an issue where attacking the sides (aka the “gatehouse towers” or “barbicans”) of a gate would not trigger the attack notification sound.
- Fixed a rare issue which allowed units to be queued and trained at the wrong building.
- Dolphins will no longer remain on the map once they’ve been depleted. (“So long, and thanks for the food!”)
ACHIEVEMENTS
- The Homeless achievement can now only be unlocked when a player wins a game after deleting their starting Town Center. This addresses an issue where it could be earned without fulfilling the requirements.
CIVILIZATION BALANCE
General
The Supplies technology is no longer available to the Chinese, Cumans, Huns, Khmer, Lithuanians, Mayans, Mongols, and Tatars.
Watch Towers can no longer be built in the Dark Age if one is automatically generated at the start of the match (e.g. on the Fortress map).
Hussar: Reduced the length of the attack animation from 1.89 to 1.35 seconds (equivalent to Light Cavalry). This does not increase their DPS, but improves their ability to chase and harass targets.
Aztecs
The civilization bonus which decreases the training time of military units now does so by 10% (was 15%).
Burmese
The bonuses granted by the Manipur Cavalry upgrade are no longer partially-blocked by the Masonry tech.
Indians
The team bonus to damage dealt by Camels to structures is no longer blocked by the Masonry or Architecture upgrades, and now applies to all buildings, as intended.
UNITS
Elephant Archer [Standard & Elite]: Reduced the reload time of attacks from 2.5 to 2.0 seconds.
Elephant Archer [Standard & Elite]: Reduced the cost to train from 80 to 70 gold.
Mayans
El Dorado: Increased the time to research the upgrade from 50 to 70 seconds.
Saracens
Zealotry: Reduced the cost to research the upgrade from 800 to 700 gold.
CAMPAIGNS
- Objective timers are now displayed properly after re-loading a saved game.
RANDOM MAPS
General
- The way starting gold and stone nodes are generated has been revised to prevent situations where they fail to spawn entirely.
- Updated how straggler trees are generated so they don’t straggle right next to forests.
- Updated how predator animals are generated on several maps.
Maps
- Continental: Extra gold and stone nodes have been adjusted to spawn per player in 1v1 maps.
- Hill Fort: Adjusted the generation of starting gold and stone to prevent them from appearing right next to a player’s Town Center.
- Islands: The way gold and stone nodes are generated has been revised to prevent situations where they fail to spawn completely.
- Islands: Acacia trees have been replaced by Dragon and Palm trees.
- Islands: The fifth relic spawned in a 1v1 match now appears on one of the small islands in the middle of the map.
- Nomad: The logic when generating shore fish has been updated to distribute the nodes more evenly.
- Kilimanjaro: Increased the starting food for each player by spawning four additional goats and two shore fish per person.
- Kilimanjaro: Slightly increased the number of forested and mountain slope areas generated on the map.
- Kilimanjaro: Distributed the extra gold nodes more evenly among players.
- Kilimanjaro: Starting fish will now appear further from where berries have sprouted in the map.
- Ravines: The starting food on the map has been updated to include: 10 Ibexes, 10 Geese, and 6 Berry Bushes.
- Scandinavia: Adjusted the natural balance of predators on the map. Bears and wolves now claim their own territories and have organized in more consistently-sized groups.
Random Map Scripting
- The number_of_tiles and land_percent commands no longer create larger lands than intended. (This affected a few standard maps, such as Arena.)
LOBBIES & MATCHMAKING
General
- Removed the grace period where players could resign from a ranked match without losing ELO points.
- Fixed an issue which prevented players from joining another multiplayer lobby after playing a custom scenario in the same session.
- Fixed an issue which prevented player chat from appearing when playing a custom multiplayer scenario.
Ranked Map Rotation
Maps unique to each map pool are in bold.
The 1v1 map pool is as follows:
- Arabia
- Arena
- Bog Islands
- Continental
- Golden Pit
- Hill Fort
- Kilimanjaro
- MegaRandom
- Mountain Pass
The Team map pool is as follows:
- Arabia
- Arena
- Black Forest
- Hill Fort
- Lombardia
- MegaRandom
- Nomad
- Scandinavia
- Wolf Hill
AI
General
- Added the first iteration of a new AI strategy: Fast Imperial Age! Allied computer players will now enact the strategy when deemed appropriate, or can be motivated by allies with Taunt 95.
- Based on player feedback, several minor adjustments have been made to how AI players scale in regards to their difficulty setting.
- Implemented several improvements to how AI-controlled players behave on migration-style maps. This includes checks to avoid abandoning their Scout unit or idling their Villagers after moving to a new land.
- Improved how the computer responds to enemy tower rushes. AI players will now actively defend themselves with villagers and defensive structures, when possible.
- Added logic to prevent situations where the AI would play overly-passive at the very wrong times.
- At higher difficulty levels, AI-controlled military will now retreat outside of the range of enemy fortifications when appropriate.
- Implemented several improvements to the AI’s strategic decision-making in an effort to make it more efficient.
- Improved the ability of the AI to adapt to unorthodox map layouts.
- Improved the way AI players communicate with teammates: including how they respond to taunts and the messages they send in chat.
In addition to the above changes, we’ve made several adjustments to the computer logic when set to the Extreme difficulty:
- Fixed several instances where an AI-controlled player would surrender despite still having strong allies.
- AI players will now pick their fights more effectively: taking less engagements when they are at a disadvantage.
Scripting
- up-get-object-type-data now functions with units which are not available.
- Added new object-data commands to collect capture flag and capture object information:
- object-data-ownership is ID 83
- object-data-capture-flag is ID 84
- The AI can now task heroes to explore in non-scenario matches.
- up-remaining-boar-amount now returns 65535 if there is no valid boar.
- up-retreat-to now supports unit lines.
- load-random now works as intended.
UI
- Continued making adjustments to the in-game profanity filter to better-cater to the communication styles of the Age audience.
- Adjusted how icons are displayed when the “Display Future Items” option is enabled to better-distinguish between those that are not yet available and those that cannot be afforded.
- Implemented a setting to mute or continue playing the game’s audio when the application is not in focus.
- The post-game timeline can no longer be modded to display during a match while it is still being played. It can, however, still be accessed during replays and spectator mode, and will no longer crash the game upon conclusion of the match.
- Fixed an issue where the in-game chat would not be displayed in recorded games.
- Limited the framerate of out-of-game menus to 60 FPS.
Localization
GENERAL
- Taunts 7, 9, 11, and 26 will now use the original localized audio when possible.
CHINESE
- Corrected sentences where “unlocked” was mistranslated as “not unlocked”
- Updated the name of the Turkish language in the settings menu.
- Corrected multiple text strings where the punctuation displayed at the start of the line rather than the end.
- Corrected a text/audio mismatch in the following Art of War missions:
- Destroying a Castle
- Land Battle
FRENCH
- Updated the translation of Men at Arms to be consistent throughout the game.
- Corrected errors in the hint text for the Destroying a Castle (Art of War) scenario.
- ‘Spain Spanish’ is no longer described as ‘Latin American Spanish’ in the language settings.
- Added translations for the Menu Narration and Chat Narration settings in the Audio menu.
GERMAN
- Updated the text of the Fire with Fire achievement to accurately reflect its requirements.
HINDI
- Fixed the truncation of Hindi characters on the main menu.
ITALIAN
- Updated the faction team names throughout the Genghis Khan 1 (‘Crucible’) mission.
- Updated the faction team names throughout the Montezuma 2 (‘The Triple Alliance’) mission so as to remain consistent.
- Updated references to the city of Naissus (was Naisso).
- Updated the translation of the Genitour unit to be consistent throughout the game.
- Updated the name of a hut in the Pachacuti 3 (‘War of Brothers’) mission that would always display its name in English.
- The name, Basarab, is now spelled correctly throughout the Dracula campaign.
- The hotkey settings used to Create Group and Select Group have been updated for consistency.
- Updated the translation for Group Commands in the hotkeys menu.
- Updated the translation for the Chain Mail Armor technology.
- Fixed several instances of truncated text in the multiplayer tabs.
- Fixed overlapping text on the Diplomacy screen.
- Updated and corrected the hint text and scouting reports for the following missions:
- Genghis Khan 1 (‘Crucible’)
- Montezuma 2 (‘The Triple Alliance’)
- Suryavarman 4 (‘Challenging a Thalassocracy’)
- Tamerlane 1 (‘Amir of Transoxiana’)
- Yodit 1 (‘Path of Exile’)
- Corrected a text/audio mismatch during the opening slideshow of the following campaign missions:
- Genghis Khan 1 (‘Crucible’)
- Genghis Khan 5 (‘The Promise’)
- Tamerlane 4 (‘Sultan of Hindustan’)
KOREAN
- Added information that was missing from the descriptive text for foot archers.
- Fixed overlapping text on the Diplomacy screen.
- Corrected a text/audio mismatch in the following Art of War missions:
- Battle Formations
- Land Battle
PORTUGUESE
- Fixed an issue where the “Full Tech Tree” label would overlap other UI elements.
- Corrected a text/audio mismatch in the following Art of War missions:
- Battle Formations
- Destroying a Castle
- Land Battle
- Naval Battle
SPANISH (LATIN AMERICAN)
- Updated the translation of Mangonels to be consistent throughout the game.
- Updated the translation of “range” to be consistent throughout the Tech Tree.
- Added the attack bonus to the descriptive text of the Recurve Bow technology.
- Removed a redundant word from the description of the Kipchak unit.
SPANISH (SPAIN)
- The Spanish word, “tú,” is no longer missing its accent.
- Updated the translated name of the Elite Camel Archer unit.
- Revised the translated text on the Scouting tab of the Honfoglalás scenario.
- Added localized hint text that was missing from the Dracula 3 (‘The Breath of the Dragon’) mission.
- Updated the Scouting reports for several campaign missions that were displaying information from an incorrect source.
- Updated the descriptions of numerous buildings and weapons that were displaying information from an incorrect source.
- Updated the translation of the following items to ensure consistency throughout the game: Trebuchet, Fire Galley, Food, Genoese Crossbowman, Knight, Longboat, Multiplayer, Siege Workshop, Skirmisher, Stable, Steppe Lancer, Town Center
TURKISH
- Updated the History section to properly list civilizations in alphabetical order based on the Turkish language (rather than the English language).
- Tooltip text is now properly localized in Turkish.
- Updated the name of the Spanish language in the settings menu.
VIETNAMESE
- Updated and corrected the introductory text in the following Art of War scenarios:
- Battle Formations
- Destroying a Castle
- Naval Battle
- Rushing the Enemy
- Defending Against a Rush
GRAPHICS
- Fixed a rare issue where particle effects (such as fires) would appear in the wrong places.
- Bombard Cannons now have the correct anchor point, allowing them to reorient themselves more gracefully.
- Fixed an issue with color corruption during the Dock destruction animations.
SCENARIO EDITOR
- Players can now select and copy the last generated map seed by switching to seed mode within the Editor.
TERRAIN
- Map Copy: The paint brush now has the same dimensions as the copied area.
- Map Copy: Now properly copies over garrisoned objects.
TRIGGERS
- The Facet property of the Create Object trigger now works with (and defaults to) -1 as a set value.
- The Modify Attribute trigger now remembers the attribute even after updating the Quantity field.
ONGOING INVESTIGATION
As always, we are continuing to track issues reported by the community for future updates. Here is a brief update from our Production team regarding some of what is still in the works:
- DISCONNECTS: We’ve made further changes that should improve connectivity for players—especially those who have been experiencing disconnects early on in Multiplayer matches. We’ll be monitoring these changes and gathering additional information where needed to help us follow-up and address additional bugs where we can find them.
- COMMUNITY REPORTED ISSUES: For the past several months, we’ve been working through and resolving issues reported by you (the players). Please continue to visit our forums and let us know if you run into bugs while playing AoEII:DE—we prioritize your reports as we look at what we can do to fix them.
- PATHFINDING: We’re aware of instances where melee units aren’t pathing appropriately when engaging stacks of enemy armies, and we’ll be working on addressing this in a future update.
For other known issues, please visit this page to see what’s being tracked!
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.
Please note that local ISP and hardware issues can still result in disconnects from the game—we have, unfortunately, not solved “the internet” (at least, not yet). Please continue to report new issues that impact your ability to play: making sure to include your network information, logs, and any other relevant details. We will continue to monitor for these reports and work to improve things on our end.