Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition — Update 39284

The Mongolian Civ Celebration Event!

🐎 July 20 – August 3 🐎

This month, join us as we celebrate one of Age II’s most feared civilizations—THE MONGOLS—and rewind the clock to a year ago when Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition first debuted on the E3 2019 stage! Complete a set of new challenges to unlock profile icons, visual mods, as well as a new campaign cheat code, then compete in the revamped E3 Mongol scenario to earn your spot on the global leaderboard. All of this is a part of the MONGOLIAN CIV CELEBRATION EVENT!

• Unlock three new Profile Icons!
• Unlock the Mongol Yurt skin for your houses—visible to everyone in your matches!
• Unlock the Genghis Khan statue for your Town Center!
• Discover a new cheat code: “Yes We Khan”
• Test your skills with a new Competitive Scenario based on the original E3 2019 demo!

Here are the specific challenges available over the next two weeks:

🎯 Sign into Xbox Live.
🏆 Unlocks the Genghis Khan profile icon.
💾 This is also *required* if you want to save any mod content or cheat codes unlocked during the event!

🎯 Play a match on Land Nomad.
🏆 Replaces the Mongol’s houses with Yurts during the event. Note that this will be visible to all users.

🎯 Score more than 15,000 points on the ‘Mongol Raiding’ scenario.
🏆 Unlocks the Anti-Siege profile icon.

🎯 Kill a Siege Onager using Mangudai.
🏆 Unlocks the Genghis Khan statue mod for your Town Center.

🎯 Score more than 20,000 points on the ‘Mongol Raiding’ scenario.
🏆 Unlocks the Racing Ram profile icon.

🎯 Advance to the Feudal Age in less than 12 minutes using the Mongols.
🏆 Unlocks the “Yes We Khan” cheat code. This cheat is exclusive to the Genghis Khan campaign, and replaces all your Mangudai with the “Genghis Khan” unit.

We hope you enjoy the July celebration, the new features, and the new scenario to test your skills! And don’t forget to sign into Xbox Live to ensure you keep everything you unlock!

—The Age of Empires Team

♦     ♦     ♦

Event F.A.Q.

NEW MAP: Land Nomad!

“The lone villagers from several tribes are looking for a new place to settle and call home. With no water in sight, they must establish themselves and seek out as many resources as they can to build a town and ready themselves for battle.”

LAND NOMAD is available now in both the Ranked Team Game pool and in unranked matches!

Stability & Performance

• The match will now automatically resume when a player resigns or leaves during a pause.
• Player profiles will no longer reset when changing to and from older game builds. This means medals and campaign progress will not reset when playing on a beta or tournament branch.
• Users playing with less than 16 GB of RAM or 1 GB of VRAM will now automatically default to and download low resolution UI assets.
• Fixed a rare issue where, after quitting out of a previous match, players could get stuck when joining a new match.
• Fixed an issue which prevented players from creating another lobby after hosting a multiplayer match.
• Fixed a crash which could occur when using Siege Towers in a game.
• Fixed a rare crash when returning to the map after the end of a match.
• Implemented additional anti-cheat protections so as to maintain an atmosphere of fair play.

Functionality

• NEW! Added a Player Lookup feature to the Profile menu. This allows you to easily search for players to add them to a clan, mute or unmute their chat, ban from your lobbies, or report to the World’s Edge Support Team.
• NEW! Added a new Lobby Ban functionality to the ‘Host Lobby’ and ‘Profile’ menus. This allows you to prevent players from joining custom lobbies you’re hosting.

Graphics

• Custom trees (Tree A-K) now use randomized rotations when spawned by random maps.
• Fixed a rare issue where placeholder terrain could appear on explored maps.

Audio

• Fixed an issue where the ♪ “attack” ♪ notification sound would, on occasion, not play in circumstances where it normally should.
• The maximum Music volume is now double the previous limit.

UI

• Age advancement is now also displayed in the Global Queue.
• Fixed instances of distorted icon colors for some technologies, such as Bloodlines and Careening.
• Player icons now dynamically update when displaying “Friend or Foe” colors (ALT + G).
• The “Display Future Technologies” setting now works as intended in campaign missions that disable specific technologies.
• The “Display Future Technologies” setting now works properly when playing with all technologies available to all players.
• The tech tree now loads the correct civilization when opened on the matchmaking screen or after a match has concluded.
• The game will more accurately convey when a recorded game file ends abruptly due to a playback error (such as a desync).
• Implemented adjustments to the profanity filter based on feedback and usage statistics.
• Removed the Mixer button from the main menu.

Campaign Missions

• Attila 1: ‘The Scourge of God’: The Scythians now have access to gold mines.
• Dracula 2: ‘The Return of the Dragon’: Starting units now respect the “impassible” aspect of impassible terrain.
• Dracula 5: ‘The Night Falls’: Fixed an issue which prevented players from unlocking the “Fire with Fire” achievement after training 10 Condottiero.
• Ivaylo 4: ‘Echoes of Heroes’: A prompt suggesting that Ivaylo has died will no longer display when he dismounts from his horse.
• Le Loi 5: ‘A Three-Pronged Attack’: Mission objectives now state that the player must capture the monument in the city of Nghe An as a part of the victory condition.
• Le Loi 5: ‘A Three-Pronged Attack’: Pre-built barracks can no longer spawn units in locations where they are trapped.
• Prithviraj 4: ‘The Fate of India’: Chemistry is now available for research.

Historical Battles

• Battle of Hastings: Harald’s landing is no longer thwarted by Transport Ships blocking his units.

General

Battle Elephant [Standard & Elite]: Reduced trample damage from 50% to 25%.
Condottiero: Increased attack from 9 to 10.

Byzantines

UNITS

Elite Cataphract: Reduced the food cost of the upgrade from 1600 to 1200 food. The gold cost is unchanged (800g).

TECHNOLOGIES

Logistica: Reduced the food cost of the upgrade from 1000 to 800 food. The gold cost is unchanged (600g).

Italians

TECHNOLOGIES

Pavise now also provides +1 melee armor and +1 pierce armor to Condottieri units.

Koreans

CIVILIZATION

As their civilization bonus, military units (except for siege weapons) now cost 20% less wood to train (was 15%).

UNITS

 War Wagon: Increased the base cost to train by +5 wood. After the civilization discount, the total cost is now 92 wood (was 94).
Turtle Ship: Increased the base cost to build by +10 wood. After the civilization discount, the total cost is now 152 wood (was 153).

Malay

UNITS

 Karambit Warrior [Standard & Elite]: Decreased food cost from 30 to 25 food. The gold cost is unchanged (15g).

Portuguese

CIVILIZATION

As their civilization bonus, all units now cost 20% less gold to train (was 15%).

UNITS

 Caravel: Increased the base cost to build by +3 gold. After the civilization discount, the total cost is now 34.4 gold (was 34).

Tatars

UNITS

 Flaming Camel: Increased attack bonus against elephants from +80 to +130.
 Flaming Camel: Increased blast radius from 1.5 to 2.0.

General

• Relics will now spawn during “infinite resources” matches so Lithuanians can activate their civilization bonus.
• The generation of player gold, stone, and other resources has been further adjusted to prevent resources from overlapping or appearing stuck.

Maps

• Acropolis: Increased the amount of starting gold to 4 gold tiles per player.
• Acropolis: Removed extra boars from the map.
• Acropolis: Hilltops will no longer generate forest on Deathmatch or Infinite Resources modes.
• Acropolis: Extra deer and predator animals will no longer spawn when using Deathmatch settings.
• Acropolis: Relics are now generated slightly further from players’ bases.
• Arabia: Starting stone and gold resources have been adjusted to spawn a minimum, set distance from each other.
• Arabia: Huntable animals will no longer spawn directly next to berries.
• Archipelago: Land masses will generate away from the edges of the map—even on smaller sizes—to prevent fully-enclosed bodies of water.
• Arena: A third gold and second stone deposit have been added as guaranteed forward spawns outside of each player’s wall.
• Arena: Huntable animals will no longer spawn directly next to berries.
• Baltic: Each player is now provided with extra gold and stone deposits.
• Baltic: On tiny, small, and medium-sized maps, Relics have been re-balanced between the players, with the fifth relic spawning on the shallows or ice island in the water.
• Baltic: Forest generation has been adjusted for more consistent results.
• Baltic: The number of cliffs have been reduced and spaced out throughout the map.
• Baltic: Player starting locations have been adjusted with circular placement and slightly larger starting areas.
• Black Forest: Reduced the number of straggler trees that spawn.
• Bog Islands: Gold and stone deposits no longer appear near the edges of water.
• Bog Islands: Extra gold and stone deposits have been redistributed more evenly throughout the map.
• Bog Islands: The lake in the middle of the map now has a more consistent, circular shape.
• Bog Islands: Players now consistently spawn at an equal distance from the center of the map.
• Four Lakes: Fixed a bug where road terrain tiles would mistakenly appear in small clumps.
• Ghost Lake: Adjusted the generation of forests and player starting positions to ensure an equal amount of land and forest for each player.
• Ghost Lake: Reduced the density of forests to promote a more open, aggressive battlefield.
• Ghost Lake: Removed cliffs from the map.
• Ghost Lake: Ponds now only appear in the center of the map.
• Ghost Lake: Far gold and stone resources are now generated per player.
• Ghost Lake: Relics are now generated per player on tiny (1v1) maps.
• Ghost Lake: Each player’s primary gold mine (7 tiles) is always towards the center of the map to encourage aggressive play.
• Golden Pit: The center pit is now consistently circular.
• Golden Pit: Players spawns have been balanced to start an equal distance from the center pit.
• Golden Pit: Reduced the density of forests to promote a more open, aggressive battlefield.
• Gold Rush: Extra stone mines have been split from two, six-tile piles into four, three-tile piles.
• Gold Rush: Extra stone mines are now consistently generated near player starting positions.
• Hamburger: Players spawns are now in a perfect circle, ensuring equal access to the water.
• Hamburger: Adjusted how fish are generated to ensure that deep fish appear along the entire length of the water.
• Hamburger: Starting resources have been slightly spread out from their previous positions.
• Hamburger: The first and second gold and/or stone deposits will now spawn away from each other.
• Hamburger: Fixed an issue where extra gold, stone, and relics could appear on the central island.
• Hamburger: All starting resources now generate away from the water and central forest.
• Hamburger: Fixed an issue where the central forest would fail to spawn on larger map sizes.
• Hill Fort: Thin lines of forest no longer appear between players on 1v1 matches.
• Hill Fort: Fixed an instance of the map where extra berries would fail to generate.
• Kilimanjaro: Starting fish will no longer spawn directly adjacent to berries.
• Kilimanjaro: Huntable animals will no longer spawn directly next to berries.
• Kilimanjaro: Gold and stone deposits will now appear further from shorelines.
• Kilimanjaro: Forests are generated more evenly throughout the map.
• Kilimanjaro: Starting stone and gold resources have been adjusted to spawn a minimum, set distance from each other.
• Kilimanjaro: Player starting positions and the Kilimanjaro mountain are now more centered in the maps.
• Kilimanjaro: The mountain is now generated correctly on the Ludicrous map size.
• Kilimanjaro: Far gold and stone will no longer spawn together in clusters.
• Kilimanjaro: Quicksand now appears as a layered terrain, meaning it no longer prevents construction.
• MegaRandom: Introduced numerous new map variants while revising and removing some older variants. The resulting maps tend to offer more open, aggressive battlefields.
• MegaRandom: Increased the variety of seasons.
• MegaRandom: Extremely large or extremely small deposits of gold and stone will now spawn less frequently.
• MegaRandom: Starting gold and stone deposits are more evenly distributed around the map.
• MegaRandom: Revisited the starting food resources in order to provide a more equal balance regardless of civilization choice. The maximum amount of huntable food is now 2 deer and 3 rhinos or elephants—a combination that will spawn roughly 2% of the time.
• MegaRandom: Huntable animals will no longer spawn directly next to berries.
• MegaRandom: The chance of a grouped start for Team Games has been increased (similar to Lombardia).
• MegaRandom: The Nomad start now takes after the classic Nomad or Land Nomad start: where there are no clear bases and villagers for each player are scattered throughout the whole map.
• MegaRandom: Introduced the possibility of starting with a Fishing Ship or Transport Ship.
• MegaRandom: Introduced the possibility of starting with a Feitoria at 1%.
• MegaRandom: Introduced the possibility of starting with a Fortified Palisade at 2%.
• MegaRandom: Reduced the chance of starting with a Stone Wall from 2% to 1%.
• MegaRandom: Increased the chance of starting with a Horse or Camel from 12% to 20%.
• MegaRandom: Decreased the chance of starting without a Scout from 10% to 3%.
• MegaRandom: Decreased the chance of starting with a Castle from 2% to 1%.
• MegaRandom: Increased the chance of starting with a Outpost from 1% to 6%.
• MegaRandom: Extreme scout option (i.e. Militia, Spearman, Skirmisher, etc.) now appear less frequently, and only when there isn’t a large amount of deer.
• MegaRandom: Fixed various issues with stuck or inaccessible resources.
• MegaRandom: Fixed various instances where lands and resources were generated unevenly.
• Migration: The main gold pile has been split from one 8-tile deposit into two 4-tile deposits.
• Mountain Pass: Increased the amount of available food on the map. Forage bushes have been added, Deer now appear in packs of 4 instead of 3, and more Sheep and Deer appear throughout the map (overall).
• Mountain Pass: Fixed a bug where Villagers and resources could spawn stuck inside of a mountain.
• Nile Delta: Relics have been re-balanced among the islands. Depending on the size of the map, large islands will spawn with 2, 3, or 4 Relics, while one relic will always spawn on the starting islands in the middle.
• Nile Delta: Increased the amount of available food on the map. Ostriches now appear in groups of 4 instead of 3, and the number of Ostriches, Elephants, and Goats that spawn throughout the map has been increased.
• Nile Delta: The total amount of gold and stone available has been increased and evenly distributed on both large islands.
• Nile Delta: Adjusted how forests are generated to prevent large, empty clearings on larger map sizes.
• Nomad: Shore fish are now generated more evenly.
• Pacific Islands: Reshaped the outside areas and player positions to be more evenly shaped.
• Pacific Islands: Adjusted the number of starting animals to 8 buffalo and 1 rhino.
• Pacific Islands: Shorelines have become a more ideal habitat for (and thus have become more populated by) box turtles.
• Pacific Islands: Deep fish can now be found on the map, though in low numbers.
• Pacific Islands: Deer have reproduced in higher numbers and moved into the interior of the islands.
• Pacific Islands: Starting forests are now more consistent for each player.
• Pacific Islands: Increased the amount of forested area on the large middle islands.
• Pacific Islands: Extra forage bushes have sprouted on the middle islands.
• Pacific Islands: Gold and stone deposits on the middle islands appear further from the shorelines.
• Pacific Islands: Starting gold and stone deposits no longer appear too close to player Town Centers.
• Pacific Islands: Tigers will no longer appear on the mangrove shallows, only on solid land.
• Pacific Islands: Deer and tigers no longer spawn during a Deathmatch or Infinite Resources game.
• Pacific Islands: Water masking now features darker shades of water.
• Socotra: Additional forest has been added to the edges of the island while maintaining the openness at the center of the island.
• Socotra: Starting gold deposits now consist of one 5-tile and one 4-tile gold.
• Socotra: Starting stone deposits now consist of two 2-tile stone deposits.
• Socotra: Gold and stone can no longer generate directly beneath the Town Center.
• Socotra: Adjusted the amount of food available at the start of the match; players now begin with 5 Zebra, 6 Goats, 1 Elephant, and 6 Berry Bushes.
• Socotra: Removed the generation of extra stone nodes per player.
• Socotra: Huntable animals will no longer spawn directly next to berries.
• Socotra: Predators (lions) will now only appear at the center of the map.
• Socotra: Balanced how extra gold is generated throughout the map.
• Valley: Removed the starting deer that spawn for players.
• Valley: Added more shore fish to the lakes in the valley.
• Valley: Now uses circle positioning to make sure the river spawns as intended.
• Valley: Extra Deer will no longer spawn during a Deathmatch.
• Wolf Hill: Reduced the number of relics that spawn in the center of the map.
• Wolf Hill: Reduced the number of herdable animals from: one large group of six to a group of four, and three smaller groups of three to two groups of three.
• Wolf Hill: Added 4 Berry Bushes near each player spawn.
• Wolf Hill: Boars are now separated instead of spawning next to each other.
• Wolf Hill: Deer and boar no longer spawn during a Deathmatch or Infinite Resources game.
• Wolf Hill: The small clumps of forests that spawn around the player’s base no longer appear during a Deathmatch or Infinite Resources game.

General

• NEW! A Preferred Map option is now available in matchmaking. Use it to weight the ranked matchmaking choice in favor of your favorite map!

• If both players share a preferred map, they will play on that map.
• If players have different preferred maps, it will choose from the two.
• If one player has a map preference and the other doesn’t, the preferred map will be used.
• If neither player has a preference, a random map will be selected from the pool of non-banned maps.
• In Team games, the map is selected from the list of preferences provided by players, skewing towards those that are preferred by the majority of players.

• NEW! Added a new Random Civ option to the matchmaking lobby.

• With the option, all picks in a given match will be randomized, not just an individual’s pick.

• NEW! The map pools for Random Match and Deathmatch are now split and individually catered to the style of each game mode!
• Added additional spectator delay options, including: 1/2/3/4/5/10 minute delays.
• Map bans are now visible to all party members, not just the party leader.

• Added menu and lobby notifications to warn of impending server maintenance.

Ranked Map Rotation

General

• AI-controlled players may now delete a wall tile (and reconstruct it later) in order to more effectively lure a boar from outside of a walled base.
• AI players may now delete and abandon building foundations located next to enemy fortifications (such as a Castle, Krepost, Tower, etc.).
• AI players may now inform their allies about enemy player positions by sending a chat message and using a flare on the minimap.
• Players can now (properly) change the attack stance of converted scouting units previously owned by an AI player.
• Updated the AI build orders to enable a smoother progression curve.
• Updated the AI player response to Eagle Warrior rushes.
• AI-controlled Scouts can now path to the edge of the map to capture sheep.
• Fixed an issue which prevented AI players from training the most effective units to counter specific enemy compositions.
• Fixed an issue which would cause the AI to send too many Villagers to defend against a Tower rush.
• Implemented a variety of minor fixes and strategical improvements to the AI player behavior.
• Improved the behavior of the AI (CD) when assigned to the new Definitive Edition civilizations (Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Cumans, and Tatars).

Some adjustments have also been made to the Extreme AI behavior:

• Extreme AI players may preemptively send Spearmen to resource drop sites to protect gatherers when enemy cavalry attacks are expected.

Pathfinding

• Improved the behavior of melee units as they surround and clash with tightly-packed armies—such as when cavalry units surround and try to attack a death-ball of archers.

Scripting

• AI: up-group-size count no longer includes garrisoned objects.
• AI: Fixed an issue which could cause up-change-name to load the wrong script when restarting the game.
• AI: up-find-status-remote/local now stacks searches correctly.
• AI: up-get-focus-fact and up-get-target-fact now work correctly when getting allied goal values.
• AI: up-find-remote c: gate-class can now find gates.
• AI: up-get-path-distance/up-path-distance will return 65535 if the unit cannot actually path to destination tile.
• AI: position-enemy and position-target now work correctly.
• AI: object-data-patrolling will no longer always return 0.
• AI: up-get-focus-fact and up-get-target-fact now return the correct value when using player-distance.
• AI: up-find-remote will no longer find pending objects when using class.
• AI: object-data-idling now works correctly with livestock.

General

• Added a Datamod drop-down menu to the Campaign screens.
• Modded music will no longer be played louder than original tracks.
• Moved the storage location of cursor (.cur) files to resources/_common/cursors.

Scenario Editor

• Removed duplicate techs from the editor tech list.
• Fixed an issue where diplomacy would always display as “enemy” when playing a scenario in a Standard Game. This was caused by Diplomacy Settings not being properly saved in the scenario, and can be fixed by opening and re-saving any affected scenarios so the fix can take effect.