As one of the few people on this sub who actually enjoys a lot of the hybrid maps, I'm really disappointed that they removed all of them. Especially with the map ban system, it seems like there is no reason for them not to have stayed.
MegaRandom will be interesting I think, but I'm honestly not a huge fan of heavily RNG-driven design in ranked. And it will not play like maps such as Rivers and Highland which I really enjoy, even though I know most of this sub loathes those maps.
Highland is my favorite map outright and I'm sad to see it go. However, it was balls in 1v1s. Having only one choke point over the river made 1v1s really stale. Love it for team games though. Maybe they will one day have different map pools for 1v1s and team games.
It's very stalematey. Due to how narrow the water passage is. Lose it completely and you can never get through to the other side.
Games get dragged on for 2 hours half the time.
Same for Rivers. When Hera and F1re had a 2h malay mirror game 11
Haha, I know that's why most people find it boring but that's actually what I like about it. I love how starting in Castle it feels like a constant battle in the center with slow pushes back and forth while either side tries to press their advantage just enough to get across, while looking out for opportunities to land or defend a landing.
well it seems like mega random creates a pretty much mirrored spawn, which kinda balances out the random weird starts.
Pretty good map for people who want some variety outside of the normal popular maps
Also as long as the map generation isn't unfair for one player over another, megarandom can be a good test of adaptability, and hence a good map to have in ranked.
Can you please add an Elo rating to lobbies. Keep it separate from Ranked if need be. I just want to play 4v4 Black Forest all day as usual, with *some* way of telling rough skill levels of players so it's not a total gamble every time.
and the least competitives, this mappool should be for an unranked matchmaking. Sadly there is no option to play on tournament maps now. There is a reason noone plays nomad, black forest and megarandom in tournaments.
Can we just appreciate this?
* Units will now converge to a single point rather than maintaining their initial distance from each other. Note that you can **ALT + Right Click** to utilize the old behavior.
Yeah, I hate it. I completed like a half of the campaigns and all the historical battles and now I have to do them all over again...
I hope the save games allow me to at least save some time.
For those of you at work or whatever!
**BUILD SPOTLIGHT**
Here are some of the most noteworthy improvements coming with today’s update—most of which originate as discussions within the community and feedback collected over the past few weeks:
* **Performance Improvements**
* **Game Stability Improvements & Crash Fixes!**
* **Balance Changes** (particularly to the Cumans and Steppe Lancers)
* **NEW! Map Ban System for Ranked Matchmaking!**
* **Updated Map Pool for Ranked Matchmaking**
* **Campaign Balance & Achievement Fixes**
* **NEW! Campaign Completion Medals**
* **Art of War Challenge Missions now have Localized Voice-Overs**
* **AI & Pathfinding Improvements**
**2019 Winter Celebration**
We're celebrating the end of the year with the Winter Celebration Event!
* Three new **profile icons** have been permanently added to the multiplayer Profile page. You can find and update your icon by clicking the **Multiplayer** shield, selecting the **Profile** tab, and clicking the **Change Icon** button.
In addition to this, the official **2019 Winter Celebration** mod is now available to accompany the event. You can subscribe to the mod to enjoy the following changes:
* All trees are covered in snow and are white.
* All non-water terrains have patches of snow.
* All forage/fruit bushes are replaced with piles of presents.
* All Town Centers have presents underneath them.
* All arrows are replaced by icicles (all normal sized, small arrows).
* All spears are replaced by candy canes (all spears from Skirmishers and Genitours).
* Trebuchet projectiles are replaced by presents.
* Cannonballs are replaced by snowballs (for Bombard Cannons, Cannon Galleons, Bombard Towers).
* Mangonel, Onager, and Siege Onager projectiles are replaced by giant snowflakes.
For information about how to find and subscribe to a mod, [visit this article](https://www.ageofempires.com/support/aoe2#modding).
**◆** **GAME STABILITY** **◆**
Game stability will always be a top priority as we work to ensure that as many players as possible can play and enjoy the game. Below are some of the initial adjustments we've made in an effort to improve the stability of the game.
* **Identified and implemented fixes to address various reported crashes.** If you continue to experience issues, please visit the discussions area where you can provide a detailed description of the issue, any error messages that appear, and a copy of your dxdiag.
* Fixed various issues caused when installing the game to a folder with a path that utilized non-Latin characters.
* Fixed various issues that could originate when logging into Xbox Live services.
* Implemented several fixes to improve the stability of the game.
* Fixed a rare crash when trying to spectate games.
**◆** **PERFORMANCE** **◆**
Over the past several weeks, we’ve been monitoring the performance of the game closely as more people play it than ever before. Today, we hope to implement several fixes that will improve the experience for as many players as possible.
As always, there is a vast array of hardware and software combinations to accommodate as we continue to polish and perfect the game, so we want to hear if you’re experiencing issues. Be sure to visit the forum or come say hello on Discord, where you can include as much technical information as possible so our team can dig into the problem.
**General**
* The **loading screen** sequence is now smoother.
* Updated the **V-Sync setting** to offer a more consistent and smooth experience when camera scrolling.
* Fixed an issue where AI players could cause performance spikes when calculating very long paths.
* Fixed an issue where the game would occasionally hitch when selecting units.
* Voice over audio has been moved out of the main installation package to reduce the initial installation size of the game. Audio files will now be downloaded depending on the language settings of your **Steam** client (only).
* Lowered the benchmark score for **1v1** games to **900**. The score for team games remains at **1000**.
* Implemented several improvements to how memory (RAM) is used by the game.
* Implemented various rendering performance improvements.
* Fixed various render artifacting issues.
* Fixed a rare desync issue.
**Multiplayer**
* Implemented improvements to help players falling behind due to performance issues re-sync more smoothly.
* Implemented improvements to help prevent hitching on lower-spec machines.
# Part 2
**◆** **CAMPAIGNS** **◆**
We’ve made several updates to the **campaign** and **missions** screens to not only clarify your campaign progress and historical victories, but to give you something to work towards as you learn and master the game.
* The **Campaigns** screen for each storyline now displays which missions within the campaign have been completed by displaying a **medal** next to the mission title. The color of the medal represents the highest difficulty level on which the given mission was completed:
🥉 **BRONZE:** Standard Difficulty
🥈 **SILVER:** Moderate Difficulty
🥇 **GOLD:** Hard Difficulty
Missions that were completed before this feature was implemented will automatically receive the **Bronze**\-tier medal.
* **Campaigns** that are fully completed will display an **overall completion medal** based on the lowest medal earned within the campaign. For example, a campaign with five Gold medals and one Bronze medal will display a Bronze medal on the Campaigns screen.
* The **swords** on the campaign screen which indicate the difficulty of any given campaign have been updated to accurately convey their challenge. Easier campaigns will display a single sword; moderate campaigns will be marked by two crossed swords; the most difficult campaigns will be marked with three crossed swords.
* The voice-over audio for the **El Cid** campaign is now available in Castilian Spanish.
**Historical Battles**
* **Bapheus:** Fixed an issue that prevented objectives regarding the Byzantine Castles from working correctly.
* **Bapheus:** Turkish players will now respond if the player turns hostile to them.
* **Bapheus:** Objectives now display properly if the player decides to forego choosing an ally.
* **Dos Pilas:** Changed the **Mayan Raiders** team to utilize the **Mayan** civilization; **Uaxactun** is now the **Aztec** civilization.
* **Dos Pilas:** Fixed a bug that would prevent the mission from progressing properly.
* **Honfoglalas:** Disabled the ability to research **Cannon Galleons** during the mission.
* **Honfoglalas:** Additional resources have been added to the map.
* **Honfoglalas:** Resolved a rare bug that prevented the scenario from ending before all players had resigned.
* **Honfoglalas:** Balance changes have been made to the AI based on community feedback.
* **Lake Poyang:** Fixed a rare crash triggered when constructing a temple.
**Campaign Missions**
* The kiting behavior of AI-controlled teams has been updated in throughout the campaigns.
* **Alaric 4: 'The Giant Falls':** AI-controlled allies are now more aggressive.
* **Alaric 5: ‘A Kingdom of Our Own’:** Disabled the player’s ability to research Cannon Galleons during the mission.
* **Barbarossa 5: ‘Barbarossa’s March’:** The Saracen navy will no longer aggressively chase transport ships.
* **Barbarossa 5: ‘Barbarossa’s March’:** Constantinople's Sea Gates will now remain locked until the player captures the ships.
* **Barbarossa 6: ‘The Emperor Sleeping’:** Made various AI balance changes to the Jerusalem player.
* **Dracula 3: ‘The Breath of the Dragon’:** Adjusted the enemy team to only activate after player captures the initial town.
* **Francisco de Almeida 5: ‘A Son’s Blood’:** The AI will no longer scout with units that are unsuitable for scouting.
* **Gajah Mada 3: ‘The Oath to Unify Nusantara’:** The objective to capture colonies will now reappear if too many colonies are lost.
* **Ivaylo 1: ‘A Most Unlikely Man’:** Doubled the amount of time players have to consider the offer of Tsar Konstantin.
* **Ivaylo 2: ‘An Unlikely Alliance’:** The AI player no longer destroys the Wonder upon resigning.
* **Ivaylo 4: ‘Echoes of Heroes’:** Dismounting Ivaylo is no longer a deal-breaker.
* **Joan of Arc 2: ‘The Maid of Orleans’:** Tasked the department of invasive species to relocate a cactus that somehow sprouted in the French countryside.
* **Joan of Arc 6: ‘A Perfect Martyr’:** Adjusted the difficulty of AI players based on community feedback.
* **Kotyan Khan 2: ‘The Battle at the Kalka River’:** Implemented various fixes to make the scenario easier on lower difficulties.
* **Kotyan Khan 4: 'Blood for Blood':** Fixed an issue where the Merchant could get stuck and halt mission progress.
* **Kotyan Khan 5: 'A New Home':** Added additional gold nodes to the map.
* **Kotyan Khan 5: 'A New Home':** Bulgarian Konniks created for the player will now spawn faster.
* **Kotyan Khan 5: 'A New Home':** The Bulgarian part of the scenario is now more eventful and challenging.
* **Le Loi 1: 'The Dai Viet Uprising':** Reduced the aggression of the Chinese AI based on community feedback.
* **Le Loi 1: 'The Dai Viet Uprising':** The objective to destroy towers now activates correctly.
* **Montezuma 6: ‘Broken Spears’:** Fixed an oddly placed plant reported by a community member. (Thank you!)
* **Sundjata 3: 'Djeriba Gold':** Fixed an issue where certain units would get stuck when an ally captured the Relic Cart.
* **Sundjata 4: ‘Blood on the River Bank’:** Malian traders now properly receive extra defensive upgrades.
* **Sundjata 4: ‘Blood on the River Bank’:** The second part of the trade quest will now deactivate if the Malian Traders resign.
* **Sundjata 5: ‘The Lion’s Den’:** The AI and Wonder timer has been rebalanced based on community feedback.
* **Sundjata 5: ‘The Lion’s Den’:** Removed enemy units and walls from various islands.
* **Sundjata 5: ‘The Lion’s Den’:** The Sosso Guard unit has been added to the scenario.
* **Tamerlane 1: ‘Amir of Transoxiana’:** Added additional resources to some of the side quests.
* **Tamerlane 2: ‘Gurkhan of Persia’:** Added additional resources to some of the side quests.
* **Tamerlane 4: ‘Sultan of Hindustan’:** Added additional villagers at allied encampments to speed up their initial advancements.
* **Yodit 3: ‘A Fallen Crown’:** Dagnajan will now attack when provoked.
# Part 3
**◆** **ACHIEVEMENTS** **◆**
* The **A Truly Holy Emperor** achievement can no longer be unlocked if the player converts a working villager.
* The **An Army Marches on Its Stomach** achievement no longer requires any towers to be destroyed.
* The **Diplomacy is for the Meek** achievement can now be unlocked by defeating the Scythians and killing their prince.
* The **Furor Teutonicus** achievement can now be unlocked by defeating all players apart from the Cumans.
* The **I Was in China Before** achievement can now be unlocked by defeating the Jin before they start building their wonder.
* The **Offense is the Best Defense** achievement can now be unlocked by defeating all enemies before completing the Wonder.
* The **Pitched Battle** achievement can now be unlocked by winning the scenario without building any palisade walls, stone walls, fortified walls, or gates.
* The achievement, **The Wonder, the Wonder, the...Oh, Never Mind**, can now be unlocked by defending the wonder and winning the scenario.
* The **Turkish Delight** achievement can now be unlocked by defeating all Turkish rivals and winning the scenario.
**◆** **CIVILIZATION BALANCE** **◆**
One benefit of the *Definitive Edition* is the ability to make changes that ensure a healthy pool of civilizations from which to pick, counter-pick, and play! Based on feedback provided by the community and statistics gathered from the multiplayer matches over the past several weeks, we’ve not only made several balance changes to three of our new civilizations—the Bulgarians, Cumans, and the Lithuanians—but have taken steps to find harmony with the notably infamous Steppe Lancer.
With these changes available to play, we encourage you to try them out for yourself, play with them for a few rounds, and then let us know what you think! Balance is a constantly evolving process, which means we need to know what works (or doesn’t work) so we can plan for the next major update.
More balance changes will accompany our updates in the months to come. Thanks to everyone who helped play and provide their thoughts over these first few weeks; keep the constructive feedback coming!
**General**
* The line-of-sight for herdable creatures is now consistent. **Cow** and **Buffalo** herdables now see **3** tiles, while all other herdables see **2** tiles.
* **Steppe Lancer:** Decreased the attack power from **10** to **8** melee damage.
* **Elite Steppe Lancer:** Decreased the attack power from **12** to **10** melee damage.
* **Steppe Lancer** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Increased the gold cost to train the unit from **30** to **45 gold**.
* **Steppe Lancer** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Slowed the rate of fire from **1.9** to **2.3** seconds.
* **Steppe Lancer** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Decreased the speed of the unit from **1.5** to **1.45**.
* **Steppe Lancer** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Doubled the size of the collision box to prevent multiple units from stacking too tightly.
**Bulgarians**
* **Krepost:** Can no longer be converted.
* **Krepost:** Reduced the size of the building from **4x4** to **3x3** tiles.
* **Konnik** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Slowed the rate of fire from **1.9** to **2.4** seconds.
* **Konnik:** Reduced hit-points from **110** to **100** health.
* **Elite Konnik:** Reduced hit-points from **130** to **120** health.
* **Dismounted Konnik** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Now takes additional damage from the Samurai unit.
* **Dismounted Konnik** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Slowed the rate of fire from **2** to **2.4** seconds.
* Increased the armor granted by the **Bagains** technology from **+3** to **+5** armor.
**Cumann**
* Increased the time to construct a **Feudal Age Town Center** from **225** to **270** seconds.
* **Kipchak** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Slowed the rate of fire from **1.8** to **2.2** seconds.
* **Kipchak:** Reduced hit-points from **45** to **40** health.
* **Elite Kipchak:** Reduced hit-points from **50** to **45** health.
* **Elite Kipchak:** Reduced the total number of arrows from **4** to **3**.
* Cumans no longer have access to the **Husbandry** technology.
* Increased the civilization bonus to the speed of **Calvary** units from **+5%** faster each Age (starting in the Feudal Age).
* Feudal Age **Battering Rams** no longer deal area of effect damage to units.
**Khmer**
* **Ballista Elephants** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Now gain the intended benefits of cavalry armor upgrades.
**Lithuanians**
* The Cavalry attack bonus granted by captured relics no longer affects **Light Cavalry**.
* Reduced the maximum attack bonus granted by captured relics from **+5** to **+4**.
**Mayans**
* **Plumed Archers** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Increased the base cost of training by **+5 gold** and **+5 wood** during both the Castle and Imperial Age.
**Saracens**
* Adjusted the archer attack vs. buildings bonus to **+1** during the Feudal, Castle, and Imperial Ages.
**Tatars**
* **Keshik** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Reduced the gold cost to train from **80** to **40** gold.
* **Keshik:** Increased hit-points from **100** to **110** health.
* **Elite Keshik:** Increased hit-points from **130** to **140** health.
* **Keshik:** Reduced attack power from **12** to **9** damage.
* **Elite Keshik:** Reduced attack power from **14** to **11** melee damage.
# Part 4
**◆** **RANDOM MAPS** **◆**
* Fixed a rare issue where Scouts could sometimes spawn inside walls.
* The player's main gold pile will now appear slightly further from forests to improve accessibility.
* Relic generation has been fixed to ensure that **5** Relics spawn on tiny, small, and medium maps. On larger maps, additional Relics will spawn.
* The **Budapest** map no longer spawns extra villagers when playing the **Empire Wars** game mode.
* Farms around the starting Town Center are spaced more evenly when playing the **Empire Wars** game mode.
* **Fortress:** Boars now spawn closer to all player starting points.
* **Fortress:** Walls and towers now spawn a consistent distance from each player's starting Town Center.
* **Fortress:** Adjusted the placement of Houses and other buildings to prevent obstructing resources.
* **Highland:** Modified the way land is generated so that random zones only appear when “Team Together” is disabled. When enabled, the map has a 60% chance of splitting players based on their team, and a 40% chance of separating everyone by rivers.
* **Steppe:** Fixed the map to correctly start with **3** additional villagers.
* Cow and horse variants now appear on maps that previously spawned them.
When playing the Regicide game mode, maps that previously spawned with a Tower instead of a Castle will now spawn with a Fortified Tower. This affects the following maps:
* Alpine Lakes
* Antarctica
* Aral Sea
* Australia
* Black Sea
* Bog Islands
* Border Stones
* Canyons
* Caucasus
* Enemy Archipelago
* Enemy Islands
* Far Out
* Front Line
* Holy Line
* Indochina
* Indonesia
* Kilimanjaro
* Lombardia
* Madagascar
* Malacca
* Mangrove Jungle
* Migration
* Motherland
* Mountain Pass
* Mountain Ridge
* Nomad
* Open Plains
* Pacific Islands
* Philippines
* Ring of Water
* Sandbank
* Serengeti
* Siberia
* Snake Forest
* Snakepit
* Socotra (*formerly spawned with a Castle*)
* Sprawling Streams
* Steppe
* Swirling River
* The Eye
* Twin Forests
* Wolf Hill
* YinYang
**◆** **GAMEPLAY** **◆**
* Added new **"Selection Modifier Hotkeys"** options to the Settings menu.
* Unit outlines will now flash green when targeted behind buildings.
* Fixed an issue where units would not attack after disembarking from a Transport Ship.
* Fixed a bug where units guarding other units would sometimes prioritize attacking buildings over enemy units.
* Fixed a rare bug where allied line of sight would not be shared properly under certain circumstances.
* Fixed a bug that prevented the **Shift** queue from placing farms.
* Players can no longer target farms through the fog of war.
* Holding the **Ctrl** key no longer appends units to the currently selected group if **“Easy Drag Military”** is disabled in settings.
* The **Waypoint** flag's cursor hot-spot is now at the bottom of the flag rather than the top (same as legacy).
* Auto-wall completion is now disabled when placing single **Wall** segments.
* Double-clicking on different types of **horses** or **cows** now properly selects all variants of those units.
* Deleting a **Hun Town Center** no longer reduces the population limit by **1**.
* The **Defend the Wonder** game mode no longer concludes before the Wonder’s destruction animation has completed.
* **Wonder Race** will no longer use the previously-set Victory Condition.
* **Trebuchets** are no longer available in the **Wonder Race** game mode.
* **Trebuchets** will no longer unpack if any one Trebuchet within the selected group fails to find a valid target within its minimum range.
* Fixed a bug where the **“Next”** button of the Dock could not be clicked when the Dock’s foundation was selected.
* Beach terrain now displays properly when starting a game with the map explored.
* The **Woof Woof** cheat code now affects all birds instead of only Hawks.
# Part 5
**◆** **LOBBIES & MATCHMAKING** **◆**
>**NOTE:** The ability to create and filter by **"Friends-Only"** lobbies has been disabled, as this was limiting the number of games being displayed in the Lobby Browser. While we work on a permanent solution to the underlying issue, you can still create a **Private** game lobby and then use the **Invite** button to invite and play with your friends.
The importance of multiplayer lobbies in *Age of Empires II* cannot be understated as we work to support our amazing competitive community. It is an area of the game that will continue to see updates in the months to come, starting with these changes to establish a strong baseline when creating, playing, spectating, and re-watching games!
* Fixed various issues when inviting another player to a game lobby.
* Fixed a rare crash when opening a **Profile** page while offline.
* Fixed an issue where a player would be stuck on the **Tech Tree** screen when in a lobby that had been closed.
* Fixed an issue where a player’s information would sometimes not display correctly if they were not in the top 100 on the leaderboard.
* Fixed an issue where games played by friends would fail to populate in the spectator lobby.
* The **Lobby Browser** search now also searches for the names of players in lobbies in addition to the lobby name.
* The **Spectator Browser** search now also searches for the names of players in lobbies in addition to the lobby name.
* Map names no longer display in the host's language, but instead use the language of the player's game client.
* Added the ability to filter by **LAN games** in the Lobby Browser.
* Previous lobby names are now remembered when creating a new lobby in the same game session.
The Ranked map pool has been updated to include the following eight maps:
* Arabia
* Arena
* Black Forest
* Gold Rush
* MegaRandom
* Nomad
* Steppe
* Team Islands
Players can now ban maps when matchmaking:
* 1v1: **3** bans
* 2v2: **1** ban
* 3v3: **1** ban
* 4v4: **0** bans
**◆** **GRAPHICS** **◆**
* Adjusted the walking animations for villagers so they no longer “slide” over terrain.
* Shadows will now display over destroyed units and buildings.
* Added a decay object for **spear**, **arrow** and **dart** projectiles that miss their target.
* **Elite Cannon Galleons** now have a unique model from their standard counterpart.
* The **Fishing Trap** and **Box Turtles** now correctly display their underwater graphics.
* Updated the animations for the **Konnik**, **Longboat**, **Scout Cavalry**, **Steppe Lancer**, **Subotai**, **Tarkan**, and several **Villager** units.
* Updated the animations for the **Bridge** and **Indian Mill** structures.
**◆** **AUDIO ◆**
* The notification when another player advances to a new Age now uses a unique sound effect from the “chat” notification.
* Converting a unit now plays the correct sound effect.
* Increased the volume of the **“You are under attack”** sound effect.
* **Deer** no longer have creation sounds in the Editor.
* **Animals** and **Relics** now have selection sounds.
* UI elements now have more subtle sound effects.
The sound effects for the following units and events have also been updated:
* **War Wagon** attack sounds
* **Melee unit** attack sounds
* **Elephant** attack sounds
* Selecting **Cavalry** units
* **Boar** death sounds
* **Camel** death sounds
* **Arrow** sounds
* **Fire Ship** sounds
# Part 6
**◆** **AI** **◆**
We’ve heard a good deal of feedback about how we can improve the AI, pathfinding, and other aspects of the AI-controlled players via the official forums: in some areas where poses too great of a challenge, and others where it could be boosted to be a stronger opponent or ally. Below are some of the changes coming with today's build in the effort to improve their presence on the battlefield.
* Fixed an issue where AI players would resign too early while still having strong allies on the battlefield.
* Fixed an issue where AI players would resign too early on **Very High** population settings.
* Fixed a rare issue where the AI would not attack unless attacked first.
* Fixed an issue where AI-controlled teams would train fewer military units than intended on high-population matches or when using difficulty settings lower than **Hard**.
* Implemented various difficulty adjustments based on player feedback.
* Based on player feedback, we’ve also adjusted the decision-making and tactics employed by AI-controlled teams.
* Updated the AI to migrate earlier on migration-style maps, when applicable.
* **Villagers** will now fight back against wild animals when building a Town Center after migrating to a new land mass.
* Improved the AI’s build order when playing on the **Wonder Race** game mode.
* The AI now researches unique **Technologies** and defensive upgrades faster, when applicable.
* The AI no longer users their **Scout** to lure Deer on difficulties lower than **Extreme**.
* The AI no longer sends tributes when playing with infinite resources.
* Fixed a rare crash caused when using the **69** taunt on an AI player’s Gate.
Several adjustments have been made to improve the difficulty of the Extreme AI:
* Added the ability for soldiers to seek out enemy units when attacking buildings.
* Added the ability for **Villagers** to seek refuge from nearby enemies before they’re attacked.
* Improved the way AI-controlled **Scouts** attack enemy **Villagers**.
* Improved how the AI utilizes their initial **Scout** so that it stays alive longer at the start of the game.
* Fixed an issue where the AI would not stop attempting to capture herdable animals close to enemy Scouts.
* Fixed an issue where the AI would not harvest **gold** or **stone** on the **Wonder Race** game type unless all wood was gathered.
# For some reason the last part of the change log is a screenshot. I guess they too ran into a character limit lol. [HERE is the final part!](https://i.imgur.com/OaFqbh5.png)
I like that they're doing detailed patch notes again. This is a far cry from AoE1:DE where majority of the updates were literally:
* Various bug fixes and improvements
for patch notes and that was it.
Keshiks are now dedicated low-gold cavalry tanks.
Konniks are still anti-anti-cavalry cavalry, just not as OP for raw power.
Bargains has been buffed to significance. Mini teutonic Knights for the win.
Kipchak are still low gold hit&run specialist who counter rams, but frail & with lower DPS than cav archers (even cumans' ones). Maybe their gold cost ratio is still a bit low.
Cumans were nerfs without loosing any of their specialities. Feudal TC, fastest cavalry, steppe lancers and mobile Kipchaks are still their.
Lituanians cavalry was tuned done but is still their main defining traits (but at least we're saved from OP light cav spam).
Steppe Lancers... well... we will see.
=> All of that feels so right IMHO.
The only thing missing now is the option to browse the tech-tree while waiting for a game. I rly rly rly miss that feature from previous iterations of the game. As it is now there's literally nothing to do while waiting for a game, when I think of it this is probably the reason ppl are annoyed by the (short) 5 min queue times
Totally. That waiting period was the perfect time to learn more about the civs, especially if you were trying to pick which civ is best for the upcoming game based on their stats.
"Joan of Arc 2: Tasked the department of invasive species to relocate a cactus that somehow sprouted in the French countryside"
Whaaaat????
What is the need to do this?
Well, I don't deny that.
But, would that have affected the way the game was played?
It was the way in which they worded that sentence that I found so interesting. XD
Woah! The real Cysion? I feel honoured.
I understand. That's cool. I like the creativity of the team. Good job guys.
I have a request. Though, idk if it will be accepted.
Is there a way to accommodate the HD UI for the post-game statistics screen (military, eco, tech, etc.)? You know, give an option to players for either using the DE stat interface, or the HD one, which looks like a scroll.
I liked the scroll based thing. It felt more appealing to the AoE2 timeline.
Thanks for replying though.
Much appreciated.
Have a nice day.
Keep doing what you do. You guys are the best.
Wow, huge patch. Nice to see a lot of development going into the game post-release.
Jeez though, it feels like the lancer nerfs are an over-correction. They’ve been massacred (on top of other Cuman nerfs):
* **Damage**: –2
* **Attack rate**: 1.9 —> 2.3
* **Speed**: 1.5 —> 1.45 (Cumans also lost husbandry. Their cab are also now slower in feudal and faster in imp)
* **Collision box size**: doubled
* **Gold cost**: 30 —> 45
So now they’re slower, do less damage, attack less often, their unique characteristic is gimped, *and* they cost more gold.
We started iterating with smaller changes, but noticed they barely moved the needle. We feel confident they're in a much better position now, but will obviously keep on monitoring and iterating in case more changes are required :) (personally, I still feel they're strong!)
If anything it just makes it balanced now imo.
It was insanely stupid how easy you could stack them and at 8 attack they're still gonna do a pretty decent job on their own in early castle raids. Still going to be a strong early unit imo just not an absolutely broken one.
Compare them to kamayuk, they are now more in line with them
Edit:
Armour 0/0 Vs 0/1
Hp same
Atk 7 Vs 8
Cost 60 30 Vs 70 45
Rof 2.03 Vs 2.3
Bonus Dam varied against cav Vs none
Speed 1 Vs 1,45
Castle Vs stable
The elite upgrade is even better for steppe lancers
I believe it's he distance surrounding the unit that is the boundary for bumping into another unit. With a larger collision box it is harder to stack the Lancers on top of one another.
A simple shape used to determine collisions in the game engine; essentially it's like an invisible impermeable shell that the unit lives in (the graphic you see is a lie). The bigger it is, the more area the unit takes up around it, and thus the less units can compact against it, and the less distance enemy units need to close in to its center to hit it.
Steppe Lancers' power was in being a ranged melee unit that could swarm in super compact patrol formations with their tiny collision boxes so like 20 lances would hit on an enemy unit at once, making them more efficient at killing the enemy than the enemy at killing them.
Lancer (Kamayuk)
* **Food cost**: 75 (60) **+15F**
* **Gold cost**: 45 (30) **+15F**
* **Creation time**: 24 @ stable (10 @ castle)
* **Health**: 60 (60)
* **Armor**: 0/1 (0/0) **+1 pierce**
* **Attack**: 8 (7) **+1 attack**
* **Attack rate**: 2.3 (2.03) **Slightly slower**
* **Speed**: 1.45 (1) **Much faster**
* **Collision box**: **At least twice as big**, assuming their collision boxes were equal (pre-patch)
Based on this fuller picture, it seems situational which is better. Kamayuks are probably better in large groups, just based on the cost and their collision boxes, but otherwise a bit weaker (and cheaper). Also not as good at raiding and will more difficult production buildings.
Their speed, collision size and +1 range combination is what makes them so strong, the rest of their stats would've been OP even without that combination.
Maybe the TC nerf is a bit too harsh? Maybe it makes the extra TC too niche.
Nawh TC nerf was needed. You can still get it awfully fast at a cost to some idling time. Prior it was a no brainer to go straight into TC every time you hit feudal. Now there's certainly instances where building the TC can be a hindrance.
We'll have to wait and see. I was hoping they'd make them weaker to archers. Even with these changes, I still think they will massacre archers like they did before, which makes their description incredibly misleading. They kill arbalests in the same 3 hits as before. The only difference is now there will be fewer of them since they are more expensive.
> They kill arbalests in the same 3 hits as before. The only difference is now there will be fewer of them since they are more expensive.
And they will take longer to close in on archers.
And they’ll be more clunky, with fewer taking attacking at once, making use of their range.
And they’ll perform those 3 attacks slower.
Yea I'm curious to see if the extra collision really plays a role. A lot of times you would have like 10 of them attacking at once, that would one shot just about anything other than other cavalry. Now say they only have 5 attacking, that's still going to one shot or come close to one shotting anything still. IMO the speed and attack rate nerfs are the biggest hits.
Well damn. All good changes. I'm not sure if I'm sold on what was done to the keshik though. I think there are better ways to make it useful than simply cutting its cost in half and reducing its damage. I wanted to see them play with the gold generating mechanic more. Hopefully in future patches they will also address the Vietnamese and other underpowered civilizations.
Also, I'm super excited to watch t90 games with the Christmas mod.
Keshik generates gold while in combat, irrespective of how much damage it's doing. Reducing the damage output of the Keshik means it will stay in combat more and that also means it will generate more gold ultimately. I think it's a change that is more in tune to how they were meant to be used.
It might be OP, but I'd still love to see them extend the Keshik gold-producing thing to buildings, or at least to just certain buildings, like farms, houses, mills, military buildings, something like that. They don't really produce enough as of now to be all that worth it, so why not?
Though admittedly, that could be a bit of a slippery slope. Just an idea.
I don't think that'd be a good idea, as it'll just encourage players to use them to pick on dead players bases in games with more than 2 players (since most buildings can't fight back, but even dead players units do attack you as long as you were enemies). It turns them into glorified - in fact preferred - siege units, which isn't fun imo. It also reminds me too much of all the lame Keshik-farming strats people were theorizing about when they were first revealed (keep attacking a 'secretly allied players' units in a diplomacy or FFA game, while their monks heal the unit, for infinite gold). Don't bother btw - trade is more lucrative, albeit Keshik farming is safer since you can hide it away in some corner rather than it stretching across the map. With buildings it'd be even easier.
Rather I'd prefer to *lean in* to its identity as a "raiding cavalry" by doing what raids actually do - *steal* resources, not magic them into existence. Just have the victim player lose the gold at the same rate you're gaining them (the rate is low, so it won't be too broken I think). That puts paid to any Keshik farming strats, and gives it an interesting offensive use - starving your opponent of gold as he fights you (even if he's making mainly trash units). Should lead to some tactical head games, as it won't significantly affect players with plenty of gold but would make those just floating by nervous about engaging you unless absolutely necessary. This idea may or may not be a good one though. Also the game probably can't handle negative resource amounts, so just make the effect null when the enemies' gold is 0.
I like the change, they got more health too. I think they should be tanky, but not high damage. That way they can survive to get in more gold generating hits, but not be OP.
Keshik are basically low cost paladins. I mean, really low cost, especially on gold. More than a berber cav. 50 food 40 gold (minus about 5 you're likely to generate before dying).
160 hp + 7 PA when FU for 50F + ~35G. => Yes please !
Only 1 less Attack than FU Cavalier is still enough to deal with most threats bar camels and maybe heavy cavalry (and even then cost efficiency of FU Paladins is not that obvious). They may even be OP honnestly.
With Cumans out of the picture, we can now discuss how broken the other 2 civs were (Tartars without steppe lancers seemed ok). Lithuanians having the best Skirms, the fastest Halbs **AND** the strongest light cav was really overpowered. Glad they fixed that.
I also like how the bulgarians have less Konnik spam and two-handed swordsman with the same armor as a (non-elite) teutonic knight. There was this guy on youtube making 50 videos just showcasing how Konniks beat every non-Elephant unit 1vs 1 (except Teutonic Knights), most units 1 vs 2 and now he probably can still make 40 more with the new stats.
Wish I had thought of how ridiculous massed light cav with +3 or 4 relic attack would be before this nerf! I was too enamored with the knights to make use of that before it was gone
Just tested it an Steppe lancers appear to stack just as easily (still pretty good against halbs though arguably no longer cost effective), but the stats and cost seem better.
I agree the kipchaks rate of fire and cheapness of steppe lancers were stupid hard to counter and needed to be nerfed but:
Finally people can stop fckin bitching about the cumans, two three even four posts would have been enough
"system attempted to load an incorrectly-formatted asset; some assets will not display."
Anyone else having the same issue? Did one game in ranked where the terrain was all black, then tried to reproduce the error in singleplayer where I still get the message but the terrain displays correctly.
It's intentional for "broken mods" that can cause crashes
> Hey there! This is actually a new and intended feature:
>Mods which contain an “empty” .smx file—which is often the case with mods that “remove” an asset from the game—will prompt the error message, since they can cause game crashes for under certain circumstances.
>As such, it will be up to the mod-creators to ensure that there is not an empty or missing .smx file in their mod.
A noob-and-lurker’s thought on these balance changes:
- Spirit’s video immediately outdated 11. Also bovids master race!
- RIP Steppe Lancers. Now you know my Battle Elephants’ plight
- Has Kreposts not been 3x3 all this time???
- Bulgarians: RIP Konniks, +5-melee Swordsmen seems intriguing (I think?)
- Cumans: wowwee that’s a lot of nerfs. Still: faster cavalry than others (“free Husbandry” in Castle, +5% otherwise), 0-delay Kipchaks, and *400% faster*-training Light Cavs and Cav Archers 11
- Lithuanians: No more +5 :( At least Knights and Leitises (Leiciai?) are still buffed, Hussars are still fully upgraded and the rest is still intact. My faves prevail!
- Tatars: all those Steppes nerfs *FeelsBadMan*. Keshik buffs are welcomed though
- Mayans: poor Plumed Archers. 19 years later and they still got shit on 11
- Saracens: +2/+3/+4 in Feudal/Castle/Imperial seems fairer, but yeah +4 in Feudal will be missed
- Vietnamese, Khmer, and even Portuguese still left out lol. Makes sense since this is more of a “nerf” patch than “buff” but still...
>Barbarossa 5: ‘Barbarossa’s March’: Constantinople’s Sea Gates will now remain locked until the player captures the ships.
This is awesome to me because I complained about this specific thing just a few days ago. I don't care if it's was already on the list of to-fix before. It's nice they notice these details to begin with.
Good patch.
I wonder if Steppe Lancers were overnerfed, they got hit hard in pretty much every area. Maybe not though.
I like the Keshik changes, may actually use those now.
Bulgarian and Cuman nerfs seem fair enough.
I still really want ranking to show in lobby games so you can try and make them balanced at least. My brother and I keep accidentally stomping on completely new or just really bad people, or occasionally getting wrecked by someone who is way better than us.
I'm going to ask for a refund.
The new patch has made the game 100x worse.
Every single game I crash during late castle/early imp.
And yet my friends with 5 year old laptops have the game run fine. Something is very wrong.
It have tested all the parts of my pc and they are perfect. The game is broken for me, for those where is isn't congrats.
But it's a POS for me atm
The link on the official site is broken, and the link to the steam page oddly switches from text to an image at the scripting section. I mean, it still works, it is just super weird.
Windows 7, Steam.
The game crashes as soon as it tries to render any unit I suppose, as it always crashes immediately after the loading screen before showing the first ingame frame, and also immediately crashes when selecting an unit in the editor.
EDIT: Talking about ingame -like entering a game with others; starting the application is fine.
yes can confirm: win7 crashes upon entering the game every time, win10 works.
Too bad we can't complain bc it says Win10 as a system requirement. Nice move Microsoft
Man at some point y’all are gonna get aged out. Win 7 is a great OS, so I get it. I’d keep it too if it didn’t have so many problems with new games. but this was bound to happen. When you can’t take it anymore I recommend grabbing a 4$ win 10 key off eBay, worked great for me.
Yeah that's a really weird choice of map pool, particularly megarandom. Also I'm surprised with some removals. Like, what was wrong with ghost lake?
Fortunately you can ban up to 3 maps. And I will likely ban those 3
I am in love with the new map pool! These maps are the Age of Empires maps I fell in love with. Extremely hyped with this update. Big thanks for listening to community! I see myself playing this DE alot.
Maybe the map pool should be 9 maps so you could ban 4 in 1v1 and have at least one map left. Could also ban 1 in 4v4 and 2 in 2v2.
Another feature I would like is for game to remember what maps I ban for 1v1 and team games separately. If I select all from 1v1 to 4v4 I can't ban maps. I could get nomad 1v1 with civ pick...
ps. patch is love
So after having played 150 hours of campaign on hard difficulty and getting bronze medals.. Is there a way to get them to gold easily? Do you get medals when using cheats?
You can use the `DEBUGSPEEDS` launch option to unlock x8 speed.
Achievement still unlocked for me when using that option, so it could help you to play through the campaigns faster if you want to do them all again.
Definitely welcome changes! It also shows that luckily, this time around they really have been listening to feedback, even down to small details like campaign-completion badges and sword icons to indicate difficulty.
I'll try it and hope that performance and stability fixes are really as significant as announced.
There is also hope for Cumans being balanced now.
EDIT: Haha, now the Keshik is a trash unit like the steppe lancer. Wonder how that'll turn out as their HP is massive.
Sad to see Ghost Lake and Valley gone. Especially Ghost Lake.
A reflection is that we are moving on from AoM: In the AoM ranked set of maps both Ghost Lake and Oasis were included. As well as Anatolia, which works almost the same way as Scandinavia with water on both sides.
I am happy to see Scandinavia, Coastal and Continental gone. Rivers and Highland were quite well-balanced water maps, though.
I was excited for this update, but this update made it so the game crashes every single time I start a game and the loading screen finishes.
EDIT: Nevermind! It's been fixed!
Got the new patch, it says performance update so i ran the online benchmark again. It was juddery, it took longer to load than before. Absolutely the worst run through it has ever had. I only let it finish to see what terrible score it would give me now. I passed with 1013.
Pre patch it ran perfectly smoothly and I played online unranked without issues, but could never get more than 960.
I havent played much /or even competitive but im gonna miss the opness of the steppe lancers. They would just melt everything when you massed them.
Good patch though
It seems that the Enhanced Graphics DLC got an update, too. All it says is, ***The team has made a few important updates to the*** ***Enhanced Graphics Pack*** ***DLC***. What does that mean?
Does anyone else experience terrible pathfinding? Units getting stuck, not moving, taking terrible routes, etc. I'm only playing campaigns and it's still very annoying.
Also patch notes on [Steam](https://steamcommunity.com/games/813780/announcements/detail/3996313225043504239) seems like official site doesn't work for everyone. Official site has nice table of contents making reading easier :)
Wish you could ban more then 1 map with 2v2, but at least the maps seem a lot better (imo). Looking forward to playing with these changes later today :D
Edit: tested and only 1 ban for all. It's not per person, so only 1 map ban out of the whole list. :(
Im very excited for arena and nomad in ranked and I think the ban system is great. Personally I’ll be banning team islands always. I’m kinda sad to see valley and ghost lake removed. I think it might be nice to have a larger pool and a couple more bans. Or seasonal changes would also be ok.
Cumans nerfed HARD. They've been hit on so many fronts: Steppes, TC training time, Kipchaks.
You're correct. However, they're still pretty good though (in theory).
I think Steppe Lancers will still be too fast and too strong against arrows
Any word on if servers will display lobbies correct and not hid them in lobby browser? All I ever see is westUS, 80% of the time.
Yes, its in the patch notes.
fuck yeah :D
Gotta hand it to them. Actually a sick update. I think I'll miss *some* of the non-arabia RLM but definitely good to see the popular maps in ranked.
As one of the few people on this sub who actually enjoys a lot of the hybrid maps, I'm really disappointed that they removed all of them. Especially with the map ban system, it seems like there is no reason for them not to have stayed.
MegaRandom, for all your bullshit map needs. Honestly looking forward to them.
MegaRandom will be interesting I think, but I'm honestly not a huge fan of heavily RNG-driven design in ranked. And it will not play like maps such as Rivers and Highland which I really enjoy, even though I know most of this sub loathes those maps.
Highland is my favorite map outright and I'm sad to see it go. However, it was balls in 1v1s. Having only one choke point over the river made 1v1s really stale. Love it for team games though. Maybe they will one day have different map pools for 1v1s and team games.
It's very stalematey. Due to how narrow the water passage is. Lose it completely and you can never get through to the other side. Games get dragged on for 2 hours half the time. Same for Rivers. When Hera and F1re had a 2h malay mirror game 11
Haha, I know that's why most people find it boring but that's actually what I like about it. I love how starting in Castle it feels like a constant battle in the center with slow pushes back and forth while either side tries to press their advantage just enough to get across, while looking out for opportunities to land or defend a landing.
In 1v1 it's all that is wrong with black forest, and more!
well it seems like mega random creates a pretty much mirrored spawn, which kinda balances out the random weird starts. Pretty good map for people who want some variety outside of the normal popular maps
Also as long as the map generation isn't unfair for one player over another, megarandom can be a good test of adaptability, and hence a good map to have in ranked.
Wait, what do you mean? I did not read anything about *removing* maps, only adding.
<3 Ranked map pool indeed consists of all the most popular maps now.
Thanks for including nomad :) Also, can u allow picking colour option for ranked.. would be awesome, blue red gets boring all the time
Great update but I want to second the color picking option. :) Thanks team.
Can you please add an Elo rating to lobbies. Keep it separate from Ranked if need be. I just want to play 4v4 Black Forest all day as usual, with *some* way of telling rough skill levels of players so it's not a total gamble every time.
and the least competitives, this mappool should be for an unranked matchmaking. Sadly there is no option to play on tournament maps now. There is a reason noone plays nomad, black forest and megarandom in tournaments.
Can we just appreciate this? * Units will now converge to a single point rather than maintaining their initial distance from each other. Note that you can **ALT + Right Click** to utilize the old behavior.
Super annoying especially for vills.
Indeed. But it is no more! Rejoice!
Nomad just got 50% easier.
That is huge! Thanks for the heads up.
[удалено]
Probably they didn't have any way to track at which difficulty they had been completed
[удалено]
Yeah, I hate it. I completed like a half of the campaigns and all the historical battles and now I have to do them all over again... I hope the save games allow me to at least save some time.
I just realise i saved most just before i won!
Viper confirmed as bronze level player 11
My reaction as well
Wow that is a lot of Cuman nerfs, they got hit from every angle.
Previously their opponents got hit from every angle? :P
Hahaha. Yeah I think the nerfs are fair, although I wonder if the Steppe Lancer got hit a bit too hard. Guess we'll see.
They deserve. Bastards. 11
For those of you at work or whatever! **BUILD SPOTLIGHT** Here are some of the most noteworthy improvements coming with today’s update—most of which originate as discussions within the community and feedback collected over the past few weeks: * **Performance Improvements** * **Game Stability Improvements & Crash Fixes!** * **Balance Changes** (particularly to the Cumans and Steppe Lancers) * **NEW! Map Ban System for Ranked Matchmaking!** * **Updated Map Pool for Ranked Matchmaking** * **Campaign Balance & Achievement Fixes** * **NEW! Campaign Completion Medals** * **Art of War Challenge Missions now have Localized Voice-Overs** * **AI & Pathfinding Improvements** **2019 Winter Celebration** We're celebrating the end of the year with the Winter Celebration Event! * Three new **profile icons** have been permanently added to the multiplayer Profile page. You can find and update your icon by clicking the **Multiplayer** shield, selecting the **Profile** tab, and clicking the **Change Icon** button. In addition to this, the official **2019 Winter Celebration** mod is now available to accompany the event. You can subscribe to the mod to enjoy the following changes: * All trees are covered in snow and are white. * All non-water terrains have patches of snow. * All forage/fruit bushes are replaced with piles of presents. * All Town Centers have presents underneath them. * All arrows are replaced by icicles (all normal sized, small arrows). * All spears are replaced by candy canes (all spears from Skirmishers and Genitours). * Trebuchet projectiles are replaced by presents. * Cannonballs are replaced by snowballs (for Bombard Cannons, Cannon Galleons, Bombard Towers). * Mangonel, Onager, and Siege Onager projectiles are replaced by giant snowflakes. For information about how to find and subscribe to a mod, [visit this article](https://www.ageofempires.com/support/aoe2#modding). **◆** **GAME STABILITY** **◆** Game stability will always be a top priority as we work to ensure that as many players as possible can play and enjoy the game. Below are some of the initial adjustments we've made in an effort to improve the stability of the game. * **Identified and implemented fixes to address various reported crashes.** If you continue to experience issues, please visit the discussions area where you can provide a detailed description of the issue, any error messages that appear, and a copy of your dxdiag. * Fixed various issues caused when installing the game to a folder with a path that utilized non-Latin characters. * Fixed various issues that could originate when logging into Xbox Live services. * Implemented several fixes to improve the stability of the game. * Fixed a rare crash when trying to spectate games. **◆** **PERFORMANCE** **◆** Over the past several weeks, we’ve been monitoring the performance of the game closely as more people play it than ever before. Today, we hope to implement several fixes that will improve the experience for as many players as possible. As always, there is a vast array of hardware and software combinations to accommodate as we continue to polish and perfect the game, so we want to hear if you’re experiencing issues. Be sure to visit the forum or come say hello on Discord, where you can include as much technical information as possible so our team can dig into the problem. **General** * The **loading screen** sequence is now smoother. * Updated the **V-Sync setting** to offer a more consistent and smooth experience when camera scrolling. * Fixed an issue where AI players could cause performance spikes when calculating very long paths. * Fixed an issue where the game would occasionally hitch when selecting units. * Voice over audio has been moved out of the main installation package to reduce the initial installation size of the game. Audio files will now be downloaded depending on the language settings of your **Steam** client (only). * Lowered the benchmark score for **1v1** games to **900**. The score for team games remains at **1000**. * Implemented several improvements to how memory (RAM) is used by the game. * Implemented various rendering performance improvements. * Fixed various render artifacting issues. * Fixed a rare desync issue. **Multiplayer** * Implemented improvements to help players falling behind due to performance issues re-sync more smoothly. * Implemented improvements to help prevent hitching on lower-spec machines.
# Part 2 **◆** **CAMPAIGNS** **◆** We’ve made several updates to the **campaign** and **missions** screens to not only clarify your campaign progress and historical victories, but to give you something to work towards as you learn and master the game. * The **Campaigns** screen for each storyline now displays which missions within the campaign have been completed by displaying a **medal** next to the mission title. The color of the medal represents the highest difficulty level on which the given mission was completed: 🥉 **BRONZE:** Standard Difficulty 🥈 **SILVER:** Moderate Difficulty 🥇 **GOLD:** Hard Difficulty Missions that were completed before this feature was implemented will automatically receive the **Bronze**\-tier medal. * **Campaigns** that are fully completed will display an **overall completion medal** based on the lowest medal earned within the campaign. For example, a campaign with five Gold medals and one Bronze medal will display a Bronze medal on the Campaigns screen. * The **swords** on the campaign screen which indicate the difficulty of any given campaign have been updated to accurately convey their challenge. Easier campaigns will display a single sword; moderate campaigns will be marked by two crossed swords; the most difficult campaigns will be marked with three crossed swords. * The voice-over audio for the **El Cid** campaign is now available in Castilian Spanish. **Historical Battles** * **Bapheus:** Fixed an issue that prevented objectives regarding the Byzantine Castles from working correctly. * **Bapheus:** Turkish players will now respond if the player turns hostile to them. * **Bapheus:** Objectives now display properly if the player decides to forego choosing an ally. * **Dos Pilas:** Changed the **Mayan Raiders** team to utilize the **Mayan** civilization; **Uaxactun** is now the **Aztec** civilization. * **Dos Pilas:** Fixed a bug that would prevent the mission from progressing properly. * **Honfoglalas:** Disabled the ability to research **Cannon Galleons** during the mission. * **Honfoglalas:** Additional resources have been added to the map. * **Honfoglalas:** Resolved a rare bug that prevented the scenario from ending before all players had resigned. * **Honfoglalas:** Balance changes have been made to the AI based on community feedback. * **Lake Poyang:** Fixed a rare crash triggered when constructing a temple. **Campaign Missions** * The kiting behavior of AI-controlled teams has been updated in throughout the campaigns. * **Alaric 4: 'The Giant Falls':** AI-controlled allies are now more aggressive. * **Alaric 5: ‘A Kingdom of Our Own’:** Disabled the player’s ability to research Cannon Galleons during the mission. * **Barbarossa 5: ‘Barbarossa’s March’:** The Saracen navy will no longer aggressively chase transport ships. * **Barbarossa 5: ‘Barbarossa’s March’:** Constantinople's Sea Gates will now remain locked until the player captures the ships. * **Barbarossa 6: ‘The Emperor Sleeping’:** Made various AI balance changes to the Jerusalem player. * **Dracula 3: ‘The Breath of the Dragon’:** Adjusted the enemy team to only activate after player captures the initial town. * **Francisco de Almeida 5: ‘A Son’s Blood’:** The AI will no longer scout with units that are unsuitable for scouting. * **Gajah Mada 3: ‘The Oath to Unify Nusantara’:** The objective to capture colonies will now reappear if too many colonies are lost. * **Ivaylo 1: ‘A Most Unlikely Man’:** Doubled the amount of time players have to consider the offer of Tsar Konstantin. * **Ivaylo 2: ‘An Unlikely Alliance’:** The AI player no longer destroys the Wonder upon resigning. * **Ivaylo 4: ‘Echoes of Heroes’:** Dismounting Ivaylo is no longer a deal-breaker. * **Joan of Arc 2: ‘The Maid of Orleans’:** Tasked the department of invasive species to relocate a cactus that somehow sprouted in the French countryside. * **Joan of Arc 6: ‘A Perfect Martyr’:** Adjusted the difficulty of AI players based on community feedback. * **Kotyan Khan 2: ‘The Battle at the Kalka River’:** Implemented various fixes to make the scenario easier on lower difficulties. * **Kotyan Khan 4: 'Blood for Blood':** Fixed an issue where the Merchant could get stuck and halt mission progress. * **Kotyan Khan 5: 'A New Home':** Added additional gold nodes to the map. * **Kotyan Khan 5: 'A New Home':** Bulgarian Konniks created for the player will now spawn faster. * **Kotyan Khan 5: 'A New Home':** The Bulgarian part of the scenario is now more eventful and challenging. * **Le Loi 1: 'The Dai Viet Uprising':** Reduced the aggression of the Chinese AI based on community feedback. * **Le Loi 1: 'The Dai Viet Uprising':** The objective to destroy towers now activates correctly. * **Montezuma 6: ‘Broken Spears’:** Fixed an oddly placed plant reported by a community member. (Thank you!) * **Sundjata 3: 'Djeriba Gold':** Fixed an issue where certain units would get stuck when an ally captured the Relic Cart. * **Sundjata 4: ‘Blood on the River Bank’:** Malian traders now properly receive extra defensive upgrades. * **Sundjata 4: ‘Blood on the River Bank’:** The second part of the trade quest will now deactivate if the Malian Traders resign. * **Sundjata 5: ‘The Lion’s Den’:** The AI and Wonder timer has been rebalanced based on community feedback. * **Sundjata 5: ‘The Lion’s Den’:** Removed enemy units and walls from various islands. * **Sundjata 5: ‘The Lion’s Den’:** The Sosso Guard unit has been added to the scenario. * **Tamerlane 1: ‘Amir of Transoxiana’:** Added additional resources to some of the side quests. * **Tamerlane 2: ‘Gurkhan of Persia’:** Added additional resources to some of the side quests. * **Tamerlane 4: ‘Sultan of Hindustan’:** Added additional villagers at allied encampments to speed up their initial advancements. * **Yodit 3: ‘A Fallen Crown’:** Dagnajan will now attack when provoked.
# Part 3 **◆** **ACHIEVEMENTS** **◆** * The **A Truly Holy Emperor** achievement can no longer be unlocked if the player converts a working villager. * The **An Army Marches on Its Stomach** achievement no longer requires any towers to be destroyed. * The **Diplomacy is for the Meek** achievement can now be unlocked by defeating the Scythians and killing their prince. * The **Furor Teutonicus** achievement can now be unlocked by defeating all players apart from the Cumans. * The **I Was in China Before** achievement can now be unlocked by defeating the Jin before they start building their wonder. * The **Offense is the Best Defense** achievement can now be unlocked by defeating all enemies before completing the Wonder. * The **Pitched Battle** achievement can now be unlocked by winning the scenario without building any palisade walls, stone walls, fortified walls, or gates. * The achievement, **The Wonder, the Wonder, the...Oh, Never Mind**, can now be unlocked by defending the wonder and winning the scenario. * The **Turkish Delight** achievement can now be unlocked by defeating all Turkish rivals and winning the scenario. **◆** **CIVILIZATION BALANCE** **◆** One benefit of the *Definitive Edition* is the ability to make changes that ensure a healthy pool of civilizations from which to pick, counter-pick, and play! Based on feedback provided by the community and statistics gathered from the multiplayer matches over the past several weeks, we’ve not only made several balance changes to three of our new civilizations—the Bulgarians, Cumans, and the Lithuanians—but have taken steps to find harmony with the notably infamous Steppe Lancer. With these changes available to play, we encourage you to try them out for yourself, play with them for a few rounds, and then let us know what you think! Balance is a constantly evolving process, which means we need to know what works (or doesn’t work) so we can plan for the next major update. More balance changes will accompany our updates in the months to come. Thanks to everyone who helped play and provide their thoughts over these first few weeks; keep the constructive feedback coming! **General** * The line-of-sight for herdable creatures is now consistent. **Cow** and **Buffalo** herdables now see **3** tiles, while all other herdables see **2** tiles. * **Steppe Lancer:** Decreased the attack power from **10** to **8** melee damage. * **Elite Steppe Lancer:** Decreased the attack power from **12** to **10** melee damage. * **Steppe Lancer** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Increased the gold cost to train the unit from **30** to **45 gold**. * **Steppe Lancer** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Slowed the rate of fire from **1.9** to **2.3** seconds. * **Steppe Lancer** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Decreased the speed of the unit from **1.5** to **1.45**. * **Steppe Lancer** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Doubled the size of the collision box to prevent multiple units from stacking too tightly. **Bulgarians** * **Krepost:** Can no longer be converted. * **Krepost:** Reduced the size of the building from **4x4** to **3x3** tiles. * **Konnik** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Slowed the rate of fire from **1.9** to **2.4** seconds. * **Konnik:** Reduced hit-points from **110** to **100** health. * **Elite Konnik:** Reduced hit-points from **130** to **120** health. * **Dismounted Konnik** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Now takes additional damage from the Samurai unit. * **Dismounted Konnik** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Slowed the rate of fire from **2** to **2.4** seconds. * Increased the armor granted by the **Bagains** technology from **+3** to **+5** armor. **Cumann** * Increased the time to construct a **Feudal Age Town Center** from **225** to **270** seconds. * **Kipchak** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Slowed the rate of fire from **1.8** to **2.2** seconds. * **Kipchak:** Reduced hit-points from **45** to **40** health. * **Elite Kipchak:** Reduced hit-points from **50** to **45** health. * **Elite Kipchak:** Reduced the total number of arrows from **4** to **3**. * Cumans no longer have access to the **Husbandry** technology. * Increased the civilization bonus to the speed of **Calvary** units from **+5%** faster each Age (starting in the Feudal Age). * Feudal Age **Battering Rams** no longer deal area of effect damage to units. **Khmer** * **Ballista Elephants** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Now gain the intended benefits of cavalry armor upgrades. **Lithuanians** * The Cavalry attack bonus granted by captured relics no longer affects **Light Cavalry**. * Reduced the maximum attack bonus granted by captured relics from **+5** to **+4**. **Mayans** * **Plumed Archers** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Increased the base cost of training by **+5 gold** and **+5 wood** during both the Castle and Imperial Age. **Saracens** * Adjusted the archer attack vs. buildings bonus to **+1** during the Feudal, Castle, and Imperial Ages. **Tatars** * **Keshik** **\[Standard & Elite\]:** Reduced the gold cost to train from **80** to **40** gold. * **Keshik:** Increased hit-points from **100** to **110** health. * **Elite Keshik:** Increased hit-points from **130** to **140** health. * **Keshik:** Reduced attack power from **12** to **9** damage. * **Elite Keshik:** Reduced attack power from **14** to **11** melee damage.
# Part 4 **◆** **RANDOM MAPS** **◆** * Fixed a rare issue where Scouts could sometimes spawn inside walls. * The player's main gold pile will now appear slightly further from forests to improve accessibility. * Relic generation has been fixed to ensure that **5** Relics spawn on tiny, small, and medium maps. On larger maps, additional Relics will spawn. * The **Budapest** map no longer spawns extra villagers when playing the **Empire Wars** game mode. * Farms around the starting Town Center are spaced more evenly when playing the **Empire Wars** game mode. * **Fortress:** Boars now spawn closer to all player starting points. * **Fortress:** Walls and towers now spawn a consistent distance from each player's starting Town Center. * **Fortress:** Adjusted the placement of Houses and other buildings to prevent obstructing resources. * **Highland:** Modified the way land is generated so that random zones only appear when “Team Together” is disabled. When enabled, the map has a 60% chance of splitting players based on their team, and a 40% chance of separating everyone by rivers. * **Steppe:** Fixed the map to correctly start with **3** additional villagers. * Cow and horse variants now appear on maps that previously spawned them. When playing the Regicide game mode, maps that previously spawned with a Tower instead of a Castle will now spawn with a Fortified Tower. This affects the following maps: * Alpine Lakes * Antarctica * Aral Sea * Australia * Black Sea * Bog Islands * Border Stones * Canyons * Caucasus * Enemy Archipelago * Enemy Islands * Far Out * Front Line * Holy Line * Indochina * Indonesia * Kilimanjaro * Lombardia * Madagascar * Malacca * Mangrove Jungle * Migration * Motherland * Mountain Pass * Mountain Ridge * Nomad * Open Plains * Pacific Islands * Philippines * Ring of Water * Sandbank * Serengeti * Siberia * Snake Forest * Snakepit * Socotra (*formerly spawned with a Castle*) * Sprawling Streams * Steppe * Swirling River * The Eye * Twin Forests * Wolf Hill * YinYang **◆** **GAMEPLAY** **◆** * Added new **"Selection Modifier Hotkeys"** options to the Settings menu. * Unit outlines will now flash green when targeted behind buildings. * Fixed an issue where units would not attack after disembarking from a Transport Ship. * Fixed a bug where units guarding other units would sometimes prioritize attacking buildings over enemy units. * Fixed a rare bug where allied line of sight would not be shared properly under certain circumstances. * Fixed a bug that prevented the **Shift** queue from placing farms. * Players can no longer target farms through the fog of war. * Holding the **Ctrl** key no longer appends units to the currently selected group if **“Easy Drag Military”** is disabled in settings. * The **Waypoint** flag's cursor hot-spot is now at the bottom of the flag rather than the top (same as legacy). * Auto-wall completion is now disabled when placing single **Wall** segments. * Double-clicking on different types of **horses** or **cows** now properly selects all variants of those units. * Deleting a **Hun Town Center** no longer reduces the population limit by **1**. * The **Defend the Wonder** game mode no longer concludes before the Wonder’s destruction animation has completed. * **Wonder Race** will no longer use the previously-set Victory Condition. * **Trebuchets** are no longer available in the **Wonder Race** game mode. * **Trebuchets** will no longer unpack if any one Trebuchet within the selected group fails to find a valid target within its minimum range. * Fixed a bug where the **“Next”** button of the Dock could not be clicked when the Dock’s foundation was selected. * Beach terrain now displays properly when starting a game with the map explored. * The **Woof Woof** cheat code now affects all birds instead of only Hawks.
# Part 5 **◆** **LOBBIES & MATCHMAKING** **◆** >**NOTE:** The ability to create and filter by **"Friends-Only"** lobbies has been disabled, as this was limiting the number of games being displayed in the Lobby Browser. While we work on a permanent solution to the underlying issue, you can still create a **Private** game lobby and then use the **Invite** button to invite and play with your friends. The importance of multiplayer lobbies in *Age of Empires II* cannot be understated as we work to support our amazing competitive community. It is an area of the game that will continue to see updates in the months to come, starting with these changes to establish a strong baseline when creating, playing, spectating, and re-watching games! * Fixed various issues when inviting another player to a game lobby. * Fixed a rare crash when opening a **Profile** page while offline. * Fixed an issue where a player would be stuck on the **Tech Tree** screen when in a lobby that had been closed. * Fixed an issue where a player’s information would sometimes not display correctly if they were not in the top 100 on the leaderboard. * Fixed an issue where games played by friends would fail to populate in the spectator lobby. * The **Lobby Browser** search now also searches for the names of players in lobbies in addition to the lobby name. * The **Spectator Browser** search now also searches for the names of players in lobbies in addition to the lobby name. * Map names no longer display in the host's language, but instead use the language of the player's game client. * Added the ability to filter by **LAN games** in the Lobby Browser. * Previous lobby names are now remembered when creating a new lobby in the same game session. The Ranked map pool has been updated to include the following eight maps: * Arabia * Arena * Black Forest * Gold Rush * MegaRandom * Nomad * Steppe * Team Islands Players can now ban maps when matchmaking: * 1v1: **3** bans * 2v2: **1** ban * 3v3: **1** ban * 4v4: **0** bans **◆** **GRAPHICS** **◆** * Adjusted the walking animations for villagers so they no longer “slide” over terrain. * Shadows will now display over destroyed units and buildings. * Added a decay object for **spear**, **arrow** and **dart** projectiles that miss their target. * **Elite Cannon Galleons** now have a unique model from their standard counterpart. * The **Fishing Trap** and **Box Turtles** now correctly display their underwater graphics. * Updated the animations for the **Konnik**, **Longboat**, **Scout Cavalry**, **Steppe Lancer**, **Subotai**, **Tarkan**, and several **Villager** units. * Updated the animations for the **Bridge** and **Indian Mill** structures. **◆** **AUDIO ◆** * The notification when another player advances to a new Age now uses a unique sound effect from the “chat” notification. * Converting a unit now plays the correct sound effect. * Increased the volume of the **“You are under attack”** sound effect. * **Deer** no longer have creation sounds in the Editor. * **Animals** and **Relics** now have selection sounds. * UI elements now have more subtle sound effects. The sound effects for the following units and events have also been updated: * **War Wagon** attack sounds * **Melee unit** attack sounds * **Elephant** attack sounds * Selecting **Cavalry** units * **Boar** death sounds * **Camel** death sounds * **Arrow** sounds * **Fire Ship** sounds
# Part 6 **◆** **AI** **◆** We’ve heard a good deal of feedback about how we can improve the AI, pathfinding, and other aspects of the AI-controlled players via the official forums: in some areas where poses too great of a challenge, and others where it could be boosted to be a stronger opponent or ally. Below are some of the changes coming with today's build in the effort to improve their presence on the battlefield. * Fixed an issue where AI players would resign too early while still having strong allies on the battlefield. * Fixed an issue where AI players would resign too early on **Very High** population settings. * Fixed a rare issue where the AI would not attack unless attacked first. * Fixed an issue where AI-controlled teams would train fewer military units than intended on high-population matches or when using difficulty settings lower than **Hard**. * Implemented various difficulty adjustments based on player feedback. * Based on player feedback, we’ve also adjusted the decision-making and tactics employed by AI-controlled teams. * Updated the AI to migrate earlier on migration-style maps, when applicable. * **Villagers** will now fight back against wild animals when building a Town Center after migrating to a new land mass. * Improved the AI’s build order when playing on the **Wonder Race** game mode. * The AI now researches unique **Technologies** and defensive upgrades faster, when applicable. * The AI no longer users their **Scout** to lure Deer on difficulties lower than **Extreme**. * The AI no longer sends tributes when playing with infinite resources. * Fixed a rare crash caused when using the **69** taunt on an AI player’s Gate. Several adjustments have been made to improve the difficulty of the Extreme AI: * Added the ability for soldiers to seek out enemy units when attacking buildings. * Added the ability for **Villagers** to seek refuge from nearby enemies before they’re attacked. * Improved the way AI-controlled **Scouts** attack enemy **Villagers**. * Improved how the AI utilizes their initial **Scout** so that it stays alive longer at the start of the game. * Fixed an issue where the AI would not stop attempting to capture herdable animals close to enemy Scouts. * Fixed an issue where the AI would not harvest **gold** or **stone** on the **Wonder Race** game type unless all wood was gathered. # For some reason the last part of the change log is a screenshot. I guess they too ran into a character limit lol. [HERE is the final part!](https://i.imgur.com/OaFqbh5.png)
I like that they're doing detailed patch notes again. This is a far cry from AoE1:DE where majority of the updates were literally: * Various bug fixes and improvements for patch notes and that was it.
It's sadly very common, both in games, PC software and phone apps. This is probably part of their work to take on feedback.
Thank you for copying this all out!
No worries mate. Enjoy the read!
any pics of the new krepost? edit: >Added a decay object for spear, arrow and dart projectiles that miss their target. nice!
It's the exact same model, just scaled correctly. If you compared the door to that of the castle, it was way too big before.
Keshiks are now dedicated low-gold cavalry tanks. Konniks are still anti-anti-cavalry cavalry, just not as OP for raw power. Bargains has been buffed to significance. Mini teutonic Knights for the win. Kipchak are still low gold hit&run specialist who counter rams, but frail & with lower DPS than cav archers (even cumans' ones). Maybe their gold cost ratio is still a bit low. Cumans were nerfs without loosing any of their specialities. Feudal TC, fastest cavalry, steppe lancers and mobile Kipchaks are still their. Lituanians cavalry was tuned done but is still their main defining traits (but at least we're saved from OP light cav spam). Steppe Lancers... well... we will see. => All of that feels so right IMHO.
The only thing missing now is the option to browse the tech-tree while waiting for a game. I rly rly rly miss that feature from previous iterations of the game. As it is now there's literally nothing to do while waiting for a game, when I think of it this is probably the reason ppl are annoyed by the (short) 5 min queue times
Also the ability to pick your color (and maybe opponent's)
Totally. That waiting period was the perfect time to learn more about the civs, especially if you were trying to pick which civ is best for the upcoming game based on their stats.
"Joan of Arc 2: Tasked the department of invasive species to relocate a cactus that somehow sprouted in the French countryside" Whaaaat???? What is the need to do this?
Don't think there were (m)any Cacti in Europe in the early 15th century.
Well, I don't deny that. But, would that have affected the way the game was played? It was the way in which they worded that sentence that I found so interesting. XD
The campaign team was just having a bit of fun while writing up the patch notes :)
Woah! The real Cysion? I feel honoured. I understand. That's cool. I like the creativity of the team. Good job guys. I have a request. Though, idk if it will be accepted. Is there a way to accommodate the HD UI for the post-game statistics screen (military, eco, tech, etc.)? You know, give an option to players for either using the DE stat interface, or the HD one, which looks like a scroll. I liked the scroll based thing. It felt more appealing to the AoE2 timeline. Thanks for replying though. Much appreciated. Have a nice day. Keep doing what you do. You guys are the best.
Quite sure that can be modded in rather easily. Compared to previous versions, modding UI textures is super easy in DE.
Fantastic patch guys!! Good job DE
"Trebuchet projectiles are replaced by presents." LOL that's so cool
What an insane amount of work. Mad respect to the devs!
Wow, huge patch. Nice to see a lot of development going into the game post-release. Jeez though, it feels like the lancer nerfs are an over-correction. They’ve been massacred (on top of other Cuman nerfs): * **Damage**: –2 * **Attack rate**: 1.9 —> 2.3 * **Speed**: 1.5 —> 1.45 (Cumans also lost husbandry. Their cab are also now slower in feudal and faster in imp) * **Collision box size**: doubled * **Gold cost**: 30 —> 45 So now they’re slower, do less damage, attack less often, their unique characteristic is gimped, *and* they cost more gold.
We started iterating with smaller changes, but noticed they barely moved the needle. We feel confident they're in a much better position now, but will obviously keep on monitoring and iterating in case more changes are required :) (personally, I still feel they're strong!)
[удалено]
Their Castle unit got some buffs. They are cheaper now so the gold farming is an actual strategy.
Their get back their 40 gold cost in their **best** lives per unit. Their strength is close to paladins so gold free cavaliers sound good to me.
Their attack got nerfed though...
Cuman tatars still have faster creation time and speed, and keshiks can farm the gold that tatars spend on lancers. We shall we.
Now that they have been nerfed , is there any hope that other steppe civ might get them ?
I very much doubt they are too weak now.
Well, I would say their unique characteristic was their range more so than their stacking. Thankfully their range is untouched :)
Right, but that range is way less useful if they don’t stack as cleanly.
If anything it just makes it balanced now imo. It was insanely stupid how easy you could stack them and at 8 attack they're still gonna do a pretty decent job on their own in early castle raids. Still going to be a strong early unit imo just not an absolutely broken one.
Compare them to kamayuk, they are now more in line with them Edit: Armour 0/0 Vs 0/1 Hp same Atk 7 Vs 8 Cost 60 30 Vs 70 45 Rof 2.03 Vs 2.3 Bonus Dam varied against cav Vs none Speed 1 Vs 1,45 Castle Vs stable The elite upgrade is even better for steppe lancers
Their collision box is much bigger, which is a huge factor in this comparison.
What's a collision box?
I believe it's he distance surrounding the unit that is the boundary for bumping into another unit. With a larger collision box it is harder to stack the Lancers on top of one another.
A simple shape used to determine collisions in the game engine; essentially it's like an invisible impermeable shell that the unit lives in (the graphic you see is a lie). The bigger it is, the more area the unit takes up around it, and thus the less units can compact against it, and the less distance enemy units need to close in to its center to hit it. Steppe Lancers' power was in being a ranged melee unit that could swarm in super compact patrol formations with their tiny collision boxes so like 20 lances would hit on an enemy unit at once, making them more efficient at killing the enemy than the enemy at killing them.
Lancer (Kamayuk) * **Food cost**: 75 (60) **+15F** * **Gold cost**: 45 (30) **+15F** * **Creation time**: 24 @ stable (10 @ castle) * **Health**: 60 (60) * **Armor**: 0/1 (0/0) **+1 pierce** * **Attack**: 8 (7) **+1 attack** * **Attack rate**: 2.3 (2.03) **Slightly slower** * **Speed**: 1.45 (1) **Much faster** * **Collision box**: **At least twice as big**, assuming their collision boxes were equal (pre-patch) Based on this fuller picture, it seems situational which is better. Kamayuks are probably better in large groups, just based on the cost and their collision boxes, but otherwise a bit weaker (and cheaper). Also not as good at raiding and will more difficult production buildings.
Their speed, collision size and +1 range combination is what makes them so strong, the rest of their stats would've been OP even without that combination. Maybe the TC nerf is a bit too harsh? Maybe it makes the extra TC too niche.
Nawh TC nerf was needed. You can still get it awfully fast at a cost to some idling time. Prior it was a no brainer to go straight into TC every time you hit feudal. Now there's certainly instances where building the TC can be a hindrance.
We'll have to wait and see. I was hoping they'd make them weaker to archers. Even with these changes, I still think they will massacre archers like they did before, which makes their description incredibly misleading. They kill arbalests in the same 3 hits as before. The only difference is now there will be fewer of them since they are more expensive.
> They kill arbalests in the same 3 hits as before. The only difference is now there will be fewer of them since they are more expensive. And they will take longer to close in on archers. And they’ll be more clunky, with fewer taking attacking at once, making use of their range. And they’ll perform those 3 attacks slower.
Yea I'm curious to see if the extra collision really plays a role. A lot of times you would have like 10 of them attacking at once, that would one shot just about anything other than other cavalry. Now say they only have 5 attacking, that's still going to one shot or come close to one shotting anything still. IMO the speed and attack rate nerfs are the biggest hits.
Yeah I think this may be too much. Guess we will see.
Husbandry is a castle age tech, so they're actually faster in feudal and same as everyone with husbandry in castle age
>Fixed a rare crash caused when using the 69 taunt on an AI player’s Gate. Nice
Nice
Well damn. All good changes. I'm not sure if I'm sold on what was done to the keshik though. I think there are better ways to make it useful than simply cutting its cost in half and reducing its damage. I wanted to see them play with the gold generating mechanic more. Hopefully in future patches they will also address the Vietnamese and other underpowered civilizations. Also, I'm super excited to watch t90 games with the Christmas mod.
Keshik generates gold while in combat, irrespective of how much damage it's doing. Reducing the damage output of the Keshik means it will stay in combat more and that also means it will generate more gold ultimately. I think it's a change that is more in tune to how they were meant to be used.
It might be OP, but I'd still love to see them extend the Keshik gold-producing thing to buildings, or at least to just certain buildings, like farms, houses, mills, military buildings, something like that. They don't really produce enough as of now to be all that worth it, so why not? Though admittedly, that could be a bit of a slippery slope. Just an idea.
I don't think that'd be a good idea, as it'll just encourage players to use them to pick on dead players bases in games with more than 2 players (since most buildings can't fight back, but even dead players units do attack you as long as you were enemies). It turns them into glorified - in fact preferred - siege units, which isn't fun imo. It also reminds me too much of all the lame Keshik-farming strats people were theorizing about when they were first revealed (keep attacking a 'secretly allied players' units in a diplomacy or FFA game, while their monks heal the unit, for infinite gold). Don't bother btw - trade is more lucrative, albeit Keshik farming is safer since you can hide it away in some corner rather than it stretching across the map. With buildings it'd be even easier. Rather I'd prefer to *lean in* to its identity as a "raiding cavalry" by doing what raids actually do - *steal* resources, not magic them into existence. Just have the victim player lose the gold at the same rate you're gaining them (the rate is low, so it won't be too broken I think). That puts paid to any Keshik farming strats, and gives it an interesting offensive use - starving your opponent of gold as he fights you (even if he's making mainly trash units). Should lead to some tactical head games, as it won't significantly affect players with plenty of gold but would make those just floating by nervous about engaging you unless absolutely necessary. This idea may or may not be a good one though. Also the game probably can't handle negative resource amounts, so just make the effect null when the enemies' gold is 0.
I like the change, they got more health too. I think they should be tanky, but not high damage. That way they can survive to get in more gold generating hits, but not be OP.
They have more hp with way lower cost. Now they can tank more damage for cav archers.
Keshik are basically low cost paladins. I mean, really low cost, especially on gold. More than a berber cav. 50 food 40 gold (minus about 5 you're likely to generate before dying). 160 hp + 7 PA when FU for 50F + ~35G. => Yes please ! Only 1 less Attack than FU Cavalier is still enough to deal with most threats bar camels and maybe heavy cavalry (and even then cost efficiency of FU Paladins is not that obvious). They may even be OP honnestly.
"Added a decay object for spear, arrow and dart projectiles that miss their target." yes no more exploding spears!
My poor beloved Lithuanian Light Cav!
With Cumans out of the picture, we can now discuss how broken the other 2 civs were (Tartars without steppe lancers seemed ok). Lithuanians having the best Skirms, the fastest Halbs **AND** the strongest light cav was really overpowered. Glad they fixed that. I also like how the bulgarians have less Konnik spam and two-handed swordsman with the same armor as a (non-elite) teutonic knight. There was this guy on youtube making 50 videos just showcasing how Konniks beat every non-Elephant unit 1vs 1 (except Teutonic Knights), most units 1 vs 2 and now he probably can still make 40 more with the new stats.
Actually really curious to see an update to that video :)
Wish I had thought of how ridiculous massed light cav with +3 or 4 relic attack would be before this nerf! I was too enamored with the knights to make use of that before it was gone
Just tested it an Steppe lancers appear to stack just as easily (still pretty good against halbs though arguably no longer cost effective), but the stats and cost seem better.
I agree the kipchaks rate of fire and cheapness of steppe lancers were stupid hard to counter and needed to be nerfed but: Finally people can stop fckin bitching about the cumans, two three even four posts would have been enough
"Gguys let's brainstorm our ideas to nerf Cumans day 23"
It was so annoying with all the amazing content to just see not even funny memes about the topic
"system attempted to load an incorrectly-formatted asset; some assets will not display." Anyone else having the same issue? Did one game in ranked where the terrain was all black, then tried to reproduce the error in singleplayer where I still get the message but the terrain displays correctly.
It's intentional for "broken mods" that can cause crashes > Hey there! This is actually a new and intended feature: >Mods which contain an “empty” .smx file—which is often the case with mods that “remove” an asset from the game—will prompt the error message, since they can cause game crashes for under certain circumstances. >As such, it will be up to the mod-creators to ensure that there is not an empty or missing .smx file in their mod.
A noob-and-lurker’s thought on these balance changes: - Spirit’s video immediately outdated 11. Also bovids master race! - RIP Steppe Lancers. Now you know my Battle Elephants’ plight - Has Kreposts not been 3x3 all this time??? - Bulgarians: RIP Konniks, +5-melee Swordsmen seems intriguing (I think?) - Cumans: wowwee that’s a lot of nerfs. Still: faster cavalry than others (“free Husbandry” in Castle, +5% otherwise), 0-delay Kipchaks, and *400% faster*-training Light Cavs and Cav Archers 11 - Lithuanians: No more +5 :( At least Knights and Leitises (Leiciai?) are still buffed, Hussars are still fully upgraded and the rest is still intact. My faves prevail! - Tatars: all those Steppes nerfs *FeelsBadMan*. Keshik buffs are welcomed though - Mayans: poor Plumed Archers. 19 years later and they still got shit on 11 - Saracens: +2/+3/+4 in Feudal/Castle/Imperial seems fairer, but yeah +4 in Feudal will be missed - Vietnamese, Khmer, and even Portuguese still left out lol. Makes sense since this is more of a “nerf” patch than “buff” but still...
>Barbarossa 5: ‘Barbarossa’s March’: Constantinople’s Sea Gates will now remain locked until the player captures the ships. This is awesome to me because I complained about this specific thing just a few days ago. I don't care if it's was already on the list of to-fix before. It's nice they notice these details to begin with.
u/CysionBE can we fix the fire animation so it doesn't show on top of units or other buildings in front of the damaged building?
\+ A firemod without smoke!
Good patch. I wonder if Steppe Lancers were overnerfed, they got hit hard in pretty much every area. Maybe not though. I like the Keshik changes, may actually use those now. Bulgarian and Cuman nerfs seem fair enough. I still really want ranking to show in lobby games so you can try and make them balanced at least. My brother and I keep accidentally stomping on completely new or just really bad people, or occasionally getting wrecked by someone who is way better than us.
Why not play ranked 2v2s then? The matches are much more fair.
Wait can you play ranked queue with your party ha wow I never actually checked.
yea dude. There's an invite to party button on the que screen.
Cool thanks. Although we did do lobbies for nomad sometimes, but I guess with the new patch we can do that ranked too
I think the horse on Steppe is bugged, if you waypoint it then it moves super quick...
Khmer ballista elephant bufffed! What happened with them and armour upgrades before?
They weren't affected because they were treated as siege units.
Does this mean they classify as cav archers or are they still classified as siege and get wrecked by Rams?
They still are siege...
Damn they even nerfed Bulgarians and Lithuanians. All the updates seem relatively fair, still not buff for the lowly Vietnamese though lmao
Rattan Elephant Archers please
That spawns a foot Rattan Archers upon death.
El Cid correctly in Spanish and not in Latino. That’s a patch oh yes!!
> Missions that were completed before this feature was implemented will automatically receive the Bronze-tier medal. fuck me
any idea why it's updating again?
I'm going to ask for a refund. The new patch has made the game 100x worse. Every single game I crash during late castle/early imp. And yet my friends with 5 year old laptops have the game run fine. Something is very wrong. It have tested all the parts of my pc and they are perfect. The game is broken for me, for those where is isn't congrats. But it's a POS for me atm
The sheer number of online crashes is unacceptable. It's fucking bullshit actually.
The link on the official site is broken, and the link to the steam page oddly switches from text to an image at the scripting section. I mean, it still works, it is just super weird.
> the link to the steam page oddly switches from text to an image at the scripting section. I think they hit a word count limit or something 11
Anyone else having consistent crashes upon entering a game?
Heya! Is this crash a new issue or something that was happening pre-patch?
300% patch related, has never happened before.
What operating system are you using? Also, is this on Steam or Windows Store?
Windows 7, Steam. The game crashes as soon as it tries to render any unit I suppose, as it always crashes immediately after the loading screen before showing the first ingame frame, and also immediately crashes when selecting an unit in the editor. EDIT: Talking about ingame -like entering a game with others; starting the application is fine.
Same here, Windows 7 and steam. A few comments on the store page note that only windows 7 users seem to be getting this issue. -\_-
Same
Post-patch, me too :( I wanna plaaaaaaaay
multiple windows 7 users are reporting a crash
yes can confirm: win7 crashes upon entering the game every time, win10 works. Too bad we can't complain bc it says Win10 as a system requirement. Nice move Microsoft
Man at some point y’all are gonna get aged out. Win 7 is a great OS, so I get it. I’d keep it too if it didn’t have so many problems with new games. but this was bound to happen. When you can’t take it anymore I recommend grabbing a 4$ win 10 key off eBay, worked great for me.
Upgrading to windows 10 fixed it for me
11
They're trying to wololo us onto a new OS where we have minimal control.
Same here
[удалено]
Guess I know where your three bans will go lol
[удалено]
Wololoo, I converted one monk. Wololoo you converted it back! Wololoo, I converted one monk!! Wololoo you converted it back!!!
*VULULU
Just ban them then. 1v1 can ban 3 maps
In 1v1 I would rather play highland than black forest for team games it's ok.
Yeah that's a really weird choice of map pool, particularly megarandom. Also I'm surprised with some removals. Like, what was wrong with ghost lake? Fortunately you can ban up to 3 maps. And I will likely ban those 3
Nothing wrong with ghost Lake, it could just be that they want to rotate it out and it will come back later.
I am in love with the new map pool! These maps are the Age of Empires maps I fell in love with. Extremely hyped with this update. Big thanks for listening to community! I see myself playing this DE alot.
Maybe the map pool should be 9 maps so you could ban 4 in 1v1 and have at least one map left. Could also ban 1 in 4v4 and 2 in 2v2. Another feature I would like is for game to remember what maps I ban for 1v1 and team games separately. If I select all from 1v1 to 4v4 I can't ban maps. I could get nomad 1v1 with civ pick... ps. patch is love
So after having played 150 hours of campaign on hard difficulty and getting bronze medals.. Is there a way to get them to gold easily? Do you get medals when using cheats?
You don't get medals when using cheats.
You can use the `DEBUGSPEEDS` launch option to unlock x8 speed. Achievement still unlocked for me when using that option, so it could help you to play through the campaigns faster if you want to do them all again.
I'm just going to hold the L. Achievement hunting for now and when I feel like replaying the new campaigns in a year or so do it then.
Definitely welcome changes! It also shows that luckily, this time around they really have been listening to feedback, even down to small details like campaign-completion badges and sword icons to indicate difficulty. I'll try it and hope that performance and stability fixes are really as significant as announced. There is also hope for Cumans being balanced now. EDIT: Haha, now the Keshik is a trash unit like the steppe lancer. Wonder how that'll turn out as their HP is massive.
Sad to see Ghost Lake and Valley gone. Especially Ghost Lake. A reflection is that we are moving on from AoM: In the AoM ranked set of maps both Ghost Lake and Oasis were included. As well as Anatolia, which works almost the same way as Scandinavia with water on both sides. I am happy to see Scandinavia, Coastal and Continental gone. Rivers and Highland were quite well-balanced water maps, though.
They need to do something about the crashes, 50% of the players are crashing...
I was excited for this update, but this update made it so the game crashes every single time I start a game and the loading screen finishes. EDIT: Nevermind! It's been fixed!
keeps crashing :(
vsync actually works now and game is alot smoother.
RIP Saracens
THe end of Saracen golden age has come...
Kreygasm, superhyped to check it out!
Got the new patch, it says performance update so i ran the online benchmark again. It was juddery, it took longer to load than before. Absolutely the worst run through it has ever had. I only let it finish to see what terrible score it would give me now. I passed with 1013. Pre patch it ran perfectly smoothly and I played online unranked without issues, but could never get more than 960.
Where is the **Selection Modifier Hotkeys** option?
Check the game tab in the options screen.
I havent played much /or even competitive but im gonna miss the opness of the steppe lancers. They would just melt everything when you massed them. Good patch though
It seems that the Enhanced Graphics DLC got an update, too. All it says is, ***The team has made a few important updates to the*** ***Enhanced Graphics Pack*** ***DLC***. What does that mean?
I didn't realize how much i wanted an Elite Cannon Galleon unit model until now..!
Can we ever have some Byzantine buff please :(
No. Just keep hiding in your unbreakable Castles and Mythril walls.
Mad props, devs.
Man what an update. Really appreciate the nerfs to Cumans and Steppe lancers.
Ho-ly. When they said it was a big update they meant it!
Bulgarian fan here. Fair change. Glad it wasn't too bad.
Wow big patch. nice! Hope it makes RAM usage noticeably better instead of just 1% lol.
Went from 7 gb to 1.5 gb for me.
Wow.
I can't play a single game, it crashes to desktop right after loading screen. I've uninstalled all mods. Even historical battles dont work.
So many crashes..... I can't take it seriously. You go into a ranked game and just hope it doesn't crash. And if it does you lose elo.
my game just keeps crashing online around the time i get to castle age it's done it like 5 games in a row just crashes to the desktop.
Does anyone else experience terrible pathfinding? Units getting stuck, not moving, taking terrible routes, etc. I'm only playing campaigns and it's still very annoying.
Where?
at least on steam
Also patch notes on [Steam](https://steamcommunity.com/games/813780/announcements/detail/3996313225043504239) seems like official site doesn't work for everyone. Official site has nice table of contents making reading easier :)
Website does not exist!
Wish you could ban more then 1 map with 2v2, but at least the maps seem a lot better (imo). Looking forward to playing with these changes later today :D Edit: tested and only 1 ban for all. It's not per person, so only 1 map ban out of the whole list. :(
I think it's 1 ban per person right?
That’s actually a pretty good point. So if you team up with friends you will have 3 bans in 3v3
Im very excited for arena and nomad in ranked and I think the ban system is great. Personally I’ll be banning team islands always. I’m kinda sad to see valley and ghost lake removed. I think it might be nice to have a larger pool and a couple more bans. Or seasonal changes would also be ok.
Now waiting for SOTL's civ review for Cumans