IT’S HERE! Age of Empires fans rejoice: a new update and new ways to play Age are upon us! The Priests are here to spread the word, and everyone can chant along to the ♪ wolooolooooo ♪.
Today’s release comes with a huge list of changes for the classic RTS title: including a boatload of balance adjustments, improvements to many of your favorite civilizations, the return of several features from the classic Age of Empires experience, and several brand-new systems to continue the ongoing evolution of the game! Here are some of the highlights:
- New unit stances!
- New & improved matchmaking lobby: new chat shortcuts, mirrored civilization picks, and more!
- Reorganized ranked ladders (paired with a ladder reset)!
- Balance updates to maps, units, and civilizations!
- Reduced install size from ~17GB to ~12GB!
- Anti-cheat improvements!
- ...and more!
As always, we want to hear about your experience as you jump into Update 38862! Be sure to visit our official channels to talk with the team and become a part of the community!
💬 DISCUSS: Age of Empires: Definitive Edition - Update 38862 Discussion 🗣 JOIN: The Age of Empires Official Discord
Enjoy the latest update and as always: keep those Wonders building!
—The Age of Empires Team
▬▬▬ UPDATE 38862 ▬▬▬
◆ NEW CONTENT & FEATURES ◆
- New unit stances are available—similar to those in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition.
- Aggressive (Default)
- Defensive
- Stand Ground
- No Attack
- A new Mirror Civilization option is available in multiplayer lobbies, allowing you to match the civilization of your opponent.
- Added a new Solid Farms (Legacy) setting. When enabled, farms act as solid buildings (like the original game) that block movement until the farm is destroyed.
- New hotkeys have been added to support the following actions:
- Select all buildings of the same type (Ctrl + Shift + key)
- Select all idle villagers [Ctrl + Shift + .]
- Select all military units [Ctrl + Shift + ,]
- Delete all selected units [Shift + Delete]
- Reset zoom to default level (100%) [Ctrl + Alt + 0]
- Implemented several new anti-cheat measures to keep things honest and fair!
◆ MULTIPLAYER ◆
- The Team ranked lobby option is no longer locked and can be used to create 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 matches.
- Quickmatch and ranked lobbies now share the same Elo ladders.
- Elo ladders are now split into 1v1 and Team ladders for both the Random Map and Deathmatch ranked modes. Quickmatch is still divided into 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4, but the latter three (2v2, 3v3, 4v4) count towards your Team Elo.
- Leaderboards will now display the Elo values for all players.
- Ranked games should no longer end up with unevenly-distributed teams.
- Options used when creating a ranked lobby will no longer remain as a filter following the game.
- The default team for both the host and clients in a lobby is now set to random.
- Fixed a bug that caused random teams to create unbalanced teams.
- Players will no longer be un-readied when another player in the lobby changes their team or color.
- Lobby chat can now be scrolled using the mouse wheel.
- Updated the message when kicking someone from a lobby to properly display the player's name.
- Added a new countdown before a match begins.
- Added chat shortcuts to send a message to specific players within a match: Allies (;), Enemies (#), and All (*)
- Chat will no longer be displayed for the enemy team when co-op players are in a match.
- Chat will no longer break after displaying a multi-line message.
- Spectators can now see player resources and the global queue for each player by using the number keys (1-8).
◆ GAME ◆
STABILITY & PERFORMANCE
- Fixed an uncommon issue that caused some users to disconnect approximately 5 minutes after starting a match.
- Implemented general performance optimizations.
GAMEPLAY
- Fixed an unintended mechanic where units could be spawned on the opposite side of a wall built next to the production building.
- Units will no longer be created from blocked buildings that have no valid space for the unit to spawn.
- Military units will no longer lose their collision boxes or stack/merge together when grouped closely or forced into a tight space.
- Fixed rare instances where Ballistics would fail to properly improve the accuracy of the Catapult Trireme or Juggernaught.
- Using Attack Move with Priests in the selection group will no longer inspire them to try and convert enemy units who enter their line of sight.
- Villagers will no longer automatically hunt another nearby Elephant after gathering all the food from the first.
- Naval units will no longer get stuck in Docks where they are created.
- Left-clicking to execute a command will now work even when moving the cursor while clicking.
- Implemented global pathfinding improvements.
GRAPHICS
- Graphics assets now use a compressed format in order to reduce the overall size of the game and new updates.
- Implemented additional installation optimizations to reduce the hard drive space required by the game.
- NOTE: These changes will require an (initially) larger download than normal to download the new files. This will reduce the size of future downloads.
- Adjusted the speed of certain unit animations in order to appear more realistic.
- The selection outlines for units and buildings are not properly scaled at all zoom levels.
- Implemented minor changes to some unit animations in order to appear more realistic.
- Slowed the destruction animations of buildings to more reasonable levels.
- Units now decay and disappear from the battlefield more rapidly.
AUDIO
- Adjusted in-game sounds to a more consistent volume level.
UI
- Increased the maximum zoom threshold in multiplayer to match that of single player.
- Renamed the Black Map Fog option to Animate Fog in order to better clarify its purpose.
- Players are now sorted by Team on the Statistics - Timeline screen.
◆ CIVILIZATION BALANCE ◆
GENERAL
- Villagers now move 10% faster in the Tool Age. The Wheel technology now grants a +50% speed boost (was +60%) to maintain the same maximum speed.
- Warships and Slingers no longer deal a minimum of 1 damage to buildings. This reduces the damage dealt by Slingers against normal buildings and by Scout Ships against walls and towers.
- Decreased the maximum search radius of Priests to prevent them from fixating on and following distant injured units.
- Predator animals will no longer break off their attack if you try to drop a building on them.
- Cataphract: Now have +20 hp, +1 armor, and +2 attack vs. infantry (for a total of 7).
- Cataphract: Reduced the gold cost of the upgrade from 750 to 600 gold. The food cost is unchanged.
- Domestication: Reduced the food cost to research the technology from 200 to 150 food. The wood cost is unchanged.
- Heavy Cavalry: Now have +1 attack vs. infantry (for a total of 6).
- Helepolis: Increased the fire rate by 5% (still slower than that in the original game).
- Scout: Increased cost from 80 to 90 food. (This is still lower than the 100 food cost in the original game.)
- Scout: Reduced line of sight by 1.
- Scythe Chariot: Reduced armor from 2 to 1.
- Scythe Chariot: Increased the upgrade cost from 1200 wood, 800 gold to 1400 wood, 1000 gold.
- Scythe Chariot: Increased the time to research the unit from 150 to 200 seconds.
- Chariot units no longer deal bonus damage to Priests.
- Reduced the conversion resistance of all Chariot units from 8x to 2x that of normal units.
- Siegecraft: Reduced the attack bonus granted to Villagers vs. towers and walls by ~50%.
- Slinger: Increased the training time from 28 to 35 seconds.
- Slinger: Reduced damage dealt to walls and towers by ~50%.
- Towers: Increased the hp of all towers: Watch Tower (+25 hp), Sentry Tower (+35 hp), Guard Tower (+40 hp), Ballista Tower (+40 hp).
Several units and technologies have had attributes adjusted to match their original game values:
- Bowman: Increased the training time from 26 to 30 seconds.
- Coinage: Increased the amount of bonus gold yielded from nodes from +10% to +25%.
- Camel Rider: Reduced training time from 32 to 30 seconds.
- Elephant Archer: Reduced attack damage from 6 to 5.
BABYLONIANS
- New Civilization Bonus! Market technologies are 30% cheaper to research.
- Decreased the bonus hp of walls and towers from +75% to +60% hp.
CARTHAGINIANS
- New Civilization Bonus! Carthaginians now start the game with +50 of each resource.
CHOSON
- New Civilization Bonus! Storage Pit technologies are 40% cheaper to research.
EGYPTIANS
- New Civilization Bonus! Farms are 20% cheaper to build; they now cost 60 wood instead of 75 wood.
GREEK
- New Civilization Bonus! Town Centers work 10% faster starting in the Tool Age. This affects both Villager creation and aging up.
- Now have access to the Fire Galley naval unit.
HITTITES
- Rather than having +3 range at all times, Hittite warships now have +2 range in the Tool Age and +3 range in the Bronze and Iron Age.
MACEDONIANS
- Rather than having +2 pierce armor at all times, Macedonian Academy units now have +1 pierce armor in the Bronze Age and +2 pierce armor in the Iron Age.
PALMYRANS
- Increased the civilization starting food bonus from +50 to +75 food.
- Now have access to the Plow technology.
PERSIANS
- Increased the movement speed of Persian Elephant units from +20% to +25% that of other elephants.
- Now have access to the Plow technology.
ROMANS
- Reduced the civilization discount to Tower costs from -50% to -40%.
SHANG
- Reduced the civilization bonus to Wall hp from +75% to +60% hp.
YAMATO
- Reduced the civilization discount to Cavalry unit costs from -20% to -15%.
- Reduced the civilization bonus to Ship hp from +25% to +20% hp.
◆ MAP BALANCE ◆
- Increased the quantity of gold in node tiles from 400 to 450 gold.
- Increased the quantity of stone in node tiles from 250 to 300 stone.
- Maps now guarantee that one straggler tree spawns near the Town Center of each player on all maps. Additional straggler trees are random, as before.
- Increased the amount of gold generated on maps. Most maps now have 3 piles of gold per player except for the Continental and Narrows maps, which have 2 larger piles.
- Adjusted how maps are generated to ensure that the same amount of gold and stone spawns in each pile for each player.
- Lions will no longer spawn in pairs. There is still a small chance for two lions to spawn relatively close to each other, but that's entirely random.
- Continental: Slightly increased the forested area.
- Small / Large Islands: Increased the amount of forest that spawns on the island.
- Small / Large Islands: Non-player gold nodes have been replaced with another player gold.
- Small Islands: Increased the size of the islands.
- Small Islands: Increased the number of resources that spawn on each island, as well as shore fish and deep sea fish.
- Oasis: Reduced the amount of water and increased the amount of forest spawned at the center of the map.
- Other minor map improvements.