Hello explorers, and welcome to Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition—the first update! We're excited to see the enthusiasm of players who are returning to or trying the latest addition to the franchise for the first time, and look forward to exploring the long road ahead for both Age III and the RTS community. This is only the first of many, many updates to come, and we appreciate everyone who has taken the time to visit the forums, communicate with the team and other players, and help others as we work through the initial waves following the live release of the game! Thank you!
In today's update, you'll find a number of fixes for some of the most disruptive issues reported in the days following the game's release! This includes crash fixes, performance optimizations, bug fixes, as well as balance and messaging changes for issues brought up by players on the forum. Here are some of the things you'll see landing in the game today:
- Implemented potential fixes for several crashes and desyncs.
- Added anti-aliasing options to the Graphics menu.
- Implemented several possible fixes for campaign progression issues.
- Numerous AI fixes to improve their aggression and battlefield tactics.
- Balance adjustments for several civilizations!
- Several fixes for multiplayer lobbies and matchmaking!
As always, the team is continuing to collect issues, working to understand the more complex reports, and testing fixes to include in the next (and next, and next) updates. If you don't see a fix for the initial issues you're experiencing, make sure to visit the forum to explain the problem so we can help you find a solution.
💬 DISCUSS: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition Forum 🗣 JOIN: The Age of Empires Official Discord
If you're having trouble playing the game, remember that we have a dedicated support team to help you troubleshoot the problem! You can also visit the knowledgebase to see if there's already an answer to your question.
Thanks for being a part of this journey and for working with us to make Age of Empires III even better! Watch for more updates next week, as we're already working on the NEXT game update to continue the growth of the game!
—The Age of Empires Team
UPDATE 3552
◆ GAME ◆
Stability & Performance
- Fixed an issue where the game would not be able to read special characters, emojis, and glyphs, resulting in massive performance problems. Unsupported characters will now appear as a question mark ( ? ).
- Fixed an issue which would cause the UI to become unresponsive after reporting a game lobby.
- Fixed a rare issue which could cause non-host players to be disconnected at the start of their multiplayer match.
- Fixed certain desyncs when loading into a match.
Achievements
- The "Strike!" achievement can now be unlocked in custom scenarios.
Graphics
- Made several improvements to how water is displayed in-game and on Home City screens.
- Implemented several visual updates to the Haudenosaunee Home City: including improved foliage, new shaders, and other additions!
- Fixed visual glitches in the backgrounds of the Spanish and Ottoman Home Cities.
- Fixed visual glitches in the backgrounds of the Indian Home City.
- Corrected the animations of Incan runner units.
- Updated the in-game Inca flags to be square rather than rectangular.
- Improved the horse animations of the Trek Wagon to be more horse-like.
- Added the Italian Church back to Malta (replacing the Roman church); adjusted the related icons to reflect the change.
- Added previously missing assets for the destroyed, Age 3 versions of the Arsenal and Japanese Castle.
- Implemented missing animation files for the Zamburak and Mansabdar Zamburak.
- Added additional visual elements to the Abus Gunners to communicate unit upgrades to players.
- Fixed an issue where the firearm of the Musket Rider and Dragoon Rider would flip when blending from the idle to the walk animation.
- Updated the Ottoman and Indian naval vessels to use the correct sail patterns.
- The Frigate sail material is now double-sided to properly display civilization icons.
- Added the correct icon for the Lakota Priest.
- Updated the icon used to spawn a healer at the Lakota and Haudenosaunee Community Plaza.
- Corrected the portrait of the Independence Dragoon.
- Added the portrait and icon for the British Metis Pathfinders.
- Fixed an issue where Skirmish games could douse the campfire particles and lights in Native American Home Cities.
Audio
- Fixed an issue which caused some sounds to not play properly—most notably the ♪ “victory” ♪ sound at the end of a campaign mission.
- Added a Chayton voice line when the player successfully completes the Bozeman Trail scenario.
- Chayton's monologue is no longer cut off when completing the mission, Battle of Greasy Grass.
- Added sounds to the Lakota Healer during the campaign.
- Fixed an issue where the background audio would carry over when changing Home Cities.
UI
- Garrisoned units in allied structures will now (properly) display the color of the owning player instead of the building's owner.
- Lakota Healers no longer use the Haudenosaunee icon. (Legacy issue)
- The UI now properly displays completion of the final objectives during the following scenarios: Battle of Greasy Grass, Boseman Trail, Saratoga
- The repair icon will now update properly to indicate whether a Trading Post needs repairs.
- Fixed an issue which prevented players from being able to see all garrisoned units in a building.
- Fixed an issue when swapping between different buildings with garrisoned units.
- Fixed an issue which would prevent Native Trading Posts from updating their command buttons as intended.
- Fixed an issue where fallen Explorer tooltips would persist at all times and obstruct the player's view.
- Fixed an issue where holding ALT would cause certain command panels to lose their buttons.
- Fixed a rare issue where the post-game screen would permanently hide the menu UI if the match concluded while it was open.
- Fixed an issue where the UI would display on top of certain cinematics.
- Removed an unintended (spoooooky) green flicker that would occasionally appear at the start of pre-rendered cinematics.
Settings
- Added anti-aliasing options to the Graphics settings menu: TAA, FXAA, No AA
- Implemented improvements to the game's Temporal AA.
- Increased the max framerate limit to prevent artificially capping them just below the monitor refresh rate.
- Frames are no longer throttled when VSync is enabled.
- Restoring defaults now properly resets the window mode to "fullscreen."
- Hotkeys set to "Scroll" can now be scrolled endlessly.
- Added the legacy hotkey to set the 'No Formation' stance for aquatic vessels.
◆ GAMEPLAY ◆
- The population cap will no longer prevent queued units from spawning; it will only prevent new units from being added to the queue. This allows for "overpop'ing."
- Fixed an issue which caused the Tribal Marketplace to exhaust a mine converted from one player to another.
◆ CAMPAIGN ◆
General
- Implemented several possible fixes for campaign progression issues: including transitions to the incorrect level(s), unlocking the incorrect campaign progress, or losing campaign progress.
- The Urgent News scenario no longer ends awkwardly after Chayton reaches Uncle Frank.
- Updated the Player Summary UI to properly display the flag button next to the player names.
- Updated the Lakota Healer to use the correct unit model throughout the campaign.
Historical Battles
- Removed the Arsenal from the list of buildings that the player has to destroy to complete the Battle of New Orleans scenario.
- Implemented several changes to the challenges and Historical Battles based on user feedback.
- Fixed an issue where unit speech bubbles were missing their respective player colors in certain Historical Battles.
Art of War
- A number string will no longer replace the 'Victory' text at the end of the Artillery challenge.
- Fixed an issue where the Art of War would adopt the difficulty of the last-played campaign scenario.
◆ CIVILIZATION BALANCE ◆
General
- The treasure, “A crate of plums worth 60 food” guarded by one Lion, now grants 50 food.
- Mango Grove: Line of sight reduced from 12 to 1 tiles so it cannot be used as an invulnerable scouting object on the Punjab map—where players start with a free Rickshaw.
- Settler Wagon: Corrected the collection rate for the Swedish ‘Fish Crate’ from 20 to 16.
- Finland Revolution: Reduced the '6 Blockhouse Wagon' card to '5 Blockhouse Wagon'
- The Spanish, 'TEAM Archaic Soldier Training' card now improves the Old Han Army training time by 30% (down from 50%), and improves the Ming and Standard Armies by 15% (down from 25%).
The Canada (Revolution) now has the following benefits:
- Removes Pet Bear build limit. As a result, the '7 Grizzly Bear' card can be sent repeatedly.
- Removes Pet Bear malice versus all Villagers.
- Increases damage to villagers from +13 to +17.
General Bug Fixes
The following units now properly reflect their intended design as described in the ‘Release Day’ changelog:
- Torp: Decreased cost to construct by -5 wood.
- Torp: Reduced the amount of food contained in the accompanying Berry Bush by -50 food.
- Carolean: Increased the rate of fire of the ranged attack by +0.5; damage adjusted accordingly.
- Priestess: Can no longer convert villagers.
- Huaraca: Increased range by +1.
Additional fixes:
- Fixed an issue which prevented certain Villagers (Coureur des Bois, Cree Coureur des Bois, and Settler Wagons) from constructing Town Centers.
- Mortar: The ‘Barrage Attack’ now correctly deals 0.5x to Shock Infantry and 0.1x to Arrow Knights.
- Consulate: Corrected the health of the Czapka Uhlan unit from 180 to 190.
- Shaolin: The 'Clenched Fist' improvement now properly improves all melee damage actions.
- All Lakota Teepee auras now have the same range. A visible ring has been added to indicate that range.
- Galleon: Corrected the DamageCap value from 96 to 100.
Incas
▶︎ BUG FIXES
Adjusted the 1.6x Shock Infantry multiplier of the Bolas Warrior’s ranged attack to the following:
- Now deals 1.6x to units with the AbstractCoyoteMan tag.
- Set existing Eagle Knight multiplier to 1.6x.
▶︎ GENERAL
- The Inca now have an Estate build limit of 20 to limit the maximum coin income granted by the 'Coca Cultivation' Big Button improvement.
▶︎ UNITS & BUILDINGS
- Chimu Runner: Reduced attack from 21 to 20. Now also deals 1.5x to Artillery units.
- Chincha Raft: Area damage reduced from 2 to 1. Ranged Attack damage reduced from 31 to 30.
- Huaraca: No longer tagged as Artillery.
- Huaraca: Removed 0.75x Artillery multiplier.
- Huaraca: Attack range increased to 20.
- Kancha House: Reduced construction time from 20 seconds to 15 seconds.
- Kancha House: The 'Queens Festival' Big Button has been moved from Age 2 to Age 1.
- Priestess: Increased damage dealt to Treasure Guardians from 1x to 3x.
- War Chief: Reduced the time to construct Strongholds from 60 seconds to 40 seconds. Travois rate of construction is unchanged.
▶︎ CARDS
- Chimu Support: Moved from Age 4 to Age 3.
- Chimu Support: Hit point improvement reduced from +20% to +15%.
- Imperial Unity: Now reduces the cost and delivery time of ‘Native’ and ‘Support’ shipments, which can be sent infinite times, by -25% (down from -50%).
- Resettlements: Now also adds +1 to the Town Center build limit.
- Road Building: Decreased the granted speed improvement from +15% to +10%.
- TEAM Inca Bridges: The speed bonus no longer applies to Shock Infantry.
- Quipu Kamayuks: Now improves Chasqui speed by 15% (previously granted +2 speed).
Indians
▶︎ CARDS
- Royal Green Jackets: Now properly applies its damage bonus vs. Heavy Infantry to the Gurkha—who were previously also granted +1x damage against Infantry units, which stacked with the improvement. The Mansabdar Gurkha improvement has been adjusted accordingly.
Portuguese
▶︎ BUG FIXES
- Corrected the cost of Villagers from 85 food to 100 food. This increased cost was intended to account for their +5% hunting and berry collection speed granted by their civilization bonus.
Spanish
▶︎ CARDS
- Caballeros: Reduced the bonus melee range of Lancers from +2 to +1.
Swedes
▶︎ BUG FIXES
Replaced the 1.5x Cavalry multiplier of the Carolean’s ranged attack to accommodate for the change to their 'Platoon Fire' card (see below):
- 1.5x vs. Heavy Cavalry
- 1.5x vs. Light Cavalry
- 0.67x vs. Rifle Rider
Similarly, the 1.3x Shock Infantry multiplier of the Carolean's ranged attack has been adjusted to the following:
- Now deals 1.3x to units with the AbstractCoyoteMan tag.
- Set existing Eagle Knight multiplier to 1.3x.
▶︎ UNITS
- Torp Wagon: Obstruction radius x+y reduced from 0.99 to 0.75.
▶︎ UPGRADES
- Veteran Hakkapelit: Now properly has the Shadow flag set.
▶︎ CARDS
- Englesberg Ironworks: Now properly improves the Torp’s coin collection rate by +150%—as indicated by the tooltip (previously granted +200% but erroneously stated +150%).
- Platoon Fire: Now grants +1x vs Heavy Cavalry (changed from All Cavalry) and +0.6x to AbstractCoyoteMan units (changed from Shock Infantry).
◆ LOBBIES & MATCHMAKING ◆
- Players can now invite other players that are on the same platform (Steam or the Microsoft Store) to their ranked and custom lobbies. We are continuing to investigate the possibility of cross-platform invitations for the future.
- Fixed an issue where the casual game list would snap back to the top of the page, making it difficult to find and enter game lobbies.
- Disabled spectating for LAN games.
- Updated the default map for new players to Standard Maps rather than Amazonia.
- Restored the missing Tech Tree button in the Multiplayer lobby.
- Added the ability to browse multiplayer lobbies while in a game lobby.
- Added custom random map support for multiplayer games.
- Implemented several adjustments to the profanity filter based on player feedback.
- Fixed an issue which caused the Report Player dialogue to be unresponsive when opened in-game.
- Fixed an issue where censored player names would appear in certain areas of the game while (properly) obfuscated elsewhere.
◆ AI ◆
- The Aztec Priest and Inca Priestess will now task themselves to the Community Plaza when appropriate.
- Swedish AI will now construct Torps close enough to resources to be useful.
- Addressed an issue where computer players would play too passively in team games.
- Increased the overall aggressiveness of computer-controlled civilizations.
- Computer players will no longer revolt during campaign missions.
- Encouraged the computer to avoid researching factory technologies which are not used.
- Fixed an issue which caused farmers to begin farming too early in a match.
- Fixed an issue where AI would not move naval units to a dock for repairs.
- Fixed an issue where European civilizations would revolt too often.
- Fixed an issue which prevented Inca AI players from training the Chimu Runner unit.
- Implemented several improvements to the tactical and strategic decision-making of computer-controlled civilizations.
◆ LOCALIZATION ◆
- Fixed an issue preventing the game from starting in the system’s default language.
◆ MODDING ◆
- Fixed an issue which prevented mods from showing as available for some players.
◆ ONGOING INVESTIGATION ◆
As always, we are continuing to track issues reported by the community for future updates. Here is a brief update from our Production team regarding some of what is still in the works:
- Stability: Stability is a top concern, and we are continuing to investigate issues raised by the community. Please reach out to our support team if you are having trouble playing, connecting, or staying connected to the game.
- Casual Game Lobbies: We are continuing to look at improving what information is provided in casual game lobbies, including player stats to help build out even teams.
- Player Bug Reports: The team is also working to enter your reported issues as quickly as possible! Visit the forums and add or add to a post about your issue so we can investigate and include a fix in a future update!
- More information next week! We already have the next update in the works, and will report back next week to discuss what to expect and when we'd like to get it into your hands!
:alertalert: DISCLAIMER
This list is subject to change and should not be considered a comprehensive list of all the known issues we’re tracking. The above is to inform you of the team’s current priorities, which will change as other issues arise or take precedence. For the latest updates and announcements, please visit our social channels.
Please note that custom mods may not be compatible with the latest game update. If you are experiencing issues launching or playing the game after downloading the new build, try disabling your installed mods before trying again. Still having trouble? Visit our support page!