Hail, explorers! WELCOME to a truly monumental week for Age of Empires and, in particular, for Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition! That's because today, we're releasing a new contender to join the fight for DE supremacy: the UNITED STATES!
On top of all the changes, features, and improvements coming with today's build, the United States introduces a brand-new play style, a wide variety of strategic options and tactical tools for you to learn and master, and new armies to conquer the battlefield. With numerous unique units, unique buildings, unique cards, and a unique way to advance from Age to Age, the U.S. brings a ton of new functionality the game. Even better: if you don't want to purchase and play with the civilization right away, you can unlock it for FREE by completing a set of challenges while exploring the history of all 50 states in the union!
Aside from the new civ, here's a quick look at some of the other great changes coming your way in today's build:
- Lots and lots of crash fixes and stability improvements!
- NEW unit categories to improve the readability of tooltips and application of effects
- Removed the kill xp bonus from all construction wagons, and increased the health of more valuable wagons
- Fixed an issue that prevented Home Cities and cards from being accessible during a story campaign
- Units trained for free will now wait for the population space to spawn rather than being lost if unable to do so
- Major updates to the number and availability of Outlaw units and Mercenaries
- Balance tweaks to 13 civilizations, including the Aztec, Chinese, French, and Swedes
- Updates to the Finland, Hungary, and United States Revolutions
- ...and more!
With so many changes to the game, we won't be surprised if you have a lot to talk about as you share your experience. As always, we want to hear how all these things change the game (both literally and figuratively). And as always, the best place to do that is over on our official channels:
💬 DISCUSS: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition Forum 🗣 JOIN: The Age of Empires Official Discord
Thank you for sharing in yet another major milestone for Age of Empires with us! We hope you enjoy the new civ and all the changes and look forward to sharing in all the adventures yet to come!
—The Age of Empires Team
◆ UPDATE 23511 ◆
BUILD SPOTLIGHT
While there are plenty of notable fixes and features to which to look forward in today’s build, here are some of the big highlights coming with this month's update:
NEW CIV! The United States
“The 'land of opportunity' provided a new world for people from many nations, creating the famous melting pot of cultures. Expanding from militia forces skilled in skirmishing tactics and marksmanship to a professional army, the United States of America ensured its independence and impressive road to prosperity.”
🡒 OVERVIEW!
Welcome the newest civilization to Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition: the United States! The United States is a highly diverse civilization with a wide array of tools from which to choose and create individual strategies, ensuring no match plays out the same. Their unique units, technologies, and Home City cards offer a variety of playstyles, including the ability to grow the Home City deck throughout the match—allowing United States players to adapt and evolve their gameplay on the fly.
🡒 CIVILIZATION FEATURES
- Home City: Washington D. C. (+ customizations!)
- Can levy Minutemen periodically
- The US General can plant an Inspiring Flag. Nearby military units and buildings inflict more damage and are trained/constructed faster
- The US General can construct Forts instead of Town Centers
- Federate States replace traditional politicians, and add unique cards to the Home City deck over the course of a match
🡒 STARTING UNITS
- General
- 6 Settlers
- 3 Crates of Food
- 2 Cords of Wood
- 1 Collection of Books
We've added new crate graphics that represent the game’s Experience resource. These Collections of Books contain knowledge that will allow your town to prosper, leading to additional support and backing from your Home City. The United States receives additional Experience in the form of Book Collections, allowing them to make more effective use of their Federal Cards (see below).
🡒 LEARN MORE!
The United States Unlock Event
For a limited time, you can unlock the new United States civilization for FREE by completing 50 in-game challenges—each representing a state in the union and ordered by the date they joined the United States! Here's how it works:
- You can unlock 3 challenges (max) each day
- Every 5 challenges, you will unlock a new Profile Icon (check them out below!)
- Complete all 50 challenges to unlock the United States civilization
- Read up on historical factoids about each state as you complete each challlenge
Don't forget to click "Begin" on each challenge to ensure they unlock as you work your way through the 50 states! Finish them all and the United States civilization is yours!
Want to play with the United States right away? Don't worry; you can purchase the DLC directly from the Microsoft Store and Steam, where it will always be available for anyone who misses the event.
🡒 LEARN MORE!
🡒 UNLOCK NOW!!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1581450/Age_of_Empires_III_Definitive_Edition__United_States_Civilization/
GAME
Stability & Performance
We've implemented several optimizations to the game shutdown code to ensure that error messages are displayed rather than crashing to the desktop without any messaging. This should help our support team diagnose your problem and provide the team with additional details that will help them fix longstanding stability issues.
- Fixed a crash in the Home City code that could trigger when shutting down the game.
- Fixed a rare crash triggered when saving and exiting a multiplayer game.
- Fixed an issue where destroying too many buildings at the same time would crash the physics system.
- Fixed an issue where the incorrect bone data of previous frames could lead to TAA blurriness.
- Fixed an issue which would result in tree models appearing blurry with TAA enabled.
- Fixed an issue where the windowed version of the game would, in certain cases, appear blurry.
Graphics
- Fixed an issue where unlocking Home City customizations with particles would fail to play them properly until the city was reloaded.
- Visual updates to the range displays for accuracy and clarity.
Audio
- Home City sounds from the main menu will no longer continue playing over the campaign screens.
UI
- Sending a whisper to another player now displays the correct portrait and name on the sent message.
- Updated the icon used for the 6 Militiamen card in the Indian tech tree.
- Updated the name of the Hackapell to Harquebusier in the tech tree.
- Updated the name of the Spanish Priest to Missionary in the tech tree.
- Updated the name of the New Year Festival/Inti Festival to New Year Festival in the Lakota, Aztec, and Haudenosaunee tech trees.
- Updated the listing of the Artillery Foundry from Age II to Age III in the French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish tech trees.
- Fixed a bug where the flag of a revolting nation would fail to update to the new nation's flag on the scoreboard.
- Updated the tooltip text for the '+' and '-' buttons in the Player Summary menu.
- Updated the tooltip text in the Diplomacy menu to clarify the difference between sending a single shipment of wood and sending an amount wood over time.
- Updated the tooltip text of the search bar and sort buttons to accurately describe their function.
- Updated the tooltip text of the 'Unsubscribe' button in the Browse Mods menu to properly describe its function.
- Unit thumbnail icons of non-hero units will now also be displayed when they speak during a campaign scenario.
Many upgrades—such as TEAM cards and Arsenal upgrades—now have significantly shorter and more readable tooltips, though their behavior remains the same. This is because they apply their effects based to new unit categories rather than individual units:
- AbstractRifleman = Rifle Infantry (i.e. Skirmisher, Strelet, Forest Prowler, Gurkha, Cheroke Rifleman, Jaeger)
- AbstractFootArcher = Foot Archer (i.e. Crossbowman, Longbowman, Aenna, Cho-ku-nu, Carib Blowgunner, Iron Troop)
- AbstractMusketeer = Musket Infantry (i.e. Musketeer, Janissary, Tomahawk, Sepoy, Highlander)
- AbstractOutlaw = Outlaw (i.e. Renegado, Thuggee, Blind Monk)
We believe this change should also be a useful improvement for the modding community!
Hotkeys
- Added a hotkey. [Q]. to levy Militiamen or Sentry Uprising from the Town Center.
- Added a hotkey, [W], to levy a Conscription or Town Defense at the Town Center.
Please note that if [Q] or [W] is already bound to another Town Center action (when using Legacy hotkeys), you may need to resolve this conflict before playing.
- Fixed a bug where the prompt to assign a new hotkey couldn't be activated by pressing [Enter] on the keyboard.
GAMEPLAY
General
- Removed all "Kill XP" bounties from all construction wagons.
Since the loss of a wagon is in itself a significant blow to any player, we decided to remove the experience bonus granted in addition to the benefit of killing them during a match. All wagons were previously worth 60xp (regardless of the building they placed) before this change.
- Docks now ignore the placement restrictions when playing the Treaty game mode.
- Settlers, Villagers, Pilgrims, and Coureur des Bois now all contribute towards the same build limit.
- Homestead Wagons can now also be used to construct Houses (or equivalent buildings).
- Where possible, the crates delivered by some cards and politicians have been merged to deliver the same quantity of resources in fewer crates.
- Fixed an issue where ordering a non-gathering unit to move behind a tree would display the indicator on the tree itself.
- Fixed an issue where certain trickle resources would not correctly contribute to the gathering rate average.
Fixes
- Units spawned from buildings for free—such as Heavy Cannons at the Factory—will now wait for the population space to spawn rather than being lost entirely if blocked from doing so.
- Fixed a rare bug where Outpost or Blockhouse Wagons obtained via Hungarian or Romanian cards could not be constructed upon delivery.
- Fixed a bug where the game would fail to pause when prompted the first time.
- Fixed an exploit where various units—such as Native Warriors—could be trained from any Trading Post, including those built along a trade route.
CAMPAIGN
- Implemented a fix for a recently-introduced bug in the Fire and Shadow (Act II) missions which would prevent the Home City from being accessible.
- Fixed a bug where cards selected during the campaign would fail to appear in players' decks.
CIVILIZATION BALANCE
General
- The Saloon is now exclusive to the United States civilization, and has been overhauled with new features, cards, and interaction options.
- All European civilizations now construct Taverns rather than Saloons. The Indochina and Indonesia maps have been updated to reflect this change.
- All Native American civilizations can now construct Native Embassies as a default civilization feature. These can be used to train Wild West outlaw units—similar to the behavior of European Taverns.
- [NEW] All Native American civilizations can now train the Captured Mortar (V) in the Imperial Age from the Native Embassy. This is an artillery unit with similar stats to the Howitzer, and which can be upgraded by Native upgrades—such as Legendary Natives—as well as various Home City cards.
The following mercenaries have been added to the random pool:
- [NEW] Napoleon Gun (III)
- [NEW] Zouaves (IV)
- Ronin (IV)
- Yojimbo (IV)
- Iron Troops (IV)
- Jat Lancer (IV)
Note that the training of Yojimbo, Iron Troops, and Jat Lancers at the Asian Monastery (by way of the various Atonement (II) cards) can still be done in the Fortress Age.
In addition to these, 3 random mercenaries (increased from 2) are now available in the Saloon, Tavern, and Native Embassy. This change will increase the likelihood of there being trainable mercenaries in the Fortress Age, since a greater number of mercenaries are now available during the Industrial Age.
- The Native Embassy is now, once again, constructed by Villagers rather than Heroes. This addresses a gameplay issue in the Treaty game mode where it was exceptionally difficult to prevent enemies from constructing forward bases.
Now that Artillery can be trained from the Native Embassy, we no longer feel comfortable with the earlier change that shifted the burden of construction from Villagers to Heroes—a change originally introduced to accommodate the Dutch, who have more buildings than can be displayed the Villager construction panel. To prevent this issue from reemerging, the Dutch now use Envoys to construct their Native Embassies.
🡒 UNITS & BUILDINGS
We've made a change that should make the game less punishing and more survivable if a wagon accidentally arrives at a forward Home City spawn point:
- Doubled the health of Town Center Wagons, Fort Wagons, Stronghold Travois, Factory Wagons, and Bank Wagons, all of which now have 500 hit points.
We've made adjustments to several outlaw units in an effort to make them more appealing additions to your armies:
- Comanchero: Increased ranged attack damage from 16 ▶ 19.
- Comanchero: Increased range resistance from 20% ▶ 30%.
- Comanchero: Reduced the population cost from 7 ▶ 6.
- Comanchero: Now has a Bull's Eye charged action. When playing as the United States, the unit may make use of an extra powerful attack with greater range than usual every 30 seconds.
- Pistolero: Reduced cost from 85 ▶ 80 coin.
- Pistolero: Reduced the population cost from 7 ▶ 6.
- Pistolero: Doubled the rate of fire of the ranged attack, down from 3 ▶ 1.5.
- Pistolero: Reduced ranged attack damage from 30 ▶ 15.
- Pistolero: Now has a Quickdraw charged action. When playing as the United States, the unit may rapidly fire several shots by fanning the colt’s hammer every 30 seconds.
- Pistolero: Reduced the unit's hand attack bonus against Cavalry from 3x ▶ 2x.
- Renegado: Increased cost of the unit from 90 ▶ 100 coin.
- Renegado: Reduced the population cost from 6 ▶ 4.
- Renegado: Improved the rate of fire of the ranged attack from 3 ▶ 2.
- Renegado: Reduced ranged attack damage from 40 ▶ 18.
- Renegado: Reduced the unit's bonus damage versus Heavy Infantry from 2x ▶ 1.75x.
- Renegado: Now has a Buckshot charged action. When playing as the United States, the unit may fire a buckshot, which deals massive area damage to nearby enemies every 30 seconds.
Note that the Lakota can also gain access to the new charged action abilities by sending various Outlaw cards from their Home City.
We’ll be paying close attention to the performance of all Outlaws, and will make additional adjustments as necessary.
Other general unit balance changes:
- Dragoon: Corrected the Hand Shock Infantry multiplier obtained via the Consulate from 2.75 ▶ 2.25.
- Gatling Gun: Reduced the coin cost from 400 ▶ 250 coin to better-reflect their strength. Their wood cost remains unchanged (100 wood).
- Landsknecht: Have been granted the Oberhau charge action, which deals 3 area damage.
- Priests, Imam, and Surgeons now have a build limit of 30.
- Trading Post Travois: Corrected health from 150 ▶ 250.
- Zapotec Lightning Warrior: Reduced health from 210 ▶ 190.
The Capitol building has been adjusted to parity the new behavior of the US State Capitol:
- Reduced the cost from 400 ▶ 300 wood.
- Increased the build experience from 160 ▶ 300xp.
- Increased the line of sight from 12 ▶ 34—equal to the Town Center.
🡒 UPGRADES
- Aztec Chinampa: Now (also) benefits Farms and Rice Paddies.
- Cheyenne Horse Trading: Now improves the training speed of all cavalry-type units.
- The Heavy Monitor upgrade, Ship's Howitzers, is now properly set as a prerequisite to researching Imperial Monitors.
- Lacrosse (Big Button): Now (properly) improves the damage of all ranged infantry.
- League: Now (properly) enables the training of minor Tomahawks and Mantlets from their respective military buildings.
- Klamath Work Ethos: Now (properly) improves all gathering rates.
- Meritocracy: Now (properly) decreases the resource costs of all unit upgrades when researched at the Zen Temple.
- The Wild West and Atonement upgrades now properly benefit all Outlaw units.
Several adjustments have been made to the Cree technologies:
- Cree Kinship: Rather than modifying the build limit, the technology now improves the training time of Native Warriors by +45%.
- Cree Textile Craftsmanship: Rather than reducing the wood cost of buildings by 25%, the technology now reduces ALL resource costs of buildings by 10% and improves their construction speed by +25%. Asian Wonders have been adjusted accordingly.
🡒 CARDS
- Capitalism: Increased the coin trickle from 1.25 ▶ 1.5 coin/second.
- Case Shot: All Case Shot attacks now deal 0.5x damage to Cavalry-type units.
- Engineering School: Now properly applies its benefits to all Artillery, including Gatling Guns. The TEAM Engineering School card has also been adjusted accordingly.
- Stonemasons: Moved to Age I for all civilizations.
The Aztec
🡒 CIVILIZATION
- Increased the time it takes for all Council members who advance from Age I to Age II from 70 ▶ 80 seconds. The exemption is The Messenger, who still "Ages-up very fast."
🡒 UNITS & BUILDINGS
- Skull Knights now slowly heal when idle.
- Skull Knight: Corrected Shock Infantry multipliers from 2.0x ▶ 2.2x.
The Skull Knight now has access to a powerful charged action—Obsidian Storm—which triggers upon recharge.
- Obsidian Storm is similar in style to the Swashbuckler Attack.
- Identical to normal attacks, but deals +2 area damage and +33.3% damage with no multipliers against any unit types.
- Has a 30 second cooldown.
- Units that die to the attack are flung away.
🡒 CARDS
- 9 Mayan Allies: Now displays the correct number over the card icon.
- Great Temple of Huitzilopochtli Support: Now also improves the Skull Knight's charged action.
The British
🡒 CARDS
- TEAM Cheap Docks: Now also reduces the cost of Native American Big Button upgrades available at the Dock. The tooltip now reads: "TEAM Docks and Dock upgrades are 30% cheaper. Naval Big Button upgrades are 50% cheaper."
- Estates (IV): No longer reduces the speed of Settlers trained at the Town Center.
The Chinese
The below changes to the Chinese civilization are made for the purpose of Treaty balance.
🡒 UPGRADES
- German Relations (Consulate): The German Expeditionary Army now grants 1 Heavy Cannon and 18 Needle Guns (was 2 Heavy Cannons and 11 Needle Guns).
🡒 CARDS
- Acupuncture: Now partially applies its effects to Heavy Cannons created at the Factory after opening relations with Russia via the Consulate, as intended.
- INF 15 Rattan Shield (IV) ▶ INF 10 Rattan Shield (IV)
- Old Dynasty Reforms: Increased the added cost to train affected units from +20% ▶ +25%. All other affects remain the same.
The French
🡒 CIVILIZATION
- Tiny Crates of Food containing 50 food (Half Crates) have a new visual model to quickly communicate their reduced food total at a glance.
- The French are no longer granted Coureur des Bois from TEAM Villager shipments.
🡒 UPGRADES
The following technologies, which are enabled at the Church by the Edict of Nantes (II) card, have been adjusted so as to correct the technology tree and improve the function the Grenade Launchers card—which allows the training of super-equipped Grenadiers.
- Moved the Imperial Young Guard technology from the Fortress Age ▶ Commerce Age.
- Moved the Imperial Middle Guard from the Industrial Age ▶ Fortress Age.
- Imperial Middle Guard: No longer activates the Guard Grenadiers upgrade, but instead grants Grenadiers +10% attack and hit points.
- Imperial Old Guard: No longer grants Grenadiers +10% attack and hit points, but instead activates the Guard Grenadiers upgrade.
🡒 CARDS
- Wilderness Warfare: Now also improves the hit points of the Cree Coureur de Bois.
The Germans
🡒 CARDS
- German cards which upgrade cavalry units now also improve Guachos, Comancheros, and Llanero revolutionary/outlaw units.
The Incas
🡒 CIVILIZATION
- Llamas no longer fatten while tasked to the Community Plaza
🡒 CARDS
- Sending the Curare card now renames the Jungle Bowman’s ranged attack to “Ranged Curare Attack,” meaning that the upgrade can now be “scouted” by checking the unit’s stats panel.
- Fixed a bug where the Native Treaties (II) card would deliver more units than intended if preceded by an American Allies (I) card. Native Treaties will now deliver the same number of units regardless of how the alliance was formed.
- Old Ways (IV): Fixed a bug where the coin cost of the Inca Raiding Party (Big Button) would not be decreased.
- Son of Inti (IV): Fixed a bug which would prevent the War Chief’s hand attack from properly inflicting increased splash damage.
The Indians
🡒 UNITS & BUILDINGS
- Mansabdars: Corrected the attack damage of certain Mansabdar units to ensure that each has the same attack and double the hit points of their counterpart units.
- Mansabdars: Now benefit from their own damage auras, ensuring that they inflict the same bonus damage as other units influenced by their aura.
🡒 CARDS
- Bombay Marine: Improved the tooltip text to better-reflect the functionality of the card: "All military boats train faster and give more experience points upon construction, +1 Villager.” ▶ "All boats train faster and give more experience points upon construction, +1 Villager."
The Lakota
🡒 CIVILIZATION
- Fire Ceremony (Community Plaza): No longer boosts the siege damage of AbstractArtillery units.
The Ottomans
🡒 UNITS & BUILDINGS
- Nizam Fusilier: Now benefit from Counter Infantry Rifling when in Volley Mode, as intended.
🡒 CARDS
- Silk Road: Now also improves the experience income of Trading Posts, as intended.
The Portuguese
🡒 CARDS
- Dragoon Combat: Now also improves Llaneros obtained via the Gran Colombia Revolution.
- TEAM Cheap Outposts: Now reduces the cost of Nobles' Huts along with other outpost buildings.
The Spanish
🡒 CIVILIZATION
- Archaic Infantry upgrades now grant their benefits to all Hand Infantry and Foot Archers, allowing them to synergize more effectively with Native Warriors and Mercenaries.
- Rather than delivering bonus crates, the Spanish Logistician now directly deposits resources into your stockpile.
- The default Beginner deck is now more suitable for players beginning to explore The Spanish civilization.
🡒 CARDS
- TEAM Archaic Soldier Training: Slightly reduced the training time bonuses granted to Archaic Infantry and Archers, down from -50% ▶ -40%.
The Swedes
🡒 UNITS & BUILDINGS
- Torp: Reduced the gathering rate from Blueberry Bushes from 0.64 ▶ 0.57 food/second. This is still 1.7x the collection speed of normal Berry Bushes—down from 1.9x.
🡒 UPGRADES
The effect of the Savolax Jaegers technology has been updated:
- Ships 6 Jaegers and upgrades all Jaegers into Savolax Jaegers. Savolax Jaegers have slightly more hit points, can use the Stealth ability, and partly cost Wood to recruit.
This change is aimed at making mercenary armies less draining on coin resources by adjusting the Jaeger cost to 100 wood, 100 coin. It should also make the Swede's unique Church card—Treaty of Roskilde (II)—more appealing, which also grants powerful hand infantry improvements which can be used to defend groups of Jaegers or Artillery.
🡒 CARDS
- Great Northern Forests: Reduced the maximum wood income from 1.0 ▶ 0.7 wood/second.
- Oxenstierna Reforms: Reduced the exchange rate of food to coin from 1.3x ▶ 1.25x.
POLITICIANS
- The Mercenary Contractor: Now properly improves all Outlaw units.
REVOLUTIONS
Finland
🡒 UNITS & BUILDINGS
- Karelian Jaeger: Can now also construct Docks.
- Karelian Jaeger: Increased the crate collection rate to match that of Villagers, up from 4 ▶ 8.
🡒 CARDS
- [NEW] Baltic Fleet: Can be sent an infinite number of times; delivers 1 Monitor and 1 Frigate to the revolting nation.
Hungary
🡒 UNITS & BUILDINGS
- Grenzers: Reduced the hit point deduction from -20% ▶ -10% hit points. Their range bonus remains unchanged (+4 range).
United States
🡒 UNITS & BUILDINGS
- Increased the number of Gatling Guns spawned at each Fort upon revolting from 1 ▶ 2.
- Volunteers: Renamed to Revolutionary Sharpshooter.
- Revolutionary Sharpshooter: Now benefit from cards which improve Skirmishers for civilizations that can access the United States revolution.
LOCALIZATION
- Fixed non-localized text in the Default Hotkeys menu.
- Fixed non-localized text in the Multiplayer Lobby menu.
◆ 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:
- Stuck Units: We believe we have fixes for most of the root problems causing this issue. Once they’ve been tested and included in a build, the most valuable thing you can provide if you encounter it again is: 1) a replay file that shows the units getting stuck 2) the name of the map 3) detailed steps of what commands were issued or steps resulted in the unit(s) getting stuck Create a new thread on the discussion forum and we’ll do what we can to investigate and implement a fix!
- TEAM North Carolina Quakers (IV): We've identified a desync triggered by this particular United States Home City card. Please avoid adding it to your deck for the time until we're able to resolve the issue in an incoming hotfix build.
For other known issues, please visit this page to see what’s being tracked!
◆ MOD WARNING ◆
Please note that custom mods may not be compatible with the latest game update. If you encounter performance or stability issues after your mods are disabled, please visit our support page for assistance!