Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition – Update 73855

The Frosty Friends from the North Event

December 7 – January 3

It’s Winter again and all units, from Viking Berserks to Bengalis Rathas, are enjoying the snow and fresh air from the North. The daylight is going to be scanty this month, so make sure all your units wear their scarves while gazing at the aurora borealis.

We wish you the best for this end of the year and see you in 2023 for more Age of Empires!

New Rewards!

TODAY through January 3rd, complete the in-game tasks within the time limit to unlock exclusive rewards!

Each of the following challenges must be unlocked in order and on separate days:

Keep it Forever!

Remember: if you sign in to Xbox Live at any point during the event, you get to keep all the mods and profile icons you unlock! Sign in, earn your rewards, and enjoy!

—The Age of Empires Team

Event F.A.Q.

Stability & Performance

• Various fixes to prevent game crashes.
• Fixed an issue where some recorded games generated after October #71094 patch were out of sync.

Please note that at this time, recordings can only be properly played on the same build that was used to create them.

UI

• Icon for “Fortress” in the Map Pool Vote menu is now correct.
• When a player changes the map in the lobby settings, the map size does not reset to tiny anymore.

Fixes

• Shrivamsha riders cannot block splash damage of nearby units anymore.
• Chain commands now works properly when commanding multiple monks.
• Fixed an issue where units garrisoned in allied buildings could not be ungarrisoned.

General

• The Shared LoS setting is now on by default on for all matchmaking modes including lobby games.
• Parthian Tactics now give the same anti-spearman bonus increase (+2) to Cavalry Archers as to other mounted archer units.
• Heavy Cavalry Archer anti-spearman attack increased from 2 ▶ 4.
• Battle Elephant cost reduced from 120 food 70 gold ▶ 110 food 70 gold.
• Slingers attack 17% faster after researching Thumb Ring.

Burmese

• Parthian Tactics applies to Arambai.

Byzantines

• Fixed an issue where Cataphracts with Logistica were dealing less than intended damage to Condottieri.

Gurjaras

• Mounted unit bonus damage changed from 40% ▶ 20% in Feudal / 30% in Castle / and 40% in Imperial.
• Chakram and Elite Chakram Damage reduced from 5 ▶ 3 (6 ▶ 4 Elite).
• Chakram Pass-through damage increased from 50% ▶ 100%.
• Elite Chakram +1 Bonus damage vs Infantry.

Hindustanis

• Camel Attack speed bonus reduced from 25% ▶ 20%.

Khmer

• Fixed an issue where (Elite) Ballista Elephants were not resistant to armor-ignoring damage.

Poles

• Stone miner bonus reduced from 50% ▶ 33% gold generation.

Portuguese

• New Team Bonus – Technologies Research 25% faster (excluding Age Up).
• New Civ Bonus (replaces faster tech civ bonus) – Foragers generate a trickle of wood (33%).

Tatars

• Fixed an issue where Flaming Camels were not receiving the intended (+40%) anti-building bonus damage increase from Siege Engineers.

Vikings

• Warship discount bonus no longer affects Transport Ships.

Random Maps

General

• Fixed an issue were one player might get 1 less buffalo than the other on Golden Swamp.
• Fixed an issue were one player might get only 1 Ibex instead of 3 on Arena.
• In Land Nomad, large forests should now stay away from edges a little more consistently on 4v4, to prevent unexpected situation such as villagers being trapped into a wood line.

Investigation

As always, we are continuing to track issues reported by the community for future updates.

For other known issues, please visit this page to see what’s being tracked!

Coming Up...

2022 has been very, very busy for our team. We’ve spent a good chunk of the year working in secret on the upcoming release of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition for Xbox consoles, and we can’t wait to put this in everybody’s hands on January 31st, 2023 – hard to believe that’s so soon! Day over day the team is updating builds, fixing bugs, testing and iterating, and it’s genuinely amazing to see a game we love so much suddenly accessible in our living rooms! Playing through the William Wallace campaign on your couch with a controller somehow makes a familiar friend seem new and vibrant, and it’s hard not to get emotional given our collective attachment to this game. We really can’t wait to hear your feedback, and rest assured that we’ll be listening and responding!

Then, right behind that, we’ll be bringing you Return to Rome! We know you’re anxious for more details and we’ll certainly have more to say about it in the coming months, but again… to be revisiting such beloved content and making the effort to keep it vibrant and accessible to all of you has been a labor of love. It’s our privilege to be custodians of such a wonderful game and we’re similarly anxious to deliver this exciting experience and hear what you think!

As we bring a new platform and new content to Age II, we’re folding it into our ongoing development which means that monthly updates will grow to service everything we’re doing, so you’ll see your feedback toward Age II on console and Return to Rome show up in patch notes as bug fixes and changes, just like we’ve been doing for the past few years. Speaking of updates, they’ve been smaller than normal as we’ve been heads down on two big projects, but there’s still sooooo much coming your way – we’ve got some really exciting surprises still in development and we’ll be updating our roadmap in the early part of next year to give some hints!

For now, we’re very thankful for the time you’ve spent with us this year! We hope you enjoy a restful end of the year and we look forward to a very exciting 2023 with you! Wololo!

DISCLAIMER

Please note that 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.