Here we go! We appreciate your patience as we bundle up and test another package of fixes for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. Today, our focus is on the prevalent crashes and errors disrupting the community while sneaking a few balance changes in for our new civilizations. As is our modus operandi, here are the highlights:
- Updated how the game utilizes CPU and GPU resources to avoid taxing systems not running Vsync.
- Fixed numerous crashes reported by the community.
- Fixed an out-of-sync error when spectating a match with fog of war disabled.
- Fixed an animation hitch when advancing from one Age to the next.
- The tech tree now displays the correct health values of units and buildings.
- Buildings can no longer be overlapped when you can’t see the enemy’s structure.
- Fixed issues which prevented units and secondary projectiles from dealing their intended damage.
- Adjustments to the Burgundian Coustillier and to Sicilian bonuses and unique technologies.
- Numerous localization fixes.
- Ongoing investigation into more community reports!
As always, your feedback plays a huge part in setting the course for the game, so keep it coming! Visit the forums, join the Discord, and get involved in the community!
Watch for more updates, and be sure to check out the ‘Ongoing Issues’ section (below) to see what’s at the top of our list in the month(s) to come!
—The Age of Empires Team
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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 site!
GAME
Stability & Performance
- Updated how GPU and CPU resources are consumed when running the game. When Vsync is disabled, the FPS will be capped at the monitor’s refresh rate rather than drawing upon all available resources.
- Placing a horizontal or vertical gate on top of a Villager will no longer crash the game. (Placing an angled gate will continue to not crash the game.)
- Fixed an out-of-sync error when spectating a game with the fog of war disabled.
- Fixed an animation hitch when advancing from one Age to the next.
- Fixed a crash when constructing a Stable while the chat narrator is enabled and the game language is set to French.
- Fixed a crash when starting any game as the Sicilians or Burgundians while using the “Shuffle” music playlist.
- Fixed a spectator crash when counting the number of idle villagers.
UI
- Updated the
Sicilian civilization tooltip to clarify that 
Serjeants are only able to build and repair Donjons, and cannot (as was improperly stated) repair buildings, siege units, and ships. - Added missing map icons in the Quick Play menu for the five new maps added to the game via Update 44725.
- The tech tree now displays the correct health values of units and buildings.
- Corrected the tech tree tooltips of the unique units for several civilizations.
- Improved the legibility of tech tree text for the two new civilizations: the Burgundians and Sicilians.
- Fixed the truncation of certain text strings throughout the Lords of the West campaigns.
- Fixed the date and timestamp of news events displayed in-game.
- The notification when you complete an event challenge now scales more appropriately when it contains longer text strings.
GAMEPLAY
- Villagers will no longer fight back against Feudal Age
Scout Cavalry or Castle Age 
Eagle Scouts when not ordered to do so. - Villagers will now automatically move to finish nearby buildings placed in the fog of war when finished with their current project.
- Building foundations can once again be placed over unexplored areas as long as it includes some area that has been explored. Note that you’ll still be restricted from placing foundations in fully-unexplored areas of the map.
- Building foundations can no longer begin construction if overlapping other structures or foundations that aren’t within a player’s line of sight.
- Fixed an issue which prevented
Turtle Ships and 
Mangonels from dealing their intended damage, and some secondary projectiles from dealing any damage in certain circumstances. This fix should also ensure that 
Ballista Elephants can cut through forests, as intended. - Fixed an issue which would prevent the construction of
Gates due to a failed obstruction check, despite there being no obstructions. - Defeated players can no longer launch surprise attacks with garrisoned units while spectating the remainder of their match.
CIVILIZATION BALANCE
Burgundians
UNITS
Coustillier: Reduced charge damage from +35 ▶ +25.
Elite Coustillier: Reduced charge damage from +40 ▶ +30.
Coustillier [Standard & Elite]: No longer deals double damage against units with the ‘Archer’ armor class.
Sicilians
CIVILIZATION
On Nomad-style maps, the first 
Town Center to be built no longer benefits from the Sicilian construction speed bonus.
The civilization’s resistance to bonus damage is no longer applied to siege weapons.
Serjeants can no longer construct 
Donjons in the Battle Royale game mode.
TECHNOLOGIES
First Crusade: Reduced the number of Serjeants spawned per Town Center from 10 ▶ 7.
Scutage: Now awards gold to each ally based on the size of their own military rather than the military count of the researching player.
LOBBIES & MATCHMAKING
- Fixed an issue which would prevent the sending of messages after finding a Quick Play match.
LOCALIZATION
- Added localized text for the countdown timer that appears in the Attila 4 (‘A Barbarian Betrothal’) mission.
- Fixed instances where the objective text would not display localized variants during The Grand Dukes of the West 2 (‘The Wolf and the Lion’) campaign mission.
- Updated the legibility of certain diacritics on the e and i letters which were difficult to read.
- CN: Updated the names of the Lords of the West campaigns to display the proper headers on the Western Europe selection screen.
- DE: Updated the names of the Lords of the West campaigns to appear visually consistent with other campaign titles.
- FR: Added missing translations to the Sicilian history page.
- IT: Fixed a mismatched text and audio line in the outro cinematic of the The Grand Dukes of the West 1 (‘A Kingdom Divided’) campaign mission.
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:
- Memory Crashes: Some players have reported memory crashes that require additional information to address. If you are experiencing regular crashes of any kind, please reach out to our support team for solutions and to provide our team more information about the issue.
- Unable to Reconnect: We are working on a solution in addition to improvements to ensure that players can quickly and easily reconnect to their games when they disconnect or drop due to a network or Xbox Live issue. We hear you and recognize the frustration this can cause.
- Scenario Editor: Black Terrain: This is a priority issue that is under investigation this month, and we hope to have a fix for you as soon as we are able.
- Scenario Editor: direct_placement or grouped_by_team affects player land generation in consecutive maps. If direct_placement or grouped_by_team is used when generating a map in the editor, additional maps generated in the same editor session will not do so properly. Until this can be fixed (tentatively aiming for the quarterly update), a workaround is to restart the title to ensure maps are generated properly.
For other known issues, please visit this page to see what’s being tracked!
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.
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