Happy summer, Age friends! All around the northern hemisphere, we’re soaking up the summer sun (responsibly) while trying to capture and bring a little of that warmth and happiness to Age of Empires II—and what better way to do that than with an all-new Summer Celebration and a new update!
This month’s update is focused on the stability and playability of the game—based largely on feedback and input from the community following the July update. It’s smaller than many of our previous updates, but includes several important changes to the game:
- Fixed an issue where Gates could not be constructed at certain angles.
- Fixed a crash triggered when several selected units were killed at the same time while spectating.
- Players should no longer matchmake on the Brazil server if they are not playing in a region where it makes sense to do so.
- Placement of resources in random maps is no longer constrained to cardinal directions.
Next month should be similar in scale as we amass changes to release in a larger, quarterly update. As always: what shows up each month depends largely on your input, so don’t be afraid to get involved in the community! Whether you want to start or join a conversation on the forum or bounce ideas off other players on Discord, we want to talk with you and hear what you’d like to see in Age of Empires II.
We hope today’s build gives you a way to enjoy the summer in the safety of your own home, and can’t wait to hear what you think! We’ll see you on the battlefield!
—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 page!
BUILD SPOTLIGHT
Summer World Tour
🌞 August 24 – September 7 🌞
August marks the peak of summer in the northern hemisphere, so we’re dedicating the month to bringing those summer rays to everyone in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition! Some of your favorite heroes and units are ready to hit the pool, soak up the sun, and charge into battle with their pool noodles and beach balls. The next two weeks are dedicated to the SUMMER WORLD TOUR, which introduces an all-new set of daily challenges focused on the civilizations of the world! Play a new civ each day to unlock new summer-themed profile icons and visual mods for your game!
- Unlock six new summer-themed Profile Icons!
- Unlock giant Beach Balls for your Trebuchets!
- Unlock a new Beach Terrain decorated with beach towels.
- Unlock a relaxing Beach Scene for your Town Center!
New Rewards!
Starting TODAY through SEPTEMBER 7, complete in-game tasks to unlock a horde of themed goodies:
🎯 Sign into Xbox Live.
🏆 Unlocks the Summer Gbeto profile icon.
💾 This is *required* if you want to save any rewards obtained during the event!
Each of the following challenges must be unlocked in order and on separate days:
🎯 Win a Standard or MP game playing as one of the following civilizations: The Berbers, the Ethiopians, or the Malians.
🏆 Unlocks the Summer Princess Yodit profile icon.
🏆 [Mod] Unlocks a Beach Scene underneath the Town Center.
🎯 Win a Standard or MP game playing as one of the following civilizations: The Italians, the Spanish, or the Portuguese.
🏆 Unlocks the Summer El Cid profile icon.
🎯 Win a Standard or MP game playing as one of the following civilizations: The Teutons, the Britons, or the Slavs.
🏆 Unlocks the Summer Barbarossa profile icon.
🏆 [Mod] Unlocks Beach Terrain with sun-bather towels.
🎯 Win a Standard or MP game playing as one of the following civilizations: The Indians, the Burmese, or the Vietnamese.
🏆 Unlocks the Summer Bayinnaung profile icon
🎯 Win a Standard or MP game playing as one of the following civilizations: The Aztecs, the Incas, or the Mayans.
🏆 Unlocks the Summer Plumed Archer profile icon.
🏆 [Mod] Trebuchets throw Beach Balls instead of rocks.
Keep it Forever!
Remember: if you sign in to Xbox Live at any point during the event, you’ll get to keep all of the mods and profile icons you’ve unlocked! Sign in, earn your rewards, and enjoy the Summer Celebration Event!
—The Age of Empires Team
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Event F.A.Q.
Age of Empires Stats & Leaderboards
We’ve revamped the Community Stats page to include improved individual stats and leaderboard updates.
- Improved the look and information available on the stats pages.
- Information can now be filtered by game mode, as well as additional filters for civilization and specific maps.
- You can now download replay files directly from the website by clicking on a recent match and pressing the button next to a player’s name.
Check out all of the changes here.
GAME
Stability & Performance
- Fixed a crash triggered when several selected units were killed at the same time while spectating.
GAMEPLAY
- Fixed an issue where Gates could not be constructed under certain circumstances.
- Units no longer perform actions when facing the wrong direction.
MAP BALANCE
General
- Improved how sheep are spawned to prevent rare circumstances where sheep could fail to spawn entirely.
- The placement of resources in random maps is no longer constrained to cardinal directions.
Maps
- Baltic: Slightly increased the size of the lake on larger map sizes. This ensures that all players are a similar distance from the shoreline.
- Islands: Deer now avoid berry bushes.
- Kilimanjaro: Relics are now spawned exclusively on the mountain.
- Mountain Ridge: The number and density of deep lakes has been adjusted to provide equal access to all players.
- Mountain Ridge: Slightly decreased the density of forests on the map.
- Nile Delta: Fixed an issue where the initial Transport Ships could spawn in land-locked lakes, preventing them from being usable to migrate.
- Ravines: Adjusted forest generation around the map.
- Ravines: Reduced the density of forests near the player starting positions to allow for more aggressive gameplay.
- Wolf Hill: Increased the amount of starting gold from one 3-tile deposit and one 4-tile deposit to three 4-tile deposits.
- Wolf Hill: Increased the amount of starting stone from one 3-tile deposit to two 3-tile deposits.
LOBBIES & MATCHMAKING
- Fixed an issue which would result in games being played on the Brazil server rather than the most ideal server for participants in the match.
- Players now automatically leave their multiplayer party when they exit the matchmaking screen.
MODDING
Scenario Editor
- The map seeds from recorded games can now be used to generate the same map in the Scenario Editor.
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 where they’re focusing their attention next:
- Server-Specific Connectivity Issues: We’ve received reports that some users are experiencing connectivity issues when connecting to the Brazil server region. During last week’s server maintenance, we resolved an issue which resulted in users being incorrectly assigned to that server region; now we are continuing to monitor and investigate whether additional connectivity problems exist that still need to be addressed.
- Disconnect and Reconnect Fix: We have major stability fixes in the works for two reported issues:
- One which caused players to disconnect from their matches.
- One which prevented players from reconnecting to the dropped matches after a disruption in their connection.
When implemented, players should be able to reconnect to their games if still within the game within 60 seconds. Following thorough testing, we hope to have this implemented in an upcoming release window.
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.
For the latest updates and announcements, please visit our social channels.