Age of Empires 2 has been updated to version 58259 today by Microsoft. You can find out the complete patch notes from here.
In addition to offering a new co-op campaign and a new event, the game brings a huge number of bug fixes and improvements. You can learn more about the changes included in this update with the patch notes given below.
Age of Empires 2 Update Patch Notes February 1
Game
Stability & Performance
- Fixed a rare crash when selecting the “Quickplay” mode.
- Fixed various, rare memory corruption crashes.
- Fixed an issue where the Save Cloud Capacity displays at ‘-1.#Q%’ capacity, which made it unable for players to save any files to the Cloud.
- Game no longer crashes when player receives attack notification from player with “%n” characters in their name.
- Simultaneously pressing Esc and Find Match on the Quick Play screen will no longer soft-lock the player on a black screen.
- Simultaneously pressing Esc while resigning no longer soft-locks the game.
- Fixed a rare crash when loading DLC campaigns while playing on the Microsoft Store.
- The game no longer goes out of sync when a player accepts a match invite while in the editor.
- Fixed a freeze when loading ludicrous-sized maps on various random maps.
- Fixed a rare crash when preparing to start a lobby game as a client with an invalid scenario file.
Graphics
- Fixed a rare issue where Farms could appear with incomplete Farm graphics.
Audio
- Fixed an issue where Chinese VO would not work correctly when playing through the Microsoft Store.
- The Credits screen now plays its intended dedicated track (also known as “Love and Will” in the official soundtrack).
- The Mod Manager screen now plays the Credits track.
UI
- “Go to building” and “Select all buildings” hotkeys now work for the respective buildings while navigating the tech tree.
- Fixed an issue where resign and defeat notifications did not appear in spectator mode when the player who is being watched resigns or gets defeated.
- During Treaty, an enemy player’s diplomacy label is now “Enemy (Treaty)” instead of “Ally” to avoid confusion with actual allies.
- Fixed an issue where recorded games could sometimes show wrong player names.
- Map selection: “Custom map” checkboxes selection now selects all maps when checking all the boxes.
- A warning message will now be shown when trying to open a recorded game file made with a different build than the one currently used.
Hotkeys
- Market hotkeys now correctly buy/sell resources in increments of 100 instead of 500.
- Hotkeys can now be correctly reset to “Definitive Hotkeys” (grid layout) again.
- Default hotkeys for Select and Center groups #10-20 now function correctly.
- Xolotl Warrior hotkey can now be customized.
- Villagers no longer go idle after going back to work if two Town Centers are selected.
Gameplay
General
- Handicap mode now makes resources last longer, to balance out faster gathering rates.
Fixes
- Shift queue attack behavior improved for group of units.
- Victory is now declared if all enemy players have resigned/been defeated while treaty is still going.
- Players with allied vision can no longer see unstarted foundations of enemy players in fog of war and unexplored area while Treaty is active.
- Friend & Foe colors now work correctly while Treaty is active.
- Recorded games featuring Treaty mode can now be replayed correctly.
Campaign
General
- Post-game statistics screen now has a “Continue” button to immediately play the next campaign mission.
Co-op
- Co-op campaigns have left Beta mode! Featuring 6 full campaigns and 5 historical battles!
- NEW! Alaric & Saladin co-op campaigns!
- Alaric:
- The Battle of Frigidus
- Razing Hellas
- The Belly of the Beast
- The Giant Falls
- A Kingdom of Our Own
- Saladin:
- An Arabian Knight
- Lord of Arabia
- The Horns of Hattin
- The Siege of Jerusalem
- Jihad!
- The Lion and the Demon
- Alaric:
- Fixed a rare issue where Treaty mode could be triggered inside co-op campaigns.
Random Maps
Map Balance
- General:
- Terrain restrictions of various buildings when starting in the dark age with Empire Wars enabled has been restored on several maps, no longer allowing players to place buildings on any terrain type.
- Folwarks no longer spawn on top of berry bushes in Empire Wars.
- Amazon Tunnel:
- The center of the map is now accessible on all settings (more than 2 teams, free-for-all etc).
- The starting forest clumps are evenly distributed, larger, and slightly closer to the players.
- Arabia:
- Increased the chance of generating a map with lower elevation.
- Herdables now spawn between 18 to 24 tiles away from the players’ town centers (from 20 to 24 tiles).
- Added multiple visual themes for the map.
- Oasis:
- Generation of the main forest and lake has been updated to avoid any unfair situations (missing forests, unequal distances etc..).
- Runestones:
- Forests now generate closer to the player’s town centers again.
- Forests surrounding the players are now larger (from 45 trees to 65 trees per forest).
- All elevation immediately around the players’ town centers has been removed.
- Herdables now spawn between 16 to 20 tiles away from the player’s town centers (from 20 to 24 tiles).
- Boars now generate closer to the player’s town centers (from 16 to 14 tiles).
- Slight variation has been added to the player’s starting location, so they no longer generate in a perfect circle.
Random Map Scripting
- Added ignore_terrain_restrictions parameter for object generation which skips terrain restriction check for building placement.
- Added make_indestructible parameter for object generation. Buildings spawned with this parameter cannot be attacked and destroyed.
Lobbies and Matchmaking
General
- NEW! Ranked Deathmatch is now available in Custom Lobbies!
- NEW! “Balance Teams” button to help you balance your teams in Custom Death Match Lobbies!
- Players are now able to accept invites to a lobby when in Ranked Matchmaking.
- Messages that start with the “@” sign now appear in lobby chat or in-game chat.
- Fixed an issue where players could not remove AIs and add human players in Custom lobbies.
- Fixed various issues in co-op lobbies.
- Fixed an issue where players were unable to click anything on the ranked screen if a match is found in match making while the civ screen is opened.
- Players now display as muted when joining a third-party lobby after the client that lobby-banned them.
- Changing Civs or checking the Tech Tree during the Quickplay Match Found flow will no longer unmute all previously muted players.
- Custom maps now download correctly when picked by clicking the randomize button.
- Improved the “Server” filter from the Lobby Browser to return better results.
- Removed the “Preferred Region” filter from the Lobby Browser.
- Fixed a rare issue where restored lobbies could sometimes not have the right amount of player slots.
- Players can now invite other players to a restored lobby.
AI
General
- Fixed an issue where AI player Villagers sometimes don’t garrison into nearby Town Centers when being attacked.
- Players in Treaty are no longer considered allies by the AI, leading to inappropriate AI behavior.
- Fixed an issue where the hard AI would resign too early when playing Treaty mode.
- AI now builds a dock and trains fishing ships in lakes on the Kawasan random map.
Pathfinding
- Fixed an issue where Villagers could sometimes not walk through buildings which are collapsing.
- NEW! Ctrl+right click can be used to attack a target, ignoring any retargeting command. A unit will only retarget if:
- They cannot path to the target object.
- The target has been killed.
- The target has moved out of range.
- When sending a Villager back to work within a Town Center which has a gather point, the Villager will ungarrison from the closest point to the gather point instead of the closest point to go back to work.
Scripting
- up-log-data now correctly produces an AI log file as intended.
- Action-pack now works as intended and no longer throws an incorrect obstruction error.
- Range of shared-goals is now set as a 32-bit signed integer (instead of a 16-bit signed integer).
- Added sn-allow-capturing-gaia-units to allow AI players to convert units owned by Gaia. (Set to >0 to enable)
Localization
General
- Fixed various display issues with Hindi characters.
- Fixed various translation issues reported by the community across the game.
Modding
General
- Fixed a rare issue where mod upload and downloads could incorrectly time out.
- UI files civTechTrees.json and futuravailableunits.json can now be included in mods.
- In-game mod browser is now more responsive when enabling/disabling each or several mods.
- Improved the in-game search field to show more accurate results.
- Mods uploaded in-game now receive the correct tags.
- The “credits” music tracks can now be modded.
- Added a “NOMODS” launch parameter for debugging purposes which disables the mods system.
Scenario Editor
- Fixed a legacy issue where gate hitpoints could change in custom scenarios when units pass through them.
- Fixed a legacy issue where Elevation would continue to be painted on newly pointed tiles without moving the mouse.
- Deleted Town Centers no longer leave remnants, which are visible through the fog of war.
- Triggers: Added color option for object icons in Display Instructions trigger effect.
- Triggers: “Object Has Action” now has object level and object group check
- Triggers: Modify attribute trigger effect now includes a text box that can be filled to change unit name before such a unit is created.
- Triggers: The values in change object trigger effects is no longer corrupted after selecting change object attack/armor effect.
- Triggers: “Change object armor / attack” trigger now takes the type field into account
- Triggers: Technology State trigger condition no longer resets when used with Disabled state.
- Triggers: Difficulty Level trigger condition no longer resets when used with Extreme option.
- Triggers: Fixed an issue where cancelled techs changed by the “Change Tech Cost” trigger effect would not return their correct cost.
- Triggers: Teleport Object trigger effect now teleports objects to the center of the tile.
- Corpses of units affected by the “change player color effect”, will no longer appear in the original player color.
- Changing architecture set of civilization in editor now also changes a unit’s task graphics.
XS Scripting
- The XS scripting system has been updated with the ability to store and load persistent data. For more information please check the XS documentation.
Ongoing Investigation
Queue Dodging & Cooldowns
We continue to monitor feedback related to this system as we consider what changes may be necessary. We don’t have a specific update at this time, except to encourage continued feedback as we’re definitely listening.
Cheating
We’re actively working on solutions to this problem and expect to deliver some changes in a future update that will help resolve these issues. As we indicated previously, we’ll have more to say about this as we get closer to delivering those changes.
Problems with MP Services
- We’re constantly monitoring and ready to troubleshoot issues you may have connecting to Multiplayer services, or finding, joining, and/or hosting matches. When these kind of problems occur, the most useful information for us is network logging provided by you. If you experience these issues at any point, please follow the steps below to notify our Support Team and provide this information:
- You can find these Logs by looking in this folder: C:\Users\ [[YOUR WINDOWS USERNAME]] \Games\Age of Empires 2 DE\logs
- Network Logs look like this, and contain the date and time of the session you most recently started (example): 2021.08.20-12.03.37.txt
- Our Support Team may ask you to try again using our Enhanced Logging build, which provides additional logging information
- NOTE: The Enhanced Logging build generates very large log files – once you’ve submitted a relevant Support Request, you’ll want to switch back to the regular build, and once you’ve sent any relevant log files you can delete them to save HDD space
To use the Enhanced Logging build:
- In some circumstances, we need additional logging information to better understand your problem, and that’s when we ask that you use the Enhanced Logging build
- To do that, locate Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition in your Steam Games Library
- Right-click the game title and select Properties at the bottom of the menu
- In the window that appears, select the BETAS tab on the left
- In the available field, enter this beta access code: 4YH2SkfG7CK5yanvrXE9qj8b
- You’ll then see that you’ve been given access to enhanced_logging and a button will appear asking you if you’d like to opt in
- Opt in or select the enhanced_logging beta, and Steam will automatically update your build
Crashes and Freezes
As a reminder, player-reported issues (when they’re informational only) can be difficult for us to diagnose, and log files alongside a little bit of back and forth with our Support Team remain incredibly helpful. This shift toward working directly with our players to dig into the issues you’re reporting has allowed us to improve stability more quickly, and we’re anxious to keep this up. Here’s information that will help you work with our Teams when filing Support Requests –
- If your game is crashing, there’s a specific log file that’ll help us understand why and it looks like this (example): AoE2DESteam-46906-2021.04.06-15.46.57.mdmp.
- The file can be found in this directory: C:\Users\[YOUR WINDOWS USERNAME]\Games\Age of Empires 2 DE\logs.
- The log file name specifies the game, platform you’re playing on, build version, and the date/time of the crash, and is specific to every instance – so if your game crashed earlier in the day and you’ve been playing since, you can still go back and find this file by matching it to when your issue occurred.
- Please attach this file in any Support Requests you submit regarding a crash, and if necessary we’ll reach back out for more information.
- You can reach out to our reach out to our Support Team, and if you’re a Steam user, you may be directed to PUP to help us confirm if we’ve been able to resolve your issue.