It’s that time again! Visit the official Age of Empires forum to vote for your Ranked map pool for the next two weeks.

To participate in the community ranked map pool vote, you will need to login to the official Age forum using your free Microsoft account. Then, click the images below to jump to this week’s polls.

:alertalert: Polls are open until NOON Pacific on Sunday, October 18 (or 3:00p Eastern / 19:00 UTC), so be sure to cast your vote and check back to see which maps emerge victorious!

Here is the latest Ranked Map Rotation as determined by the developer picks and community vote. For the next two weeks, you’ll be able to pick from the new set of maps listed below!

WHAT: Server Maintenance (Matchmaking Servers)
WHEN: Wednesday, October 7 @ 2:00p PT / 5:00p ET / 21:00 UTC (Countdown)
EST. DOWNTIME: 1-2 HOURS

• Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (Steam / Microsoft Store)
  
• Age of Empires: Definitive Edition (Steam / Microsoft Store)

• Prepping the Live game servers to support the upcoming Age III: DE launch.

This coming Wednesday, October 7th, the platform team will be taking the multiplayer servers down for regular maintenance. This will unfortunately disrupt any matches in progress and prevent the creation of new matches during the down time, so we recommend wrapping up any games at least 10 minutes before the maintenance window.

:alertalert: DURING THIS TIME, YOU CAN STILL LAUNCH THE GAME, BUT WILL NOT BE ABLE TO MATCHMAKE OR ACCESS ANY ONLINE FEATURES.

The downtime is expected to last between 1 and 2 hours. We will update this thread with any changes to the schedule as they arise, as well as the all-clear when the maintenance is complete.

Thank you for your patience!

It’s that time again! Visit the official Age of Empires forum to vote for your Ranked map pool for the next two weeks.

To participate in the community ranked map pool vote, you will need to login to the official Age forum using your free Microsoft account. Then, click the images below to jump to this week’s polls.

:alertalert: Polls are open until NOON Pacific on Sunday, OCTOBER 04 (or 3:00p Eastern / 19:00 UTC), so be sure to cast your vote and check back to see which maps emerge victorious!

You're invited to celebrate THE TEUTONS: a civilization well known for their toughness, tenacity, and their ever-stylish capes!

As with all of our monthly events, we've created a new set of challenges for you to complete over the course of the next two weeks, as well as exclusive profile icons, new visual mods, and even a new cheat code to spice up your time in the campaign. On top of all this, the team has built a new challenge scenario—the Barbarossa Brawl—to test your skills: a holdout where you'll defend against increasingly more challenging waves of enemies over time. See how long you can last and make your mark on the leaderboard of your friends!

All of this is a part of THE TEUTONS CIV CELEBRATION EVENT:

• New Barbarossa Brawl challenge scenario!
  
• Unlock three new, themed Profile Icons!
  
• Unlock giant Pretzels for your Onagers!
  
• Unlock a relaxing Teutonic Knight Statue for your Town Center!

Starting TODAY through OCTOBER 6th, complete the in-game tasks within the time limit to unlock a siege tower of themed goodies. Here are the challenges available over the next two weeks:
Each of the following challenges must be unlocked in order and on separate days:

The celebration continues with the Barbarossa Brawl: a new challenge scenario based on the original Barbarossa campaign. Defend your Town Center against impossible odds for as long as possible, then find new ways to increase your score and top your friends on the leaderboard!



Remember: if you sign in to Xbox Live during the event, you’ll get to keep all of the mods and profile icons you’ve achieved! Sign in, earn your rewards, and enjoy this summer-themed event!

We hope you enjoy this Teuton Civ Celebration Event!  And don’t forget to sign into Xbox Live to ensure you keep everything you unlock!

—The Age of Empires Team



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GOOD DAY and HAPPY SEPTEMBER, everyone!

This month’s update continues the trend of introducing a smaller (though nonetheless significant) list of tweaks, fixes, and changes to Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. While brand-new features and additions are subjected to rigorous testing in preparation for the quarterly update, this month’s release still brings its own list of fixes and features to the game, as well as a new event with exclusive rewards to earn, and even a new challenge scenario for you to show off your skills to your friends!

Here’s the short (tl;dr) list of changes:

• Unlock new profile icons, mods, and an exclusive cheat code during the Teutons Event!
  
• Hold out against waves of enemies in the Barbarossa Brawl challenge scenario!
  
• Implemented several pathfinding improvements for Villagers.
  
• Gates will no longer permanently lock in the “open” position.
  
• Adjustments to the Arabia, Bog Islands, Fortress, Megarandom, Scandinavia, and Socotra maps.

The full, detailed list can be found below: give it a read, experiment with things in the game, and then let us know what you think about the September Update! We’re always perusing our forums for the latest discussions and chatting with you over in the game channels on Discord, so keep all the amazing feedback and inspiration coming our way!

💬 DISCUSS: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition Forum
🗣 JOIN: The Age of Empires Official Discord

That’s it for this month! We hope you enjoy everything and look forward to seeing you on the battlefield!

—The Age of Empires Team


While there is 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:

This month, we’re celebrating the Teutons with a new CELEBRATION, new REWARDS, a never-before-seen CHEAT CODE, and an all-new CHALLENGE SCENARIO to test your Age of Empires II skills. We’ve jam-packed it with a ton of Oktoberfest spirit, so get in there and join us for Teu-TONS of fun!

• Unlock three new Profile Icons!
  
• Unlock a new Teutonic Knight statue as the jewel of your Town Center!
  
• Discover a new cheat code: “Put on your capes”
  
• Bury your enemy in Pretzel Projectiles with a new Onager mod!
  
• Test your survival skills in the new Barbarossa Brawl scenario!

▶︎ NEW REWARDS!
Starting TODAY through OCTOBER 6, complete in-game tasks to unlock a ton of themed goodies:
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’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!

Come, one and all, to test your skills in the BARBAROSSA BRAWL!

• Build up your defenses and prepare for an intense siege!
  
• Defend your Town Center against the enemy onslaught for as long as you can.
  
• No walls! You must rely on Towers, Castles and the might of your army.
  
• Maximize your score! Every second counts; can you survive for 30 minutes? 1 hour? Longer?

This special holdout scenario challenges you with increasingly more dangerous opponents in an endless siege of your Town Center. The longer you can hold out, the more points you’ll earn towards a spot on the leaderboard of your friends!

While the Barbarossa Brawl replaces the Mongol Raiders scenario, don’t worry; we’re working on a home for all the scenarios and leaderboards in the future!

The stability of the game is of paramount importance, which is why the team has created a new tool to use if you’re experiencing regular crashes and disconnects in your games. The “Enhanced Logging Build” is a Steam Beta branch of the game that can be used to generate advanced networking logs while still playing with everyone on the main game branch. While this does come at a cost of your game’s performance, it’s immensely helpful to generate logs if you know you are prone to connection issues.

• More information about the Enhanced Logging Build can be found here!

As always, we want to send a huge thanks to everyone putting in the time to report, track, and help fix these issues! So here it is: THANK YOU!!! ♥



As we continue to support the growth of the Age franchise, we’ve opened an official Age of Empires support hub for all of your troubleshooting needs. With an ever-growing knowledgebase of articles and solutions—as well as a dedicated support team ready to answer your questions—we’re here to help you download, run, or play your favorite Definitive Edition games!

• Visit the Age of Empires Support Site

You can also read more about the new resource in our recent blog post!

• Implemented additional safeguards to defend against unsanctioned cheating.
  
• Fixed an issue where queuing for consecutive matches with the same party could result in the loss of connection to multiplayer services.
  
• Fixed a rare desync caused when players used “layering mode” in the Scenario Editor before joining a multiplayer game.

• Fixed a rare issue where Gates could be permanently (unintentionally) locked in the “open” position.

• Increased the average distance between Forage Bushes and players’ starting Town Center from 8 to 10 squares.

• Arabia: Reduced the number of starting forests to 3 wooded areas per player, and increased their distance from the starting Town Center.
  
• Arabia: Added elevated terrain around players’ bases.
  
• Arabia: Reduced the size of the oases and the length of cliffs that spawn throughout the map. (Yes, “oases” is the plural of “oasis.”)
  
• Bog Islands: Players now start with five extra Fishing Ships on Empire Wars—thus restoring the starting economic population to the standard 27 units.
  
• Fortress: Removed unnecessary resource and animal spawns from the Death Match and Infinite Resource match types.
  
• Fortress: Now, 7 extra Villagers will appear on all game modes, not just Regicide.
  
• Megarandom: Fixed a particular map generation which denied some players of their starting forests
  
• Scandinavia: Players now start with a Mill and five extra Villagers next to their deer on Empire Wars—thus restoring the starting economic population to the standard 27 units.
  
• Socotra: Removed unnecessary resource spawns from the Infinite Resources match type.
  
• Socotra: Starting resources are now generated farther from players’ Town Centers.

• Fixed an issue where Villagers could endlessly bounce off each other in certain circumstances.
  
• Fixed a rare issue where Villagers could get stuck when navigating to resource drop sites.

• Fixed several Historical Battles where the incorrect audio lines would play when set to Castilian Spanish.

◆ 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:

• Team Game Connection Issues: We are well aware of disconnects occurring during Team Games and are aggressively investigating this issue. We also need your help! If you’re experiencing (a) a disconnect during TG gameplay, (b) a disconnect during matchmaking or on the loading screen, or (c) crashing on the matchmakng screen, please read the section above regarding the Enhanced Logging Build and follow the instructions. This will generate advanced logs that you can share to help us better understand why you’re experiencing these problems.

:alertalert: DISCLAIMER

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.

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!

Here is the latest Ranked Map Rotation as determined by the developer picks and community vote. For the next two weeks, you’ll be able to pick from the new set of maps listed below!

It’s that time again! Visit the official Age of Empires forum to vote for your Ranked map pool for the next two weeks.

To participate in the community ranked map pool vote, you will need to login to the official Age forum using your free Microsoft account. Then, click the images below to jump to this week’s polls.

:alertalert: Polls are open until NOON Pacific on Sunday, SEPTEMBER 20 (or 3:00p Eastern / 19:00 UTC), so be sure to cast your vote and check back to see which maps emerge victorious!

WHAT: Server Maintenance (Matchmaking Servers)
WHEN: Tuesday, September 15 @ 2:00p PT / 5:00p ET / 21:00 UTC (Countdown)
EST. DOWNTIME: 1-2 HOURS

• Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (Steam / Microsoft Store)
  
• Age of Empires: Definitive Edition (Steam / Microsoft Store)

• Regular server updates and maintenance.

This coming Tuesday, September 15th, the platform team will be taking the multiplayer servers down for regular maintenance. This will unfortunately disrupt any matches in progress and prevent the creation of new matches during the down time, so we recommend wrapping up any games at least 10 minutes before the maintenance window.

:alertalert: DURING THIS TIME, YOU CAN STILL LAUNCH THE GAME, BUT WILL NOT BE ABLE TO MATCHMAKE OR ACCESS ANY ONLINE FEATURES.

The downtime is expected to last between 1 and 2 hours. We will update this thread with any changes to the schedule as they arise, as well as the all-clear when the maintenance is complete.

Thank you for your patience!