One man I know just plays Age of Empires 2. He has over 25 years of experience playing it. “Oh yes I heard they produced another one” was his response when I brought up Age of Empires 3, and that was the end of the talk. He does not have a gaming PC and does not have a broader interest in gaming.
Fans of AoE 2 believe that since perfection has already been attained, there is no point in playing another video game. And thanks in part to 2019’s Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition, the venerable 26-year-old strategy game still has a fantastic afterlife, and things are obviously not slowing down.
These are some of the most significant patch notes I have ever seen for AoE 2: DE. The “cherry on top” is that they will soon be “dropping one of the biggest updates Age 2: DE has ever had!” The developers acknowledge that they are “legendarily long.”
For what length of time? They just kept going, and the only summary I could think of was to highlight everything and calculate the word count, which came out to be 8229. Let us get started. The upcoming upgrade is scheduled for “mid-April,” and its main features include the following:
Bugs have been fixed based on your suggestions!
New Images for Monks, Monasteries, Castles, and Elite Unique Units!
Updates to the Technology Tree UI!
The equilibrium shifts!
Fresh Maps!
Support for new features and content:
After that, we go over a ton of bug fixes and configuration changes. The graphic overhauls introduce twenty-five new castle designs from various civilisations, and each elite unique unit now has a different look from its counterparts without the upgrades: “Defeat your opponents with greater style than ever before by donning Janissary crowns, Samurai flags, or Teutonic Knight helmet crests.”
All units have a number of animation enhancements, such as better synchronisation between the animations and the attacks themselves and new infantry attack animations that will be mixed in at random with the current ones. The structure of the technology tree has been rearranged “for better readability and more efficient use of space,” with improved explanations and updated phrasing. Other enhancements include new options from the main menu that take users directly to the editor.
Unit fixes compete for attention with pathfinding adjustments and new features, such as the humorous “Sheep and Turkeys can no longer receive unintended speed boost after un-garrisoning from Gujarat Mills.”
For the sake of everyone’s sanity, I will link rather than reproduce the incredibly long list of balancing modifications to specific units. After that, we get back to the main topic of these patch notes, which is China.
All owners of the Victors and Vanquished expansion can play a new scenario called “Xie An” for free. In this scenario, “the Xie clan defends the Fei River from the northern warlord Fu Jian who has designs to conquer all of China.” You can use spies to infiltrate enemy camps, bribe enemy generals, finance a rebellion, and more.
“The Chinese are now listed as an Archer and Gunpowder civilisation and are receiving a massive update to their units and bonuses,” said the notes, followed by a list of new additions and civilisation bonuses. Developer World’s Edge is in tease mode about the game’s next expansion,n and, given the focus here, betting on ancient China would be wise. There are then literally hundreds of words on changes to herdable animals (please don’t ask) and huntable animals, while in the Northern Isles, the devs have “fixed boars sometimes failing to generate.” Forest spacing and the amount of water on maps now scale more appropriately, relics are distributed more evenly, there are fewer inaccessible areas, and oysters will no longer block shore fish from spawning, which was apparently a thing.
It is safe to assume that fans of AoE 2 are ecstatic about this update; some have dubbed it “the best update ever,” while others have substituted the term “total cinema.” With six expansions now released (including 2023’s Return of Rome, which included all of the civilisations from the original AoE), developers Forgotten Empires and World’s Edge have set a dazzling pace for the Definitive Edition.
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