It’s been two weeks since the release of Age of Empires II HD: The African Kingdoms but we haven’t taken a break since! We’re keeping a keen eye out for bug reports and your feedback. The good and the bad of course 🙂
Hotfixes
In the past week, we had no less than 5 hotfixes so far. Each addressing a good bunch of issues that were reported by our passionate community. You can read up on all the fixes in their respective posts:
- Hotfix 1: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221380/discussions/1/496880503067996386/
- Hotfix 2: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221380/discussions/1/496880503079143583/
- Hotfix 3: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221380/discussions/1/496880503083171332/
- Hotfix 4: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221380/discussions/1/496881136904807796/
- Hotfix 5 (patch 4.5): http://steamcommunity.com/app/221380/discussions/1/492378265877924119/
If you experienced crashes on release day or any persistent issues that impeded you to fully enjoy the game, feel free to give it another whirl as quite a bit of critical bugs have been resolved already.
If you’re still experiencing crashes, hop over to this support topic on the Steam forums where morness, the lead programmer on the project (on behalf of Skybox Labs) is working hard to make sure all reports are being dealt with.
Balance
Many players already noticed that the new civilizations are a “bit on the stronger side”. This is a very fair assessment and a conscious design decision. When we worked on The Forgotten, we tried our utmost best to make sure the new civilizations would not overpower the older ones. But this lead to the unfortunate situation where people had to play with new build orders, units & technologies against strategies that were practiced for over a decade. This lead to the not always incorrect perception that these civs were a bit underpowered.
So this time we went for the opposite approach, where we’d make sure the civilizations would all have their share of strong traits. Which invites everyone to try out new tactics and unit combinations, without being mercilessly punished when something goes wrong. We are constantly looking out for feedback posted on various community forums and are keeping track of your suggestions.
It goes without saying that a lot of the feedback so far was anticipated. Bonuses like the 20% cheaper cavalry for the Berbers, has been widely considered a very (even too) strong bonus and we are very likely to turn that into a 15% reduction (or a staggered one per age even) when the first balance patch comes around (TBA).
Feedback
As usual, let us know if you’re liking the game and if you have any issues. We’d love to hear. If you have the time, maybe even leave a review on Steam!
Glad you guys are continuing to balance this great game! Please buff standard infantry movement speed (5% increase). It is everyone’s favorite change from other balance patches and these balance patch changes still don’t address that standard infantry die to archers, die to building arrows, and die to knights (they die to everything). They can’t even catch the units they are supposed to counter (eagles some UU and all trash units). What is a 2k2 player such as myself supposed to do with long swordsman and champion; they are just weak even w infantry civ bonuses. 5% makes a big… Read more »
Nope everything is balanced as it is
I would have to disagree, Arman Ali got really valid points there. Long swordsmen (and onwards) are still insanely vurneable, slow, not cost effective and desperately need a buff. I completely agree with a speed buff ( I think it’s still not enough). TK knights do need to be buffed as well. I can see the changes are inspired by Carlos Ferdinands’ balance patch, and I see no reason not to implement most of the changes.
I only disagree with the hand cart cost reduction, it’s a very strong tech which certainly has a big impact on farming.
Thanks for your support. Check out the spirit of the laws youtube chanel and he goes into how long it takes to recover the recources. Hand cart actually has a very minor effect on farming dispite the massive boost by wheelbarrow, so it can be a bit confusing. If u dont belive his tests look at the balance change log and look at the slavs. You’ll see that their farming is not much effected by handcart. I think 5% will be enough for starters. You must take in consideration Arsons and reduced feudal hp in FE as opposed to the… Read more »
Do you have any evidence to support your claim Geraldo? I respect your opinion but I’ve watched 1000s of pro games and rarely see an effective use of longswords or even champions even from so called infantry civs. If u think about it infantry civs like vikes and japs are actually poor archer civs since they make arbalest, or cavalry civs like teutons who make paladin dispite lack of gold shaft mining husbandary and still have an infantry UU that is too slow for most situations.
I have to say, this is perfect. I can’t disagree with any of these and have thought similarly myself about many of them for a long time.
The one I am curious about is Yasama – is it really that powerful with Arrowslits? What about with Teutons being able to garrison extra units inside? Or are they both situational enough that it’s a well-deserved bonus without being OP?
It is very powerful and almost had the power of a castle at afraction of the stone cost. The dif between this and the teutons is that you must garrison 10 units to get the full effect. More investment and idle military or vils is the tradeoff the japs dont have to make. Yasama w arrowslits right now is strong enough to be a full offensive strategy not situational. The only way ud get a tower down is w rams and you can gorrison melee units in towers or defend w knights. You can also tower crawl all around their… Read more »
Wel maybe arrowslits is quite OP. I believe a keep does quite more damage per arrow than an castle.
Malian Halbs aren’t like huskarls. Every archer does bonus damage against them(PT gives CA 4 more), and 7 is not equal to 10 and they have low HP(and low cost). Still Malian infantry can be countered with normal infantry, since Malians lack Blast furnace, or use gunpowder. However I think a total of +2 PA would be sufficient to.
But the +5% speed to infantry doesn’t make archers more and more useless? Infantry has it’s benefits like low gold cost and building mashing. Infantry has already been buffed in conquerors (+1 pierce armor), in AOFE (+5 HP depending on age) and now more with Arsons. Actually they are very balanced but rarely trained because of it’s bad past and the need of lot’s of farms (players like me are too lazy to build and manage so many of them :P). About the new techs: agreed about goths not receiving Arsons, it’s an OP civ that already receives +1 attack… Read more »
I appreciate your input so let me adress each of your points 1 by 1. 1. No it does make archers more useless. Archers still counter infantry w the proposed buff in speed. An archer is still faster than a fast champion. If you dont believe me check the game stats. 2. In most games gold is abundant so low gold cost is not a benefit to infantry. In fact since gold gathers faster than food and food requires a substantial wood cost, costing more gold and less food is better for the economy and up time. This is why… Read more »
If you dont know the power of mangudie i would say that perhaps you should watch some upper level games. Mongols are chosen on every 4v4 in every tournament. The fire rate of a mangudie is at least as fast as an ethiopian archer and the armour is the same due to parthian tactics. Not to mention the high attack ,hp, attack bonus, speed compared to an archer. Camels benifit the mongols bc the mongols only need to defend until they get castles so the last armour for camels is not significant. And yes towers w yasama has about the… Read more »
I like some of these ideas especially teutonic knight movement speed. I believe they are an “infantry” civ even though I go knights then maybe siege with hand cannons. Or maybe even once they get imperial or research elite teutonic knight then the speed boost kicks in. Not sure just an idea. Really agree that Berbers need toned down. Maybe even 10% stable. In my opinion they are the best trash civ there is for late game having an extra unit even though they lack halbs (i think). I wish ethiopians royal heirs tech did more. I know spawning shotels… Read more »
And I do know that they spawn very fast and “near instant” with the tech so that could be the developers reasoning to not have them at the barracks. But barracks would make them easier to spam 🙂
I don’t think you could have spoken my heart more clearly than you just did, although I don’t necessarily agree with buffing the Turks. Turks are hugely powerful, it’s just largely unknown how to play them. I also think that a 5% increase of SWORDSMAN speed would be as rad as it gets, but it’d be totally okay if the spear line stayed at their current speed, considering they’re trash units, and should act a little more like trash. :p I also fully agree with the Mongols gathering speed being nerfed to 40%, I’ve been speculating that forever. I think,… Read more »
I dont think they are afraid of changing the game too much bc the last changes have changed the game a lot, but i don’t think they will take suggestions from coments cause there have been so many noob suggestions. Honestly i will continue to play AK because i think they’ve door a good job overall and it’s super hard to find 1800+games w a new mod. The only change in passionate about is the infantry speed, the others are minor for me
Mine too, because I’m an infantry civ guy. I love infantry, and what they can do when you use them properly, but they are too slow, and longswordsmen are pretty darn bad. The speed increase will probably fix every bit of this, because I notice when I play the Celts, I can do actual work with the infantry, because they’re literally 5% faster than other civs’ infantry. If I had to make an outcry, I’d say infantry speed, and somehow making the longswordsman more practical is in the game’s best interest at this point. ANY other type of unit can… Read more »
I’m actually working on a rebalancer right now that includes some of your ideas. Gotta figure out how to port it into the game, test it, and see if it’s good.
Will be more DLC for AoE after the release of Tale of Dragon?
Last saturday I played a 1vs1 with a friend. We choose to control one single civilization against CPU. At begin of the match, we found a third “zombi” civilization (it didn’t any movement).
Devs, consider, instead of changing the 20% cheaper cavalry for the Berbers, just give them 20% cheaper knights only, and see how that works for a while. I love civs with serious power arcs, and would rather see weak civilizations strengthened than to see strong civilizations nerfed. On the subject of strengthening weak civs, the crappy Koreans need some love, fellas. I was thinking (not like my inferior opinion matters that much), but it would be a serious strengthening factor to give the War Wagons a 0 melee damage similar to that of a Chu Ko Nu, so they can… Read more »
I agree with strengthening weak civs instead of hurting strong ones but berbers bonus is just to much in my opinion and maybe even the developers. Not only can you flood your opponent with cavalry, you can flood them with genitours as well at the same time with a cheap powerful and overwhelming force that is super fast. I’m not trying to be rude but Koreans are a great civ in my opinion. Full foot archer line and hand cannon, Full trash, Great siege, amazing towers (plus now you get arrowslits unless they don’t get the upgrade haven’t checked but… Read more »
Hence, why I said just switch to 20% cheaper knights only, to see if that is enough of a nerf. I think the most overwhelming part of the Berbers is the 20% cheaper Scouts, it is ridiculously easy to hussar flood people with the Berbers, and so far, I have found no harder tactic to counter than a hussar flood. When your opponent’s economy can handle 8 stables worth of constant hussar spamming, it’s incredibly hard to keep up with that. Someone I play with loves this tactic in tandem with foot archers to kill my counter infantry, and as… Read more »
I would reconsider the koreans weak if you change your perspective to towers as an offensive weapon. Think about it, castle age guard tower free w 7+4 attack w bodkin and arrow slits and 7+3 range w korean bonus and they are built faster and stone is mined faster. They can not be taken down by anything but rams that are defended. I dont think they need to be buffed but the 0 melee attack is a great idea! I want their team bonus back tho
The arrowslits was a huge rebalance that the game desperately needed, and I love it. And I certainly don’t necessarily think that the Koreans are just completely weak, but their lack of any economy bonuses makes their peak performance very short, compared to other civs. Even other civilizations in the discussion of “bad economy” like the Saracens, and Turks are head and shoulders above Koreans economically.
I think giving their War Wagon a 0 value of melee damage would make the Koreans 2 times better, I would LOVE to see this change.
Game desynched despite a solid internet connection. After restoring the game the other players were unable to join the lobby again, the page just flashes and doesn’t join.
I play on Steam HD. I’m on a normal fast Time Warner cable connection. I’ve played hundreds of games with people all over the world with no problems. I’m on a PC – Windows 10. Plenty of Ram and memory. In the last 3 or 4 days, I’ve started maybe 40 games. During that time at least 30-35 either desynched when game was underway or someone else dropped immediately upon game launch. The percentage is so high that I feel it has to be my fault since I rarely play with the same people. But I’ve tried everything. Also, I’m… Read more »
The games goes OoS each 3 matchs I play. I have lost about 50 or more ELO points because of this. I suppose everyone loses ELO when the game goes OoS. If this happens too often, someday ELO will become rare as gold!
I just noticed that there’s no more indications aboutthe requirements to advance to the next age when I hover on the button when it is disabled.
First thanks for you guys hard word to re-balance this game. Below I shall list some of my opinions, which are for your reference and test. 1.Increase the swordman movement speed from 0.9 to 0.94 2.Set Petard pierce armor to 6 (instead of 2) 3.Mayans: (1)Palisade walls and gates are not affected by Mayan team bonus(walls cost-50%) (2)Obsidian arrows: archers vs buildings attack change to +5(instead of +6) 4.Magyars:(1)Magyar Hussar bonus attack VS seige weapons decreased to 6 (2) Hordings / Masonry removed 5.Japanese:(1) parthian tactics removed (2)Arrowslits removes (3)Received Heresy 6.Chinese: Block printing received 7.Malians: (1) Barracks units +1… Read more »
I really don’t see why the Japanese should lose partian tactics. Their CA is not overpowered. (In fact the Saracens, Turks or Magyars) have better ones.
Secondly I don’t agree with removing halbedier, since Ethiopians do not really excel at melee combat during imperial age.
pikeman & halberdier upgrade free is OP. Ethio also receive +100G,+100f when upgrading to next age. So in feudal age I do not need to mine gold, just set a market and sell 100 wood to castle age, then I get free pikeman. And in castle age I
I don’t understand why the AOFE team added bloodlines for Japs. The civs is already OP, have the best infantry (internally attack 35% faster and not 25%, better than Aztec +4 attack and is FREE, not a tech), FU arbalests, naval bonuses, FU cav-archers, FU almost everything and now are even better because of arrow slits + yamasa. Historically they are not adept of cavalry, simple not adding bloodlines fix this.
And in AOFE Japs also got the Gold Shaft Mining, which made them very powerful combined with other military techs they have got
After chifeiyen posted a list of suggestions, I feel free to do the same. About generic units I would say there could be some historical/gamebalance issues. 1. I would like the militia to have 0 pierce armor, so it makes sence for the man-at-arms to wield a shield. Also the fact why we don’t see so much long swordsmen, is because they need two upgrades, to be available. To be honest the man-at-arm uprgade and 5 man-at-arms cost 140 gold and as much food as 5 scouts. Not really an effective flush.. I would suggest slashing the upgrade cost of… Read more »
1. Longswordsman got +5 HP in AOFE (and now +2 attack vs buildings with arsons). With more HP they might get OP. They are already good, only not used too much. 2. Imagine spears and towers in dark: no match will pass the dark age. Spearmen are weak but much cheaper than militiamen and can harm someone’s economy badly. Tower drush + spears and you always win if the same is not your’s enemy stragegy. 3. Elite eagles as they are today, win most games if fully upgraded with astecs and mayans. They are fast, cheap, has bonus vs cavalry… Read more »
And for Vikings, I still think it is unreasonable that both two unique technologies function to the same unit: Berserk. And the cheiftains is totally useless when 1 VS 1 to Aztec, Mayan and Incas since they have no cavalry. Nearly all other technologies in this game are more or less useful when you vs whichever civs, so the cheiftains is really unreasonable.
Besides, in all other civs, at least one Unique technology functions to generic units, only Viking is not. So i think these should be modified, at least one UT should give bonus to generic units.
I don’t get your point of chieftains vs. mesoamerican civs. There are other UT(naval ones on land maps or silk road on 1vs1) which might be little use on certain maps. What worries me more about Vikings is that the berserker has the same role as the champion and the castle age berserk is underpowered. With Chieftains the berserker gets a better against cavalry than the champion line, but still it needs an (in african kingdom less) expensive upgrade. You still have a point about the the fact that a viking player has no use for his UT, if he… Read more »
It’s true that Berserk is weak in Castle age. But that’s not a problem because Viking has NO.1 economy in Castle age. Viking is weak in post-imperial age due to the lack of high-technology units, the elite Berserk is still of little use since its low HP, low pierce armor and needs many technologies to be full upgraded. The AOFE gives Berserk a new bonus, their original purpose is to make Berserk more useful and can be a choice on land. But two UTs for Berserk makes Berserk too hard to be full upgraded and be mass. So it still… Read more »