Update log
Full Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition update
The complete published notes, normalized for clean reading and source attribution.
Extracted changes
- UI and audio
- Compatibility
If you missed it, we recently announced the next DLC for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition: Victors and Vanquished! Coming March 14th, the newest DLC will feature 14 UGC-inspired and fully-updated, polished, and supported scenarios plus 5 exclusive all-new scenarios. Each scenario has been updated with full, professional voice acting, music, rebalancing, bugfixes, achievements, and quality of life improvements.
Recently, Ramsey Abdulrahim, Senior Business Manager at World's Edge who you may know better in the community by the username 'Filthydelphia', talked about the inspiration and history behind Victors and Vanquished.
Pre-Order Now with 15% Off!
Victors and Vanquished is available for pre-order now with a 15% discount on Steam. Coming March 14th!
Message From Ramsey Abdulrahim
First, thank you for the love and support I’ve received from so many members of the Age community. I am thrilled and grateful that so many of you have enjoyed my campaigns, official or custom. So many of you have told me you’ve learned and been inspired by the histories in these scenarios.
I have been playing and designing custom campaigns for Age of Empires since 1998—when I was only 13 years old! In 2015, I had the opportunity of a lifetime to join Forgotten Empires as a campaign designer for The African Kingdoms expansion. For the next six years, I worked on campaigns alongside the amazing people at Forgotten Empires and World’s Edge for Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, and Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition. Needless to say, 13-year-old me would have thought this was the coolest thing ever!
I hope that my latest project, Victors and Vanquished, will help introduce even more players to these incredible historical stories. I wanted to highlight two of the scenarios you will be able to play!
How Did You Seize Power in Medieval France?
We tend to associate kings with absolute power, but kingship in the early Middle Ages was much more nuanced. Successful kings had to maintain support from their nobles, and weak kings were challenged and sometimes even replaced. Notably, two French kings were deposed by two brothers, Odo and Robert, who seized power separately in 888 and 922 CE.
In Robert (921), you decide how you will seize power. Assaulting Paris is direct, but the other nobles will come to their king’s aid. Better to win their support first—or at least the support of the ones who fit into your grand strategy.
Each noble is unique. Arnulf, Count of Flanders, despises Rollo and his Normans. War against Rollo would drum up Arnulf’s support. On the other hand, the pious Guillaume of Aquitaine has just finished building the famous Benedictine abbey at Cluney. Demonstrating your piety by collecting Relics will win his favor. Though you can also attack Guillaume, take his Relics for yourself, and turn his enemy, Garcia of Gascony, into your most fervent supporter. Alternatively, if catering to the complicated whims of counts and dukes is not your style, you could simply bribe whoever fits into your plans.
These counts and dukes are not passive, either - they also jockey for power. Over time, their houses will form marriage alliances for mutual protection. Your preparations to invade Burgundy could be upset by an ill-timed Burgundian marriage with Normandy. Even worse, Normandy may have an alliance with Aquitaine, potentially bringing all three into a coalition against you the moment you attack Burgundy. But, all hope is not lost! If you can first
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