Scout report

​ A traitor has opened the gates of the Underworld. A king marches to close them. Witness the beginning of Lamou's journey, an original Age of Mythology: Retold custom campaign where betrayal, mythology, and war collide. Follow the son of Poseidon as he hunts the legendary general Meduis, whose thirst for power has unleashed horrors upon Greece. This is only the introduction. The true full campaign is yet to begin. The complete mission featured in this cinematic will be playable very soon. This cinematic serves as an introduction to Lamou and the world of this campaign. The main story campaign—planned to span approximately 6–10 missions—will take considerably longer to complete due to its scale and ambition. In the meantime, I'll be releasing standalone missions, side stories, and additional levels so there's always something new to experience while the full campaign is in development. Created by Mufasa Frieze. Features - Original cinematic storytelling - Fully custom campaign and storyline - Custom objectives and mission scripting - Advanced trigger system and gameplay events - Custom AI players and difficulty scaling - Randomized enemy attack patterns for replayability - Original dialogue and character writing - Custom sound design and audio such as the Jhinn you face on this level. - Original map design built from the ground up Every part of this project was created by me—from the level design and mission flow to the objectives, trigger work, AI scripting, dialogue, sound implementation, and overall campaign design. Special Note: Illidan's voice heard in this cinimatic was AI voice-cloned by me for Lamou. Every character will also have a distinct voice. This is only the first step. The hunt for Meduis has begun. Also mods. Stop flagging and deleting my video its the polished version.

I am a bit lost. I am new and I have a lot of doubts. I guess the map I should play is Arabia? Also, which civ or build order should I play? Where can I find good build orders? I wanted to choose Byzantines because I saw in another post that it's a good civ for learning the game. But I can't find build orders for Arabia (I understand fast castle is not so good there). Where do you find build orders? Also, I prefer not to see YouTube tutorials, honestly.

Many of the campaigns, from Age of Kings to The Last Chieftans are excellent scenarios reflecting historical battles (sometimes not that accurately) in a range of gameplay. However, there may be something in regards to a scenario that you may feel is not quite right. Is it gameplay or historical accuracy? Would you do something completely different or is it perfect? 103: Francisco de Almeida 5 - A Son’s Blood

I really liked the civ, but I got burnt out doing FC. Do they do feudal these days? Also, with the changes to Manjaniqs, are they still useful? I want to be able to be versatile and I got got burnt out doing the same dervish to either eco/military wing. I started doing more byz/mongol, but I really did enjoy the Ayyubids, just got tired of the same build.

Got accused of cheating for having 15 attacks on my knights in Castle Age (Lithuanians) The way he was accusing me of it you would think bro is facing the most unjust situation of all time and he ended pausing and wasting time for no reason lmao. Thought it was a new player just for it to be a dude with more than 350+ games playing Magyars so he is familiar with cav civs yet doesn't know the bonus which is totally fine since there are 50+ civs Tried to tell him it's a civ bonus with relics and gave him time to check just for him to waste another minute accusing me of cheating instead he could have simple just gone to check and confirm for himself The funny thing is I had the 15 attack for a while yet he only accused me after his big army ended up losing so I am assuming it's definitely a troll who just got mad they lost lmao Another fun day of aoe2

I played Golden Horde and my building cart turned into a Mongol one, containing Mangudai. I was able to build them (in pairs of 2). I only built 2 and suicided them because I didn't want to exploit the situation (it was ranked 1v1) . I also reported on the official forum. Anyone else had this?

Hey guys recently redbull dropped a video "We Tested Age of Empires Pro Gamers on Real Historical Facts". Everyone will agree that the pros were kinda terrible at placing civs on the map 11. I had the idea to make a small app where you can drag & drop the civ emblems on a globe, submit your answers and get a score based on how good you placed them. There are some improvements to be made but the app is very easy to use you can use left click to move around the globe and right click to rotate it from the center if you want to move an already placed emblem around you can drag it along the globe and it will move with it (I'm gonna make a change so that you can do this directly from the dashboard) I have nothing to promote so just envoy the app 😄 (feedback is appreciated) https://age-of-geography.vercel.app/

I've never really been a multiplayer but I've been thinking about trying it out. But I know from previous rts games it requires a completely different skillset. Anyway, this is something I just thought of. I'm curious how common this is as a tool for scouting and map control, especially for the Norse. Given that a single square of wall costs a pittance (5?) of gold, and constructs in a few seconds, I can imagine using them in a similar way to the Egyptian priests vision towers to do things like monitor gold deposits, town centers, chokepoints, etc Edit: it also occurred to me that you could leave a bread crumb trail of wall pillars with the goal of diverting siege weapons that are set to attack move but not being actively micromanaged during travel. The goal being to send them off on a side quest that separates them from the main army and opens them up to cavalry raiding before the opposing player realizes what's happening. Even if it doesn't work you havent lost much in the attempt, and you probably still got some warning about troop movement

Dear fellow warriors! Gotta get this off my soul! My game didn‘t launch. And i mean. Nothing at all and i tried f***ing EVERYTHING! It has been 3 days with several hours of workarounds. NOTHING WORKED!!! Frist of all. I could easily work as an IT-Support for the deep dive i took into Computer-systems. But most importantly! I found the way to make the game run again. At least for me! Not even listing all the things that didn‘t work. Would take hours of typing. The thing that DID work: Cmd in your windows system: Enter those three commands: netsh winsock reset netsh int ip reset ipconfig /flushdns Even if i only help one person on this planet to safe his sanity and hours of workarounds, i will sleep well til the end of my days! i‘m excited hoping on this game after a few years! Cheers!

Looking for mod that adds some unique unit and building skins for each civ. I heard there was a good one called Omkar but it looks like it isn't current anymore. Are there any good ones at the moment?

Ornlu The Wolf, the renowned content maker of this game, was recently invited to give a university lecture on the history of AoE II. In 58 minutes marks of this video https://youtu.be/hVlsK1DuSTE?t=3503 , he dropped this info - Devs were originally going to add “Tanguts” but Microsoft stopped them as they are adjacent to Tibet and Microsoft doesn’t want to risk anything related to Tibet and upset the Chinese. I guess this explains the current situation of “Khitans”

Build Number:16.2.10884 Platform: Steam Operating System: Windows 10 (please provide a detailed description of the issue) (use the upload button to include a picture or video of the issue in action if possible) Trigger Event: There’s Map generating bug. Player at top corner without gold around Capital TC in Flank Woods. map seed code: 5e6a275E Biome: Taiga Summer size: Large Repro Steps: Creat a skirmish game. Setting the condotions: map seed code: 5e6a275E Biome: Taiga Summer size: Large players: 8 Start the game. The palyer at the top corner won’t have gold around the C. TC. 螢幕擷取畫面 2026-07-25 000722 1920×1080 1.36 MB

Don't usually self-promote, but I don't think anyone has ever given a university lecture on AoE2 before, so I thought you all might find it interesting :)

testing in the scenario editor i dont understand something: enemy has 1 tile of wall in feudal (1080 HP, 8 melee armor) my maa with arson (no forging) does 6 base damage + 4 bonus damage to the wall Considering no bonus damage, the unit always does 1 damage to smth, doesnt matter if it has 100 armor, so in theory it should be doing 5 damage (1 per the melee damage and 4 per the bonus damage) but its doing 4 damage no matter what similarly, i placed a militia with arson next to it and its the same, the militia should be doing 3 damage (1 from melee and 2 from bonus) but its only doing 2 damage what am i missing? the wall does not have a secret armor vs bonus damage

There's too much micro and macro in this game compared to aoe4 or maybe am I just bad? I'm conqueror rank on aoe4, but here I'm stuck in 1000 elo, I can't get used to the food decay no matter what, and the constant boar luring stresses me out, the few seconds of idle time due to sheep's not at tc is also frustrating. Anything I can do to play better? Honestly it's really tough getting into aoe2 if your a modern game, aoe4 is like ez mode in comparison

Hey! We're a small, tight-knit clan sitting around Diamond in team games, and we're looking to add a few more players to the crew. Who we're looking for: 25+ (most of us are 36+) Chill, drama-free personalities — we play to win, not to flame Comfortable communicating in English Any timezone — we've got a spread already and would love more Minimum plat1 A few things about us: We're serious about improving and winning games, but we leave the toxicity at the door No Discord — we keep things simple with in-game chat/text Personally I've got ~9800 games logged, so there's decent experience floating around to learn from and lean on Vi usually play 09-18 CEST If you're tired of solo-queue randoms and want a small group of adults who actually communicate and want to climb together — drop a comment or DM and let's talk!

I’ve been struggling a lot against kt/english 2tc in particular because they have defensive landmarks and don’t really need to come out of their base at all, so despite fast castling in response and getting 4-5 relics I end up dying when they come out of their base with a large army (especially heavy spears) I die because I lose too much gold at the market and have to start adding farms. Since an all in usually isn’t feasible for me what should I do in this scenario?

Other civilizations have received new explorer skins and outfits, whereas China is still stuck with the old ones—Lao Chen, Huang, and Zheng Yi Sao. QQ20260725-000041 735×756 679 KB

I don't know if this is just me, but I am constantly losing track of these little statue guys. When they're un-sieged, they blend in with a lot of scenery, especially because of their small size. I think some spots of brighter colours on them would be great to help them stand out more at a glance. And when they're sieged up and immobile, maybe some glow effect could be added, so that it's very clear at a glance which are sieged-up and which are unsieged. (I can see there's a visual difference, but again, it's hard to discern at a glance, especially when there's a lot going on)

I enjoy playing the ai and I'm curious to hear about people's favourite ways to approach it. I was struggling to beat hard and getting crushed early on, but intermediate feels too easy. All the tips say to do a fast early rush, but even if I learned that, wouldnt it end the game too fast and get boring? Now I'm thinking to play several intermediate at once, using random maps and civs, landmark victory. How do you all like to play ai for the most fun?

Game Version: Standard Build Number: v.100.19.17020.0 Platform: Steam Operating System: Windows 10 Issue: Whenever I take a screenshot using PrtSc or Win + PrtSc , the game freezes for approximately 1 to 1.5 seconds . This happens consistently in both singleplayer and multiplayer matches. The freeze is strong enough to interrupt gameplay, especially during fights or micro‑management moments. It does not matter what graphics settings are used, the freeze occurs every time a screenshot is taken. Trigger Event: Pressing PrtSc or Win + PrtSc during gameplay. The moment the screenshot is taken, the game pauses/freeze for ~1–1.5 seconds. Repro Steps: Start any match (singleplayer or multiplayer). During gameplay, press PrtSc or Win + PrtSc . The game freezes for ~1–1.5 seconds. Issue is 100% reproducible every time a screenshot is taken.

Game Version: Standard Build Number: v.100.19.17020.0 Platform: Steam Operating System: Windows 10 Issue: When constructing a building in a tight or enclosed area (surrounded by other buildings, trees, or other obstacles), villagers already working on the foundation form a ring around it. If additional villagers are ordered to help with construction, but there is no open tile for them to stand near the foundation, these new villagers: fail to find a valid path to the building, do not attempt alternative routes, do not wait for other villagers to move, and instead go idle after a short pathfinding attempt. They should either find a path around obstacles, reposition, or have existing builders shift slightly to make room. Instead, they immediately give up and idle. This results in villagers refusing to join construction unless the area is manually cleared or the building is placed in a more open space. Trigger Event: A building was placed in a tight location , with several villagers already constructing it. When additional villagers were commanded to help, they could not reach the foundation due to blocked tiles and went idle. Repro Steps: Place a building foundation in a narrow area (between buildings, trees, cliffs, or other obstacles). Send multiple villagers to start construction. Observe them forming a ring around the foundation. Command additional villagers to join construction. If no open tile exists for them to stand, they fail to pathfind and go idle . Issue is reproducible consistently.

I have an idea for a new game mode that I would love to watch the pros cast. I don’t know exactly how the devs would implement this, but I can see a path forward. A 1v1 (with 200 pop cap per team) that requires 8 players, effectively a 4v4. But the catch is that Player 1/5 control villagers (and the other non military buildings) and defensive buildings, player 2/6 control barracks and monasteries, player 3/7 control stables and siege workshops, and player 4/8 control archery ranges and docks. Player 1/5 would need to build everything needed for the other 6 players to play the game. But once a barracks is built, Player 2/6 could start producing units so long as their team had enough resources. The players only control their respective units, production and upgrades. Why I would love to see a mode (or even just a tournament) with this mode? The improvements to micro and eco efficiency would be fun to watch (or play). The viability of hybrid maps would improve. Late game would be quite different, with lots of forward villagers for production and towers. The coordination of teams would require lots of communication. Scouting/information would be super easy to come by until strategies evolved to make it more challenging. Uncertainties? How would resources work? Would the devs need to add a second page to the Market to send free tributes to teammates so they can pay for units. Would resources somehow be pooled? Does it make more sense to have it be a 4v4 mode where Blue Player 1 builds a Barracks and it turns Red for Player 2 to control? That way it’s easier to see your units vs your teammates when in battle. I forget the term, but does the team all see the map as each other explore it? Do we keep the QOL features (auto reseed, auto place farms, a market to see team explored areas, shift queues, creating 5 units at a time with shift, etc) that have been introduced over the years? Whose role would be hardest? Any changes to the building responsibility you would want to mak

So it turns out I was very wrong about the Cumans Imperial Age. For a long time I thought they were only good in Castle Age and if the game went into Imperial Age and your opponent was still strong then you'd probably lose, or at least have a difficult win ahead of you But I've been overlooking something and it all makes sense as to why Cumans are missing some important techs (because their imperial age is already OP)... Just for fun please have a guess why. It'll be interesting to see if any of the expert players here can tell me why I'm wrong (I'm currently only 1250ish elo) Disclaimer: to be precise, the most I can say is that they're OP up to my elo level...maybe I shouldn't make such claims when I don't know how games would go at higher elo levels

One of the recent updates broke AOE2 and it silently crashes to desktop after 5-10 minutes in menu/game. Win10 and Win11 users are affected. On my system I'm on latest windows updates, latest Nvidia upgrades with all overlays disabled. Logs show nothing about the crash and windows events/reliability manages also do not catch the crash or the reason for it. Support is aware but "has no ETA on an available fix". Meanwhile, the game can't be ran at all.

UPDATE : thanks for all the help here i was able to get silver medal on that art of war tutorial!! Key was to crack timing and use the save feature to load the specific scenario many many times to really get it!! Hoping to get deep into the game. Starting in my 30s. First rts I picked up the game as my first RTS experience. After watching some beginner videos on macro, etc. I decided to go for Silver in all art of war campaigns before getting into BOs etc. I am on Land battles, learning counters to different units. watching youtubers sail through the quest for gold to learn. I am able to defeat all other units using their counters and choosing stance and formations required. With archers, I am trying hit and run, and mountain advantage, but man at arms just chase me and kill me. I have also tries using hold stance and using stop key to avoid right click micro and just shoot the nearest unit by default. I am continuosly being chased and killed. Help here would be helpful, thanks!!

Considering the recent support to Age of Empires III, it has really sparked the idea that we may also be in for a long haul. We may not get as fast content updates as we got until now. But i think once a year DLC update / feature update will also do with regular once or twice a month balance / bug fixes update. I really want the game to prosper as i am playing the game since 2005 and now above 40 and passed the baton to my son, whose also really enjoys the game. What are your thoughts people.

Game Version: Standard / Premium / DLC Platform: Steam / Microsoft Store / Xbox / PlayStation Operating System: Windows 11 / Windows 10 / Windows 8 / Windows 7 / Mac / Linux Issue: The flute in the ost: ‘In a Pile of Its Own Good’ Dear developer, I know many criticize the music in Retold, but I love it. Maybe it’s because I never really stopped playing AoM since the original release, so the remade/enhanced(whatever you wanna call it) tracks were a welcomed change for me. But god damn, this flute in the track ‘In a Pile of Its Own Good’ is just awful. Sometimes there is too much air put in the flute(overblown seems to be the correct word) and in generel it sounds like the wrong notes are being played. Since the Retold release it’s bugging me, and over time it becomes unbearable and makes me disliking this track. So please remake the flute part or use the original one.

I had a game right now where the entire HUD became unresponsive to the mouse. In this case, it happened right after I had tried to "unready" a few seconds before game start, in order to change civilization. I got stuck in the quick-chat menu (accessed by pressing Enter), possibly due to the long-standing chat bug that makes the chat window unresponsive. The platform is Steam on Windows 11. Has anyone else experienced this bug?

well we all know this “bug” has been almost 2 year，So can the official make it clear whether this is a bug or a new type of unit

First of all. The best fucking patch ever , thanks. Now my suggestions (1.º balance and 2.º aesthetic): 1.º Change doppeldsoldner price. from 75/125 to 100/100 or 120/80 Even with this change, it would remain as a marginal unit. But it could at least be little more usefull. image 583×374 331 KB image 549×462 381 KB image 562×537 446 KB 2.º Change (pure aesthetic). Uhlan appareance just for its TIER1 The tier 1 Uhlan should seem more archaic, with late medieval appearance in Tier 1. In Age II, all the German units look archaic, but the Uhlan feels out of place compared to them. Quick visual proposal for Husars and Uhlans (only in age2) - Age of Empires III: DE / III - Discussion - Age of Empires Forum

Note: This is not feedback regarding the current preview build or playtest. It’s a general suggestion for the future of Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition . Please do not move this thread to the Preview Feedback section. Thank you! First of all, I’d like to thank the developers for their continued support of Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition . Over the past few years, we’ve seen the addition of civilizations such as Italy and Malta, with Poland and Denmark on the way. The European roster has become richer than ever and increasingly faithful to history. Precisely because of that, one omission has become impossible to ignore: Austria. From the 16th to the 19th century, the Habsburg Monarchy stood at the very center of European politics. Austria led the Holy Roman Empire for centuries, played a decisive role in resisting Ottoman expansion, fought in the Thirty Years’ War, the Seven Years’ War, and the Napoleonic Wars, and became one of the principal architects of the post-Napoleonic order after the Congress of Vienna. Later, the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary remained one of Europe’s Great Powers throughout the very era that Age of Empires III seeks to represent. It is difficult to discuss early modern Europe without recognizing Austria as one of its defining states. Some may argue that Austria is already represented through Germany. However, the original German civilization has always been a historical compromise rather than a representation of any single state. It combines elements from Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Hesse, and other German states, while incorporating a few Austrian influences as well. That approach made perfect sense when the game originally launched with a much smaller civilization roster. Today, however, Definitive Edition has grown far beyond those limitations. The introduction of the Prussian Revolution has, to some extent, addressed the long-standing question of Prussia’s place in the game. While it is not a full-fledged civilization,

As the title says, I think we need to actively and publicly shame the players like these who straight up go to the worst kind of insults. Not to mention that he was consistently insisting an attack to the place where 3 or 4 enemy castles were already erect, resulting in a complete butchery of our army. Then accused of no army while he had like 3 times less than the others. And on the very first inconvenience goes quitting.

Now that Europe is soon to be complete in aoe3 (except maybe a Austrian revolution) what other major powers are missing as civs and which places don’t have maps? For the time frame of aoe3, civs that were present the whole time and had their own identity would be Persia Morroco Siam Korea Areas that are not represented by maps in the game are Southern Africa The area of Iran Australia and Oceania If one could dream we could have 2 more DLCs that would complete the world Rulers of Islam with Morroco and Persia that bring in maps from Persia and Africa and New natives like Afghans, zulu etc Seas of the East with Korea and Siam that also cover Australia and Oceania maps and aboriginal natives. Of course there are unlimited numbers of minor powers that would be possible, but with this we would complete the world with minimal effort.

Main as ottoman. On small maps any tips to stopping the Zhu xi zhuge/spear/ram rush with the jiangling tower. Feels super difficult. Thanks.

Just watched his video from yesterday where he describes a mod he uses that tells him his opponents recent strategy in prior games. I'm pretty sure it's cheating (albeit a tamer form than most) but what do you guys think? Drongo I know you're a mod, please don't throw this post away because you don't like it. I might be of the minority opinion and I really am a big fan, just think you should get rid of this program you use https://youtu.be/vSMLdq\_YRxs?is=VfQ9KkwYj4Ip5wdA EDIT: Within the last year they took away your ability to even see your opponents name so you couldn't look them up and get outside info. This is no longer a question in my mind, this is cheating

I got up to 913 and now can't get to 900 :( damn I guess I'll keep up with the campaign Does anyone have any recommendations?

I have recently finished the campaign for "Obsidian Mirror" and I really liked a lot of it. I didn't like the pacing (it felt like they were setting up for 30+ mission campaign but had to fit it all in less than that so things got dropped or were massively underdeveloped), but one of the moments I'm still conflicted about is the return of Chiron. I think Chiron's death was one of the most important and key moments of "The Fall of the Trident", and seeing him return felt... cheap. I don't know if I'm alone at that. I think bringing him back made it feel hacky and removed some of the impact of his death.