Season Two Update – Chinese
Welcome to an exciting Season Two starting tomorrow, July 12th! We’re kicking off with an update full of new key features, quality of life improvements, more customization options, and even more say in how you play – you won’t want to miss out! No matter how you choose to play Age IV, be it single player, campaign, or ranked, we’ve got you covered. Here are a few highlights that you can look forward to in tomorrow’s update!
Map Preference System
Player Color Picker
Remappable Hotkeys
Fully Unlocked Campaigns
Age of Discovery Event
The wait is almost over for Ranked Season Two! You can jump into all the fun on July 14th! More information will be on its way then – so stay tuned!
Melee vs Siege Rework
"We wanted to add more strategic considerations to army positioning around siege weapons while increasing realism in the interaction between siege and non-siege units. To accomplish this, we’ve made all units (except villagers) use their normal weapons vs siege units. This means the knight charge will be a powerful option vs siege if there aren’t any nearby spearman to brace. Units not using torches means they will have to get closer to their targets so it’s easier to block them and protect the siege. Of course, we still want there to be multiple counter play options to siege weapons. To get the balance correct with this feature we’ve done a large readjustment. With torches, melee units were able to stack and push each other, allowing many units to all hit the same siege target. Now melee units obey normal pathing rules so there are only a few that can hit siege weapons at a time. To account for this, we reduced the health of siege weapons. Units like horsemen remain strong counters as we have given their melee attacks bonus damage vs siege weapons."
Units that attack with melee weapons no longer switch to torches when targeting siege units
Torches no longer deal bonus damage vs Siege
Villagers Torch Bonus damage vs Siege reduced from +10 to +2
Developer note
"Damage was reduced inline with reduction to siege health so villagers should be killing siege weapons in about the same amount of time."
Horseman melee weapons gain +10 bonus damage vs Siege
Villager repair rate of Siege units reduced from 20 health/s to 5 health/s
Developer note
"Part of the reason this was such a dramatic change is that siege weapons now have less health and will take damage slower from infantry armies… and also it was really good before."
Siege Works armor bonus increased from 3 to 10
Reduced the height of projectile trajectories to make them easier to read
Health reduced from 700 to 420 HP
Ranged armor increased from 8 to 20
Clocktower Ranged armor increased from 8 to 20
Health reduced from 200 to 125 HP
Bonus damage vs Siege reduced from +90 to +70
Clocktower Health reduced from 300 to 190 HP
Ranged armor increased from 12 to 30
Bonus damage vs Naval & Buildings increased from +340 to +410
Health reduced from 400 to 240 HP
Damage reduced from 170 to 100
Ranged armor increased from 8 to 20
Health reduced from 200 to 140 HP
Clocktower Health reduced from 300 to 210 HP
Buildings
Stone Wall Gates under construction can be attacked by any unit
Developer note
"This is already the case for Stone Walls, we are just standardizing the behavior"
Bonus damage vs Naval now also applies to demolition ships and non-combat ships
Attack interval reduced from 6.25 to 4.5 seconds
Damage decreased from 60 to 40
Developer note
"The high range and burst damage on Springald towers makes them extremely powerful. Their low cost makes them spammable. Note that these changes in combination with the increased armor on siege weapons means Springald Emplacements are now less cost effective."
Damage decreased from 85 to 70
Damage type changes from Siege to Ranged
Developer note
"Cannon emplacements deal 100% of their damage in AoE around the initial target. We wanted to retain this cool feature while making them less effective vs single targets like Bombards."
Stone buildings now cost Stone to repair instead of Wood
Developer note
"We’re looking to help resolve stalemate games and give a more realistic feel to the repair mechanic. Repair rate is still 1 resource per second. All other buildings cost Wood to repair. Keep style Landmarks continue to cost Wood to repair. We wanted a clean and easy-to-understand rule that didn’t restrict repairing a victory condition to the rare stone resource."
Relic limit on all Monasteries and Landmarks that act as Monasteries set to 3
Developer note
"This adds an additional cost to players who get more than 3 Relics and helps streamline the system between buildings. It also makes the HRE power of garrisoning into keeps/towers more valuable."
Fixed a bug where Capital Town Centers didn’t fire an additional weapon for each of their garrison slots after 13.
Developer note
"Note that English were always working correctly."
Construction begins at 1% health, reduced from 10%
Developer note
"Our intention is that an enemy army would be able to tear down a stone wall that is constructed right under its nose."
Fixed a bug when multiple buildings are selected, units could not be queued for production if one of the buildings already had a full queue. Units can be queued as long as at least one of the selected buildings has room in its queue.
Fixed a bug where Cavalry units would sometimes be unresponsive to acquiring buildings as idle aggro targets.
Added new visual effect to Keeps and Stone Wall Towers when burning oil is triggered.
Units
You can now activate units' unique abilities from within a selection of mixed units.
Developer note
"For example if you have an army of Knights and Arbaletrier, the Pavis ability can now be activated."
Trade Ships no longer return additional Gold, instead they return +100% of the trade value as Wood.
Naval target priority normalized to prefer enemey boats
Developer note
"Naval units will no longer prefer buildings like docks when there are still enemy boats in their range."
Spearmen perform the Spearwall animation faster and do not trigger their Spearwall until charging cavalry is closer
Developer note
"This reduces the instances where spearmen would Spearwall behind friendly troops, makes Spearwall feel more responsive, and gives you more time to control your troops as they spend less time in the Spearwall animation."
Veteran Horseman (III) ranged armor increased from 2 to 3
Elite Horseman (IV) ranged armor increased from 2 to 4
Developer note
"This increases the late game scaling of the unit when there are more buildings blocking pathing and less surface area to fight vs large masses of ranged units."
Hit points decreased from 150 to 130
Developer note
"Our vision for handcannons is that they are a frail high damage output unit. With the previous stats it felt like they were too cost effective vs most units, even intended counters like cavalry with good positioning. This change is aimed at making more diverse lategame armies that focus more attention on battlefield positioning."
Train time reduced from 45 to 30 seconds
Developer note
"These changes are aimed at getting more religious units out on the battlefield and involved in combat."
Fixed an issue where units using attack move wouldn’t prioritize attacking defensive landmarks.
Reduced the travel distance Villagers will scan for new resources after exhausting a Stone Outcropping, Gold Vein, or forest.
Developer note
"This reduces the instances of villagers traveling very long distances to gather resources when it’s much better to go idle and alert the player that they need to build a new resource drop-off building."
General Balance Changes
Cost reduced from 350 Gold to 275 Gold
Research time reduced from 60 to 45 seconds
Research time reduced from 60 to 45 seconds
Developer note
"As the path to utilize this technology is long in the early game (Blacksmith, technology research, create infantry to make Ram) in some cases the window of opportunity was closed before Rams could be utilized. We’ve sped this up a touch to give more aggressive options early on."
Drop Carcass command can now be queued before holding a carcass
Fixed an issue where units using attack move wouldn’t prioritize defensive Landmarks.
Fixed a bug where under some conditions units could attack faster than intended by issuing a move command after attacking to cancel the cooldown between hits.
Certain units were being stubborn about responding to attack commands in specific situations. These units have been disciplined and will to do better next time. (Sorry Beasty!)
Fixed a villager t-pose issue while attacking boar or wolves.
Fixes issue where villagers would occasionally get stuck within Stone Walls while building them.
Small stone deposit decreased from 1500 to 1200
Large stone deposit decreased from 3000 to 2400
Developer note
"Late game was leading to a lot of stalemates when there was such a large number of keeps that both players could create. We’ve pulled back the stone on the map so that there are less defenses and thus each is a key strategic point that is important to battle over."
Scouts given an attack command will now properly target villagers instead of a nearby carcass they are gathering.
There was a mismatch between the UI displayed value for the attack speed of some units and its output.
Units given queued commands no longer lose those commands when receiving a tier upgrade (IE becoming Veteran or Elite).
Fixed an issue where units would target the backside of a wall tower instead of the front.
Fixed crash that could occur when using rallying Villagers to a resource drop off.
Transport Ship help text updated to highlight that the ship will use the line of sight of units inside its garrison.
Fixed an issue where construction of rams, walls, and some other items could remove nearby berry bushes.
Chinese
Fire Lancer move speed increased from 6 to 6.5
Fire Lancer attack interval reduced from 1.75 to 1.62 seconds
Developer note
"We’ve got more plans for the Fire Lancer in the future. The move speed increase was an easy win to help fit it into its intended raiding role. We made some backend changes to attack speeds which resulted in some units attacking slightly slower. The attack speed change helps set the unit back to its original strength."
Damage decreased from 15 to 13
Weapon range decreased from 4 to 3
Area of effect falloff damage reduced from 100%/75%/50% to 100%/66%/33%
Developer note
"In addition to having no unit counter from the core unit roster Grenadiers also deal great damage to buildings. These stat tweaks make them a bit less cost effective and create a bigger risk when damaging buildings."
Total cost reduced from 1000 to 500 resources
Now only affects Handcannoneers instead of all gunpowder units.
Weapon range bonus changed from +20% to +1.5 tiles
Developer note
"Chinese were stacking bonuses onto their gunpowder units, creating super units like the Clocktower Bombard that is too good in too many roles. Focusing Pyrotechnics just on the Handcannoneers allows it to stand out more from other Handcannoneers and lets us buff some of the other unique gunpowder technologies like Reload Drills."
Attack speed bonus increased from 25% to 33%
Developer note
"Power level increased to help offset the loss of Pyrotechnics. Tooltip is slightly incorrect here as it still refers to reload speed instead of attack speed."
Cost reduced from 250 Wood to 150 Wood
Developer note
"250 is a very high cost to ask when farm transitions are being made. This lower cost is also more commensurate with the 10% increase to gathering rates this building provides."
Now has the ability to purchase Springald and Cannon Emplacements
Developer note
"These changes give the landmark better late game scaling potential as enemy army sizes get much bigger."
The Imperial Academy Landmark can now train Imperial Officials.
Developer note
"This change allows the Chinese to train additional villagers at the town center, giving them access to more strategic paths early in the game."
Now comes with a Nest of Bees emplacement that fires a burst of 16 arrows
Now provides all your units on Stone Walls with +25% ranged damage
No longer provides damage bonuses to units locally around the Landmark
No longer provides bonus health to Stone Walls and Gates
Developer note
"The Great Wall Gatehouse led to a passive style of gameplay that relied on building a huge mass of Stone Walls that took too long to get through. We’ve refocused the gameplay around making the placement of the building impactful and encouraging combat on and around walls."
Now houses technologies to upgrade dynasty units which can be researched for -50% cost and 50% of the research time
When a dynasty unit dies, all nearby units will receive +20% attack speed and +20 health over 10 seconds
Spirit Way Landmark no longer reduces the cost of dynasty units in Stables and Archery Ranges around the Landmark
Developer note
"We wanted the landmark to add more adaptive and dynamic elements to the Chinese gameplan. Previously you committed to 1 building type around the spirit way and were locked into those units. Now you can mix in different forces based on your current dynasty and combat needs."
Fixed a bug where Chinese Scouts lost their Tang Dynasty bonus vision when advancing to the feudal age.
Fixed a bug where The Ming Dynasty bonus was increasing the health of Keeps, Stone Wall Towers, and Outposts.
Fixed a bug where Imperial Official ignored shift queued tax drop off when carrying max gold.
Showing notes for the 
Chinese. Other patch notes are hidden.