Patch 9.2.628
"Happy Patch Day! We’ve got our first update of 2024 loaded with balance improvements for our awesome line up of new and variant civilizations released with The Sultans Ascend expansion last year. Not only that, but we’re bringing a whole host of AI improvements, map fixes, and a stellar seasonal event to the mix."
Seasonal Theme and Event: Lunar Faire 2024
We’re excited to have you all join us for Lunar Faire in a few short days with an awesome seasonal event set to start February 1st and run through February 22nd! Make way for the Year of the Dragon!
Map Pool Rotation
With a new update comes an opportunity to refresh the map pools! This update features two maps that have not seen ranked play yet: Forts and Waterholes.
Some familiar maps have made their return — giving brand new civilizations a chance to flex their refreshing gameplay on familiar battlegrounds.
1v1 Ranked Map Pool
Maps rotating out for 9.2
Hidden Valley
Rocky River
Canal
Golden Heights
Maps rotating in
Forts
Boulder Bay
Mongolian Heights
Four Lakes
New 1v1 Ranked Map Pool
Dry Arabia
Cliffside
Himeyama
Forts
Gorge
Boulder Bay
Mongolian Heights
Golden Pit
Four Lakes
Team Ranked Map Pool
Maps rotating out for 9.2
Hidden Valley
Volcanic Island
Hideout
Golden Heights
Maps rotating in
Forts
Canal
Hill and Dale
Waterholes
New Team Ranked Map Pool
Dry Arabia
Cliffside
Himeyama
Forts
Gorge
Canal
Hill and Dale
Golden Pit
Waterholes
Build Spotlight
Xbox Update: Xbox Home Share
After we launched The Sultans Ascend expansion last year, we heard that Xbox Home share wasn’t working as expecting. This has been fixed in this latest update.
Design Update
Our main focus this update has been to improve the balance of new Civilizations.
The Japanese sacred choice design has been reworked, with six new technologies that are unlocked at either the Shinto Shrine or Buddhist Temple; based on your Castle Age Landmark selection.
rash Fixes
We’ve identified and fixed a number of high frequency crashes and desyncs, this should lead to better game stability with this update.
Gameplay
AI Updates (Byzantines)
AI is better at picking safe places to build mercenary houses.
AI Updates (Jeanne d’Arc)
AI Jeanne d’Arc no longer abandons her army when she levels up in combat.
AI Jeanne d’Arc is now able to use Valorous Inspiration and Strength of Heaven.
AI Updates (Japanese)
Fixed issue with AI trying to deposit Yorishiro in buildings that can’t accept Yorishiro.
AI now prioritizes placing Yorishrio in forges, lumber camps, and farmhouses.
AI Updates (Nomad Mode)
Fixed AI sometimes being unable to build their Town Center in Nomad mode.
AI Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue that could cause idle AI units if it failed to retreat with a set-up siege unit.
Fixed a crash that could occur in the AI system when loading a save game.
Fixed big groups of AI villagers refusing to gather resources during the late game.
Fixed issue that sometimes causes the AI to get stuck on a building while patrolling its base.
Fixed an issue that caused the AI to stay on a sacred site longer than intended.
Fixed AI sometimes being unable to build anything or progress in any way when being in the proximity of an enemy.
Fixed small groups of AI military units sometimes being defeated by chasing enemies into their base.
General
Fixed a crash that could happen on Xbox and Windows Store versions of _Age of Empires IV_ when playing multiplayer games with Voice Chat enabled.
Fixed a bug where the game could crash when starting a multiplayer game.
Units will no longer get stuck on generated wall blockers, this would previously happen most commonly when Villagers are chopping wood near wall ends.
Fixed an issue where the animation of the House of Wisdom Wings would be out of sync with the age up for Ayyubids.
Reduced visual artifacts when snapping palisade walls to each other.
Units that use torches will no longer occasionally deal no damage attacking a palisade wall when standing close to the wall.
Fixed various bugs where certain abilities would stop working after loading a saved game.
Rus Hunting Cabins and High Trade House now show the number of trees counted on the Xbox.
Nomad Mode
In Nomad Mode, players now must complete a Town Center before they can Age Up.
Steam Deck
Fixed an issue causing desyncs on Steam Decks when playing online.
Campaign
Campaign Mission: 1215, Zhongdu – The enemy landmarks in campaign mission Zhongdu have hit the gym and can now withstand the player’s overwhelming onslaught, preventing building destruction which leads to a Fatal Scar Error.
Campaign Mission: 1426, Cyprus – Prevented a Fatal Scar that could occur from destroying Famagusta’s Docks before the objective had started.
Campaign Mission: The Battle of Mansurah – Fixed a crash that could occur on the mission The Battle of Mansurah if the player survived for 40 minutes on hard mode.
Mongol Town Center no longer activates Age Up progression bar in campaigns.
Fixed a crash that could occur when loading a save game from some of the new Campaign missions.
Hotkeys
We have corrected a range of issues related to remappable hotkeys where they were either unlisted, in the wrong spot, or did not have the correct default hotkey based on their grid position. Thank you for all your reports.
Masteries
Fixed a bug where Delhi Sultanate Mastery #10, “Protecting the Sword” was not correctly tracking healing from the Mosque’s healing aura. The mastery was undercounting health received.
UX/UI & Menus (All Platforms)
A bug in the Korean language IME has been fixed: terminating a syllable with the spacebar will now add the space character after the syllable instead of before.
Improved the smoothing of the camera when watching a recorded replay when Free Camera is disabled.
Shift click in resources panel allows you to select all idle workers or all workers in the clicked resource.
Fixed an issue where toggle buttons in the settings page would get clipped randomly in certain resolution monitors.
Fixed an issue with High Contrast UI being difficult to read in the Quick Match tab.
Localization
We have been tracking your feedback relating to localization quality in _The Sultans Ascend_ expansion and have made expansive changes to several languages, including Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Hungarian languages.
We are committed to continuing to track and evaluate improvements in this space. So, please let us know in [the forums](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/incorrect-translations-for-age-of-empires-iv-the-sultans-ascend-dlc/243544) if you continue to see issues related to language quality.
Maps
Map-Specific Changes
African Waters
Player’s starting gold will no longer spawn trapped inside the player’s starting forest.
Hill & Dale
We’ve done a tuning pass on the distribution of Sacred Sites on Hill and Dale. We have more robust changes coming in a future update that should help ensure that sites are placed fairly with even higher consistency, but we felt like this interim tuning has resulted in less clumped spawns than before.
Gorge
Sheep distribution has been reworked on Gorge and Forts to be more consistent across the map, with less cases of 2/3 sheep spawning bunched together while other large areas remain arid.
General Balance Changes
Attack Speed improved from 4 to 3 seconds.
Attack Damage reduced from 30 +70 vs Siege and Naval to 30 +60.
Attack Speed improved from 4.38 to 3.25.
Bonus damage vs Siege and Naval decreased from +100 to +60.
Ranged armor increased from 20 to 30.
Ranged armor increased from 30 to 35.
Torch bonus vs. Siege removed.
Developer note
"The above set of changes to Siege aims to help with late-game stalemate situations and address a couple of issues with Springalds and Culverins: 1. Volatility of Springalds and Culverins vs other Siege units. By increasing the attack speed and reducing damage, it now requires more Springalds and Culverins to be able to one-shot other Siege weapons. This should widen the window available to react to seeing these units on the battlefield before all your attacking siege is destroyed. 2. Camping under Keeps with Springalds and Culverins surrounded by units makes them difficult to push into and pick off, but without picking them off it is challenging to use siege to take down the Keep. By reducing the ranged armor of the Springald, we hope that using ranged units to pick them off becomes more viable."
Cost reduced from 250 Wood to 200 Wood.
Health reduced from 420 to 340.
Now takes an additional 20% bonus damage from Melee attacks.
Attack-move with melee units now targets rams automatically.
Developer note
"Following up from our previous Ram changes, we’re aiming to address the effective health of Rams and reduce the viability of Ram pushes without support units. With this change we’re making it so that melee units will not ignore Rams with attack move (but Ranged units will). Our goal is to tune the Ram so that fighting them with melee units has a worthwhile return on investment. Along with reducing the health and cost appropriately this should also help to reduce the population effectiveness of Rams while remaining at 1 population."
Income reduced from 30 Food, 30 Wood, 30 Stone to 40 Food, 40 Wood, 10 Stone.
Income changed to 60 Food, 60 Wood, 15 Stone.
Developer note
"Late game Stone generation has proven too effective at creating massive amounts of defenses, which can make late games feel slower than intended. We want Stone to be a limited resource in the later stages of the game so defenses cannot be amassed too much over time."
Now also provides +5 Wood carry capacity in addition to +15% gather rate.
Now increases Gold drop off by 15%.
Developer note
"We want to make the Imperial Age economy upgrades more appealing for their cost, as well as reducing the number of Villagers required to sustain a late-game economy. This should lead to larger army sizes for more fun!"
General Bug Fixes
Improved Villagers’ gathering logic so that they favor going to the nearest available live Sheep instead of travelling far distances for a carcass.
Corrected an issue where the Trader was tagged as Cavalry.
Docks are no longer selected when using Select All Military Buildings hotkey.
Horse Archer units no longer favor the front of formations and will be protected by heavy units by standing behind them.
Conversion and Proselytization no longer target units who are blessed with Jeanne d’Arc’s Strength of Heaven.
Handcannons from Archery Ranges will now produce x5 when using the shift modifier to produce them.
Landmark Town Centers garrison arrow range corrected from 8 to 6 tiles.
Updated text to reflect their ability to detect stealth and disguises.
Updated text to reflect that Non-Capital Town Centers cannot detect stealth and disguises.
Corrected incorrect defensive values in the help text.
Abbasid Dynasty
Golden Age tier 3: Corrected an issue where Villagers were receiving +30% gather rate instead of +20%.
Ayyubids
Age up time reduced from 40% to 20%.
Age up time reduced from 40% to 20%
Resource discount reduced from 500 to 400.
Age up time reduced from 40% to 20%
Resource discount reduced from 1500 to 1350.
Corrected an issue where the first Golden Age Tier was giving +15% bonus to Gold, Stone, and Wood instead of 10%.
Dervish healing no longer heals units in garrison.
Desert Raider weapon range no longer fluctuates when upgrading Desert Raiders after researching Incendiary Arrows.
Transport Ships loaded with Atabegs will now properly reduce their maximum count when the ship is destroyed.
Byzantines
Developer note
"We’ve been watching the development of the Byzantines carefully and decided that they need significantly more nerfs. Just kidding! However, while we do aim to help bring the win rates of the Byzantines up, we do want to ensure that their over-tuned elements do not go unaddressed. We do believe that the following set of changes will help them where they need it the most, in the early game."
Cost reduced from 250 Wood, 100 Gold to 200 Wood, 100 Gold.
Health reduced from 350 to 280.
Developer note
"This change is in concert with the general Ram changes for all civilizations."
Gather bonus increased from 5/10/15/20/25% to 10/14/18/22/26% based on Water Level.
Build time reduced from 20s to 15s.
Stone cost cap reduced from 300 Stone to 250 Stone.
Starting Flasks increased from 1 to 3.
Flask maximum increased from 10 to 20.
Improved Flask spawn rate from every 45 seconds to every 30 seconds.
Reduced unit cooldown from 45 seconds to 20 seconds.
Decreased amount of health restored from 250 to 150.
Reduced healing duration from 10 seconds to 6 seconds.
Now acts as a Mill & Monastery and includes Food economy technologies.
Damage reduction changed from 50% to 40%.
Dialecticus Research speeds decreased from 50/100/150/200/250% to 30/60/90/120/150%.
Reduced training speed from 50% reduction to 60% reduction.
Produces 2 Keshik instead of 3 per batch.
Olive Oil cost increased from 540 to 720.
Varangian Guards are no longer selected with Mercenary Ghulams when double clicking.
Corrected issue where Wolves would grant Supply Points.
Corrected help text to state that workers generate Olive Oil to the % of amount of Food carried.
Added that Akritoi Defense changes all Villager’s weapons to a spear that deals +1 / 2 / 3 / 5 bonus damage per Age to the help text.
Fixed an issue where Cisterns did not cost any wood to repair.
The Surefire Victory mastery now tracks units killed by Greek Fire from a Dromon.
Chinese
Now produces Imperial Officials with a 30% discount.
Decreased work rate bonus from 20% to 10%.
Improved the Supervise Ability description to more clearly explain which buildings can be targeted.
Delhi Sultanate
When researching Manuscript Trade, Scholars that are already garrisoned in Docks will be properly counted as active Scholars.
Docks when destroyed will decrease the Scholar count correctly if Manuscript Trade is researched and a Scholar is garrisoned.
Developer note
"This fixes an issue where the active Scholar count could go negative, breaking Sultanate research times."
French
French Trade ships now correctly generate 20% more resources instead of 33% more.
Fixed an issue where the Chamber of Commerce would skip one free Trader if two or more economy technologies are researched in Dark Age.
Holy Roman Empire
Corrected issue where Holy Inspiration would be cast on enemy naval units, breaking its animations.
Japanese
The Shinto Shrine and Buddhist Temple now each contain 3 new technologies which replace Herbal Medicine, Piety, and Tithe Barns.
Developer note
"We want the sacred choice for the Japanese to be far more meaningful than your Landmark selection and which Monk skin you get. While providing a needed buff to the Japanese, we hope that this rework offers more distinction between the two choices and more strategic options in the Castle Age and beyond."
New Technology 'Shinto Rituals': Increases the Shinto Priest’s healing rate by +60%, health by +40, and move speed by +15%.
New Technology 'Gion Festival': All buildings gain +2 Line of Sight. Every 3 minutes all economic units heal for 100% of their max health over 3 seconds.
New Technology 'Bunrei': Increases the maximum number of Yorishiro by +2. Immediately spawns 2 Yorishiro at the Floating Gate.
New Technology 'Zen': Buddhist Monks generate +25 gold every 60 seconds.
New Technology 'Nehan': Upgrades Buddhist Conversion to Nehan Conversion, which has 25% shorter cooldown and additional improves nearby allied units’ movement speed by +25% when cast.
New Technology 'Five Mountain Ministries': Buddhist Temples automatically cast Sohai’s Sutra on a nearby enemy every 6 seconds.
The Conversion ability has been renamed to Buddhist Conversion and the description has been updated to properly indicate that nearby allies gain +20% damage for 20 seconds when Buddhist Conversion is cast.
Now has a built limit of 5 (including the Temple of Equality landmark).
Rocket Range decreased from 9 to 8 tiles.
Handcannoneer renamed to Handcannon Ashigaru.
Koka Township will no longer instantly spawn a Shinobi but instead queue it in production for free when the landmark completes construction.
Corrected an issue where the free Shinobi would not travel to rally points.
Developer note
"On hybrid maps, the Shinobi timing doesn’t give other civilizations reasonable time to establish an answer when scouting the Landmark and responding to Shinobi’s sabotage ability."
Updated the UI to show the current number of stockpiles available to spend.
Buddhist Monks will no longer leave their Stand Ground state when casting Sohei’s Sutra.
Corrected issue where Sohei’s Sutra would be cast on enemy naval units, breaking its animations.
Corrected an issue where the bonus was displayed +2% instead of +2 fire and ranged armor.
Will no longer fail to create a Shinto Priest if players are population blocked. The Shinto Priest is now stays in the production queue until population room becomes available.
Corrected an issue where ranged Cavalry were not benefitting from Uma Bannermen auras.
Corrected an issue where melee infantry & cavalry charge attack was not benefiting from Katana banners.
No longer share formations with Man-at-Arms and are now ranked behind
Now shares a formation with Onna-Bugeisha instead of Man-at-Arms.
Castle of the Crow Treasure Caravan is no longer selected with the “Select All Units” hotkey.
Fixed an issue where free Villagers from Daimyo upgrades wouldn’t benefit from upgrades.
Transport Ships loaded with Bannermen will now properly reduce their maximum count when the ship is destroyed.
Corrected issue where researching Odachi would increase the weapon range of Samurai.
Updated text to reflect health regeneration bonus and what can detect Shinobi disguises.
Jeanne d'Arc
Jeanne d’Arc no longer gains experience from Wolves.
Honorable Heart damage reduction reduced from 50%/66% to 45%/60%.
Jeanne d’Arc will no longer lose ability charge progress or cooldown progress when levelled up, garrisoned, or killed.
Jeanne d’Arc abilities can no longer be interrupted by auto-attacks during casting.
Corrected an issue where Jeanne d’Arc would gain experience from Sheep.
Divine Restoration no longer heals units in garrisons.
Developer note
"We’re aiming to reduce Jeanne d’Arc’s effectiveness in the Feudal Age: Slowing down Tier 3 by reducing exp gain from Wolves. Reducing the base stats of Jeanne d’Arc in Tier 3 and 4. Changing Companion Equipment (Castle Age) to restore the lost stats. Additionally, we’re tuning down the damage reduction from Honorable Heart to help with ridiculous situations where she can solo a Keep. We have plans to rework the damage reduction mechanic in a later update as well."
Health increased from 200 to 225.
Move speed increased from 5 to 5.5.
Holy Wrath damage reduced from 35 to 30
Health reduced from 450 to 360.
Armor reduced from 5 to 4.
Damage reduced from 20 to 16 — charge damage reduced from 30 to 24.
Health reduced from 350 to 280.
Damage reduced from 18 to 15.
Damage reduced from 50 to 40.
Armor reduced from 6 to 5.
Damage reduced from 35 to 28.
Moved from the Keep to the Blacksmith.
Increases health and damage of Jeanne d’Arc by +25% at tier 3 and 4.
Increases Jeanne d’Arc armor by +1.
Cost increased from 175 to 500.
Divine Arrow ability shows an improved error message when trying to target Gaia.
Holy Wrath no longer damages units in garrisons.
Included the damage tiering information of Jeanne d’Arc’s Holy Wrath and Divine Arrow abilities in the tech tree.
Keeps are now selected with Select All Military Buildings to make Jeanne d’Arc’s Companions easier to train.
Order of the Dragon
Gather rate bonus increased from +25% to +28%.
Health increased in the Castle Age from 170 to 180.
Health increased in the Imperial Age from 200 to 210.
Damage bonus vs Siege increased from +10 to +20.
The Elzbach Palace damage reduction buff is now behaving as intended.
Spearmen with the Dragon Fire upgrade no longer deal damage to nearby allied buildings when attacking.
Elite Gilded Knights would lose War Horses enhancement when tiering up from Veteran Gilded Knights.
Ottomans
Free Traders increased from 2 to 3.
Increased Trader garrison slots from 6 to 10.
Reduced income of each Trader from 28 to 24 Gold per minute.
Fixed an issue where the Elite Sipahi Upgrade was taking longer than intended to research, reduced from 90 to 60 seconds to match other Elite upgrades.
Zhu Xi's Legacy
Song Dynasty
Bonus changed from affecting Non-military buildings to affecting Economic and Population buildings.
The discount now applies to the following buildings: Lumber Camp, Mill, Mining Camp, Granaries, Farms, Town Centers, Houses, Villages, and Markets.
Building wood discount reduced from 40% to 30%.
Range reduced from 9 to 8 tiles.
Berry food per minute reduced from 8 to 6.
Stone mine resources per minute reduced from 30 to 25.
Gold mine resources per minute reduced from 30 to 25.
Cloud of Terror area of effect reduced by 0.125 tiles and increased the damage fall-off.
Dock work rate bonus decreased from 20% to 10%.
It is no longer possible to queue more than two technologies at the Zhu Xi’s Library.
Tang Dynasty
Tang Dynasty no longer reduces the Wonder cost.
Corrected an issue where the Yuan Dynasty discount did not apply to the Yuan Raider.
Shaolin Monks are now able to pick up and deposit Relics reliably.
Corrected an issue where Imperial Officials could Supervise Markets.
Updated help text to clarify that the additional bolt from Crossbowmen is 40% as effective as the main weapon.
Ongoing…
Known Issues
Known Issue with Byzantine Rain of Fire Mastery: It is possible for buildings to be destroyed by normal fire (from taking damage) before either the trebuchet or Greek Fire damage can deliver the final blow. This can result in buildings not counting towards the mastery. Try using more trebuchets against single buildings to increase the odds of that building counting towards the mastery. Additionally, landmarks do not count as destroyed (as they can be rebuilt)
Investigation
Community-Reported Issues:
Your reports continue being crucial to our prioritization and implementation of fixes and features in the game. Keep them coming!
For other known issues, please visit this page to see what’s being tracked!
What's on the Horizon
Coming Up…
Following on from the Lunar Faire event that’s set to begin in a few short days, we’ll be celebrating International Women’s Day with our next seasonal event, set to kick off in early March! We’re also cooking up our next major update and look forward to sharing more soo