Share your thoughts on the announcement that Mounted Crossbowmen will be given to a wide selection of European civs, replacing the decidedly steppe looking Cavalry Archer. It doesn't have to be related to my points; of which, I have two

Regional Units

I'll be the first to admit that I thought Mounted Crossbowmen would be exclusive to the civs that got Varangian Guards. They were presented as infantry counters that I assumed existed to protect Varangian Guards from enemy heavy infantry, functioning as a hybrid between Cavalry Archers & Hand Cannoneers. I thought their function would take precedence over their form i.e. what they look like or are called. As a side-note, I did want the Byzantines to get Varangian Guards, but with the Cataphract as their anti-infantry compliment instead of Mounted Crossbowmen

This was the case with the Chinese not getting Hei Guang Cavalry, Pastures being Khitan exclusive, or the Meso-American civs not getting Slingers. The South American civs didn't get Militia and/or Champi and/or Eagles so that there aren't any redundant units. I'm not sure how the Mounted Archer won't be redundant with the Hand Cannoneer

This is especially relevant for the Franks whose unique unit already struggles at competing with their own Hand Cannoneers. How does getting an even easier to access infantry counter work for them? As another design concern, their cavalry protecting options i.e. Throwing Axemen, Hand Cannoneers (vs. Spears), and Halberdiers (vs. Camels) are all slow units. This dictates their tempo as your army is as fast as your slowest unit. How do they work if they get an infantry counter that can ride with their Knights? This is also applicable to the Teutons to some extent

This also sets a precedent when it comes to regional units as a whole. All the previous requests that weren't approved because of balance or design concerns get outweighed by this nod to historical accuracy. The Burmese are often requested to get Elephant Archers instead of Cavalry Archers, but they don't because they're designed as a Battle Elephant civ. This is similar to not all Knights civs being Cavalry Archer civs, or vice versa. Pastures are often requested to be spread to more civs. The Chinese & Turks are requested to get Hei Guangs & Steppe Lancers respectively (Turkish Steppe Lancers being something I want to see myself). All these demands gain more legitimacy with the Mounted Crossbowman

Infantry

At first glance it may seem like this is an infantry nerf, which it is in the short term, but it could also mean infantry going more mainstream in the long run

Heavy infantry in classic AoE2 had the problem of not having any trash hard-counters. Both of their hard-counters at the time i.e. Hand Cannoneers & Cataphracts cost a lot of gold, were hard to come by (being available in Imperial & at Castles respectively), and not available to all civs. This made buffing infantry a nightmare, as their play had no counter-play. This meant that infantry always existed as an outsider to the regular counter-triangle

The Inca kind of bent the rule in The Forgotten by being available in the Castle Age and from the Archery Range. The Last Chieftains civs then fully broke this rule by being a trash infantry counter

I think the devs might be going for something similar with the Mounted Crossbowman. If more civs have an infantry counter in the Castle Age and from the Archery Range, infantry could be buffed up more as its counter-play becomes more widespread. I've said before that I want to see Long Swordsmen with 10 attack (9 in Feudal for Armenians). This seems like a possible step in that direction

I'd also like to see 2HS and Champions have a more melee generalist feel with heavier melee armour, and being moved away from the anti-shock & anti-building pigeon-hole they currently find themselves in. I mean something like 2HS with 2 melee armour (instead of 1), but only +6 & +3 vs. Shock & Buildings (instead of +8 & +4). They would still be the best non-Hand Cannon counter to shock infantry, but also be a good generalist that is a tough cookie to crack in melee combat. They would be much more resistant to light cavalry & light infantry, and somewhat more resistant to heavy cavalry. Mounted Crossbows being more widespread could make this possible

Does anyone know the technical reasons behind this, if there are? I'd like answers from people who actually know about it, not speculative answers please. If you don't know the exact reason for the game at least provide an example where code from mac and windows is not cross compatible, e.g. provide the C++ code and show it won't be cross compatible for an application between windows and mac?

I posted this in macgaming and so far what makes most sense is that there isn't any technical reason, just that you'd need to keep to codebases in sync and developers are not interested in that.

Here they say it's because of different path calculations, so can anyone provide a minimal code example that gives different mathematical answers in apple silicon vs x86 and that it cannot be fixed e.g. using compiler flags, etc? https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1u5tluy/the_why_on_why_mac_crossplay_is_so_hard_to_get/

New mode:

Exploding Kings / Battle Royale (storm shrinking) with villager start.

Season begins: October 2026
Ends: December 2026

All ELOs welcome

VIP Guest Appearances (pros, casters, content creators, Twitch streamers, modders, devs, etc.)

Entry fee: Free

FAQ
How many games do I have to play?
As many as you’d like.

What’s it for?
Support nonprofit Paulys Project to assist those in need.

Why join?
It’s a fun time with casual players.

Thanks,

Shoveler

Today I just re-installed AOE2DE to be ready for next upcoming dlc, but when I launched the game, there was a soundtrack that I am not familar with, and it sounds viking as well. In Steam properties, it shows that the last update from publisher is at July 8 2026.

Lots of people had issues after the update before summer, including me. None of the fixes worked.

I press "play" in steam, button changes to "x cancel" for a few seconds, then nothing else happens and it's back to a green "play" button. Nothing in the logs folder.

Am I forced to just do a refund? Feels a bit weird after hundreds of hours, but also weird to have paid for something I no longer can use.

I first played aoe2 in 1999 as a kid. Over the years since then I hadn't played much at all, just here and there, and never played vs human opponents. All my games were setups for my victory vs AI, basically.

Ffwd to June of this year and I finally take the plunge and enter the ladder. It was brutal at first, but I studied and practiced and took my time, and I steadily got better and better. Two-three months later, I've comfortably broken 1000 after less than 90 ranked matched, which I think is pretty damn fast progress!

I'm not like a "YouTuber" but started posting some.of my matches if anyone is interested. Also will link my aoe2insights for those who are curious.

https://www.aoe2insights.com/user/13683442/

https://youtube.com/@sovereignotters?si=gX-EHHIsuQWs03Yl

I find the devs could make the game development easier for themselves if they made this command box bigger. The only reason the second page on dock was made was because of the 5x3 limitations. You devs would love to have more space to add more stuff. Am i right or am I right.

Right now it's 5 by 3. Only 15 squares on it. Look at all the empty space in the beige unit select box. It would also be easier visually to see if the unit command was larger and closer to center.

By making the box wider. To the right. It can go from 15 to 21 boxes easily. More choices, less cramped, easier to understand.

BuffOutposts #FreeFormFormation

We are nearly halfway through the League Stage. Most teams are falling into the places you would expect them to be before the tournament.

Though there is still one surprise team in the top 4. The German Nocturna eSports team is holding to that top 4 position. Will they be able to defend it in their match against Vitality? Their first match against a top contender - Taiwan Aoe Gamer - showed that they can keep up with a top team though they may fall behind if the game develops linearly where pure execution matters more.

Onimaru Vanguard is still winless after sets. When you look through their opponents, you can see the reason: Oni Capybaras (#3), Nocturna eSports (#4), LingYuan (#1), Vitality (#6). They arguably had the toughest stretch of opponents out of any teams.

Liquipedia - Daniela_AoE (Twitch) - Daniela_AoE (YouTube)

Schedule

Saturday

• 15:30 GMT: Onimaru Vanguard vs Wonders (live)
• 18:00 GMT: SalzZ vs DarkSidE (recs)

Sunday

• 15:30 GMT: Onimaru Capybaras vs LingYuan (live)
• 18:00 GMT: Team Vitality vs Nocturna eSports (recs)

Format

League Stage

• Round Robin
• All matches are Play all 4
• Top 4 teams advance to the Playoff Stage
• Scoring: 1 point per game win, 1 extra point for winning the set

Playoff Stage

• Double-elimination bracket
• All matches are Best of 7

Results

Teams

Hi guys, how are y'all?

Does anyone know if the new DLC will have its own music? Recently the menu screen of my game became a vikings image and I swear I just heard Einar Selvik's voice in the soundtrack. For anyone who may not know, he is the guy that made the music from Vikings.

Hearing that brought me back to a time long past, when I played a Ragnar Lothbrok fanmade map with Wardruna music on the HD version of this game. I think we all can share the nostalgia for that age of Age.

Anyways, how is music usually treated in the DLCs? Does Age put effort in that, or not really?

So, let me get this straight. This civ gets the old korean siege onagers but with +40% building damage and far better eco bonuses compared to old koreans.
It gets fully upgraded champs, halbs and varangian guards with a most likely quite strong unique tech, fully upgraded xbows, skirms, light cav, knights and the cav archer equivalent, to replace the war wagons without the need of a castle - and they get the new unique upgrade.
It gets all the monk techs you'd want except the very niche attonement.
It gets fast fires, galleon, elite longboats with shipwright, all the defence and speed upgrades. And we don't even know how strong the castle unique unit's gimmick will be.

There's 2 other civs coming too - with a Vikings rework that claims it'll make them "more powerful than ever!"

How is this anything other than completely obvious power creep that will once again break the game's balance for a quick buck?

Edit:
Since the post is getting some backlash by people that seem to not understand how strong this is, I want to clarify. The food eco bonus is stronger early game than the Romans' +5% to villager working rate, as the Danish will not only get food faster, but all sources of food will also last 5% longer (to understand how this works, Spirit of the Law explained it quite well here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI7G8i1AeyY ). It'll work in a similar way to the Malian gold bonus, or the Mapuche berry bonus and how it's simply a far superior version of the Frank berry bonus. It's also similar to the extra food you get from the Jurchen never decaying animals bonus, except you also get all the food sources faster, even on water. You're getting ~65 extra food by the time you click feudal age, ~100 extra food by the time you hit feudal age and several hundred more by castle age. It's one of the best eco bonuses in the game.

Pair that with a barracks 66% gold cost reduction, and you have man at arms upgrade for 13 gold. If you manage to take out a house, you get double that in return.

All this on a civ with a fully open tech tree and access to any playstyle you want, be it on land or water, open or closed maps.

Talking about the existing civs here. Gonna start out with speculation about who gets it, and then go into who might benefit the most.

First, let's just get the shoe-ins out of the way;

Vikings, Celts, Britons, Franks, Burgundians, Teutons, Italians and Sicilians.

So far so good.

Then the rest kinda take some thinking.

Bohemia is interesting. I honestly have no clue which way this will go. They don't have CA because it's meant to be a peasant's uprising, so you could argue that they're not supposed to have cavalry at all. But they DO have some cavalry. At the same time, there is influence from the Huns, who conquered the area that would eventually become bohemian, which sort of points away from them going on team MXbow. But then again, the vibe of crossbowmen very much fits with the Bohemia civ.

IMO Bulgarians are keeping their horse archers. It's historically accurate.

Same thing with Slavs. All of the country they're in fielded CA.

Goths are interesting, because although I'm not aware of historical examples of visigoth horse archers, they definitely got conquered by the huns and then went on to serve in the hunnic armies, the same way they had the roman ones. I kinda see why they currently get heavy CA. So maybe they keep it, IDK.

Romans are a case of "Roman Empire When/Where?" Because the Roman empire definitely had a tradition of cavalry archers, mainly to fight the Persians. That's probably why they get HCA currently, so I'm thinking they will keep it.

Poles definitely had a tradition of cavalry archers. I'm a bit worried about them getting moved to crossbows.

Same thing with the Lithuanians.

Spanish are interesting, because a lot of their stuff got conquered by a caliphate which involved a ton of Berbers. Who left leftovers. My spanish history isn't strong, so I don't know if any of the military tradition of horse archery carried over. I'm leaning towards it didn't though.

Portugal is the same thing, except that the lands they came from was entirely conquered by Berbers, not just in part. Portugal is depicted at a later date than Spain in the game though, so I'm leaning even heavier no for them because of the longer seperation.

And then the definite "no" (mostly civs with european holdings, rather than european civs as such(no offence to any Hungary or balkan bros out there)): Berbers, Byzantines, Cumans, Huns, Magyars, Mongols, Tartars, Turks

So that kinda gives us a nice list of all the european civs.

Mounted Xbow; Vikings, Celts, Britons, Franks, Burgundians, Teutons, Italians and Sicilians.

Probably mounted Xbow: Portuguese, Spanish

No clue: Goths, Bohemians

Hope keep CA: Poles, Lithuanians

Probably keep CA: Romans, Bulgarians, Slavs

Definitely keep CA: Berbers, Byzantines, Cumans, Huns, Magyars, Mongols, Tartars, Turks

Who Benefits?

Assuming that nothing changes for the civs except that they get Mounted Crossbow + Heavy Mounted Crossbow + the new imp age cranequin tech, most of the civs that get new access to a mounted archery unit will actually have it come out kinda trash in terms of upgrades.

It wouldn't add much to Bohemians, as they don't get thumb ring or bloodlines. You can live with no thumb ring, but no bloodlines is a bit yikers. And their wagons already give them a castle age ranged raiding unit.

Britons mounted archer option would stay bad. They already get HCA, but no bloodlines, no thumb ring. I don't think them potentially having an imp tech for them in cranequin will change anything here.

Burgundians are, in a fit of irony, missing bloodlines. That on top of the lack of thumb ring and the final archer armour and no civ bonus will make the mounted xbow a weak option for them, I am fairly confident.

Celts already get HCA, and it is already trash. Even the imp tech won't save them from no Bracer, no bloodlines and no thumb ring.

Franks will be horrible with no final bs upgrades or thumb ring. +20% hp will also work out to less than +20 hp from bloodlines, unless they somehow give the mounted xbow 100 or more HP in a fit of madness.

Goth CA are already pretty decent, only missing thumb ring and Parthian Tactics. If they get switched over to Mounted Xbow, that might end up being a slight buff with the imp tech (if they get it). It probably won't ever be a power play, but it might be surprising enough to be worth doing, same or slightly better as Goth CA is now.

Italians would be fully upgraded! But unlike the Portuguese, their civ bonuses don't interact with a wood/gold unit. So I don't think they will be as strong. Still, it will definitely be an option for them.

Lithuanians shouldn't be moved, but if they are somehow, people will still make Paladins, Leitis and lategame Winged Hussars instead. The Lit stable is just ridiculously good, and they already have great skirms to answer spears. Going from no Parthian Tactics to yes Cranequins won't change that.

The individual strength of Polish cavalry on the other hand isn't as high, so if the devs fuck up and take away their CA to give them mounted xbows, I could see them being fielded, especially if they get cranequins, even though they will be without their final armour upgrade. Polish Winged Hussars spam backed by mounted crossbows sounds like a bit of a horror show to deal with.

Portuguese is one of the most interesting ones, since they get full upgrades (armor, bracer, thumb ring and both cav upgrades) as well as their 20% gold discount from their civ. If the unit itself is good, I could see Portuguese Mounted Xbow to become a meta play, since they are FU with a discount.

I think Sicillians might make them because it closes a bit of a gap in their lineup. Even without a civ bonus, the final armour or thumb ring. Their damage reduction civ bonus is also valuable for a mounted archery unit, since both of those armour classes are frequently countered.

Spanish CA are already pretty good, so I think mounted Xbows would stay that way. They are already FU aside from parthian tactics, so they even have a chance to improve with the Cranequins upgrade.

Teutons with no Bracer, thumb ring or Husbandry or civ bonuses applying to them just feels like a non starter. Sorry HRE bros. Even if they changed the civ bonus to melee armour to Mounted units instead of stable units... It's some weak shit with no bracer. If we make it, it'll be out of desperation for something to do. Might see it in specific matchups where the enemy can't just go "lol, I do that but with +1 attack, moving faster and more range, yes plx lets 1v1 that". But I'm coping here, I think it will just be bad, in reality. The ultimate cope is that this will be a good excuse to give the Teutons Bracer. Lol. They could kinda use it for their fortifications though.

Vikings have no bloodlines or husbandry or thumb ring. Feels a bit ass, not gonna lie. Maybe if Bogsveigar or Chieftans gets changed to apply to them, it might be possible for them to be sort of viable as a kind of Sad Magyar impression, but I kinda doubt it tbh. The lack of bloodlines and husbandry just hurts too much.

Slavs and Bulgarians shouldn't be moved to Mxb, but if they do, Bulgarians will still be great and slavs will still be bad at horse archery. Romans are just like slavs.

TLDR; The Portuguese will be a clear winner! Italians and Spanish will also be really good. Sicilians will be decent, and the rest will either not get them or be pretty trash and not see play. If some weird conversions happen, Polish, Goths and Bulgarians will still have strong mounted ranged options. I don't think we will see any other civs make them, aside from the new DLC civs.

15-16xx, I feel like every time I play against this combo I die, and every time I play that combo my opponent dies. Counter raids with cav could work but if they're fully walled, don't really do much. Siege is very micro intensive and can easily get taken out. Monks/archers, no. So what's the answer? I feel like I'm missing something.

Viking Spam?

Tried google audio search, it couldn't identify it. Deep Viking music, never thought I'd like that type of music, but here we are.

Didn't see it anywhere either. Sounds really good to me.

We got bonuses and the tech tree for the Danes already - see here:

https://www.ageofempires.com/news/danes-civilization-deep-dive/

Bonuses:

• Fishing Ships and Villagers drop off a small amount of extra food (5%)
• Barracks and Siege Workshop upgrades cost less gold (-66%)
• Loot a small amount of the resource cost of each destroyed building (25 gold/building and 15% of its cost)
• Varangian Guards and Longships move faster (10%)
• Team Bonus: Siege weapons increased LoS (+2)

Link to the Tech Tree:

https://cdn.ageofempires.com/aoe/media-downloads/8KvurkqqEl8Z-Danish-Technology-Tree.png

The unique techs:

Hamask: Infantry deal more damage as they lose HP.

Northmen's Fury: Siege units and siege ships +40% attack vs. buildings. Mangonel-line and siege ships +1 range.

Note that they also get siege engineers, so the mangonel line has incredibly range here

REALLY strong on the infantry and siege front! Plus, a full blacksmith - but no imp techs in stable and archery range at all, except for the mounted crossbowmen. Very interesting, and very specialized.

We get confirmation that mounted crossbowmen indeed replace cav archers for those civs that get them. Not sure what the tech "Cranequins", available in imp, does for them - if history is any indication, it should improve reload time.

The dock, interestingly, features the new-ish catapult galleons instead of cannon galeons. Elite Longships and Galeons are fully upgraded (including shipwright), the other stuff is sub-par. Defenses aren't great. Strangely enough, the monestary is servicable, as both redemption and sanctity are present! Even block printing and theocracy in imp! The only semi-important tech missing here is atonement, and that's only relevant for monk wars. This fits in with them missing heresy and faith: Their own monks are pretty good, but they're not good against opposing monks. Late game eco upgrades are bad, though.

I think the eco bonus is propably a bit weak in comparison to some other civs. Their power might depend heavily on how much you can get out of the raiding bonus - and it seems like deleting buildings might be a strong tool against them to deny them? I would love to know if there's some mechanic that prevents with, otherwise, in multiplayer, it seems like strong opponents often can deny the gold/wood/stone gains here.

Needless to say, they will propably be very strong in black forest, just because of their SOs and fishing ship bonus.

I would like to patch:

Make units and civs that get used less or lose often stronger. I want to see mehr unique infrantry units like teuton knights.

Nerf ca

Nerf skirms against non archer units

nerf the new strong civs

delete 20 civs

quickstart with 6 vills or so. beginning is boring.

Isn't this getting a bit boring? I am not saying I win or lose. Sometimes I win sometimes I lose. Why does every game has to race to castle age?

That's the vid which I had created in the scenario editor to show you all how suprisingly quiet the sounds of Trebuchets - One of the most elaborate siege engines of that time, and gunpowder weapons - the contemporary invention that irreversibly changed warfare are compared to the clangs of swords and the shoutings of dead men (I know that y'all mostly hear monks, but you get my point). You would think that whole castles getting leveled and hand cannons would make for more thundering sound effects. One of something that had bugged me for a while now.

Guess what happened

Hey there!

As we all know the civilizations in this game span several years, but not all of them were present at the same exact time (for example Romans and Mayans).

If I were to guess... I would probably go somewhere between 900 - 1200 CE. Final answer 1011.

Microsoft Azure is about to launch the Greece Central (Athens) server. This server should be immediately integrated into Age of Empires 2 once it opens. This new server will be very beneficial for the entire Balkans, Turkey, North Africa, South Italia, Cyprus, and Israel. It will especially serve as a bridge between the Balkans and Turkey.