AoE II: DE F.A.Q

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Announcement

Earlier today at the Xbox E3 2019 briefing a first look at AoE II: DE was presented in a teaser trailer. For answers to all your AoE II: DE questions, please see the F.A.Q. below which will be updated regularly as more info is announced. If you have a question which is not on the F.A.Q. please leave a comment below.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is new with the definitive edition of the game?

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition celebrates the 20th anniversary of one of the most popular strategy games ever. Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition includes entirely new content and many exciting gameplay improvements. This edition contains all previously released Age of Empires II content, as well as brand new civilizations, additional campaign missions, new graphics that support up to 4K resolution, fully remastered audio and Xbox Live support for multiplayer, including all-new achievements. Not to mention, the edition features quality-of-life upgrades such as automatic farm reseeding to take the game you already know and love to the next level.

Features

  • The Last Khans campaign: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition includes brand-new content, “The Last Khans” with three new campaigns and four new civilizations.
  • New civilizations: Four new civilizations are being added exclusively to Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition : the Bulgarians, Cumans, Lithuanians and Tatars, bringing the total number of civilizations in the game to 35.
  • New spectator mode and tournament features: Players will be able to spectate multiplayer games in real time and switch between each player’s view, with overlay UI on top to give spectators information on different players’ status.

Source

What is the game engine?

To be announced. It is assumed that the Genie engine was updated to create the definitive edition, similar to Age of Empires: Definitive Edition.

Will there be animated blood?

To be announced. It is assumed that the game will have animated blood at a later date, same as Age of Empires: Definitive Edition. Fear not, vampires.

Will there be mod support for Steam and the Windows Store?

All mods will go through ageofempires.com to make sure all mods are available to both MS Store and Steam players.

Source

AoE 2: HD mods can be converted for the Definitive Edition via a tool provided by Forgotten Empires.
Source

Will cheat units have updated graphics?

Yes! Source

What are the minimum system requirements?

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows 10 64bit
  • Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon 64x2 5600+
  • Memory: 4 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIAÂŽ GeForceÂŽ GT 420 or ATI™ Radeon™ HD 6850 or IntelÂŽ HD Graphics 3000 or better
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 30 GB available space

Source

What system is used for multiplayer?

MP has been completely ripped out and built from the ground up, to be a server-based model. However, to know where we are exactly on MP, we need the community's input through the multiplayer beta. Source

Will there be support for Steam features?

Steam achievements and Steam cloud features are confirmed. Source

When will the game be available on the Microsoft Store and Steam?

November 14, 2019. If interested, the game is available for pre-order on the Microsoft Store and Steam. Source

How much will the game cost?

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition will cost $19.99 USD for new players and $14.99 USD for existing Steam owners of Age of Empires II: HD Edition. Additionally, Xbox Game Pass for PC members will be able to purchase Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition to own on the Microsoft Store for a discounted price of $14.99 USD. Source
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Will the DE have the higher population limits and larger map sizes added in the HD expansions? If so, I hope they can optimize the game engine.

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Any chance for a feature with which you can create your own civs and submit them for approval by the developers? :smiley:

The new civs look interesting and all but I still want to see Georgians, Vlachs, Tibetans, Thai, Bantu, Kanembu, Dravidians etc.

I mean the Tibetans and the Kanembu did have substantial empires.

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The windows 10 kills it for me and probably for a lot of others.

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You knew what to expect, though, after AoE I DE.

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steam hardware survey shows 70.74% users use win10

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Windows 10 is the best version of Windows.

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Win7 support will end in 2020, i dont care if game only on win10 but one thing i wonder is, i already have AOE2HD on steam and owners will get the game for $15 so what will happen to HD we own? Gonna be removed?

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It will just coexist.

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That being said, just to be real, I imagine a lot of those who play Age of Empires 2 don’t necessarily do so on steam and probably still have windows 7.

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I still have Windows 98, XP and Vista, but don’t play games on that anymore.

What they should do is port this one to Linux and MacOS too.

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It is fantastic to see a 20 year game being ‘refurbished’ to play nice on modern computers. 20 dollars for the whole package (all DLC) is a fair price and we can pay a lot more for crappy half baked early access experiences. I hope that LAN play (and offline single player also) will be kept in this Definitive Edition.

System requirements are ok, laptops with Intel graphics will be able to run it. But 30 GB space, wow! Are the 4K resolution 2D sprites responsible for that 10x increase compared to AoE II HD?

In any case, keep the good work Forgotten Empires and not forget to add a Swiss civilisation in a future update :wink:

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Hi Pitape, I believe that on the Steam store page “local multiplayer” = LAN, so I will update the F.A.Q.

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Wonderful, many wasted office hours in perspective !

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I am extremely happy about the fact that those of us with the HD edition get a discount.

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You better be happy that you get 30 GB of high quality graphics and sound assets :smiley:
Some newest games are already at 100 GB

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Updated the multiplayer system used based upon the post by @Cysion on AoE Zone. Thanks @Jineapple for sharing on the official Age of Empires Discord!

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I know there are going to be some new gameplay features introduced in the DE, but I can’t help but wonder whether they couldn’t have simply made it another DLC for the HD version. Are there simply too many changes in this new version that couldn’t simply be added to the HD?

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Maybe they simply wanted to market it as a new game with fresh reviews and a lot of attention. It has much better graphics, UI, etc than HD, so it is a good idea to market it as new game without old HD features affecting image

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