What is the X-Patch?
We're creating a patch on Voobly to improve Age of Empires II - The Conquerors. The current version of the patch can be downloaded (bottom left) and played on Voobly. The project will be released in phases to ensure thorough testing, and the community's involvement in the changes is vital. We aim to keep the number of changes to a minimum to serve everyone. Once downloaded, the patch will update itself if new changes have been applied.

What to expect

• Less Bugs
  Over 15 bugs have been fixed in this patch to improve the overall gameplay experience.

  Technology Tree

  • Fixed wrong information in the technology tree descriptions

  Camels, Mamelukes

  • Fixed Camels and Mamelukes were classified as ships

  Monks

  • Fixed Fervor didn't affect normal monks
  • Fixed scouts/eagles didn't do bonus damage against monks with relics
  • Fixed Mayans, Huns and Spanish had 25% faster faith recharging rate
  • Fixed Illumination effect was set to a wrong value

  Castle, Town Center

  • Fixed Chemistry didn't show up for TCs/Castles and didn't affect their first arrow
  • Fixed Castles had smaller LOS than range
  • Fixed Teuton TC bonus damage wasn't displayed & vanished with Chemistry researched

  Mangonel line

  • Fixed Siege Onager's projectiles were slower with chemistry researched

  Elite-Mangudai, -Janissary, -Mameluke

  • Fixed frame (fire) delay for Elite-Mangudai, Elite-Mamelukes and Elite-Janis was 0

  Turks

  • Fixed Turkish gunpowder-tech bonus did not affect BBT upgrade fully
  • Fixed Turkish gunpowder-team bonus did not affect Elite-Janis and (Elite-)Turtle Ships

  Mayans

  • Fixed Mayan farmers worked ~4% slower

  
  
  Check the Changelog to read about all of them!





• Polished Default Maps
  After 17 years the default maps are among the favourites of players. However, many times unfair starting conditions occurred which put a damper on gameplay.
  We've given all the maps touchups to adjust the most unfair elements while keeping their unique and beloved nature.
  Most notably, resources such as Fish, Sheep, Deer and Relics are now distributed in a much fairer way, which allows the default maps to be played in a competitive setting.
  
  

  Hover over the minimaps to see how we fixed the major problems:
  Uneven Water/Fish distribution
  Before

  Can often be game decisive, like shown here on Salt Marsh

  Uneven Water/Fish distribution
  After

  All players have equally access to fish

  Biased Extra Islands
  Before

  They often spawn in favor of one player, like shown here on Archipelago, giving him all the gold for free

  Biased Extra Islands
  After

  Islands spawn in reach of all players

  Unfair Base size & Back Resources
  Before

  One player can have far more space and all resources save in it

  Unfair Base size & Back Resources
  After

  Equal base size for all, fair gold & relic placement

  Resource clumping
  Before

  All food or gold resources can clump together in one place (see east side), giving a player a huge advantage

  Resource clumping
  After

  Food and mineral resources are distributed evely across the map

  If you're interested in the detailed changes, check out the Maps-Section!






• Fairer Civilisation & Unit Balance
  AoC's charm is that every civilisation is unique, and good on different types of maps. Although, some civilisations have such strong and generic bonuses that they are a top pick on a majority of settings. Check out a statistic of civilisation picks in WSVG, a major 1v1 tournament:

  

  As you see, four civilisations clearly dominate the 1v1 scene on 90% of the maps. Teamgames are dominated by five civilisations (source: RTSL).
  Other civs such as Koreans or Byzantines only have small niches to fill, they are viable picks in less than 5% of the games.
  With the following changes, we hope to achieve a better civilisation balance:

  Aztecs

  • Reduced carry bonus from +5 to +3
  • Reduced Monk bonus from +5 to +3 hp per upgrade
  • Reduced creation time bonus from 18% to 11%

  Huns

  • Reduced Cavalry Archer cost discount from (25%, 30%) to (15%, 30%)

  Mayans

  • Reduced longer lasting resource bonus from 20% to 10%
  • Reduced archer discount bonus to 10/15/20%

  Mongols

  • Decreased fire rate of (Elite-) Mangudai by 10%
  • Fixed frame (fire) delay for Elite-Mangudai to equal that of the non-elite version

  Spanish

  • Reduced trade team bonus from 33% to 20%

  Vikings

  • Reduced team bonus from 25% to 10% cheaper docks
  • Reduced warship discount bonus from 20% to 15%

  
  

  If you're interested why we changed something, check out our Changelog for more information!

  The units are decently balanced for the most part, yet in some areas there exist strategies which outperform any alternative by far. The most extreme example is water gameplay, where grushing is the only viable strategy and has been perfected up to the last detail. This reduces the strategic freedom to a minimum.
  Where possible, overpowered strategies which limit diversity are adjusted to open up more variety and strategic choices a player can make.

  Slinging

  • Increased base tax to 40%
  • Moved Coinage/Banking up one age

  Walls

  • Increased building time of palisade walls from 5s to 7s, for stone walls from 8s to 10s

  Transport Ships

  • Enabled Transport Ships for dark age

  Elite-Eagle Warriors

  • Increased Elite-Eagle research time from 40 to 60 seconds





• Reduced Late-game Lag
  Stop-and-Go unit behavior and stuttering games are not caused by network issues but because the amount of computation explodes with over 500 trade carts in a 4v4 game constantly bumping into each other. A remedy for this problem is to change trade units so they cost two population space and work more efficiently. As a result, the game runs much smoother, there are no longer huge trade clumps that block trade routes, and the game is fairer as a team doesn't need a perfect map in order to have a decent route.
  
  

  To see a direct before/after comparison, take a look at these GIFs (loading may take a few seconds).
  Show GIF

  Unit lag in original 1.0c TGs
  Mangudai stop every 2 seconds (or even more often).

  Show GIF

  Unit lag with trade modification
  Mangudai move much smoother.