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Age of Empires II: HD Edition

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(Redirected from Age of Empires II (2013))

This page is for the 2013 HD Edition. For the original game, see Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. For the 2019 Definitive Edition, see Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition.

Age of Empires II: HD Edition
Age of Empires II: HD Edition cover
Developers
Hidden Path Entertainment
Ensemble Studios
DLC SkyBox Labs
Forgotten Empires
Publishers
Microsoft Studios
Engines
Genie
Release dates
Windows April 9, 2013
Reception
Metacritic 68
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view, Isometric
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres RTS
Themes Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East, Pre-Columbian Americas, Medieval
Series Age of Empires
Age of Empires II: HD Edition on HowLongToBeat
Age of Empires II: HD Edition on IGDB
Age of Empires II: HD Edition on MobyGames
Age of Empires II: HD Edition on Wikipedia
Age of Empires 1997
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings 1999
Age of Mythology 2002
Age of Empires III 2005
Age of Empires Online 2011
Age of Empires II: HD Edition 2013
Age of Mythology: Extended Edition 2014
Age of Empires: Castle Siege 2014
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition 2018
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition 2019
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition 2020
Age of Empires IV 2021
Age of Mythology: Retold 2024

Age of Empires II: HD Edition (silently renamed on the Steam store page to Age of Empires II (2013) on August 15, 2019[1], later Age of Empires II (Retired) on January 14, 2024[2]) is an updated version of the 1999 Medieval RTS Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings and its The Conquerors expansion pack. It features native high resolution support and new multiplayer servers.

This version's first expansion, The Forgotten, was released in November 2013. It is an officially supported version of the Forgotten Empires mod for The Conquerors which had received an estimated 500.000 downloads prior to the official release of said expansion.[3] This was the point at which the mod's developers, the Forgotten Empires, would become involved with further development of the HD Edition and subsequently future releases of Age of Empires.

Two other expansions were released, each bringing new civilizations and campaigns: The African Kingdoms in November 2015 and Rise of the Rajas in 2016. These expansions would use a separate data set to the one used in the base game. Players who would not purchase any expansion would get free access to a limited set of expansion factions in multiplayer which would rotate daily.

The game was supported officially until patch 5.8 was released in September 2018, transferring all efforts to development and post-launch support for Definitive Edition.

With time, the game's multiplayer stability and responsiveness issues became more apparent, so players would move to the original version with back-ported HD Edition expansion content until the release of Definitive Edition, to which the most of the Age of Empires II community as a whole would move, leaving the HD Edition effectively abandoned. Its servers are still online, but seldom used.

General information

PC Report
Official Discord server for the series
Steam Community Discussions
AoEZone - an active Age of Empires community
Age of Empires Online Forum - the 'official' forum.

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Humble Store
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Windows
Steam
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Windows
Amazon.com (unavailable)
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Windows
Green Man Gaming (unavailable)
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Windows

Monetization

Type Notes
Expansion pack The expansion packs include new civilizations, units and campaigns. They have a separate balance set that can be chosen in skirmishes and multiplayer. Players who own no expansion packs are given a limited number of civilizations in skirmish and multiplayer modes that rotate every day.
One-time game purchase The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

DLC and expansion packs

The Conquerors expansion is included in the base game.
Name Notes
The Forgotten A tweaked and officially supported version of the Forgotten Empires mod for the original The Conquerors.
Windows
The African Kingdoms
Windows
Rise of the Rajas
Windows

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Run the game with the SKIPINTRO command line argument[4]

Skip launcher

Change launcher file[5]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Delete or rename Launcher.exe.
  3. Rename AoK HD.exe to Launcher.exe.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\Age2HD\
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/221380/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\savegame[Note 2]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/221380/pfx/[Note 1]
Custom campaigns are stored in <path-to-game>\resources\_common\Campaign
Custom scenarios are stored in <path-to-game>\resources\_common\Scenario
Custom campaigns initially made for the original game are compatible with the HD edition.

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Steam Cloud

Video

In-game options menu.
In-game options menu.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Automatically sets itself at desktop resolution. FMV cutscenes are at 16:9.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
See Fix for missing DPI scaling
Field of view (FOV)
Isometric.
Windowed
Window can be freely resized to any resolution.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Always borderless on Fullscreen.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
World Updates are 30 FPS for multiplayer.[6]
10000 FPS default cap.[6] Change by entering setmaxfps # in chat, where the number is the desired framerate. setuifps # sets the framerate for the UI
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

In-game key map settings.
In-game key map settings.

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
For scroll speed.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Master, Music.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Dutch
French
German
Hungarian
Fan translation, available on: Steam Workshop
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
8 Requires connection to the master server for lobby creation
Online play
8

Connection types

Ports

Protocol Port(s) and/or port range(s)
UDP 3478, 4379, 4380, 27000-27015, 27015-27030
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

Issues fixed

Missing DPI scaling

Manually set scaling mode[7]
  1. Go to (<path-to-game>
  2. Right-click on Launcher.exe and choose Properties.
  3. Go to the Compatibility tab and check Override high DPI scaling behavior.
  4. Set Scaling performed by to System.
Do not choose System (enhanced) as it breaks the input.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Multiplayer Steamworks

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) Vista, 7, 8 Pro+
Processor (CPU) 1.2 GHz
System memory (RAM) 1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2 GB
Video card (GPU) DirectX 9.0c compatible
Other
This game requires a resolution of at least 900x600.
Windows XP support has been discontinued; the last working version is available from the game's betas tab in the Steam client.[8]


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/221380/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (221380) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.
  2. When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References