Age of Empires II: HD Edition
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.
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 (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 | ||||
Steam | ||||
Amazon.com (unavailable) | ||||
Green Man Gaming (unavailable) |
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. | |
The African Kingdoms | ||
Rise of the Rajas |
Essential improvements
Skip intro videos
Run the game with the SKIPINTRO command line argument[4]
|
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Skip launcher
Change launcher file[5] |
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|
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
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
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
Type | Native | Notes |
---|---|---|
Matchmaking | ||
Peer-to-peer | ||
Dedicated | ||
Self-hosting | ||
Direct IP |
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] |
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|
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 | 900x600 minimum display resolution |
- 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
- ↑ 1.0 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. - ↑ 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
- ↑ SteamDB - Age of Empires II (2013) - Displaying change #6734155 - last accessed on 2019-08-18
- ↑ Age of Empires II (2013) · Age of Empires II (Retired) History · Change #U:44228073 · SteamDB - last accessed on 2024-01-18
- ↑ The Story so Far... - Forgotten Empires - last accessed on 2023-06-03
- ↑ The command line parameter -NoStartup doesn't seem to work any more :: Age of Empires II: HD Edition General Discussions - last accessed on May 2023
- ↑ Age of Empires II HD Edition | No Intro Movie / No launcher - Discussion - PCGamingWiki Community
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Patch 4.3 :: Age of Empires II: HD Edition News & Announcements
- ↑ [Tutorial] 4K support for AOE2 [MOD] - Steam Community - last accessed on 9 June 2023
- ↑ 3.9 Discussion :: Age of Empires II: HD Edition General Discussions - last accessed on May 2023