Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition News

The Red Bull Wololo Main Event begins THIS WEEKEND!

[h3]🏆 WHAT: Red Bull Wololo III[/h3]
[h3]📅 WHEN: January 16 - 17 & January 22 - 24[/h3]
[h3]📡 WHERE: Red Bull on twitch.tv & YouTube[/h3]

[h3]THE EVENT:[/h3]The Red Bull Wololo III tournament reaches its epic finale as the Main Event of the 1v1 Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition competition kicks off over the next two weekends. Are you ready for more thrilling, competitive action?

Red Bull Wololo III sees competitors test their wits in a custom version of Empire Wars: a game mode which scraps the first stages of a traditional match to begin in the Feudal Age. This tweak brings the more exciting action to the forefront as players battle across 13 new and existing maps.

[h3]THE ROAD TO THE FINALS:[/h3]The global tournament’s open qualifiers saw competitors Daniel, Vinchester, GL.DauT, and ACCM fight to victory in the first open qualifier bracket, where they were joined by BacT, Villese, MbL, and Vivi from the second bracket. All have earned their place in the finals, where they’ll battle it out with a legendary group of pro players: Mr_Yo, TheViper, Hera, Liereyy, TaToH, TheMax, Nicov, and Capoch. All are set to take part in the 16-player Main Event—and with a $30,000 prize pool up for grabs, the fight to be crowned champion is going to be fierce!

Not only that, but the introduction of an overarching story to the tournament series gives this epic event an even greater twist:

Civilizations in each Red Bull Wololo event are fighting over a castle which has a library containing the knowledge required for world domination. Each Wololo event represents a different civilization trying to gain control of the castle and its library: with Red Bull Wololo I and II representing Western Civilization, and Wololo III now representing Asian Civilization. The tournament series will conclude in a grand final where the winners of each tournament battle it out—an event you won’t want to miss.

The winner of Red Bull Wololo III will join the previous winners—Mr_Yo, who won the first Red Bull Wololo, and Liereyy, the Red Bull Wololo II champion—to take their place in the grand final.

[h3]FINALS SCHEDULE:[/h3]
Do you want to keep up with the action from the Red Bull Wololo III Main Event? Be sure to catch every second on the official Red Bull Twitch and YouTube channels, where the event will be streamed globally and hosted by a group of legendary casters: including T90Official, Nili_Aoe, and Dave_Aoe, all of whom will be calling the shots on the main English stream.

[h3]⚔ Saturday, January 16 – Sunday, January 17[/h3]
[h3]  Starts at 13:00 UTC (14:00 CET / 5:00a PT / 10:00a ET)[/h3]

[h3]⚔ Friday, January 22 – Sunday, January 24[/h3]
[h3]  Starts at 15:00 UTC (16:00 CET / 7:00a PT / 10:00a ET)[/h3]

Tune in to all the action LIVE throughout the month:

[h3]:arrowsright: Red Bull on twitch.tv[/h3]
[h3]:arrowsright: Red Bull on YouTube[/h3]

Ranked Map Rotation – January 12

Here is the latest Ranked Map Rotation as determined by the developer picks and community vote. For the next two weeks, you’ll be able to pick from the new set of maps listed below!

Map pools as of: 6p Pacific (9p ET / 20:00 UTC / 22:00 CEST) on Tuesday, January 12 to Tuesday, January 26

👤 1v1 MAP POOL

This week's 1v1 Community Map Picks are in BOLD.

ARABIA

ARENA

HIDEOUT

NOMAD

STEPPE

TEAM ISLANDS

VALLEY

👥 TEAM GAME MAP POOL

This week's TG Community Map Picks are in BOLD.

ARABIA

ARENA

BLACK FOREST

GOLD RUSH

LAND NOMAD

LOMBARDIA

PACIFIC ISLANDS

SCANDINAVIA

SOCOTRA

👤 1v1 DEATHMATCH POOL

ACROPOLIS

ARABIA

FOUR LAKES

GHOST LAKE

GOLDEN PIT

GOLDEN SWAMP

KILIMANJARO

SERENGETI

VALLEY

👥 TEAM DEATHMATCH POOL

ARABIA

CENOTES

GHOST LAKE

GOLDEN PIT

GOLDEN SWAMP

KILIMANJARO

LOMBARDIA

OASIS

VALLEY

How to play Age Of Empires 2 as a hivemind, and why it's incredible

Probably the most common woe, for all but the most unnaturally gifted players of real-time strategy games, is the feeling of being overwhelmed. Particularly in games from the genre’s “golden age” in the late 90s, there’s a relentless need to focus on several things at once, and endlessly jump back and forth between combat and economy. Age Of Empires 2, beautiful beast though it is, is certainly no exception, even with the concessions to modernity introduced in its Definitive Edition last year.

However. What if I was to tell you there was a way to play the game, totally unmodded, in a way that eliminates this concern entirely? Well, as the bloke off of Pirates Of The Carribean once memorably said, “you’d best start believing in posts about weird, gestalt-consciousness Age Of Empires sessions; ye’re in one.”

(more…)

Server Maintenance - Tuesday, January 12

WHAT: Server Maintenance (Matchmaking Servers)
WHEN: Tuesday, January 12 @ 2:00p PT / 5:00p ET / 22:00 UTC (Countdown)
EST. DOWNTIME: 1-2 HOURS

[h3]GAMES & PLATFORMS IMPACTED[/h3]

Age of Empires: Definitive Edition (Steam / Microsoft Store)
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (Steam / Microsoft Store)
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition (Steam / Microsoft Store)

[h3]OBJECTIVES[/h3]

Routine server updates and maintenance.

[h3]DETAILS[/h3]This coming Tuesday, January 12th, the platform team will be taking the multiplayer servers down for regular maintenance. This will unfortunately disrupt any matches in progress and prevent the creation of new matches during the down time, so we recommend wrapping up any games at least 10 minutes before the maintenance window.

[h3]:alertalert: DURING THIS TIME, YOU CAN STILL LAUNCH THE GAME, BUT WILL NOT BE ABLE TO MATCHMAKE OR ACCESS ANY ONLINE FEATURES.[/h3]

The downtime is expected to last between 1 and 2 hours. We will update this thread with any changes to the schedule as they arise, as well as the all-clear when the maintenance is complete.

Thank you for your patience!

VOTE! Your Ranked Map Rotation starting January 12!

It’s that time again! Visit the official Age of Empires forum to vote for your Ranked map pool for the next two weeks.

This Week's Dev Picks

[h3]1v1 Random Maps[/h3]
✔ ARABIA
✔ ARENA
✔ STEPPE
✔ TEAM ISLANDS

[h3]Team Games[/h3]
✔ ARABIA
✔ ARENA
✔ BLACK FOREST
✔ LAND NOMAD
✔ PACIFIC ISLANDS
✔ SCANDINAVIA

Cast Your Vote Now!

To participate in the community ranked map pool vote, you will need to login to the official Age forum using your free Microsoft account. Then, click the images below to jump to this week’s polls.

:alertalert: Polls are open until NOON Pacific on Sunday, January 10 (or 3:00p Eastern / 19:00 UTC), so be sure to cast your vote and check back to see which maps emerge victorious!