Ring of Water

"Two in, two out, river in between. Prepare to work together as both lands hold equal importance and neither can be conquered alone."

- Map description

Ring of Water is a special random map introduced in Age of Empires II HD: The African Kingdoms.

Overview
Ring of Water is exactly what the name suggests: A ring of water forms an island in the middle and leaves landmass in the edges. It is another map intended for team games and is suited for eight players in two or four teams. If there are two teams, two allied players are placed on the island and the other two on the outer mainland. As larger parts of both the island and the outer mainland can be reached from the water, naval dominance is the goal to strike for on this map.

Environment
The terrain is strongly reminiscent of a savannah. On the island grow Baobab Trees while the outer landmass has forests of Dragon Trees. Overall, there are a lot of forests on the map. The players' starting positions aside, the only animals seen are Lions, Shore Fish, and Dorado. Gold and Stone Mines are relatively common.

Starting resources
The following resources are found close to every player's starting Town Center and can freely be gathered at the game start. As trees as a source of wood are easily accessible on every map and hard to pinpoint to a number, they are not listed here.


 * 4 Aoe2 goat icon.png Goats
 * 4 Zebraicon.png Zebras
 * 3 Ostrichicon.png Ostrichs
 * 8 Goldmineicon.png Gold Mines
 * 6 Stonemineicon.png Stone Mines

Relics
5-9 Relics can be found on the map. Due to the distance the game puts between the Relics when they are distributed on the map, most of them are found on the outer landmass. Usually, there is a single Relic on the island and the rest on the mainland. Occasionally, there are two Relics on the island, but sometimes even none of them.