Patch 4.4 is a patch accompanying the launch of Age of Empires II HD: The African Kingdoms on 5 November 2015. The expansion was followed by four hotfixes which were released on 6,9, 10, and 12 November 2015 respectively. The expansion patch is famous for three aspects:
- Removed the Castle requirement for non-Castle unique units
- Camel units stopped taking bonus damage from anti-ship attacks.
- Decreased the cost of many Castle Age unique technologies.
Balance changes[]
General[]
- Eagle Warrior upgrade cost changed from 300 food, 200 gold to 200 food, 200 gold. Eagle warrior speed from 1.1 to 1.2 (Eagle Scout is 1.1, Elite Eagle Warrior is 1.3).
- Eagle Scout available from the Feudal Age.
- Fire Galleys and Demolition Rafts newly added to the Feudal Age.
- Siege Towers newly added to the Castle Age.
- Banking and Coinage research time increased from 50s to 70s.
- Banking cost increased from 200 food, 100 gold to 300 food, 200 gold.
- Coinage cost increased from 150 food, 50 gold to 200 food, 100 gold.
- Cavalry Archer cost reduced to 40 wood, 60 gold.
- Trade Cogs carry +30% more per trip.
- Transport Ships can carry herdable animals.
- Fire Ships +1 armor/+1 ship armor.
- Fast Fire Ships +1 armor/+2 ship armor.
- Scorpion projectile size increased (fixes their lack of pass-through damage).
- Camels are no longer classified as ships.
Franks[]
- Knights +20% HP changed to cavalry +20% HP.
- (Elite) Throwing Axeman +0.1 speed.
Huns[]
- Cavalry Archers cost -10% Castle Age/-20% Imperial Age (instead of -25%/-30%).
- Marauders cost changed from 500 food, 200 gold to 300 wood, 200 gold.
Incas[]
- Couriers now gives +1/+2 armor instead of +10% movement speed.
- Receive Keep.
- Receive Guilds.
- Receive Block Printing.
- Receive Thumb Ring.
- Slingers no longer require a Castle.
Indians[]
- Villagers cost -10% Dark, -15% Feudal, -20% Castle, -25% Imperial Age (5% extra per age).
- Receive Guilds.
- Receive Ring Archer Armor.
- Elephant Archer +30 HP.
- Elite Elephant Archer -20 HP.
- (Elite) Elephant Archer -1 pierce armor.
- (Elite) Elephant Archer cost -10 food (now costs 100 food, 80 gold).
Italians[]
- Condottieri no longer require a Castle.
- Condottieri +1 attack, +0.2 speed.
- Receive Hussars.
- Pavise now affects all foot archers (instead of just Genoese Crossbowmen). Pavise cost changed from 550 food, 300 gold to 300 food, 150 gold.
- Advancing to the next age 15% cheaper (instead of 10%).
Japanese[]
Koreans[]
- Turtle Ship no longer requires Castle.
- Panokseon cost changed from 400 food, 400 wood to 300 food, 300 wood.
Mayans[]
- Obsidian Arrows now do +6 damage instead of +4.
- Resources lasting longer reduced from 20% to 15%.
Slavs[]
- Farming rate fixed to 1.31 rather than 1.18. Actual farming rate is now at +15% (+15% after Wheelbarrow, +5% after Hand Cart).
Spanish[]
- Missionaries no longer require castle.
- Inquisition cost changed from 400 food, 400 gold to 100 food, 300 gold.
Teutons[]
Vikings[]
- Longboats no longer require Castle. Longboat cost restored to 100 wood, 50 gold (original The Conquerors cost).
- Chieftains cost changed from 700 food, 400 gold to 400 food, 300 gold and effect +1 bonus attack.
Bugfixes and UI changes[]
The African Kingdoms[]
- The new expansion has been fully integrated into the game.
- The unified lobby has been expanded to support the new game options.
- Non-purchased campaigns/datasets are visible and link to Steam for purchase.
- New civilizations have been added to the multiplayer rotating civilization pool.
- New civilizations have been added to the History page.
Iconography[]
- Campaign icons have been integrated throughout the game to show what expansion various options and items come from.
- The red helmet represents The Age of Kings.
- The blue helmet represents The Conquerors.
- The green helmet represents The Forgotten.
- The yellow mask represents The African Kingdoms.
- Dataset icons have been integrated throughout the game to show what dataset is needed.
- The single star represents the CD content.
- The multi star represents the HD Edition content.
- Various icon transparency issues have been fixed.
Game setup[]
- Lobby Browser Reset button now correctly resets Dataset back to Any.
- Selecting Spectator in the Lobby no longer locks out player colors.
- Selecting Custom AI now loads correctly.
- Tech Tree unit range is now correctly shown in the help text popup.
- Tech Tree Imperial Camel Rider unit now correctly shows for the Indians.
- Tech Tree Dock units now correctly line up with their upgrades.
- Loading screens now display game setup information.
Options[]
- Hot keys have been updated to include new units and Palisade Gates.
- Hot keys should now be showing up correctly and not as question marks.
- Hot keys should now be saving correctly when changed.
- Music/Master volumes no longer alter the PC's mixer setting.
- Full Screen Desktop option now updates correctly when selected.
- Record Campaign Games is now an option.
Editor[]
- Expansion options are now selectable when creating a scenario.
- Units, triggers and terrain filter appropriately based on expansion options.
- Testing a scenario no longer records a replay.
- Scenario Details have been added to the Save Scenario Screen.
- Campaign Editor Screen has been updated with UI improvements.
- Campaign Editor now correctly displays the scenarios within a Campaign.
Localization[]
- Many missing strings have been added across all languages.
- Various cut off issues have been fixed by shortening strings or increasing the text field.
- Some grammar, spelling and formatting issues have been fixed.
General[]
- In-game Help text should now be displayed correctly for all units.
- In-game modded taunts are now correctly displayed in the chat window.
- In-game Diplomacy help cursor now functions correctly.
- In-game the Chinese civilization now correctly starts with 6 Villagers.
- Completing a Campaign scenario now correctly returns to the Scenario Selection screen.
- Restarting a Replay now functions correctly.
- Deleting a Saved Game or Replay no longer selects the top entry.
- Game Details have been added to the Load Saved Game Screen.
- Game Launcher should now function correctly for Windows 10.
- Script error reporting for RMS has been improved.
- 1,000 win achievements have been removed.
- Pre-order achievement has been expanded to include early adopting so purchasing either expansion with in the first few weeks of launch grants the achievement.
Hotfixes[]
Hotfix #1 (November 6, 2015)[]
General[]
- Fixed major trigger crash effecting scenarios that are using less than 8 players.
- Ice terrain accessible in Age of Kings
- Entering multiplayer mode then creating and testing a scenario no longer crashes.
- When creating an expansions enabled multiplayer game, players can now choose scenarios from the original game.
- Interactive pausing in single-player has been restored.
- Gameplay music plays sequentially again.
- Nefarious crash due to corrupt savegame files solved (we catch them and ignore them)
- Fixed bug where dead elephants would fire messages about unowned DLC.
- Story parchment slides play again in Kings/Conquerors campaigns.
- Duplicate civs from civ pool no longer show up in lobby.
- Editor Start mode option removed from final builds.
- Player label color in main menu corrected.
- Players can now save scenarios with fewer than 8 players.
- Custom Scenarios, Real World maps, and Special maps no longer desync.
- Scenario Editor no longer crashes generating maps via random map scripts in certain situations such as script names with spaces in them.
- Scenario editor no longer crashes after changing map size.
- Scenario editor trigger scroll-bar position corrected.
Data fixes[]
- Malian miners now speak Malian.
- Male hunters no longer turn female when hunting ostrich or zebra.
- Feitoria rubble is now the correct size.
- Feitoria takes longer to build but generates more resources.
Hotfix #2 (November 9, 2015)[]
General[]
- Idle villager feature works as intended.
- Quitting or losing a Conquerors or AoK campaign scenario now plays the appropriate defeat screen instead of the winning screen.
- Every time players start a new game, the music will reset back to the first track.
Data fixes[]
- Organ Guns no longer make Llama sounds when standing
- African Lumber Camp shows outline behind forests
- Nile Delta map no longer has unfair starting positions
- Caravel shows correct attack amount
- Small twitches in gbeto/genitour animations fixed
- Various new units/animals have their frame rates tweaked (more natural movement).
Hotfix #3 (November 10, 2015)[]
- Fixed crash launching a new game after successfully starting a sudden death custom game. Upon returning to the setup screen, it would incorrectly set players to standard mode, but show custom maps. A lot of people wouldn't realize they were in this state. They would just think every game crashed.
- Invalid scenarios upon launch are now fixed. This happened if players happened to have Map Style set to Custom before switching to Scenario mode.
- Siege towers no longer vulnerable to archers
- Singleplayer games no longer unpause while navigating menus.
- Scenario editor shows trees properly after generating maps (was a visibility issue)
- Joining a lobby no longer stalks a player if he presses Escape before joining.
- Random map scripts support dots in file name (ex: coastal-v1.44.rms)
- We completely removed the campaign difficulty dialog. There is a difficulty drop down that can be used.
- Custom campaigns will progress properly when players complete scenarios.
Hotfix #4 (November 12, 2015)[]
- Solved slow load times plaguing players and causing a high percentage of MP games to fail loading because players time out and drop.
- Units on aggressive stance sometimes failed to attack (primarily when leaving siege towers)
- Objective screen is no longer blank after loading a saved single player game.
- Objective screen now popups up when player first starts a campaign scenario.
- Portuguese team bonus should now work as intended.
- There are new banners signifying which DLC players have installed now.
- Dear Modders: The main menu is now data driven with png files instead of an slp file making it much easier to mod and work with. Players'll find a json file and the png files inside _common/textures/ui/main-menu. There is no need to bake in the background like the original system did.
- When hunting animals, popup text will display properly.
- History screen should always show the correct civ when navigating (clicking on divider caused issues).
- Genitours no longer benefit from Recurve Bow
- Arrowslits upgrade strength is no longer affected by order of tower researches.
- Torsion Engines now properly affect scorpions and rams.
- Game now properly awards most valued player (MVP) awards.
