Treaty

Treaty is a game mode first introduced in Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties, later added to Age of Mythology: Extended Edition and Age of Empires II HD: The Forgotten.

In treaty games, the host player can specify a time period in which players are not allowed to wage war on each other, thus negating rushes.

Age of Empires II

Treaty is an option for the host of a multiplayer game to set up for a match in the game's lobby settings, available from The Forgotten on. It prevents players from attacking each other during the treaty. All players will temporarily be set to ally with each other. The time of the treaty can be set from in intervals of 5 minutes from 5 to 60 minutes, as well as an additional 90 minute time interval.

With the treaty mode active, players will notice a yellow box around the Town Center of each player. Before the treaty ends, this is a "no build zone" for all other players. It prevents players from hindering each other by building in other player's bases and severely hamper their economic growth, e.g. by walling in their Town Center.

Additionally, since update 56005, map with nomadic starts have a 5 minute treaty that also ends after every player has build a Town Center. This change was made to prevent early Villager fighting. Note that this form of treaty is a map script command, so some custom maps with nomadic starts (including Pilgrims) might not have this treaty.

Age of Mythology

Choosing the treaty mode prevents players of a game from attacking each other for a set amount of time (15 minutes). It also prevents people from building too close to starting Town Centers.

Treaty is available as a scroll option from the game mode dropdown menu when setting up a random map game.

Treaty as a game mode or setting is not available in Retold.

Age of Empires III

During Treaty, players may create Blockades, in order to prevent the enemy from receiving shipments from their Home City. However, they cannot construct structures that are way too far from their starting Town Center to avoid abusing base defenses and limit offensive expansion.

This also extends to Trading Posts; distant trading sites cannot be built upon.

In the expansions, there are five treaty selections in-game: The player may set the treaty period to 10, 20, 30, or 40 minutes, and there is also the 'Treaty - No Blockade' mode. In the latter, the treaty period draws for 40 minutes, but without the capability to create Blockades.

With the Definitive Edition, there are two more treaty options - 60 and 90 minutes. Blockades are disabled by default, and can be enabled in the lobby settings.

Trivia

• Treaty is technically not a game mode in Age of Mythology: Extended Edition, but instead a scroll option, meaning that it is interchangeable with Supremacy, Lightning, and Deathmatch.

Gallery

Yellow border of the treaty area around a player's town, in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition.

A message telling of the time left for the treaty, in the same game as the previous image.