The Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition that released in mid-November of 2019 has received great reviews, with the game being applauded for remaining true to the original Age of Empires II while still providing enough quality-of-life improvements and general enhancements to make it feel like a unique and worthwhile title. Of course, just because it released in a good shape doesn’t mean that the developers behind the title were done improving the game.
Earlier this week, the development team behind Age of Empires II released their latest update, Update 35584. One of these is the Anniversary Event where players can celebrate the anniversary of the franchise to unlock exclusive rewards and goodies.
There are general ongoing performance improvements and crash fixes to issues that drastically needed addressing, as well as improvements to the AI and pathfinding. But of all these improvements, few are more interesting and welcome than the addition of the new autoscouting feature that the team has added!
If you’ve played Age of Empires, you know that early game scouting is a gamechanger. You begin in the darkness and have to slowly feel your way out to discover the resources around you and the ways that your enemy will come and attack you. But most maps are large, and keeping up with scouting is difficult for new players that are trying to learn all of the mechanics of the title.
To make this transition easier, the developers implemented the new autoscouting feature, which players can use to cause their scouts to explore automatically without being micromanaged. Using this feature will cause your units to explore with the same pattern that the AI uses.
Experienced players will likely discard this feature. The AI doesn’t have a flawless exploring system, and you’ll often find resources that they failed to discover when attacking their territory. The same is true for this autoscouting feature; there’s a high chance it won’t completely explore everything around you, and if you rely on it entirely, you’ll likely miss some things.
You also run the risk of the scout charging into enemy territory, as the AI often does, which can often mean the death of your scout. These flaws are good, though, as it stops the addition from removing the mechanic of scouting altogether, as well as still rewarding players that have gotten good enough at scouting to not need to use the feature. Still, it provides an excellent helping hand to new players working their way up the ladder.
