The realms of Age of Empires IV are about to get a lot spookier. The recent patch 8.2.218 brings the seasonal event, Hallow’s Hearth, along with gameplay enhancements, balance changes, and fixes.
Starting next month, players will have a chance to venture into a hauntingly dark and eerie environment known as the Hallow’s Hearth biome. This seasonal event not only introduces an exclusive biome but also comes with 10 challenges players can attempt to unlock thematic rewards. The event is scheduled from October 3rd to November 7th.
Below you can find the complete patch notes
Age of Empires IV Patch 8.2.218 – Notes and More
New! Seasonal Event – Hallow’s Hearth
Starting next month, you’ll be able explore a delightfully spooky biome with our latest seasonal event, Hallow’s Hearth. This event features an eerie event-exclusive biome and 10 challenges to overcome for thematic rewards. We hope you have a hauntingly good time!
Hallow’s Hearth runs from October 3rd at 10:00 am PT through November 7th at 11:59 pm PT.
Seasonal Biome: Hallow’s Hearth Biome
A dark and spooky environment with bare earth and sinister-looking trees. The Hallow’s Hearth biome brings a sense of eeriness just beyond the fog of war! This special biome will be available for a limited time and throughout the seasonal event from September 26th through November 14th at 10:00 am PT!
Hallow’s Hearth Event
| Challenge | How to Unlock Reward |
| Don’t Get Caught | Win a Multiplayer match on the map High View against the Holy Roman Empire. Coat of Arms Banner Shape – Webbed Banner |
| Don’t Touch it | Build the Notre Dame Wonder and Win a Multiplayer match as the French. Monument – Winged Gargoyle |
| Is that a Sheep? | Gather 500 Food from Sheep in a 1v1 Multiplayer match. Profile Icon – Definitely Not Suspicious |
| It Bites | Accrue 1,000 Food in Hallow’s Hearth biome in a Multiplayer or Skirmish match. Coat of Arms Sigil – Mad Pumpkin |
| Like Ghosts | Attack 30 enemies with invisible Musofadi Warriors or Gunners in a Multiplayer or Skirmish match as the Malians. Coat of Arms Sigil Frame – Ghost Silhouette |
| Oh Doe You Didn’t | Hunt 20 Deers on the Prairie map in any game mode. Coat of Arms Sigil – Hangin Doe |
| Scary Villagers | Win a Skirmish or Multiplayer match in which you produced at least 100 Villagers. Profile Icon – Villager with a Strange Hat |
| Scary Wolves | Defeat 3 Wolves with ranged units in a Multiplayer or Skirmish match. Coat of Arms Sigil – A Wolf Mask |
| Spooky Singer | Win a 2v2 Multiplayer match with a friend on your team. Profile Icon – Guitar Player |
| Threatening* | Win a Multiplayer match on a map using the Hallow’s Hearth biome. Taunt – “Trick or Treat” |
Login Events
Don’t miss out on these login rewards, available for a limited time only!
- Cat in a Hat – October 2nd at 10am PT through October 8th at 11:59pm PT
- Pumpkin Head – October 26th at 10am PT through November 1st at 11:59pm PT
- Roses – November 2nd at 10am PT through November 7th at 11:59pm PT
Ranked Season Updates
Season Five’s Ranked Season will extend from October 23rd to November 13th at 11:59pm PT – enjoy the extra time to climb the ladder. Remember: For the first time Ranked Rewards will be given out based on the highest rank you achieve at any point during the season!
Map Pool Rotation
Today’s patch also comes with a full map rotation for Ranked play, and some map-related changes for Unranked Quickmatches!
Unranked Quickmatch Changes
- Hill and Dale and Wetlands have been added to the map pool for Unranked Quickmatch.
- Unranked map downvotes increased from 5 to 7.
1v1 Ranked Map Pool
- Altai
- Danube River
- Dry Arabia
- Four Lakes
- Golden Heights
- High View
- Hill and Dale
- Lipany
- Prairie
Team Ranked Map Pool
- Dry Arabia
- Golden Heights
- Hideout
- High View
- Hill and Dale
- Lipany
- Prairie
- The Pit
- Wetlands
Queue Dodging
Today’s build invalidates some common forms of Queue Dodging that exploited the game’s menus and UI. The actions needed to execute these dodges can no longer be performed in-game.
Please Note: As part of updating to this latest build, any saved games and observable matches made on previous builds will be unable to be loaded or replayed.
Campaign (Console Only)
- Resolved an issue on console where the Auto Villager creation feature was not working on most campaign missions.
Developer’s Note: This issue is still occurring in two missions: “1105, The Fall of Bayeux” within The Normans Campaign and “1514, Moscow versus Lithuania” within The Rise of Moscow. These will be addressed in future updates.
Mods & Content Editor
- Modded Win conditions no longer crash when they contain a starting building replacement that replaces the starting building with no building.
UX/UI & Menus (All Platforms)
- Fixed an issue where some post-game ranked information text was cut off in certain regions.
PC UX/UI & Menus
- Options to specify Audio Input/Output devices for Voice Chat have been added to PC platforms.
Console UX/UI & Menus
- Map Seeds can now be copy/pasted in Skirmish Lobbies on console while using keyboard and mouse.
- LT + place rally points will always place a rally point regardless of the building selected or friendly building targeted settings.
- Fixed an issue where the Palisade Gate was in the wrong position when playing on console with a mouse and keyboard as the English.
- Double pressing ‘B’ whilst holding LT now deselects all units of the target type.
General Changes & Bugfixes
- Fixed crash that could occur when packing a Mongol building after Age Up.
- Fixed an issue that could cause a rare crash when resuming the game from suspend on Xbox consoles.
- Fixed a crash on Xbox related to fishing ships and the Villager Priority System.
- On the Xbox console, Fishing Ships are now counted in the Villager Priority System.
Updates to Repair
- Base repair rate increased from 20 to 25 health per second.
- Repair diminishing returns formula adjusted so that repair with 3-10 Villagers is approximately 5% slower overall.
Developer Note: This change is an overall reduction to repairing with larger numbers of Villagers, our intention here is to specifically target repairs vs Trebuchets so that defenders have a harder time stalling for long periods of time. We didn’t increase Trebuchet damage because our intent is not to increase the base time for a Trebuchet to destroy a Keep.
Balance & Gameplay Changes (All Civilizations)
- Lightweight Beams attack speed bonus reduced from +40% to 20%.
- Ram train time from Siege Workshops increased from 30 to 40 seconds.
Developer’s Note: This change is intended to specifically target late game rams. We also have longer-term goals to help scale them better throughout the Ages and ensure that melee units time to kill on Rams is in a good spot at all stages of the game.
- Bombard cost reduced from 600 Gold/300 Wood to 500 Gold/350 Wood.
- Removed aim time from Ribauldequins and added to reload time. This makes the unit more responsive while keeping firing speed the same.
- Ribauldequin cost reduced from 600 Gold/300 Wood to 500 Gold/350 Wood.
- Boiling Oil radius increased from 1 to 1.1 tiles.
- Corrected issue where Composite Bows was giving larger than intended attack speed bonus. Time between attacks increased from 1.12 to 1.25.
- Supervising a building with multiple Imperial Officials no longer stacks the bonuses. It is currently still possible to have multiple Imperial Officials supervise a building at the same time, but their bonuses will not combine, we intend to entirely prevent multiple supervisors in a future update.
- The first Madrasa built each game now grants 3 free Scholars upon completion. This includes the Hisar Academy landmark which acts as a Madrasa.
- Red Palace Landmark Arbalests granted to Town Centers and Keeps range reduced from 10 to 9.5.
- Meinwerk Palace (II) Landmark
- Riveted Chain Mail technology cost reduced from 45 Food/105 Gold to 30 Food/75 Gold.
- Steel Barding technology cost reduced from 120 Food/300 Gold to 90 Food/210 Gold.
- Landsknecht health increased from 80/95 to 85/100.
- Musofadi Stealth duration increased from 20 to 30 seconds.
- Musofadi Stealth ability cooldown reduced from 60 to 30 seconds.
- Precision Training technology increase to javelin damage increased from 2 to 3.
- New technology: Pax Mongolica
- 300 Stone/700 Gold
- Outposts gain +3 fire armor and +30% HP. Outpost changed to Stone Outpost visual.
- Available at the Ovoo in Imperial Age.
- Steppe Lancer upgrade moved from Imperial Age to Castle Age. Improved Steppe Lancers upgrade remains in the Imperial Age.
- Double Villager production cost reduced from 150 to 125 Stone.
- Istanbul Observatory Landmark production speed bonus increased from 60% to 100%.
- Sipahi train time increased from 28 to 30 seconds.
Developer’s Note: This change fixes an issue where the Sipahi provides more resources per minute, compared to other units, when trained from Military Schools.
- Great Bombard changes:
- Cost reduced from 900 Gold/450 Wood to 800 Gold/450 Wood.
- Population reduced from 4 to 3.
- Attack speed increased from 7.75 to 7.0.
- Great Bombard Emplacement cost reduced from 250 Gold/500 Stone to 250 Gold/400 Stone.
- Rus Scouts’ line of sight reduced by 1 tile to be normalized with all other civilizations.
- Kremlin
- Castle Age Kremlin Militia health reduced from 125 to 115.
- Castle Age Kremlin Militia damage reduced from 12 to 10.
- Militia cost increased from 40 to 55 Food per ticket.
