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Hello Everyone! We are pleased to announce that we are on track to be releasing an awful lot of new content in 2019. We hope to see a few new things within a week, and before we make any announcements, we think it is a good time to provide a summary of everything we have added to Age of Empires Online since Project Celeste began.

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The most popular expansions have been our four new Quest Packs that include both regular and Legendary difficulties. Though the original Developers continued to add new Quests over time, players understandably are always looking for new ones to do:

• The Athens Quest Pack:
  • Fight battles on Athenian battlegrounds, freeing Athenian cities one-by-one
  • New Legendary Gear
  • More than 10 new Quests, available for solo and co-op play.

• The Cyrus the Great Quest Pack:
  • Wage war on Persian Lands, aiding Cyrus the Great in his conquest of the region.
  • New set of Quests, some being a homage to classic AoE story missions, such as Holy Man.

• General Zu's Glory Days:
  • New Babylonian-themed Quests, with unique and challenging objectives.
  • Follow that dastardly General Zu as reminisces about his old battles, and help him relive his fondest memories when he served under the great King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
  • Aimed at level 40 players who have already reached the endgame.

• The Realms of the World:
  • The most comprehensive Quest Pack ever to be released in our history, featuring some absolutely beautiful Norse-themed maps
  • Over 15 New Quests
  • New Legendary Quests, for solo and co-op play
  • New Puzzle Quests, with new Hero units and a unique player experience
  • Play on unique Norse-themed maps with a new and refreshed look.

• Treasures of the Nile Quest Pack:
  • New Egyptian-themed Quests, with unique and challenging objectives.
  • Drive away the Valley Kings from the lands of Egypt. Available for Solo and Co-op play
  • Aimed at level 40 players who have already reached the endgame.

The Adventures of Brennos and Comontorios

• Focused on co-op play
• Fight against the Helvetti and other Celtic enemies on all-new battlegrounds!
• Aimed at level 40 players who have already reached the endgame.
• Designed for both Legendary and Casual players.

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Though they were a core feature of the game at launch, Advisors were a bit neglected over the course of the original development. We have released a total of 27 new advisors. First, since the newer Civilizations are just as deserving to have their own Advisors as the older civs, we added three Civilization-exclusive Advisors for each of the Persians, Babylonians and Norse. Second, just as the game evolved with new civs, so did strategies and playstyles. Therefore, we complemented them with six new advisors available to all Civs.

Finally, we also created a new tier of Legendary Advisors and have released three Legendary Advisors for each civilization. They are Advisors that have unique and very powerful effects.

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In addition, we have made changes to many of the unused and underused existing Advisors. You can see the changes in their own blogs and also the final stats of everything on the Search Tool website.

Advisor Changes Blogs:

• Set 1
• Set 2

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PvP and Skirmish Mode have always been the go-to game modes for most players who want a "classical" Age of Empires experience.

We recently released four additional random map types (Marshlands, Wildwoods, Persian Quarries and Babylonian Basin) and have plans for more moving forward. Each new map adds a new twist and encourages new strategies.

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PvP has seen a lot of balance patches in Project Celeste. With the help of a Balance Team consisting of many reputable top players in the game, we have released more than 22 Balance Patches so far. These changes affect only Champion mode, so players can enjoy the classic experience of playing Age of Empires Online in PvE modes whilst having a much more balanced PvP experience at the same time.

Additionally, we have made a full PvP Guide available both in-game and on our website.

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With tons of awesome new features, playing custom PvP matches with your friends has never been more fun or easier. Take a look at the newest additions to the Arena in its own announcement blog.

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Though the original Developers created the seasonal events, we felt that they could be immensely improved for a deeper experience.

So far, we added new Event-Exclusive gear and new Quests exclusive to that Event. The feedback we got from the Events was very promising, and we plan to continue to use these Events as opportunities to experiment with design.

Currently we hold three seasonal events each year:

• Summer Event
• Halloween Event
• Winter Event

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Another feature that was started by the original development team but never finished was the Global Marketplace. We brought the Global Marketplace to life, fully functional, allowing players to put their items for sale for all players without having the need to be logged in.

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Vanity Items are do not affect units' stats, but simply change the appearance of the units, allowing players to use their existing gear.

Not only have we made some new vanity, but, we expanded Vanity Island, showcasing new Capital City decorations for those who love decorating their Home Cities.

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Crafting is another example of a feature included at launch that was a bit neglected over the course of the original development. Frankly, the majority of recipes were designed for low-level cities looking for common and uncommon gear. Our players quickly grow out of those well before they usually find the recipes needed to participate. We plan to release additional high-level gear recipes that rival some of the current Best-In-Slot Gears, opening up new ways to Gear up your units and play the game while priced to keep the game challenging.

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As the first feature in the game to be done completely from scratch by the Celeste Team, the Spartan Reforge allows players to reroll the stats on their gear, and potentially obtaining an even more powerful item.

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One of the most complex things in Age of Empires Online (particularly for new players) is all the various game modes in the game being spread out in different regions.

For most of us veterans knowing which game mode is located where isn't all that difficult, but for newer players, this can become really confusing really fast. The main purpose of this new interface is unifying all of those game modes into one, easily accessible menu so that you can access any game mode at any time, from any region.

Read more about it HERE.

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We are incredibly excited and proud to be able to finally tell you that The Roman Civilization are now available for everyone, completely free!

Find more about them in their own dedicated overview blog HERE.

You can read up on our development process with the Romans in their own section of the Forums HERE.


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Once again we'd like to thank all of you for being with us and we hope to see you in the game! Good luck and have fun!

-Celeste Development Team