Microsoft"s free-to-play online RTS game Age of Empires Online will be adding its first new civilization pack since the game was officially launched last August. The company has announced that the Persian Pro civilization will be made available to purchase on Tuesday, October 18. Pricing for the new Pro Civ pack should be $19.99. The pack will add a number of new units to the game including the Immortals, mounted Persian Archers, and special attack elephants. There will be new single player content added with the new Persian civilization along with player vs player content that will allow users to put the Persians into battle with the previously released Greek and Egyptian civs.
Microsoft has also announced that a new Age of Empires Online app is now available to download for Windows Phone 7 owners. The app will let players of the game view recipes and stats for all of the game"s craft items. It also has a materials calculator that lets players see which items you can build in the game with the materials that the player owns. Finally it lets players view the most popular craft items made by other community members and vote on their favorites.
Age of Empires Online, developed by Gas Powered Games, was Microsoft"s first PC exclusive game it has released in several years and its first entry in the growing free-to-play PC game genre. So far there"s no word on how many players the game has signed up.