Empires v2.24d has been released. Small yet very important, 2.24d should be cross-compatible with unpatched 2.24 installations.
Fixes:
+ Lots of potential crashes
+ Squad ability cooldown removed
+ Rifleman sticky grenade damage against turrets increased
+ SMG2 slightly rebalanced
+ (from 2.24c) the chat background visibility can be toggled with cl_chatbackdrop
It's not on the download list.
I don't see it ether..
fixed, sorry.