How to make proper siege maps

By Lord_Chris

There have been rumours on how to create proper siege maps, but no proper tutorials. I'd like to write this guide for that purpose. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in our Stronghold 2 forum. A "proper" siege map is accessible through the siege menu, and is not in the custom war menu.

Before we begin, I would like to point out this tutorial will only work on version 1.4.1. Any other versions will lock up the game when you attempt to play the map, meaning you have to exit via the menu bar, if you can, or through Task Manager if you cannot.

First, go to the editor menu, and select the map to be a custom war scenario. This will add a default mission, clicking on it will show you the default event:



Leave this, and the scenario type; any other scenario type will make the map unable to work, and will be shown in a different menu screen. Now go into the editor and begin your map. Make it as creative as you want, providing the entire map belongs to the red estate, there is no problem.

Next, you should place one keep, for the player defending the castle, and then a castle marker flag to prevent instant defeat (or victory, depending on who you are). Here is a quick map I made:



Now, you need to place troops. Any attacking troops should be placed in the colour blue. Any defensive forces should be in red. Any other colour will not work! Whether you intend to be the attacking or defending force is irrelevant; the game will automatically make the troops the correct colour. Also note that you do not need any civilian buildings, including a stockpile or granary.



Once you're happy with your map, double check your settings, then save. Remember the save name, exit the game, and go to your My Documents/Stronghold 2/Maps folder. From there, change the file extension of your map from 's2m' to 's2c'. Windows will then try to tell you your file may become unreadable, just ignore the warning and continue. Note that to edit the file in the game editor again, you will have to change the extension back to .s2m.



Note that in some versions of Windows, file extensions may not be shown automatically, meaning you can't edit the file extension - so when you are changing the name to .s2c, it's part of the name you are adding instead of the extension (particularly newer versions of Windows). If this is the case, for Windows 7 or Vista, follow this guide. For Windows 8 or 10, use this one. You can now change the file extension.

Now load back up into the game, and go into the siege menu. Your map should now appear:



Now, left click on your map and then opt to play. Note that when you click on it, the image and text will not change because it is not a Firefly made siege map. There is no known way to change this behaviour as of yet. After you select to defend or attack, then you will be allowed to play! Below are images from a quick example map you can find in our download section.



Enjoy a new single player experience!