Lord_Chris

Hmm. I've never seen that error before. It's related to CloudFlare so it may or may not return - but if it does let me know and I'll investigate. Do you have any idea what page you were on or what you were doing when the database error appeared?

That should be no problem for me either at the moment. Although it would work slightly for me if we could bring it back one hour to 19:00 (CET). Is this ok for everyone else?

Fantastic questions as always! :D

Thanks for those links Charles - I'll have to upload them to the downloads section. Even though with my awful connection it will take a very long time ;) I completely agree with you too @EaglePrince, building walls in any direction was a massive bonus in Stronghold 3. I really hope Firefly bring that back in their latest game. And the different weather patterns too. That was a brilliant feature. I hope that they use a different game engine, though I do have suspicions it will sadly be the same one again - which would be very disappointing. I have a strong feeling that the performance issues in SH3/SHC2 are linked to the game engine. I have no evidence to back this up, but it's just a gut feeling I have.

I'll make contact with one of the Firefly team members I'm in touch with and see if this is indeed intentional or not; it could be that something has just slipped past them in the 1.4 version, or it could even just be a bug in the Steam version only. Maybe it's not even a bug at all but the desired behaviour. Whatever the reason - I think we should get real facts on what the maximum army size should be and how it should be calculated. Only that way we can be sure whether this is indeed a bug or not.

@Mathew Steel is right - unfortunately I don't think there is any way to change the troop limit on Stronghold 1. However even if there was, I would be very wary of doing so; unit limits are in place for a reason to keep the game stable. Don't forget that this is for each lord and if there are 8 lords, and each lord has the maximum troop limit then that is actually 8 times the real troop limit. Troop limits are in place to prevent bugs, crashing and other issues which could occur if not kept under control. Don't forget of course, that while Stronghold 1 may run fine on computers today, it used to run on computers older than even Windows XP!

I'm definitely up for this - it sounds like a great idea. :) @Charles of Tours is also making a map. It's nearly done.

Hi @Marty McFly I've merged your posts, please do not double post unless there is a substantially good reason why this is required. I also cleaned up your post and removed the excess BBCode that doesn't work- this is due to a bug in the editor, you can turn this off in your Profile's 'Display' section under 'Use WYSIWYG editor' if you no longer want to use it.

He waited for a while, until eventually heavy footsteps of a patrol could be heard. Several guards came trooping through the corridor and arrived at Loring's cell. "Alright, it's this one" one of the guards said in a casual tone. It was clear they were certainly not under any time constraints by their movements, as two guards opened the door to the cell carefully in a relaxed manner. They approached Loring in his cell, grabbed his arms and lifted him up onto the ground before placing him in irons. One guard then moved in front and one behind, marching him out of the cell into the corridor. The door was immediately locked again and the group marched off, with a Junior Constable at the front of the group. As Loring had hoped, they did not notice the fact he was not Duke Christopher. They marched him to the end of the corridor, before going through a wooden door and later on down the narrow and very lightly lit corridor, a locked Iron door, for which only the Constable held the key. This was promptly locked after the group had gone through. They were now in a spiral staircase, and moved up several floors, making Loring lose count of exactly how far below them the Dungeon now actually was. They stopped all of a sudden and moved out through a wooden door which came out of a side room, into a large Grand Entrance, which was very heavily guarded on all walls. It was clear that this was the main entrance of the castle, and before they had simply come through some form of other entrance. The Constable paused for a moment to take note of the large golden clock above the very well designed - and massive - set of entrance gates into the castle, along with a large, sharp, portcullis dangling underneath it in a raised position. It was a little after midnight and he did not appear to look in a hurry after noting the time and started walking towards them with Loring and the group, when all of a sudden, another Junior Constable - Constable Quinn - came running down the grand stairwell behind them. "Constable Edwards, wait!" he cried out. The Constable with Loring stopped and turned around, waiting for Constable Quinn to catch up. "Sir, Lord Sullivan has requested that he personally approve this transfer." Constable Edwards gave a look of annoyance, before tutting and starting to move in the direction the Constable came from. "He signalled for Loring to be brought along with them." They started moving up the grand stairwell, and came to a large balcony-styled landing which eventually turned into a corridor. They moved up another stairwell before moving into an antechamber with a waiting area. Constable Quinn signalled to Constable Edwards to move straight through. He in turn signalled to the guards with Loring to move him in as well. They moved into a semi-circular shaped room made of stone, various book cases lay scattered around the room - at the end of which sat an elderly man looking over various papers. Two other smaller desks were present near the door of the room, where two clerks sat working through paperwork. The elderly man wore not an officer's uniform, or indeed any uniform at all. Rather he looked more like a Magistrate of some kind; dressed in a legal court dress - consisting of a black silk velvet cutaway tailcoat, with a white shirt, lace stock and cuffs, black silk stockings and cut-steel buckled patent court shoes. He also wore a black silk damask robe of state with a long train trimmed with gold lace and frogging over the top. He immediately looked up from his desk when the group entered the room. Constable Quinn immediately introduced him: "His grace, the Lord High Constable ..... Lord Sullivan!" The two Constables took a ceremonial bow which was acknowledged by Lord Sullivan. "Bring the necessary paperwork." he commanded one of the nearby Clerks. He then turned his attention to the group. "Tell me ..." he started: "What is the name of the location the Duke will be transferred to?" "Galadhor Fortress, M'lord." replied Constable Edwards. "Good, ... good ...." replied Lord Sullivan. "I trust all the necessary arrangements have been made?" "Absolutely Sir. Everything has been arranged and is already under way." Lord Sullivan nodded to show his approval, while one of the Clerks returned with a scroll full of writing. Lord Sullivan moved to pick up his quill and was about to sign when he suddenly looked up again. He left his Quill hovering in mid air: "Where is, the Duke?" he asked. "Behind us, Sir." replied Constable Edwards. He moved out of the way and pointed to Sir Loring. The look on Lord Sullivan's face slowly turned to one of both concern and confusion. He spoke up with a slightly raised voice. "That, is NOT The Duke." he replied in a forceful manner. "Where is he?" The two nearby guards looked blankly at each other while Constable Edwards looked back motionless at Lord Sullivan, in shock. Sullivan finally dropped his Quill. "FIND HIM." he ordered, sternly. The guard moved to take Loring out of the room, but Sullivan yet again intervened. "NOT him. Keep him well guarded outside this room." He moved up out of his chair and towards Constable Edwards. "YOU must find The Duke. NOW. If necessary, tear the entire castle apart. Constable Quinn will assist you. I will deal with you later - you have one hour to find him." Constable Edwards clearly understood this order meant business, as for the first time Sir Loring saw him act with a real sense of urgency. Both Constables hurried out of this room and towards the Stairwell they arrived from. Loring saw them hurry down a flight of stairs before summoning more troops to join in the search. Loring waited for what seemed like an eternity, endlessly hoping that The Duke would remain un-noticed. Eventually, after a very long time, Lord Sullivan came out of his room. He opened his mouth and started giving an order to the guards: "Take him to the nearby ...." he never finished his sentence as Constable Edwards and Constable Quinn came running back - with several guards - and also The Duke, who like Loring, was also in Irons. "Sir, we have him!" cried Constable Quinn. "He was in one of the nearby cells, locked in with a guard." Lord Sullivan looked slightly more relaxed, and immediately responded. "Good ... 3 minutes and 22 seconds to spare ..... " He pointed to Loring "Take him back to the .... no wait ... He knows too much now. He must now be transferred as well." He went to his room for a moment before returning with a signed scroll, handing it to the Constables. "Take them both: there is nothing more we can do here. I will deal with Constable Edwards later. Hurry; you are now 1 hour late." he said, clearly very dissatisfied. He then returned back to his room leaving the group alone. They moved back towards the castle entrance and took both The Duke and Loring out into the courtyard. They added extra irons to secure both of them and took them further out past the moat and through the final courtyard. They were both hastily lumbered into the back of a nearby cart before being locked inside. A small convoy of troops both on horses and in carts nearby disguised themselves as Merchants and they all started to move off on the long journey to Galadhor Fortress ......

Thanks for posting this - I actually meant to make a topic about this myself and ask for any questions from the community to submit to one of my contacts in Firefly about the new version of SH2 when I next speak to them. I want to ask about compatibility for saved games, multiplayer between the steam and non-steam versions and a few other things, such as whether users who already have a Stronghold 2 license key will be able to get a free steam copy. I'll try to get as many guarantees as possible for users with non-steam games already. Let me know if anyone has any questions they would like asking!

I use the same strategy as @Charles of Tours too - it works very well. It really helps you to get more of an industry up quicker, providing you have the peasants left over, of course! It works even better in Stronghold Legends where Wood Camps are over 6 times more expensive than Saw Pits from SH2. Think it also works on SHC2 as well.

[OOC] I extended the story by using this line from Crusader's post: If I'm correct, the Prince is still fighting while Goodman is in the camp?

At the moment only these two styles exist. I don't have the technical knowledge to be able to create the styles myself so I rely on the styling manager over there to do it for us. Pantherone hasn't been updated in a while, which is why it's probably buggy. I could give you the templates and let you create your own theme if you like - not that I'm trying to offload work onto you - but you might be able to better build a theme than me with the HTML/CSS knowledge you have that perfectly fits all your requirements? The panther site is down at the moment, we're working on trying to get it back up which hopefully shouldn't be much longer. That's why this was upgraded first ;) You most certainly can :) It's really easy to do, and it's not just specific to this forum - it would then work on any forum as the language packs are the same. PM me if you're interested in finding out a bit more about creating a Serbian language pack or would like to do your own style. I think a Gaming Event would be a great idea! I'd love a game of Stronghold 2 again at some point - perhaps we could even specially create a map for it?

Please give a big congratulations to our latest team member and new Community Liaison, @Mathew Steel! Matthew has been a long standing forum member and has worked incredibly hard over the last few years helping us on the site. He's contributed some fantastic articles, downloads and is always a great addition to any discussions on the forum. I'd like to be the first to congratulate his fantastic contributions - thank you Matthew, and well done!! We look forward to working with you. :) On another note I've updated the forum to the latest version. This has not been officially released yet, though it is a stable release. I've tried to test everything I can and everything appears to work, but as usual if there are any issues just let me know. A couple of changes in this version: There are now three languages available: German, English (UK) and Persian. Othern than English the others are Beta Language Packs so if you experience any problems please do let me know. New password requirements are now in force: changing your password from any point now on requires you to have at least 6 characters, including 1 uppercase character and 1 digit Other than this, everything is the same. Thanks everyone!

They travelled for a while, but soon stopped to rest. They took up again as it was getting later in the day - though the forest became much narrower and more winding and they soon lost their way again. Forced into much smaller lines, this was an ideal point for some form of ambush so Goodman kept vigilant - he knew only too well how these kind of circumstances usually end up .... They became more and more tried searching for the correct path out when they suddenly came across another field within the forest. This was a pure clearing and was extremely different to the one they were previously in - almost, like they were too far towards the edge of the forest altogether .... Goodman ordered the men to stop there and camp for the night. It was highly unlikely that they would find the Castle now as the light was starting to leave them, and he was very much aware the men needed some rest. While he could continue wandering around the forest for hours on end, they needed a break for the night. It didn't take long until the men setup a camp and Goodman informed one of the Chief Constables that he intended to have a look around. Walking in the direction towards the edge of the camp, Goodman was spotted leaving by Geralt who came running over. "My friend, what is the matter?!" he cried, sounding quite alarmed. Goodman replied, saying "I'm having a look around to see if I can find a way out". He knew no later than the words came out of his mouth that Geralt would likely want to come as well, and it was in his best interest to rest. He stopped for a moment, looking at Geralt and continued further. "Rest, dear ally. I will be back soon." These words seemed to comfort Geralt who still remained as puzzled but nodded his head and backed off, leaving Goodman to exit the camp alone. He walked into the forest and quickly found a small path. He walked over and looked for sure signs that could help him determine where he might be, or at least where to go next. And what he did find, was tracks: various broken twigs lay scattered on the ground in different locations along the path, foot prints and other nearby clues led him to know instantly that people had been here before. He continued along the path, trying to remain as quiet as possible and climbing over large tree branches which had fallen in the way of the path. He eventually stumbled near the exit, which appeared concealed. He had a quick look through the gaps within the tree undergrowth and could see soldiers of Duke Renault's guard - bearing the Royal Crest - casually talking to some Civilians. And some stone buildings nearby too - it looked almost like the edge of a Town, and Goodman was surprised. He did not expect such a place here, and it was clearly here for a reason. After a few moments the Civilians walked away down the road. The guards waited for a moment, and then continued along in the opposite direction on their patrol - leaving the path completely free of obstructions. Goodman waited for a few moments, and then made his move. He crept out of the forest and waited nearby the Stone building immediately to his left. He stood for a moment, and decided to have a look around. Lining himself against the wall, Goodman shuffled along and peeked around to the left. What he saw was astonishing: a wall and gate leading inside Barnemouth, manned by guards atop. The same guards which chased him before were here guarding it, and here for a reason ..... Outside of the gate was a small town and market, though as it was now past dusk, it was deserted - the Town's Curfew was now taking place for the night. No wonder they had become so lost from Duke Renault's Castle, Barnemouth was many miles North from it. They had to get inside - and unseen - to find out what was going on. Knowing the guards from before would instantly recognise him - and just how tight their checks were - he knew that he would have to find an alternative route into Barnemouth .... Goodman must get back to the camp and tell the men what was happening. But before he could head back, he felt a hand on his shoulder, which had an electrifying effect on him paralysing him for a second with shock. "We must get back to the camp!" whispered a familiar voice, filled with excitement. Goodman turned around, to find Gerault facing him - having not been able to resist and adventure, Gerault had followed him out of the camp! Goodman quickly heaved a small sigh of relief before nodding and creeping back into the forest with Gerault. He knew he could no longer keep things to himself and had some explaining to do ..... Meanwhile, back at the dungeon Sir Loring was placed in, everything was completely silent. All of a sudden, a rustling of keys could be heard and several guards walked into the corridor. Walking past, Goodman heard part of what they said - "So we're moving the Duke in 1 hour?" asked one of them. "Yes - we have all the arrangements made, he will be taken from his castle and placed into the agreed location" replied the second. Before Loring could hear more, both guards had passed his cell and continued on their way.

The problem I see is that the vast majority of teaching staff are so left-wing this is a very large part of the problem. When you have this mixed with the EU funding (a proportion of what we give to the EU in the first place coming back to us, but the EU decides what it's spent on ...) of various institutions such as Universities I think it's only too easy for people there to become corrupted by foreign influences and stained by political correctness. We've seen it in the local Police force & whole local political system - numerous times. I've even heard rumours coming out of various schools whereby students are scolded for saying they would vote to leave the EU, that teachers are forcing the issues of political correctness on them on this very subject of Muslims and Islam, leading them down a particular path where the teacher wants them to go and ultimately indoctrinating them - without them even realising it. The school system has been fiddled in such a way as to try and indoctrinate people down a particular view point - in effect brainwashing people. Naturally these schools tend to be left-wing anyway, but because of the influence the EU has had, it's used this to its advantage and manipulated it even further, helping to speed up this whole process. I think your teacher should be reported for saying that to you, I would actually go further and say she should be suspended altogether. You were simply pointing out a factually-correct statement and she immediately jumped down your throat with the 'racist' card. That's exactly the problem we have, free speech is being shut down.

Have you tried placing rally points on the tower?

That's very interesting. I always assumed that this was built into the game once your popularity got too low so that it gives you a chance to rebuild your economy (e.g. to stop all workers from leaving and not coming back again) though maybe this is the reason after all - or maybe it is a mix of both.

That's a nice addition, though it would probably be quite fiddly with CSS. I think it's probably easier in the short term to try and alter the font size, rather than the font itself. I do agree though that this is very similar to the message text and should be reviewed.

Definitely not maintenance - with that you always get the maintenance page. Would appreciate it if you let me know if there are any more occurrences of this .....

Unfortunately as and [user]eagleprince] have already mentioned, it's not possible to play Stronghold 2 Multiplayer via LAN. This is likely due to changes in support for Stronghold 2 Multiplayer as Mathew also pointed out and at this present moment in time it's also not possible to edit the game/modify it in order to add this feature in - this information is compiled inside the .exe (I assume, as it's nowhere else to be found ...) and therefore non-editable or readable. You'd need Firefly to release the source code of Stronghold 2 to be able to edit this, which I don't see happening any time soon, unfortunately. I have, however, added this suggestion to the Official Stronghold 2 Suggestions list. One of my contacts inside Firefly informed me last year that there may be more changes or updates coming to Stronghold 2 in the near future. Last time I checked they had not progressed at all, but that was some months ago.

I've been getting a lot of these errors sporadically for a while now, where the site appears down - as soon as you refresh the page again they're gone and everything is normal but they're incredibly annoying. Just wondering how many other people have experienced this problem or whether it's an isolated case on my PC only? Would be very interesting to know ....

Yes, it's 1.4.1. It's actually a Great Tower - there's one in each of the four corners. This is in the castle files as barclay01.aic but it never seems to be used, ever. My best guess is that it's partly because of its massive size and the fact it consumes so much stone (well over 1,500) Firefly must have axed it from the game but left it as a file. I'm honestly not sure. ** Edit ** The three castle designs are available here: https://www.stronghold-nation.com/article/268-lord-barclay-stronghold-2-ai-lords

While rewriting our AI lords article, I've stumbled across this castle from lord Barclay which I've never seen before in-game. Has anyone else ever seen Lord Barclay use this Castle?

We now have all saved missions from CivCity Rome uploaded. They're available here in the downloads section as individual saved games: https://www.stronghold-nation.com/downloads/category/civcity-rome/saved-games/