Lord_Chris

Well, there is some competition here this week! @Tokamaps - 3 points @EaglePrince - 3 points @Nigel - 2 points You can view the feedback below. I posted the feedback not in order of points, but in order of how I played the maps. I downloaded them all at the same time and played them as they were automatically ordered by the Skirmish menu in the game. Note: Because both and [user]tokamaps[/user] were awarded with 3 points, I'm going to ask [user]Charles of tours] to view both those submissions as well. The winner will be the person who averages the most from our scores, or if both of you score the same from our averages, we'll take another look at them and decide together. Thank you all of you for taking part! @Tokamaps Your map was fantastic. The estates were very well planned and laid out on the map, and the sizes of them were very realistic and natural looking. I was also very impressed with the tree placement too, there was just few enough trees to make it difficult but enough to still have a good natural effect. The use of bridges was very impressive - I also liked the idea of you making it difficult to block the passage across the bridges by making them a different estate altogether. The use of sea and rivers were very effective too, because it helped make the shapes of the island look much more natural. Particularly the eastern part of the map was very impressive being enclosed and the way that the pitch was included. Personally, my favourite part of the map was the estate containing the stone, which could be used as a choke point. This would be a brilliant multiplayer or kingmaker map (as I played) and I'm delighted to award you with 3 points for this challenge! @EaglePrince This is another very good map with equally effective tree placement. I also liked the feature of including Outlaw Camps here. The numerous outlaw camps brought the game to a much higher level of combat because it was much more difficult to both take out your enemy, defend against your enemy and defend against attacking outlaws at the same time, without a sufficient supply of troops. The various choke points around the map at bridges also make it much more exciting to play. While the landscaping was not quite as good as @Tokamaps' the outlaw camps and the number of chokepoints definitely made up for this feature, and the fact that the estates were placed over many bridges meant it was very easy to ambush the enemy and kill lines of troops. My only criticism of this map is the fact that estates are squares and not more natural looking. I understand why you have done this, and it's to try and balance the map as much as possible, but it does affect how natural looking the map is. To end on a higher note, I was very impressed with the curves of the river, and the water placement. Very impressive indeed! From stones in the water to the marvellous shrub placement, it was a very tough choice to make on grading this map. After very careful deliberation, I've decided that it's my honour to award you with 3 points. Congratulations! @Nigel While the landscaping was slightly more basic, this map has equally nice features such as the mountain and the trees that created a choke point right down the middle. There was also a feature which was unique to this map that I liked very much - both the other maps were all flat, whereas your map has some height in it that allowed one of the two players to get a height advantage over both of the passages to the other estates. I was impressed with how you managed to build the mountain up so that both players had an equal chance to climb it, and I liked the numerous levels very much. And while this map did lack the large amount of open space that the other two had, it did use the space effectively to ensure that placing buildings would be a challenge, and the mountain was always a central issue to what was happening. I liked the unique and unorthodox approach of being on an island too, for the few flaws the island did have, it was a good map for action. For all these reasons, It's my pleasure to announce that you have 2 points!

Hi @sethsr12, welcome to the site! You can find the download section here: http://www.stronghold-nation.com/downloads/ You can navigate to this on the left hand menu of the main side -> Download Central Related to the question you asked - you could probably use the same texture from Stronghold 3 and just place it on an existing unit. You may find the following tutorials interesting: Unarchiving Stronghold 3 Files Editing DDS files How to change the skin of units in Stronghold 2

Just a last minute warning for anyone else who hasn't entered yet and would like to! Remember that the contest closes Midnight tonight and you must have your entry here before then!

I must have forgotten about it, it was still there. I've removed it now.

At the moment there's only the two themes. We're working on creating more, but it won't be done for some time yet.

I'll look forward to playing both your entries :)

If the sound icon is placed, I'd check what volume level you have sound effects on.

Did the you see sound icon present on the map where you clicked?

You could unlock the path of peace campaign map and use that. I believe that gives Outlaws the ability to use wooden walls.

Well, good luck! I'm looking forward to seeing what else you can achieve on it! :)

How did you open it?

I'm not entirely sure where they are stored. I've never come across them before, all I can guess is that they're hard-coded in the exe.

The en us xml file is just for languages. It would require some kind of advanced modification to have the ability to add a completely new action in the editor. Personally, this is way past my level of knowledge.

Thanks for this. I'll upload it to the download section. :)

Your challenge is: Create a basic Kingmaker or Multiplayer map for Stronghold 2. The map should accommodate a maximum of 6 players and have various concealments on it. This can be any size of map, with any amount of landscaping effects, rivers, trees, or anything you so desire! Useful resources http://www.stronghold-nation.com/article/186-a-map-editor-tutorial http://www.stronghold-nation.com/article/76-scenario-types http://www.stronghold-nation.com/article/26-keeps http://www.stronghold-nation.com/article/1-map-editor-overview http://www.stronghold-nation.com/article/239-making-hidden-pathways Note: Your entry must be attached to this topic by Midnight on Saturday to be counted in this challenge (27/2/16 23:59). If no entry is attached (via .zip. then your entry will not be counted! The results will be revealed on Sunday.. Good luck everyone!

I don't believe this is possible - I've tried this in the past and it didn't work for me either.

Unfortunately, yes, it is too late. :(

I'm not sure why, what antivirus do you have? But yes, you're both right - it's not needed for this challenge.

What isn't working? Did you follow all the steps in this tutorial: http://www.stronghold-nation.com/article/195-unarchiving-stronghold-3-files

I actually bought it with Windows 10, so they refused to help me on the issue because they don't support downgrading.

As bad as Windows 10 really is (and it is) I wouldn't recommend installing an older operating system unless you know what you're doing and what drivers it will need, along with if they're actually available. My new computer is an Acer and I completely fresh installed Windows 8 on it, and Acer removed all the Windows 8 drivers from their website in an attempt to try and force you to use Windows 10. Therefore, internet (both wired and wireless) didn't work, the touchpad didn't work (and still doesn't) and there were lots of other errors, such as with the PCI Communications Controller, which I still can't resolve. I downloaded the Windows 10 drivers, and luckily, many of them worked. But my graphics driver will crash a lot, I get frequent blue-screens and there are a lot of errors. Sometimes I will lose the wireless internet connection too, meaning I have to restart my machine.

There are still no entries yet and the contest closes tonight! Remember that you have to paste the link of your image into this thread as well as upload it!

I don't think they intend to do anything about the problems at all. Particularly with SafeDisc because they are responsible for disabling it. So any games that don't run will never run again - that require a disc, anyway. I don't think Microsoft care enough to compensate users. ;)

That's the font colour of the text @Crusader1307 used. :)

I'll move this to Computer Support, just because it is more computer related and there aren't many topics there at the moment. Personally, I don't recommend using Windows 10 for any games, since a lot of them are broken on it. Windows 7 & 8 also have the same problem, but it is possible to allow them to work. I've personally experienced this problem with Stronghold Crusader and on my new computer this was the reason the game would not load. The game will install, but not run - it's extremely frustrating, and it's all due to SafeDisc being disabled. Windows 10 cannot do anything to resolve this problem - but it is possible on Windows 7 or 8. See: http://myonlinesecurity.co.uk/september-2015-windows-updates-kb3086255-breaks-many-games/ In fact - I downgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 8.1 on this machine. I'm not sure about a performance increase too, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if with Windows 10 came a performance decrease, like a lot of other things.