Lord Vetka

I might be available for one day. Did we have some trouble with the time before, we started an hour earlier than you wanted, should my time be 10:00, sorry I can't remember, I can only remember the defeat I got. I have new ideas for my strategy, and I still have a lot to learn, haven't even had time to check the web site for strategies.

I like both sigs, but I voted for Lord Chris, only because it seems more alive with the fire and war action. EaglePrince your sig is really good and the smaller size looks even better, but it lacks in action, so Chris got you on this one! I hope you guys understand what I'm trying to say!

I liked the horsearchers in Crusader but they are not as good here, I would say the archers are a large part of my defences, I do tend to use more than 1 type of troop when attacking, mixing range units with melee troops. To knock down a gate and send in a large army of spearmen can be fun, as long as you keep sending more!

I found that mission easy now as well, I have the cfg files to unlock the trail if your interested, then you can play the ones you want instead of having to go through the trail again. No doubt about it, Crusader is the best game of the series, I just hope they can add to the game without making the game play less than it is. To win a scenario with the least amount of troops would be the hardest to do I would think, I might have to try that. I do like to have ballistas on the ground for defenses against the AI, not to sure how they would be against a human player.

Well, if you never tried something maybe you should, it gives you 3 goods to sell. 3 wheat farms and 1 mill 6 bakeries are enough to make a fair amount of gold, spam that and you have a large amount of gold. Dirvene works, it has been thoroughly tested by EaglePrince and me, being a scenario the map will play differently than an online game, the action starts early and you need to travel to get the stone and there is more than enough room to build and way more than enough villages to use. Thank you for the link!

I went into gameranger yesterday and got the same NAT message. Then checked to see if I could make any changes to my router, but it would not let me. Called my internet provider and they knew right away what I wanted to do, they took me to the online router site where they found my new modem is an old modem and does not allow me to change the settings. So now I will be getting a new router and then I can make the changes needed for online play. They explained that I need to open all of the ports for every one to be able to play, but it will leave you open to security risk, they suggested changing the settings back to default when your game is over. I can still play and am looking forward to a game. To bad EaglePrince, maybe next time. Lord Chris I just saw your post come in, 1v1 will have to do, see you there!

Nice signature, this will make it hard to judge, 2 equal quality signatures.

Sorry, but the crests don't mean a lot to me, the work you guys are doing with them is great, just not for me. I never zoom in close enough to see them! You can add one in for me if you want to, it's up to you. I am planning on playing tomorrow. Is there a way to test Gameranger to see if my setup is going to work properly?

Sorry , I was being a smart a**! your first comment has July instead of August :-) I just finished my map update and will uninstall SH2 and reinstall it and patch up to 1.4.1. I should be ready to play.

Nice signature! Best one yet!

Well I might have got into this game but I missed it! That will give me enough time to complete a bit of map work then I can update to 1.4.1, great!

Today will be a fun day, One of the casinos is having a car show so I will go and enjoy looking at some custom HP older cars and do some gambling for fun, maybe even waist a few dollars on the slots! Last year it was still a regular casino, they had Kiss for a band, this year it has been upgraded to a Hard Rock casino so it could be interesting! This morning I answered some emails and threads here, this is the last one, then later when I get home I will probably continue making my new Legends map.

Speaking of loading villages, I wanted to say something about the contest map "A Chefs Quest" I noticed you had pig farms and vegetable farms in mass and over 200 units of each in the Lords kitchen and little gold but never took advantage of the iron, and you could have used the land for wheat farms and sell the bread, you only need 2 of each farm to get the honor and the kitchen should be as close to the keep as possible, it takes months for the feast to be done and you don't want your servers to walk a long time. I will be posting "Dirvene" soon then you will have to many villages to use, I saw a map where someone put the villages up on the hill and the farmland down the hill so I tried some thing like it on this map, not as good as I would like but it works.

If I remember correctly Misty river was hard, I did win the trail the first time I played it, but when I went back to play it again and this map was a big problem to the point I went and read the walk through for it, they suggested moving the stock pile in close to the iron, I won it after that. I will tell you a little story about Antioch, you said you had a hard time when you first started so I thought I would go and give it a try. I quickly placed a market then get some wood cutters going then food and housing, I used some of the gold to buy bows, I had 4 fletchers and 3 pole turners, after a bit I started putting up some towers between the fords and some ballistas on the ground, after that point it was time to build an attacking army, 150 horsearchers and 40 assassins later, I ran the horses over to the South Pig and took out his range units and most of his mases, 3 of my assassins didn't make it and I lost 48 horses, I made another 30 horses and went around to the east side of the north pig with the horses and cleared the range units from the towers and sent in the 37 assassins that were left, a few minutes later victory was mine!

Good thread, I will have to think about this one!

Keeping your ally going is important especially if he's a real player:-) I like to use iron, if I get a new title it will be "IronMan" iron can bring in gold if there is enough and using the villages to make weapons is great as well. Villages are great I like to make a map where you can get resources on one village and have to send them to another village to make goods with them then send the goods to your castle and have carters at your castle sending resources out to the villages as well, sometimes I will use a village to send food to another village so I have more room to build. Lots of fun!

When I played age of Empires, I always had melee units backed up by range units, it makes the melee units so much stronger and I always do it with the SH games as well, I don't always use engineers, in SHC your troops can knock walls and gates down, sometimes I will use a few assassins to take the gate. You use a good setup! I have used a single unit type to win against the AI, I have killed the Wolf with archers and I have killed the Caliph with Swordsmen to, you have to be patient and units will get killed! you just have to keep sending more! When I first manged to win the trail I would go back and play some of the maps again, I went back and played the map with you in the circle and the Wolf was in the NE corner with his large castle and 2 Caliphs and the Sultan if I remember correctly, but I can't remember the name of the scenario, I went at him with large groups of archers until he was finished, it took a long time! The idea of sending a save is giving me some new ideas! I read this last night and thought why not give Antioch a try, I went into the wrong trail and quickly charged 2 missions then tried the right one and quickly charged the first 2 scenarios to get to Antioch, I quit before the end and will play more later, I was planning on taking out the south Pig with Horsearchers and assassins and the same with the next Pig. Some of the best part of these games is the learning curve!

Wait no more, the 3 threads all show new posts and they are open for me! Looks good!

I forgot about wood, it is slow 1 unit of wood for 1 unit of gold, but it does add up quick, with bread you only need 3-5 farms one mill and around 6 bakers along with apples and meat, the gold comes in quick, I only place 1 stockroom and rarely tax in SH2, add in iron and stone mines and an economy is made. Another way of getting lots of gold is to sell leather armor and cheese, add that to an already strong economy and it's to easy, but I do enjoy using the villages, to the point where I have custom scenarios and all you have are villages, there is no room to build at your castle, it makes an interesting map, you might want to try "A Knights War" (it's posted at HG) you have no room to build and you must use the villages for every thing and you only have Knights, a very interesting map to play! You can use the Lords Kitchen for gold to, pigs come in fast and don't take to much space, use a village to supply veggies and you have honor to!

Well I guess spearmen are not so useless as we think, slingers can save the day and horsearchers are very effective in the right environment, a mass of these troops can do well against most AI. Thanks, the Caliph can be killed many ways, a small mass of Assassins can clear out many of the AI castles as well, like you said with melee units, send them in in small groups of 20-30 men and the AIs can't stand up to that, of course an online game would change that. When I first learned how to play it was trebs and cats knocking down the towers and gates then advance with strong melee units backed up by range units, or another way I would make about 200 archers and send them in and spread them out to clear the towers, on a few occasions with the Wolf I would surround his castle with archers and let them whittle him to his death :-) Nice to see that you can win online with real people using spearmen, good going! After playing the game for a long time it can become boring and tediuos, so I like to change things up a bit, it makes it fun, have you tried playing using only one type of troop to attack with, I tried the trail with only horsearchers, it was good for a while but it gets to hard in the later maps, I've tried it with several types of troops.

I do like to change things up a bit and relieve some of the boredom of playing to many games against the AI, I do like to attack the enemy castle with horsearchers about 100-150 running back and forth outside an enemy AI can clean the archers out of the castle is short time and it kills the enemy economy. With someone like the Caliph I would use a ram and open the gate then send in a large army of spearmen and they get killed then I send another large army after a while the Caliph is no more, I might use slaves to get the pitch burned off before sending in melee units. Slingers can be helpful to, some maps can be hard to start when invasions come from the start, about 20 or 30 slingers set back behind a group of melee units can save the day until you can get better defenses up and running. If you have lots of gold and want the win, but if you want to have some fun, lesser troops en mass can make it interesting!

There is another main use for spearmen, they are good at taking out horse units, if you are being invaded by knights, a large amount of spearmen can be effective in stopping them, a little harder with horsearchers but still effective, and when spearmen are fighting horsearchers then they come to a stop which helps the range units against the horses. Another use outside the castle is to use them for decoys, as you attack, send them in first with range units following, this way the enemy range units tend to target the spearmen and give your range units a bit more of a chance. Yes I agree with vulnerability, units in mass as well as backed up by range units can overcome it. I found slingers can be useful as well, have you used flame throwers?

Thanks Chris, I didn't realize you were posting at the same time. Thanks EaglePrince, the problem we have is we need a member to post in the court house, as mods we can see it all but don't get to see how it is for members, thanks for your help! I will take my nose out and let you complete your work Chris.

Making bread is probably the main way. I made a custom map where you can only get gold by selling wine. Any other suggestions, any unusual ways that you get gold?

I don't like to use spearmen very much, but at times a mass of them can be useful. If you are short on gold and need some quick defenses, buy some spears and load up on spearmen, back them up with archers and you can save yourself sometimes. I do have other less likely troops to use, what would you use? and how.