EaglePrince

I don't get it what you mean by "naive :P ", Mathew? :) Nigel, it is easy now after the game to tell some observations. :P We can look at that game as a play-test for some future multiplayer scenarios. :) I'm here for any type of game, balanced, unbalanced, whatever. But both teams need to have something which goes into their favor. One team had something, the other had something else. Why not. :) Or it could be a completely unbalanced map on which one teams only advantage would be the number of players. :P

I totally agree! We're used to playing Stronghold 2 with huge castle estates, but trying to do our best on small castle estates could be something interesting. We would have to make a compromise, and I guess most of us would sacrifice castle production for having lords kitchen, church, jousting ground, stables, etc. But this is Stronghold Crusader subforum, so we should refrain from keeping our conversation about Stronghold 2 here, but rather open another thread in Stronghold 2 subforum. :)

Oh, but about the Saxon fort... I think that my suggestion still holds, but there's another one as well. :) First, now when we look at the map, and the way how we were positioned, there was actually not other way, but to attack the castle first. The castle is in between. So maybe it would be better if the castle and the two armies formed a triangle? The other things is that, not only the castle was weak, but wooden walls are so weak, that we could have actually destroyed it really easily. That is why I think stone walls would have been better. But in this case players would need to have one or few catapults in additions to laddermen. I would give one catapult to each player. Oh, and this thing - the game wasn't balanced like this. :) You can see that we were able to climb on the stone barracks more easily than you, and that gave us an advantage. But that is no big deal to fix - just move the barracks to be more between the armies. You could also add an engineers guild at the opposite side of the fort, as well. To make it more interesting. And in the middle I might try to put a square tower with a ballista. Yup, this is a cruel one. :D Regarding the castle walls, it would have no towers, or maybe few small lookout towers. ADDITION: Yup, I made a mistake. It weren't barracks, but courthouse. Looking forward to see the monastery. :)

I have another idea for a map like this. Almost the same, but with bandit camps in the middle, so that players would have to break through the outlaws in order to reach to each other. Maybe that could be done by editing this map. Just replace one river with two rivers between which would be bandits, and move the castle estates closer to the edge of the map to make more space for bandit camps. Another interesting thing for making the ambient more interesting might be to make marshes between the two rivers, so that bandits would be inside that marshy forests. I don't know what I would do with those bandits on the cliffs though. Maybe move them into the middle of the cliff. With a map like this we could make rules to start attacking each other after somebody breaks through the outlaws camps. Or in other words, we would have no peace time, but only time until we are able to start attacking. :P Or, we could simply play as we used to play. :P Oh, and Charles. You were using burning carts to attack our army. That is something that we were discussing before that we shouldn't use it, because it is unrealistic, and it can devastate slow troops such as swordsmen. I mean, I would definitely approve it if it was used to attack some buildings, and if I have some troops between those burned buildings, then it does make sense for my troops to burn. :D But I would leave to others to discuss it. I should note that burning charts are easily countered by archers, and by some fast melee units (in which case it would be smart not to send many soldiers to destroy the carts, but only few of them, because they will be caught by fire.)

I shall be the first one to write the battle report. :) But before that, I would like to remind you that Stronghold 3 actually has four types of multiplayer games. That is Deathmatch, which is a standard multiplayer game, King of the Hill, Capture the Flag, and Coronation. I'm not entirely sure how do the later three work, but we could try them some day if you want. Or maybe even Crusader 2 has these types of multiplayer games? Still, I do admit, even though Stronghold 3 seems a lot interesting, it is questionable how would it work in multiplayer game, it is possible that the game would lag to some of us, which would be an issue, Now back to the topic. When it comes to the first one - the field battle, it was quite enjoying, but we had that lag, and somehow I feel that my team won by pure luck, only because the other team wasn't able to control their units properly. We don't know how did we get that lag, but perhaps it simply happened... What would be more interesting would be to try to play a similar scenario, but with a stone castle. In this one the defender had little troops, and only wooden walls which didn't help him much. But don't take me wrong, it that was quite fun, I'm just giving some suggestions for future events! And now the regular game. I started the game as usually, but at the same moment when I became knight, and when I wanted to start bow production, outlaws attacked me in large numbers. I was trying to deal with the situation myself, and somehow I didn't ask Mathew to come to my aid. Somehow I assume that he didn't have any troops to help me, but when I saw his archers coming to help me I was so much revealed! Outlaws cripples my economy, and destroyed my granary, so I needed to start over with almost everything, but luckily I had enough wood, and of course - I was a knight already, so that was very helpful. I walled myself, and started over. For a long time I was much weaker than others, and I saw that my only chance was to use the other villages to boost my economy, so as soon as I was able to train about 25 swordsmen, I sent a unit these swordsmen and about 30 archers to deal with outlaws. Before that I had already taken the village close to me, so I could produce more food there, and more iron, but I saw that the outlaws were attacking these villagers from the cliffs. There was no time to wait with destroying their camps. The campaign was successful, although I needed to sent reinforcements consisting of another 30 archers. It was a tough mission for these swordsmen and archers! In the end they marched back into the village, wounded, but proud! After this mission, I decided not to disband the garrison in the south of the village, because somebody from the other team could use the path over the cliffs to deliver a surprise attack. Then I got my second village which was to the west of my castle, and there I started production of candles and cloths, while I decided to buy fancy food for the lords kitchen. After some time I became a duke, and I was able to train knights. Mathew and Chris became dukes before me, and I think Charles did as well (though he was using swordsmen some time later, but seemed to me that it was simply his decision - to mass-produce swordsmen instead of training knights), but later it turned out that my decision to buy these neighboring villages was good. Soon I caught up with Chris and Charles. I started some fights with Chris and Charles now, and at the moment they started to push me from the river Mathew decided to attack! He attacked in two directions - to north, where Nigel was, and to south, where I was pushed by Chris and Charles. I joined his troops in south, and that was hell of a bloodshed. In the end Mathews and my troops won the fight, and we wanted to look how to attack Chris. Now here comes my stupidity. :D I thought that I needed to kill Chris, and that taking his castle wasn't enough. Assuming his lord isn't in his castle I didn't decide to catapult the walls, and to enter his keep, but instead I decided to rush onto his walls, attack his economy with archers, and later to continue destroying it with knights. Then Nigel came as well, and by that time Chris' knights were already inside the keep. We made a hole in his castle walls, and then we rushed into his keep. I was surprised when I was Chris' castle collapse, I didn't expect to defeat him like that. Too much of Stronghold Crusader I guess. :P Then we continued to push Charles and Nigel. We were careful with Charles as we assumed that he most likely had traps inside his castle. At some moment I noticed that I can send my knight, who by this time had their horses (which they previously lost during the previously mentioned bloodshed), though Charles castle into Nigel's castle. They didn't make a wall between each other on the hill. When my knights came to Nigel's keep Mathews troops broke through his walls as well, and then we managed to kill his lord. Later we regrouped in front of Charles castle, and at some moment we just rushed into his keep. We had a lot of fight there, he was waiting for us with crossbowmen and axe throwers inside together with his knights. But we managed to brake through, and to get to his lord, and win the war. :) This was very interesting game! We could play it again on that same map, and I believe that it wouldn't be less fun. Now we would only be prepared better to deal with bandits. Damn, now when I think about it... I could have bought bows and trained archers myself, that would have worked as well. :D I just forgot about it. :D

Hey, guys. As you have noticed, Firefly has been a little more active on YouTube these days, so I decided to make this thread, as some of the videos are not related to any of their games in particular. So here we go with the newest one. FIREFLY STUDIOS COMMUNITY Q&A Too bad they didn't decide to answer these questions from YouTube comments, but they were only replying to some questions from Facebook. But they do answer some of our questions in the comments, that's something as well. :) In one of replies at YouTube I suggested them to update their AI castles with the ones made by Doomsword, and to update the two Williams castles with the two castles of mine. These changes would make the game a lot more fun!

By the way, I did submit the patch for Crusader yesterday, and it appears that everything went well. I think it only needs to be approved now. :)

Multiplayer games in Stronghold 1 are great too! For example, that's the only Stronghold game in which you can make allies in a multiplayer game. That's an awesome thing if you play the game with the right company, such as the one from here. ;)

I think most of us here would prefer missions, but is it possible to easily make both? By changing map types, or somehow like that? Oh, yeah, but you can make it a "free build" by giving some insane goal, and by removing all events... That could work as well. :)

Hmm, I don't know when did you try to play Stronghold 2, but if it was years and years ago, the version 1.4.1 is far better than the older ones. I used to play the version 1.0 for years because I didn't have internet, and I didn't even know that there were patches available to download from internet. :P If I knew, I would begged somebody who had internet to download it for me. :D The 1.0 version was bad for me, it had some bugs which which effected the gameplay a lot (such as having several criminals stuck in the court house, which I mentioned earlier), and some very much needed features were missing such as no easy way to separate mounted from unmounted knights. But even that didn't stop me from playing it. :P Later I came to enjoy Stronghold 2 much more, especially after playing it on some really beautiful and well designed custom maps, and some really great scenarios! Indeed, Firefly should have employed some of these people to make maps for them. It's so lame that they haven't. (As far as I know, they haven't.) But in general - Stronghold Crusader and Stronghold 1 are the best Stronghold games. Too bad Firefly never tried to revamp these two (with their warfare and castle defenses) in 3D, and with unit collision. That way we would have epic field battles, and you wouldn't be able to pass somebodies troops by clicking fast. :)

Sure, I'll do it later today, now I'm not home. :)

I think CET and BST are not the same. I'm posting this at 18:38, while I think it's 17:38 in Britain, and what I believe is that we're going to play in 22 minutes. :)

Actually, what you approved is Stronghold Crusader Extreme patch, and that's the one which worked smoothly, and Stronghold HD which I apparently uploaded the first time I tried, but I didn't know it because of the first error message. That's just my guess. The Extreme patch is 54 MB, the Stronghold patch is 108 MB, and the lastly the Crusader patch is 142 MB. That is why I cannot submit it then. It gave me no error message, it just returned me to the blank "Stronghold Crusader submit file" page. I could the zip archive though, and submit the two parts separately? But that may not be the perfect solution.

Did you get any notifications for the Crusader patch now? It again acted somewhat weird, it was submitting the file, and then it just returned me to the blank "Submit Stronghold Crusader File" page. :/ EDIT: Stronghold Crusader Extreme HD 1.3 patch has been successfully submitted. Now I'm trying again with Stronghold Crusader HD 1.3 patch, just in case.

I hope the upload process went right... :)

Now I got this error message. I'm not going to touch anything, maybe this one has been uploaded, and maybe Chris can approve it. Won't reload the page, and I'm moving on with Crusader and Crusader Extreme.

Now I got some error message after trying to submit the patch for Stronghold HD. I'm trying to submit it again. If I don't make it, if somebody else wants to give it a try, he could use these preview images. They should look fine with the background there.

I can do it. Thanks for your offer. :) By the way, I checked the other PC, and it's the same situation. The Stronghold HD patch has this "2", and the Crusader patches don't have that. How's with your patches? :) EDIT: I am uploading these right now. Chris, we're going to need new options in the Stronghold, Crusader, and Crusader Extreme sections for 1.4 version. :)

I will upload all three, Stronghold HD patch, Crusader HD patch, and Crusader Extreme HD patch. One thing is bothering me... The Stronghold HD patch is called Stronghold_HD_Update_2, while the other two are Stronghold_Crusader_Extreme_HD_Update and Stronghold_Crusader_HD_Update. Why does the Stronghold HD one has the "2"... It appears that there were two HD patches, but was it the case with Crusader as well? I'll have a look at my other computer as well. Maybe it would be better to see what we all have before uploading, and to upload what is the best. For example, if we had Stronghold_HD_Update and Stronghold_HD_Update_2, my suggestion would be to upload Stronghold_HD_Update_2. What do you say? EDIT: Now I saw Mathews post. Sure, I have no issues with Mathew doing this. ;) But we should see about what I said about these different HD patches I guess?

That's great (the thing with subscription to a category in the downloads section)! An awesome feature if you ask me!

They have already released patches 1.4 for both Stronghold HD and Stronghold Crusader HD. It has been pushed to Steam users, and others can download it from here. You see, maybe it would be a smart thing to save the 1.3 patches as well. Chris, could we upload these patches to Stronghold Nation? I ask this because it is an exe file? I think this patch should stay available to people because who knows, maybe the new versions are actually less stable than the new ones... While I have to admit that having some players forcing the play with 1.3 would be troublesome to players with 1.4 who might not be able to play with them. It is already troublesome to many, as most of players on GameRanger play the game with non-HD versions, so those who buy the game from Steam cannot play with any of them. Players with HD versions are already minority in multiplayer community.

But you shouldn't hesitate to submit to both Stronghold Heaven and Stronghold Nation. You would be surprised how many people still download custom maps from these two websites. Only they are quite, they don't register, they don't comment nor rate these maps. But if you look at the downloads numbers, then you can see that these websites are being visited. So you just save your map, and upload it. Don't forget to submit your minimap as well. With that one others can quickly see how does your map look like. You can use this tool called Stronghold Map PNGer to easily make minimaps by the way. By the way, is there a way to subscribe at SHN downloads section, so that when something is approved in a section for a game I like, I would be notified by email for example? Do we have something like that? Like Strife said, you can send your maps to others via the lobby, but keep in mind that you could send them the link to these maps. Oh, and one more thing. You can look at Stronghold Nation and Stronghold Heaven as a way to backup your maps as well. ;) I used to make many maps which I lost due to hard drive failure, or something like that, and I didn't have internet at that time, so naturally, I wasn't able to submit it to Stronghold Heaven. Well, if I was aware of the danger I would have at least burned those on a CD or DVD, or wherever possible.

Hey guys, check out this video. https://youtu.be/560UuJstw6k Several days ago we were discussing about the engine they used to use for Stronghold 2. After 4:15 they even say few things about the engine. Apparently it they picked some engine, and they made a lot of changes into it. I thought you might find this video interesting cause we were mentioning the engine recently.

I can only wish that the new Crusader 2 was an improved Stronghold 2. That would be an epic game.

By the way, this is where I got this list from. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_System I keep receiving some error when I hit the Preview button, so I had to do it by editing the post several times... As I understand it, the main purpose of the central bank is to control the countries currency, which is essential for its trade relations. I think it also dictates stuff such as interest rates, or exchange rates, so banks wouldn't be able to do basically whatever they want, and screw over entire country or its people intentionally or with their bad decisions. (I'm not sure about anything mentioned after interest rates though.) Plasticly explained... A lot of that has to do with the fact that mostly companies and countries don't rely on cash, most of things are uncertain, and a lot of that works on trust. And if you want others to trust you, you need to have your reserves just in case... But when it comes to US in specific, as I got it, now it is much more based on trust and Tomahawks (at least so they say...), and the fact that USD is being used for trade with oil so it must not go down (petrodollar). This first part of this paragraph is about keeping the currency stable. And, the other part is that a country needs to be ready to clean up the mess of private banks. EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank SECOND EDIT: I'm just giving you some sources, but I do understand that there's a lot to read about this matter. I hope that I'm quoting enough so you don't actually need to read the rest of it. But it's not that I understand the entire story. I just think that I understand the basic idea. Also, when it comes to this topic, while I do understand how currencies work, and why is that important (because that's what my country used to struggle with since the beginning of 90's), I know far less about interests. Mostly because I have learned from my father and my grandfather that it's simply the best to avoid taking any loans from a bank. Now that is the case even more over here, because many people here work for 200-300 euro, people worry that they could lose even those jobs because of high unemployment rate.