EaglePrince

This seems interesting glad to see some new maps coming. :) It's getting late here, and I need to go to sleep, but I will read the whole story tomorrow. From the minimap, it seems really good, although Stronghold 2 maps can't be judged by the minimap - there are too many details we don't see this way. :)

I like someone made a tread like this here. There is a similar one at Crusader 1 or Stronghold 1 forum, but we do have lots of good memories from Stronghold 2 as well. Sadly, I don't have so much great memories from Campaign, as I let my brother win those - I was fighting economic missions, while he was dealing with enemies when he has an army - an army from the scenario, or an army I created. :) Still, those are good memories - trying to prevail during massive enemy invasions and to build up an economy, and I remember playing many skirmish maps. I specially remember Baltic map, the position in south-west was my favorite in the beginning, while after some time I enjoyed the one in south-east as well, as one can find a lot of space in that estate. :) God, if I just had some more maps like those ones I found later on internet. :D

And my PC is back to life, it has a new graphic card now. :) Still, it is an old PC, so I got an used graphic card, but this one is somewhat better. Also, even though it is an old PC, it is the one I enjoy writing from. An old friend has been cured. :)

It was a great battle indeed! Nigel fought really well, and although I besieged his castle carefully, he did make it to surprise me with small bands of his troops to destroy some of my siege equipment. His macemen show to be pretty useful as well! Luckily, that happened after those equipment finished their main tasks. I don't know what defensive systems are we going to have to defeat next time, but perhaps giving Nigels some mounted knights, or only few stables in addition to the knights he already has. This could give him more options, in his attempts to surprise the enemy. I look forward on continuing this war after we heal those wounds and rest.

Thanks, it is always precious to hear others thoughts about this matter.

"I have fallen in battle, you must now lead the fight, my Lord! " Until I get my PC fixed. :) Luckily, I do have two of them, and the one I can play Stronghold Crusader 2 on, is working, so I will be able to face Nigel again at the tournament. :) Only this one that has failed me is the one I spend most time on, and so for that reason I don't write much these few days.

Mathew, you should keep in mind that no matter what you will always be our brother in arms. :)

Thanks, Nigel! You fought really well too! :) It was indeed an interesting battle! I do have some ideas how I could win this game. Perhaps a little bit better timing, and slightly different troops choice.

I agree, none of those games is a castle simulation - in each of those one builds his base, but not a stronghold. Perhaps it would be the best to have something like this, but completely in Europe, so there would be English, French, Byzantines, Saracens (from Spain), Hungarians, Russians, Mongols, Germans, Vikings, etc... Turks could fit there as well. But it would be important for each of them to build some kind of castle - some would build wooden one, and they would be capable to early attack, and they should be great at raiding, while others should be the ones with more expensive army, but better defenders. If someone here played Travian, then I could tell him - it would be something like Romans and Teutons in Travian. Still, in that case, the developer should put enough effort to make it well balanced - like in Travian, and like in Age of Empires, where one can play with his/her favorite people, and no nation would be inferior to others.

I also agree it would be really interesting to have a game like this. I would only like to say that longbows didn't exist at the time of Crusaders - they were invented during Hundred Years War... Or, they may have been invented earlier, but that's the time when they began to be widely used by the English. Or at least I think so... Regarding Empires Down of Modern World, it is indeed a great game, only it is, like you later said, different from Stronghold - it's more like Age of Empire, or Empire Earth, or etc... Still, I also need to tell that I do like this thing with Stronghold - that Crusaders don't build those gray walls in the desert; they build the same walls as Arabians do. Also, it wouldn't be possible for them to build something different, as they don't have the same materials as they do in Europe. For this reason I wouldn't like to see a lot different buildings types such as in Rise of Nations, but some smaller variations would be really nice.

Now I see I haven't replied here, although I did write down the reply, but I didn't hit the Submit button. :) Thanks, Lord Dubious, that's exactly what he needed! Also, it may be possible that this thing with scripting could make a problem, and that I wouldn't realize what's the source of it; so thanks for that too, guys. Thank you Isaiah as well, that's something I wouldn't expect. I also assume that removing the scripting like Lord Dubious described should work, but either way - it is possible, and it's not complicated. Thanks for your help, guys! :) Also, off topic, I'm glad to see you here - with your avatar, this places reminds me even more on Stronghold Knights, which is a good thing. :)

Thanks for your help guys, although I fear this doesn't answer what I was wondering... Perhaps I didn't express myself well. What my brother wants to do is to build his castle, and to script invasions, so he could see how tough his castle is; and after that, he wants to besiege his own castle - he wants to switch the sides. Is that possible? I also know about this trick with .sav and .map file extensions, but I can't see how that would help me. :(

Hi! I just meant to ask if it is possible to make an invasion map (in which one defends a castle), and after that to convert the map into siege that map, so human player could attack this same castle. Is that possible? Thanks in advance! Regards. :)

Congratulations Crusader, you indeed deserved it! :)

I haven't tried Windows 10, but I have been following articles about it, and it seems pretty good. Still, just like Mathew, I will not be upgrading my Windows 7 PC's - at least not until I buy a new PC... Speaking about Windows 8, I wasn't able to play around with Windows 8 much, until this year, as this school where I work has PC's running Windows 8 in most of classrooms. It's not that bad, it is pretty nice, but it is much pleasant to have the menu. Also, although it is possible to install some additional program to be able to have the start menu, I could say that it is not possible in my case - in those classrooms, as most of them don't have a fast internet connection, and I don't have much time to handle with that. When they offer their own menu, people will surely use MS's product more gladly then some third party program. Hmm, and now when we came to the fact that it is possible to have a menu at Windows 8... I wonder how didn't Microsoft release their own menu, as that would satisfy a lot of customers.

Indeed a great tutorial, thanks Lowenherz. :)

Now when Chris mentioned it, I would be glad to play Stronghold 3 gaming event - if I have the time, of course. :)

Right now I am scanning both my PC's, and I am unable to try it, but I will, and check it out. I think that when you hit the MULTIPLAYER button you are being directed to multiplayer lobby (powered by GameSpy) which doesn't work, and you can't do anything there. Then Chris's game crashes, while mine acts like I described...

I thing that, if you are a Stronghold fan, then you need to have Stronghold 3 as well! It is very playable, besides that bad rating, one can play the campaign - several of campaigns, and there are custom scenarios as well. You should be aware of the fact that it doesn't have skirmish mode, but Firefly bring really a lot of great stuff into this game. For example I like how the wall acts in Stronghold 3 when being his by a catapult - first it only cracks and looses its health, and after that it also collapse. Troops on top of the wall do lose their health if catapults hits it, but it is not as drastically as in Stronghold 2 for example. Only you should patiently wait for a sale. Which reminded me of one thing I saw! It is available in this bundle now for ?2.20: http://www.bundlestars.com/all-bundles/trinity-bundle/ The offer ends in about 8 days. I must say that I am not much familiar with buying games online, so I am not much familiar with this website as well, but those guys on Steam said it's fine, and that they used to get stuff from there before. I'm not saying it is a reliable, nor it is not, I just know nothing - like John Snow. :D

That is interesting, I didn't know about this bug; although I do assume that if you hit those men in a way that would bring them out of the map or into the see, it would cause their disappearance, or death... Similarly, if a soldier is being hit by catapult or ballista and that hit brings him to wall, it is also natural for him to die - he isn't hit by a regular arrow, and the wall doesn't make it any easier. :D Another thing is that in Stronghold games we don't have troops collision, so it is possible to do this to 20 men at once if they are on the same spot, but that is another issue, and we are used to it. :)

You're not alone there. When I try to go into multiplayer menu, it doesn't crash, but I have to wait for a while, and after several minutes of sitting in front of computer it would say that multiplayer is unavailable or something like that. So, if I accidentally click on multiplayer, I have to wait, or to shut down the game, and run it again. :) I have never seen an option for LAN in Stronghold 2, but maybe there is such an options, I'm not sure.

Well, speaking about bugs in Stronghold 2, I haven't seen some major bugs in this game. Also, it is really stable, it hasn't crashed to me in any multiplayer game, and same applies for multiplayer. It is a whole different story with 1.4 version which used to crash in singleplayer quite often. Regarding Stronghold 3, people are saying about it's bugs, but those bugs are not that much present as people tend to say. Both singleplayer and multiplayer work quite will there!

That's interesting, cause having double rations is one of main ways how I get gold in Stronghold 2. :) Especially with food from my villages. :)

This is indeed very interesting. :)

Still, I wouldn't judge Firefly by looking at 1.4 version - it is the fact that 1.4.1 the one supposed to be installed on our PC's and it is indeed a stable version. This is why I would recommend installing the 1.4.1 patch, and this way you would be able to play all custom maps there are without any crashes. Since it is possible for all of us to have 1.4.1 I think that's the best option - with exception to map makers who have their own reason why they like 1.3.1 more.