Asophix

Okay, so I checked the screenshots thoroughly and it seems like the majority of the problems comes from wrongly shifted buildings. I agree that editing is not the easiest, because buildings screenshots weren't done from the same angle & distance. My takeaways: Keep appears 1 tile above its real position (size is correct, you couldn't build the walls occupying its bottom row footprint) Gatehouse appears 1 tile below its real position Armoury is 1 tile narrower than in reality (also smaller by half a tile's size) The rally points should work properly. It looks like that rally points have a slight inaccuracy when the AI parses them in-game, so a point added on top of a basic or lookout tower may end up shifted, centering it on the ground instead of placing it on the tower. You could try ticking the 'elevated' property for the rally point in order to affect AI placement, when you want it to be placed on top of a structure. The keep rotation also seemed to not affect building placement. There may be certain cases when an AIC goes corrupt: please if you can reproduce such situations, don't hesitate to detail them here! I'll need some more time to test out a few scenarios and update the utility here on SHN.

@ EaglePrince It's your time to shine now, the Demo is re-enabled! Saving and loading is still not available though, so prepare accordingly.

To my knowledge, there are no community utilities like that. Secondly, your question is too generic. SH2 / Legends has active logic bundled in its .exe game binary and assorted .dll files. Input files (like gamerules.dat) have no active logic, they are consumed by the game during its lifetime. From the ground up you have no other choice, but to reverse engineer the game binaries and see for yourself. Ghidra can be used to conduct analysis and restore some of the C++ code in pseudo-format, if you are tech savvy. Cheat Engine may be useful for active memory monitoring.

Greetings! Lately, @ Lord_Chris and me @ Asophix of the Stronghold Nation staff has started testing our mettle in Stronghold Legends again. Be it a friendly spar, or a true test of weapons and skill against wanderers on the Internet, we gladly invite everyone to our hearth! We frequently play both in an organized manner on Steam, via the in-game lobby system. Generally we prefer 10min peace time matches with low starting rank, low resources and no building or troop restrictions. We also record some of our matches and upload them on SHN's humble YouTube Channel! If you would like to play with us, hit us up here anytime!

In previous Stronghold entries, weapon workshops are a cornerstone of a steady industry, sparing money in the long run. As it is well-known, workshops pay for themselves by using much cheaper resources from your stockpile. Legends is the first Stronghold game toying with the idea of expensive buildings. The game tried to promote a much slower development to slow down industrial output, therefore putting a dent into workshop accessibility. How has this affected overall trends? Workshops in SHL cost uniformly 50 wood - barely 4 woodcutter trips - and a variable amount of gold. Moreover, they also produce at different paces (fast is roughly 1.5x speed, slow is 0.5x - 0.66x compared to normal speed) and every one of them delivers one unit. The workshops have the following statistics: Poleturner (costs 150 gold, wood included): Spears: requiring 1 wood (2g), one spear (10g) brings +8g profit. Would cost 15g if bought. Fast production speed. Pays for itself after 11 cycles. Pikes: requiring 1 wood (2g), one pike (18g) brings +16g profit. Would cost 20g if bought. Average production speed. Pays for itself after 6 cycles. Fletcher (costs 250 gold, wood included): Bows + crossbows: requiring 1 wood (2g), one weapon (15g) brings +13g profit. Would cost 30g if bought. Pays for itself after 17 cycles. Bows are produced at average speed, while crossbows are made slowly. Blacksmith (costs 300 gold, wood included): Swords: requiring 1 iron (50g), one sword (42g) brings -8g profit. Would cost 48g if bought. Average production speed. Does not pay for itself! If iron is not bought, then pays for itself after 151 cycles (breaking even in 150). Maces: requiring 1 iron (50g), one mace (42g) brings -8g profit. Would cost 44g if bought. Slower production speed. Does not pay for itself! If iron is not bought, then pays for itself after 151 cycles (breaking even in 150). Armorer (costs 250 gold, wood included): Requiring 1 iron (50g), one plate armor (44g) brings -6g profit. Would cost 50g if bought. Slow production speed. Does not pay for itself! If iron is not bought, then pays for itself after 43 cycles. Tanner (costs 150 gold, wood included): Requiring nothing(!), one leather armor brings +12g profit. Would cost 15g if bought. Fast production speed. Pays for itself after 11 cycles (breaking even in 10). Without factoring in distance from the stockpile and armoury each, we can clearly see that tanners and poleturners give the biggest return of investment over time, if their required material is supplied from the market. Tanners are the best choice for pure profit, since they don't require anything. The key takeaway is that refining iron into equipment yields very negligible profit. Iron sells for 40g apiece, therefore the blacksmith/armorer must operate for an excruciatingly long period in order to pay for itself. The final nail in the coffin for ironmakers is the vast selling price of iron. Selling for 40g apiece, the loss on buying up metal equipment ranges from 4g to 10g. These marginal differences eliminate the large need for our smithies. While tanners are far from the most ideal income generators, it is most wise to build them if all deposits are saturated and space is limited, as food production vastly outclasses them. TL;DR: if you are forced into workshops, build tanners and maybe poleturners creating spears, otherwise ignore workshops if you can't place iron mines! 😄

I also gave a go for the 'Hard' skirmish mission and finished it in one sitting. Firefly designed the map in a really clever way: you get a naturally defensible position, but horrible economic prospects and the tech limitation also forces you to play the slow game, unless you are creative 😄 The enemies can also get on your nerves pretty fast with the sheer number of shock troops sent at you. There is only one mission available for the trail so don't fret if you missed anything! You can build an almost foolproof defense if you manage to build the iron and weapons industry. Some tips for the boring strategy: Spoiler You only need to seal off your side of the ford with a lookout tower, a small gate and minimal walling. The starting troops can finish their work just in time before the first attack waves. Feed your peasants ale, not food. One hops farm on the oasis can supply two inns and four, maybe five breweries, eventually maxing out at 58 population. Ignore Fuzzy Wuzzy's advice and remove the forest asap to afford buildings. Wood is affordable once you have stable income from the iron mines. Build three fletchers making crossbows and buy the leather necessary. While crossbowmen won't get the first hit in, skirmishers take two bolts, much like Arabian archers. A line of towers packed with xbows, overlooking the river will slow down quarry operations. Add a few archers mainly to snipe quarrymen and ox hitchers as the Nomads drench you in skirmishers. Build swordsmen as your main force. They steamroll the Nomads and with luck, the Sentinel too, when supported by a tower. Also, some information about the two enemies you face: Spoiler The Nomad Introductory-level enemy who likes his Bedouin troops. He is a mixture of the Snake and the Sultan, being more annoying than menacing. His castle is more like a camp. Only walls with gaps in them, no moat, no towers, no gates. His encampment really looks deserted apart from the keep area, but has plentiful lego blocks. Nomad's economy is comprised of selling stone and iron. He only ever gathers apples for food, which isn't much. He is also weirdly prone to survive on little food. This guy LOVES Skirmishers. They are sent in droves much like monks from the Abbot, they always get in hits from enormous range, and in general they will piss you off. For attacks, I have seen Demolishers accompanying skirmishers. There are also Camel Lancers for harassment, but they are generally stopped when your castle can't be broken into. The Sentinel The guy from the main menu screen, who is not very easy to take. He is very defensive and takes some time to get running. He builds a dense Templar cross-shaped castle with dense moat. One gatehouse on two sides each, and a square tower with tower equipment on the other two each. Economy is the same as Nomad, plus dairy farms. Also ample weapons production. Sentinel loves his leather armor. Crossbowmen are his choice of ranged troop, supported by macemen and pikemen. There aren't many attack waves from Sentinel. Beyond his standard troops, I've seen Demolishers, as well as he builds catapults. He is fairly bad at digging up moat.

Glad you like the demo! 🙂 It is really shaping up to be a serviceable game after all those 'missteps' Firefly didn't get just right enough. The alpha is also looking advanced enough that there are no apparent bugs. Surely there are annoyances like not being able to access the trade panel right away (it must be done by clicking on the scale, then on the good type), or children being in the way of placement, but these can be easily fixed if need be. Coop is coming up, as well as there are additional skirmish missions beyond the first one. Maybe the coop trail doesn't deserve the type of bells and whistles, granted you can set up a custom skirmish room with the same presets. However, if we get some coop missions like the scripted Crusader States' missions (e.g. Mission 2 Snake getting a huge bunch of Arabs attacking very early on), I may even salute the devs. 😄 It definitely looks to pack more replayability than full titles as of late.

I wouldn't bet my life on it, but it seems to behave well enough. I played a few 1.2 skirmish maps in multiplayer and those worked out just fine. I got these transferred from another player, who originally downloaded them from Heavengames. The best way to check though is to test out a few specimen by yourself. As of this post, all Legends maps submissions are pre-2013 on HG so you can't go wrong (https://stronghold2.heavengames.com/downloads/lister.php?category=shl_walkthrough).

For what it's worth, I played the demo a little bit and so far it resembles SH1: DE. It's early to tell anything but I could see myself buying it on release. There is the weirdly fluid movement coupled with low animation frame rates and the graphics may take quite a bit to get used to due to the contrast, otherwise the game plays well. It feels much easier to see where a building's footprint goes and projectiles are more pronounced too. The Skirmisher has a weirdly long range with its spears (the same as an archer!) and the demo enemies love to spam them, so it could feel hard to defend against them. Portable shields can't go on towers in the new game either! 😄

Addendum Browsing the in-game help and options, there are additional details not available in first glance. The following summary outlines these for you, giving a better picture of what we can expect. Automarket A well-known feature from other Stronghold titles and SH1:DE, the market can be set to automatically trade goods below or beyond a certain threshold. Bedouin Mercenaries They are hired in the Bedouin Stockade, in a similar way to the Arabian mercenaries. They need only gold and a free peasant for each recruitment. The following troops are addressed: Skirmisher: a light-armored ranged unit, who throws javelins from long range, but with low attack frequency. Eunuch: slow and bulky area attacker, who cleaves through enemy ranks with double sabres. Sapper: a fast siege specialist. Carrying a shovel, he can 'eat through castle walls in no time', as well as reveals pitch ditches and is very resistant to fire. Demolisher: a light siege specialist. He carries a tower shield, which can absorb projectiles until broken. He can also remove pitch ditches and killing pits, as well as destroy structures easily with his sledgehammer. Healer: a combat medic, who can slowly heal one allied unit at a time. They largely resemble their Crusader 2 counterpart. Heavy Camel: a heavy and expensive all-round unit carrying an archer and a fighter. It behaves similar to the Horse Archer, but it can't fire on the move. Camel Lancer: a very light variant of the Knight, riding down its target with a lance. Ambusher: a guerilla variant of the Fire Thrower, these guys can become stealthed like the Assassin, when not in close proximity of enemy troops. They hurl fire pots at an area or an automatic target.

Current status: UNAVAILABLE (v1.02 access on Steam, 1.6 GB size) --- Greetings Lords and Ladies, Firefly Studios has revealed their plans to release Stronghold Crusader as a definitive edition on July 15th, 2025. Much like Stronghold 1, this "re-release" aims to provide an experience close to that of the original game, with redone graphics and added content on top. SHC:DE promises to add the following: 4 new AI characters, 8 new Bedouin mercenary units, Sands of Time skirmish trails with global leaderboards, a cooperative skirmish trail to battle alone or with a friend against the computer in a series of missions. In the demo, you can select from two preset missions: a Sands of Time scenario with limited tech, pitting you against two Nomad and one Sentinel lords. Leaderboard is online for the single mission. a custom war mission, where you have to hold out against invasions of Bedouin raiders. It is strictly underlined that contents are liable to change in a later version, and the demo does not represent the final product. --- Demo updates (chronology): January 20, 2025: Version 1.0 available - initial release. February 4, 2025: Availability for 1.0 ended. February 24, 2025: Version 1.01 available: stockpile / armoury interface good can navigate to the market Russian localization added various interface and bugfixes Patch 1.02 available: Spanish & Italian localization added wall targeting improved (most apparent when attacking walls from certain directions) various bugfixes March 4, 2025: Availability for 1.02 ended.

Great that you made it work! Yes, you should be able to use them, as described in the linked guide. Most Legends missions have invasions without enemies having a keep. Standard Legends invasion AI is pretty basic once you see through it and I guess they function better with markers in place. The scenario editor and the endless possibilities in the trigger system more than make up for it though. I really liked your scenario while looking for the error! 😄

I may have found the issue with the aforementioned invasion. @ IgnasheunKnight has kindly sent me his map over, so I definitely had an easier time! The problem is that the owner of the invasion is the Red player. Period. SHL has an aneurysm for some reason which makes the invasion stall forever, not creating the siege camp. To reproduce the issue, I removed the win triggers from the two preceding missions, and set a date of 0 months for the last invasion (counting from the start of the mission). I also set the type of the last invasion from 'Movement' to 'Siege', as per Planewalker's invasion guide (Movement does not prompt the army to attack). I tested the following scenarios: Relocated the assembly point marker. The invasion army came the same way as before, ruling out that there is not enough space for the siege camp to build. Removed the Lord from the invasion force. This had no effect. Changed the owner from Red to Gray (10). This resulted in the siege army to come immediately, setting up a siege camp at the designated place instead of bringing all army equipment together. The camp produced the siege engines and they proceeded in moving forward, as well as the invasion force did the same. To see if it's the red player being on the map causing the issue, I changed the red Vlad into green, while the invasion owner was still Red. The original problem occurred again. I tested if setting the Red player from Vlad to Lancelot has any effect. Nah. Being annoyed by the fact, I changed the invasion owner to green (the red Vlad was also set green). He was acting the same as Gray, bringing his army up to the assembly point, constructing a siege camp, and building the siege engines, launching the siege. I haven't tested for all colors, but Green and Gray (4, and 10) made a suitable invasion owner. Changing that, and the Invasion type to Siege could help you fix the problem!

It's really weird. Sadly I can't advise more from this glance. 😞 Feel free to send the map over in a DM and I'll gladly take a look!

I'm not sure what causes the issue. You could definitely try changing "Normal Invasion" to "Siege Point" and associate a pre-placed map marker with it, if the game can't determine a suitable siege position by itself. I also noticed that some red trebuchets have unpacked on the first picture: have they got any siege camp built? There is not much info so I can't tell more for the moment.