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.

Since the 24H2 update rollout for Windows 11, the Vision engine games (SH3, SHC2, SHW) have a tendency to throw the error message in the title upon startup. The Windows update has been reported to hinder many games from functioning properly, and Firefly has also confirmed that they are working on a possible fix. January 13, 2025 Update: Firefly Studios has rolled out an official patch for all three games, resolving the issue. Simply update your desired game through Steam's built-in updater to receive the changes. You can then re-enable full screen mode from the in-game options. The workaround detailed originally should not be needed anymore. Should the update not resolve the issues, please contact Firefly's official support with the error. In case of further questions or need for assistance, please directly message us!

Hello All! It is my to delight to announce that the Legends AI opponents got a series of informative articles. Each AI Lord is shown details about their castle layout, economic decisions and choice of attack/raid forces in a short text, where most information has been gathered from the game files and through observation. Here is the link for the SHL AI Lords home page: https://www.stronghold-nation.com/article/431-stronghold-legends-ai-lords While it's known that the Legends AI is rather limited in terms of effectiveness, they can still net a few enjoyable moments and there may be potential for upgrading them for an even better challenge. Should they prove challenging to overcome, or simply interesting to read about, this is your place!

The guy was considerably active on the UCP Git discussion until a year ago, or so. Here's their GitHub profile, may be worth a shot to contact: https://github.com/Russianstory. I didn't look much for official sites or releases, nonetheless I suppose googling can grant you your answer. 🙂

Hello, Sadly I'm not too familiar with Crusader modding myself technically, but I can recommend you the GM1Konverter application which can be used to view contents of .gm1 files. The README.md should be a good starting point to familiarize yourself. Older Stronghold games (up until Legends) prove to be relatively unfriendly to mod, as most data is hardcoded in the executables or arbitrarily made up data files, so one is forced to pour lots of time looking at a Ghidra decompiler or Cheat Engine. Hope I could help!

Hi All! This time, we have two games to bring for you. @ Lord_Chris and @ Asophix played after a week again, this time on a much larger playing grounds of Swamp. On this cross-shaped map there are vast estates, with plenty of marshland in the outer edges of each peninsula and a stone circle guarded by a dragon in the middle. As in previous games, both players were placed in opposite starting positions and the game was played on minimum settings, with added weapons and food. Lord Chris played in the bottom left, while Asophix was put in the top right. Game 1 - On Short Notice The first game brought a very active early skirmish. Right from the outset, both players placed their first few buildings and rushed their Lords to the bottom right village in order to get a foothold. Asophix - in green - came through the swamps and the forest, wetting his stallion's horseshoes. Lord Chris - in blue - chose to ride along a tad longer pathway, and as he reached estate proper much earlier, he started capturing the village. The countdown had still a little while to go though, and as Asophix approached, both lords summoned their aides halfway to gain the upper hand. There was a huge difference in the summoned units' power, and with the countdown broken, the blue player started preparing for the usual cat-and-mouse game to keep distance from tempered Arthurian swords. Lord Chris has however not taken into account that mounted Knights are much faster compared to Shield Maidens, and suddenly he found himself stripped bare of mount, as part of the green group charged him down. As the Shield Maidens ran back to defend and stopped to fight with the green henchmen, Asophix broke out of the fight and used a few Knights and his Lord to assail the exposed blue Lord. The swift strike of three elite units quickly ended the fight in Asophix's favour, in a measly two minutes. Game 2 - Gnashing Teeth After the rather short game, a rematch was immediately agreed. In a rather similar manner, the early game brought sweaty palms for both sides. Asophix decided to rush out with his lord much faster, cutting the map in half rather than going for a quick capture of either estate, as it would risk him being put out of position. Knowing how powerful Knights can prove, Lord Chris assumed as much of a forward position in his estate but held back to defend. The initiative remained in the Arthurian player's hands and using the maneuverability of his loyal guards, he rode up and summoned them in the nearby treeline. The green Knights triumphantly destroyed the initial buildings of the Ice player, causing great disruption but not ending the game right away. After the skirmish, Asophix pulled his Lord back, allowing a breather for Lord Chris, who still had his power off cooldown. Identifying the defensive Stone Circle in the middle of the map, he rode there, softly pressing the green Lord away. As he captured the circle and Asophix decided to develop his economy further, Lord Chris made use of his confidence and leveraged his summons. He bypassed the green Lord, called for his trusty Shield Maidens to stall Asophix long enough to gain a head start, as he was rushing to the nether lands of his rival. He could cut down the granary and a few buildings before bailing out from his adventure. Ever Get that Feeling of Déja Vu? At around 5:30, Asophix ended up on Lord Chris's territory again. Seeing how the green Lord can unavoidably deal damage, for a moment he charged forward to the enemy estate once more. The distance there however was enormous, and he was desperate to turn back and rally back home, as Asophix employed a daring tactic using his Lord and his summoned Knights to take victory by conquering the enemy keep. The Ice player thankfully returned in time and he stopped the countdown successfully. Asophix used the time bought to extend his economy back home. As the Knights timed out, both lords momentarily exchanged sights on the Ice Keep and the green player pulled out. Lord Chris was persistently locked on the troublemaker and chased him all the way back to the green estate. In the meantime, Asophix garnered enough honor to rank up and construct a Barracks along with an Armoury. All the time within arms reach, Lord Chris barely failed to catch his adversary and met the resistance from the first light troops. Thus, he summoned his Maidens to net a few pick-offs and stall the enemy forces, as he rode home. Getting to the Mid-Game Soon came a moment of peace, relatively speaking. The blue player added a lot of iron mines and stabilized his royal food supply, while the green competitor built more on his already established industry. Asophix has sent starting troops to claim the northwest estate and Lord Chris invested a little bit of funds in getting more light troops to build camp in the middle estate, later in the southeastern village as well. Apart from a few skirmishes, the green player managed to sneak in his Lord once again and destroyed the enemy Granary. The Lord traversed out out of the pickle successfully, even though blue Archers killed his mount off. Both players continued reinforcing their first choice of footholds, with Lord Chris opting to fund an army entirely off of gold, and Asophix scraping the bottom of the barrel for a mass industry of Fletchers and Tanners, which was slow to pay off, but the healthy industry could generously fund it. The green adversary was also choosing to rank up fast, so that more siege engines and Royal Table knights could be recruited. The middle estate was eventually stabilized by the blue player, who made use of his estate ownership by erecting a Siege Camp and creating several Fire Ballistae that could pick off probing Siege Towers containing a few crossbowmen. Soon enough, both players showed their true army compositions. Lord Chris steadily introduced Pikemen into his mix, as well as relying on Archers and siege engines to gain a battleground advantage. He started amassing the medium armor by the entrance to the northwest area, however Asophix was vigilant to react to it by heavily investing in a rapid response group of Macemen. Twenty "boys" poured out of the green barracks and made contact with the blue Pikemen, while the estate garrison mainly comprised of Archers provided what ranged assistance they could. The Ice Lord reacted with a squad of Fire Ballistae and Cats, but the Macemen disengaged and turned their attention to them, dismantling them and the Siege Camp into splinters. The concave of blue Archers thinned their ranks out quite a bit though. Tipping the Scales Getting itchy to teach a lesson to his adversary, Lord Chris bought a few Knights and sent a squad of Archers to the northwest estate once again. He rebuilt the Siege Camp too and brought the same siege composition to life, now adding a few Cats to his middle garrison. The rush to the Village Hall proved really mistimed, as the Archers quickly fell to the defense's responsive fire, and the Knights weren't numerous enough to conquer the estate quickly. Asophix used the preoccupied enemy to muster an even larger force of Macemen, who ran interception and killed off a few Carters, as well as the numerous but frail sentries of blue Archers. He also used Sir Percival to dispose of the central forces with a Holy Blast. After the air was clear again, the green player removed all resistance, except those Knights in the northwestern estate. The carters continued to be a valuable target to claim rich meat deliveries. Asophix found himself in the clear and in front of empty protruding walls. His band of Macemen and Crossbowmen quickly took the lead and using the central estate, a green Siege Camp was quickly built and Laddermen soon poured out to conquer the walls, as well as Trebuchets rolled out to bombard buildings from long range. The exposed defender, Lord Chris quickly built forward Siege Camps to snipe the invaders with fiery bolts, as the green troops scaled his walls. This triggered a quick response from Asophix, sending in a band of Macemen to quickly destroy the threat. Blue Pikemen and the Lord also arrived to sweep the area and after the Camp was removed, the Macemen decided to raid the food chains and cause marginal damage along with destroying the Ice Granary. A Test of Willpower and Economy Lord Chris did not waver upon the destruction wrought on his industry. Using his vast real estate, he slowly rebuilt his food production in the back of his Keep, while slowly growing an impenetrable defense comprised of Archers, Crossbowmen and Pikemen. Asophix could not use his leather-armored troops directly in the confrontation, so he slowly tightened the containment and used his Trebuchets and units to destroy whatever building possible from long range. The Macemen went as far as to removing the blue Iron Mines. After scrambling a little bit to stabilize the forward outpost due to Lord Chris's recalled archer groups, the green player decided to bring in his few Trebuchets closer and commence with further bombardment. This maneuver proved however fatal for Asophix, as another guerilla Siege Camp appeared and Fire Ballistae destroyed the now defenseless Trebuchets. Carters worked hard to keep the blue economy alive, and after the second camp was removed, the green Macemen rushed in to desperately cause whatever damage they can. They were no match for the keep's protectors. As the Macemen reinforcements kept coming, Lord Chris decided it's time to roll out a few Frost Giants and confidently march to the green territory. The giants were so fast that they arrived there relatively unscathed, working on crucial buildings, destroying a few in the process. They did not manage to kill the production though. The next 45 minutes could be described as sweaty and stressful for both sides. Asophix maintained the containment, but the lack of trebuchets and a way to directly assail the blue Keep caused him to send droves of Macemen, eventually Swordsmen and Knights without proper protection against it. The lull between two attacks also allowed Lord Chris to muster additional hit squads of Frost Giants and force his opponent to spend badly needed funds into repelling them with Knights and Macemen elsewhere. Eventually, Lord Chris managed to reach a state of impenetrability: he successfully dug himself in, adding the Ice Queen, rebuilding his economy and popping up Fire Ballistae constantly to thin out the sieging army. Asophix tried all kinds of different unit compositions, but all efforts were blunted by freezing attacks and concentrated fire from the defenders. The drawing of the line continued. After 1 hour and 25 minutes, the conflicting forces agreed to a draw and a final charge, seeing how neither side can reach a decisive progress without committing a large mistake. A true testament of power from both participants!

Hi All! The icy blades of two veteran soldiers has been tested, in the frozen wastelands. @ Lord_Chris and @ Asophix have battled it out in the map Fjords, a balanced four-player map, where each estate is interconnected with narrow bridges. It is rather tricky to create a defensive encampment, as seen in the coming paragraphs. As an added difficulty and newfound experience, the game was played on the lowest rank, with no resources and consequently a very limited initial tech. Some food stocks were added to allow some breathing room, and random events haven't bothered the participants to allow for more of a fair fight. Setting Out It's only a folly to think that the inability to build a barracks and having no starting troops warrants a peaceful early-game. Right in the first minute, both players took arms and coincidentally headed towards the top-left estate to gain some ground, with their Lord. As Lord Chris arrived with his first and started claiming the village, while also exclaiming, Asophix decided it is best to summon Shield Maidens to delay the estate's capture, as well as in an attempt to unhorse the enemy Lord, making for an easier capture of the other neutral village. The red Major was however vigilant and cleverly disengaged, while also summoning his own Maidens. After both sides' Maidens were exhausted, Asophix's Lord could not reach the second estate in time to complete the capture and in fear of retaliation, he pulled back to his home estate to avert damage at home. Lord Chris did use the opportunity to seize the other estate. Building Up The next 5 to 10 minutes passed in relative peace. As both sides built up their initial economy and worked through the first few ranks, Asophix was rather reluctant to sit on his bottom and after building a bunch of Seal Holes and four Wood Camps with a modest stone and iron production, he used whatever gold he could to buy up royal foods for providing honour and recruit 10 starting archers and men-at-arms. The green archers reclaimed the second village estate from Lord Chris, while iron and meat production was greatly extended. Lord Chris at the same time opted for a more balanced approach, covering all possible economic branches consistently. For the Pantry, all three food production buildings were established, however raw material production lagged a little bit behind. What he correctly identified however, was the importance of honor and therefore kept his honor income consistent. He also used his own Lord to cut down the small band of archers and retook both estates again. Probing Attacks Having enough of the constricting situation, Asophix decided to scan the enemy home estate for vulnerabilities and take the initiative. Not minding the status quo, he invested a whopping 110 honor to erect an Ice Tower and recruit a single White Witch. The Witch was sent directly across the map, above the enemy royal food production to at least partially disrupt it. While this prompted a brief response from ~ 10 red Archers and the threat was dealt with rather quickly, Asophix used the opportunity to build the production for Crossbowmen and candles in preparation for the Church. The next round of skirmish came a little later, as Asophix created a band of 17 White Wolves and sent them to contest the firstly occupied estate, which was under the guard of a light red Archer group. The Wolves quickly disposed of the garrison, however reinforcements were not much far behind. Lord Chris sent a band of men-at-arms recruited from the initial supply, and this group arrived fast to the scene. Even though they were quickly decimated, the Wolves' ranks were thinned out considerably enough that a relief force of ~15 Crossbowmen pushed the invading canines out of the red territory for good. A follow-up harassment force of 3 White Witches was the nail in the coffin for Asophix's direct threats. As Lord Chris had a nicely running economy that could easily fund cheap units to repel intruders, he started building engine towers overlooking the outer perimeter, with Dragon Harpoons added on each one. The red estates were in relative safety from this point on. Counterattack in the East Using his superior funds, the Red player opted for a two-pronged attack. Using White Witches to secure the bridges and a Siege Camp in his other estate, Lord Chris constructed a few Catapults to lightly pummel the walls where the green defenders were rallying. In lieu of immediate response capabilities, Asophix had to spend yet another 200 honor on white wolves to run interception and maul the devilish engines to scrap before they could do much damage. Struggling with the lack of a proper frontline, Asophix doubled down on weapon production and added Pikeman equipment production, reaching 120 population. Since this took a lot of time to take effect, the Red adversary used his time to funnel additional forces into both of his villages. As Swordsmen and Pikemen rushed forth to the icy village halls, the total map domination of Lord Chris grew impossible to challenge head-on. Yet another group of red catapults appeared and started working on the Green player's outer defenses. As Asophix was desperate to build a Lookout Tower to provide bulk and height for his crossbowmen, the White Wolves also lead a second counterattack. This defensive measure proved costly however, as Crossbowmen loyal to Lord Chris had now a safe firing position from the village hall. Out of 25-30 White Wolves only 5 retreated home safely, telling tales of their defeat, provided they could speak a human language. Using Asophix's own method, Lord Chris scanned his area for vulnerabilities and decided to send a group of 10-15 White Witches around the defenses. There was one area not properly covered with Dragon Harpoons, so the witches were able to successfully pass through unscathed and unleashed their enchanted arrows on ant-like civilians. A second wave of Witches arrived and caused temporary loss of production in the enemy ranks until the hole was sealed and a Dragon Harpoon cleared home skies. Trouble Brewing Lord Chris had his siege camp still up in the second estate, which eventually weighed in the decision of building out a semi-impenetrable foothold there. As the Red ruler continued developing his economy and constantly strengthened his garrison, Asophix smelled blood. In a daring and ultimately costly strategic decision, he called the Ice Queen forth and sent her on a long march along a remote path to the foothold estate. She passed through undetected and the cold-hearted woman unleashed her icy wrath just on the edge of her ability range. Even though she came under fire, lots of red troops froze to death in their encampment. After the skirmish, Asophix decided it's time to go full evasive mode. Using his gold coffers and his last reserves of honor, he was desperate to find an angle. Replenishing his lost White Wolves and recruiting another 25 White Witches, the icy commando was running and flying around the perimeter, but there was no infiltration point: Lord Chris has built a well-maintained defense network of Dragon Harpoons and Crossbowmen. A band of 40 green Archers was unsuccessful the same way, but they could be repurposed as defense, as the red containment grew stronger. Eventually, the Red Siege Camp spawned catapults again, this time supported by durable wooden Cats. As troops being repositioned around the Lookout Tower were moving about, the catapults netted juicy shots, thinning out the defensive garrison considerably. A quick response of Asophix's White Wolves was successful dismantling the siege engines and the siege camp, but they all died in the process. All Hell Breaking Loose In the next 10 minutes, both sides built up their forces wherever needed. Although the focal point remained in the second estate, the other side got some reinforcements too, which Asophix tried to deter by arming to the teeth with crossbowmen. He also got his core army of 65-70 Pikemen, which he immediately deployed to the frontline. As the pikemen were congregating, Lord Chris also grabbed his colorful garrison and decided to create a combined-arms type of composition with multiple fire ballistae and additional cats. Asophix also deployed a handful of fire ballistae of his own and started taking potshots at the enemy ranks. This prompted Lord Chris to pull his forces together, while a small band of Frost Giants and Polar Bears marched steadily in their might. What he did not expect was the presence of the Ice Queen, whose icy attack temporarily stalled the towering colossi, then the rest of both main forces arrived. Snow fell from the Ice Queen's hands, White Witches rained down bright arrows, and careful maneuvering resulted in a second clash, this time with support from Lord Chris's pikemen. With the battle in full rage, Asophix's full attention was caught up in it. He reveled in control and concentrated on dispatching additional reinforcements from the nearby barracks. What he overlooked however was his other defensive front. Lord Chris sent in ten mighty Frost Giants, who easily walked through the thin walls and the endless rain of crossbow bolts, finding their way in the heart of the enemy stronghold. After two minutes of pure destruction, Asophix realized the error in his ways. Overlooking the loss of his town, he committed suicide rather unceremoniously to escape suffering. Congratulations to @ Lord_Chris for his victory!

Hi @ stev ! All of the options use the mouse wheel to edit the values. 🙂 Many other events use this option in the same manner, regardless of war/peace mission. Also, keep in mind that Viking ships don't have a wrecked state and the ship simply stays in place if "Turn into Wreck" is chosen.

When you click the "Edit Scenario" button in the map preview pane, you can edit all options, including the trader settings. It doesn't matter which mission type you choose, the scenario editor should always be available. By default all goods trades are turned off, which you need to manually turn on per type. Alt + ' apostrophe ' can also bring you up a panel for starting gold, rations and tax levels as well. Explore the settings a bit and you'll find how much you can influence your missions. 🙂

Hello! Your assumption is right: iron is only placeable on elevations. Paint a section of the map with mountains, then paint the plateau with iron, which will now appear. The inverse applies to grass, as you can only place it on ground level. Everything should work fine with the in-game editor. I don't know of any standalone editor, but frankly, you shouldn't need any.

Thanks @ Planewalker ! Theoretically, any castle size should suffice. The stock Firefly maps are often ill-suitable for large castles though, which is a let-down. It's a Firefly syndrome to include way too small playing areas. 😕 According to my findings, either the AI is prone to block itself (got it on The Snake), or the estates are way too confined to fully construct a large design in them. Most of my tests involved the map "Fair Fight", but even there, I was forced to relocate the starting locations on the map due to the proximity of forests. Either way, the same limitations apply as in the predecessor editor, e.g. a 100x100 grid is where the AI's castle is to be built. I'd rather the keep is left on center location in the AIC, and the maps themselves were designed properly. 😄 Addendum: the AI only builds wood camps near "Tree 2". Fair Fight includes the wrong type of tree in all estates and I also replaced the forests there. I am considering collecting all limitations and showing them in the Help, in a coming version.