Asophix

Hello Everyone, I am pleased to announce that a public release of the Castle Editor is made available! https://www.stronghold-nation.com/downloads/file/698-ai-castle-editor/ This program is a recompilation and a vastly improved version of the old SHK community editor intended for SH2. With this program, you can edit and introduce castle templates for all Legends bot characters. The AI Editor includes a few quality of life changes, while preserving the style of its predecessor, such as: File History of the last 10 templates visited or used Automatic save function (can be turned off) Tile indicator for easier building placement Automatic keep placement in the center for new designs Flood-fill deletion for removing large chunks of wall, moat and pitch ditch sections Support of "Open With" feature for .AIC files on Windows In order to use the program, simply unpack the .zip package on to your file system and run the .exe in the attachment. The program relies on Java to run, but everything necessary is bundled, so you don't need to install anything else. It is highly recommended that the file structure remains intact, or you may encounter weird program behaviour! Version 0.7 marks the first release, but it is not the final one, as it will continue to see fixes and improvements for the foreseeable future. You can submit feature or bugfix requests in a comment by the file's Download section, or directly to me! Many thanks for @ Lord_Chris and @ Planewalker for testing the application and providing feedback on it! Happy Editing!

Thanks, quite well! I would consider the ability to build almost complete. Every lord can be given a functional castle without misplaced buildings or differences, you can do it as well. I updated the overhead building images and implemented a reposition of the camera upon zooming in. It is very rudimentary so it may not work in all positions (more of a math problem). Markers are the only thing left to update, so I'm going to finish them as well and provide a new update, shortly.

Interesting findings. I'd be more interested in more complex layouts as well! Given how buildings can be rotated and have different access points (such as seal holes have only one entrance on the platform), there may be cases where certain farms perform better than others. In some Youtube match recordings, I've seen people go for loads of chicken coops after building a variety of all farms (presumably for early honor). Could you see those being superior despite? Cheese may be marginally better, but chicken farms come online faster so you can trade food for gold earlier with them.

Yes, it would 100% work! The AI has a robust enough economy that they can afford weapons for their troops. I have not found how a Lord is given a faction, but theoretically they can build any unit, if the recruitment building is available for them. This program is only a Castle Editor right now, and you have no influence over the AI troop roster. Much like the SH2 editor, you can define rally points for the preset groups, between which the AI tries to spread troops evenly. There is a Lord Editor in the works, for which development has just been started. The grid toggle option is available for the SH2 editor as well, it is unchanged here! 😄

Thank you @ Lord_Chris for the acknowledgement! It feels good to be here!

Hello Everyone! I have been developing an AI Editor for Stronghold Legends. The aim is to get as much liberty as possible over the design of an AI, making them more competent and fun to play against. I also hope that any user can have a smooth experience, while designing a dream castle! This project is a recompiled and modified variant of the original Stronghold-Knights SH2 AI Editor, adapted for Legends. Currently it knows a little bit more than its predecessor, with a few quality-of-life features added: Working directory and save file history up to ten files. Zoom in and out with the mouse wheel. As the development's initial focus was to get a robust adaptation for a foolproof planning, the utility and its design in particular can still feel a lot 2005-ish. I have plans to upgrade the app with a lot more features and supply it a more up-to-date look and feel, with responsiveness in mind. If you want to participate in testing, please message me on my profile! Any remarks are also welcome under this post. 🙂 As an inspiration, see an excerpt of Mordred's slightly edited vanilla castle:

Hi, that is all very interesting what you have found. As far as I know, the AI can be reinstated the civilian services, if you add these buildings to the template. Looks like gamerules.dat governs how the AI builds and maybe even what troops they use, so that's why replacing this works. If I remember correctly, the CD version has the original release notes and changelogs in a Word document that details everything. For example, fire ballistae used to autoshoot until 1.3.1, while torture devices also didn't give honor until a point. Are there other notable differences regarding the AI armies and castles, or are these more or less unchanged?

Hi All! If you could have the ability to give any AI a castle/town, what kind of layout would you give to them, so that they summon a feeling and atmosphere true to their character? For example, King Arthur has always been chivalrous and noble, so he would use few traps and lots of imposing towers. Another could be Vlad with lots of spike traps, flame and lookout towers. All these ideas would eventually be used for adding a refreshing look for the AI players, while also making them more competent at defending. Perhaps I could even make your ideas real? Anything goes.

This is literally one of the cases I tested. Should be fine according to the screenshot.

Thanks for the attachment! I quickly tried out directly modifying the zip in Total Commander, as well as unpacking to a test folder, modifying there, and packing it right back in. I only modified rules.xml with the variant you sent me, and it works spiffingly in both cases! I don't understand what went you wrong. You could use Google Drive or another file sharing site, and drop a link to your assets.v, if you're up for another round of inspection.

Should be normal. I had a false memory of assets.v being larger. Try sharing your edited assets.v and I could compare it in detail.

If you used the V-maker on your zip and copied assets.v back to the original folder, then the next thing coming to mind is data integrity. Your .v should be around 450 MB large after the process (Firefly bundled with a less space efficient algorithm). I encountered black screens frequently when toying around with the scripts. What changes have you made in the .v exactly?

You need to directly modify the bundled assets in C2. For that, use the V-maker utility found in this guide. After you feed assets.v to the maker (remember to create a copy and rename the extension to .txt first), unpack the archive or use Total Commander to edit the archive directly.

Take a look at rules.xml to modify unit stats (beside goods and random events). Popcap - and game rules in general - is mostly governed in the script file "game_settings.lua". The numbers depend on player. Find these two rows and you can override the limits. I think the array elements follow each other from 2 to 8 players present. There is also the file "options.xml" in Documents/My Games/Stronghold Crusader 2, where you can alter the absolute hard cap of buildings and units per player.

Hello @ Alfred The Baker , I had to suspend development due to private matters. The project is slowly getting into shape, with the intent of getting more features in so that the app is more 2023 than 2005. 😄 The castle system from SH2 is almost the same and carries over. Tiny and other fallback options are used if no castle layout is valid for the AI character. 01-04 are still the numbers you need.

Legends has a "SH Legends data.csv" file in the SHL installation folder. There you can find a somewhat messy table full of references and values. Most notably, you can view all unit, building and goods stats there. These stats can be modified too, if you want to play with balance! I don't know how this can effect multiplayer matches though.

V-Maker is not at fault, rather the way you did zipping does not work. If you right-click on one file and zip that way, only the one file will be included in the zip. Add all folders to the zip selection and try again!

Dances are independent from any event and all you need is 4 cloth (not wool!) in the stockpile and a working Lord's Kitchen, from where the pages will ferry the Lady the materials. The lady sew dancing dress in her idle time, between feasts. That's when she is also having a bath, so long the pages deliver her cloth. Normally the Lord takes part in any castle activity he can. If you move the Lord and return him to civilian duties, then you can abort the event in-progress and have him move to the next one instead, but you won't get any honor from it. I think the Lord only visits the Lady if he has no other events to attend. Jousting tournaments and masses can all take up his free time, so that the Lady is never visited. Keep in mind that both these events give you 6x20/200 honor compared to the 2 from the Lord's visit, so the game may prioritize these over the latter.

FSB audio relies heavily on the data structure files (.feb or .bank), which govern the file size directly. I am not sure what free editor there is to edit files without problems. The tool works this way: extract a .v file: .XXX => .v create a .v file: .XXX => .v So you must rename your zipped .v to something else (.zip for example), so that it won't get overwritten. Total Commander is very helpful for editing the package directly.

Thanks @ Crusader1307 , I've contacted him!

Hello all, I have been tinkering lately with the community editor that was developed by Stronghold-Knights members. Needless to say, the site is long defunct. As a hobby project, I have been using the editor so that it can be used to modify Stronghold Legends AI castles. I would like to release the modified files at some point to the community, for which I require written permission. The problem is that there are no contacts in the original files, and HicRic's AOL e-mail address is no longer active. Does someone know how I could contact one of the authors? In case they can't be contacted, under what terms should/may I proceed with the release?