Mathew Steel

Most of the group have never visited these lands before and so are unsure what the common drink would be, in attempt to "blend-in" they wait nervously for someone to respond. Upon making eye-contact with Goodman, Sir Lloyd nods his head to him subtly, in attempt to signal him to reply.

"Wouldn't want to stand out now would we?" Sir Lloyd agreed. Scouting the Inn while sitting in wooden oak chair. Trying to remain discrete during it.

YESTERDAY(S) TECHNOLOGY The History of the Internet The idea of the internet came along on May the 31st, 1961 after Leonard Kleinrock published his first paper entitled "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets." It wasn't until 1968 that the Internet itself started to be developed. In 1969 the Internet was introduced to the public on July the 3rd. The first Internet message was sent on Friday, the 29th of October, 1969 at 10:30pm. This was sent after the second piece of network equipment was installed at SRI (Standard Research Institute). The first ever message to be distributed was "LO", which was an attempt at "LOGIN" by Charley S. Kline to log into the SRI computer from UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). This was when the first ever crash occurred and so the message failed to send. Shortly after the crash, the issue was resolved. The first network e-mail was sent by Ray Tomlinson in 1971. Which was the first messaging system to send messages across a network to other users. Along came TCP during 1973, designed by Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn. This was later published with the help of Yogen Dalal and Carl Sunshine, who most people consider the "inventors of the Internet." The idea of Ethernet was developed by Bob Metcalfe, shortly after TCP was designed in 1973. Dennis Hayes and Dale Heatherington released the 80-103A Modem in 1977. This became a popular choice for home users to get online and even today this is the main choice to get online from home! In 1978, TCP splits into TCP/IP with the help of Danny Cohen, David Reed and John Shoch to support real-time traffic. Which allowed the creation of UDP. Even today, TCP/IP is the primary protocol used for the Internet. DNS was introduced in 1984 by Paul Mockapetris and Jon Postel. The first domain name "symbolics.com" is registered by Symbolics on the 15th of March, 1985. The first commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the US known as "The World" is introduced in 1989. This was the first ISP to be used on what we consider today to be the Internet. Tim Berners-Lee develops HTML in 1990, which made a huge impact to how we use and view the Internet today. Tim Berners-Lee also introduces WWW (world wide web) to the public on the 6th of August, 1991. This is what most people today consider the Internet.

Perhaps you misunderstood. The point at the end was meant to refer to the same feeling as stepping on Lego. I've stepped on plugs before and it hurts like crazy :P

This thread is hopefully something I'll be updating every 2 days. Similar to the History Thread made by Crusader (which is a brilliant thread) this will be the same thing but with technology. I'll be sharing news and facts on newer technology and older technology. I am sure no one here is na?ve and is aware that technology is a very broad term, it covers a lot of different things so be sure to expect a number of different topics. Feel free also to add anything you find interesting about these posts or any technology you wish to add :) Something which a lot of you may find uninteresting is something that I find really cool. So what better way to start a new thread than making a post on something uninteresting? :D YESTERDAY(S) TECHNOLOGY The British Plug The British plug, like all safe plugs has three main wires. Earth (aka Ground), live and neutral (where the danger is). The dangerous wires have shutters over them. This stops anyone poking a fork into the live and neutral wires and giving themselves a very painful and possibly fatal shock. The only way these shutters open is by putting enough pressure onto the earth wire. This is on the top of the plug socket. Because of the way the British plug is designed, it means the only way for the earth wire to have pressure is by putting the top pin in first. If any of you who have used a British plug have tried placing the 2 bottom pins in first, you'll notice it is hopeless. When the earth wire has enough pressure and the bottom shutters open, you can then push the bottom 2 pins in. Since some extension cables are badly designed it means the top pin can be connected upside down, allowing the bottom shutters to open without anything blocking it. Regardless, you'd need to have a very inventive baby to put one end in the top, open the shutters and then put a fork in the bottom ends. Which leads me to the next safety feature, the insulation. The 2 bottom pins have one half fully insulated. For the circuit to be complete, the metal that is exposed must be completely inside the plug socket. Due to the insulation, the metal cannot be touched when the circuit is live. Meaning no electric shocks again. Now the inside. Blue insulations are neutral, and connect to the left terminal. Brown insulations are live and connect to the right terminal. Yellow and green are earth, and it connects all the way to the top of the plug. Normally the earth wire wouldn't be used, it's a safety feature so if something goes wrong and the fuse goes for example. All the electricity will go away and away from people. The way these wires are all connected means that if something/someone tugs on the cable from the appliance to the plug it means the live wire will come out first, followed by the neutral and then followed by the earth wire. There is no way this can change unless the plug has been tampered with. Now of course, with every great invention, comes a downfall. Which is, if you drop this plug, it will almost certainly land with the pins pointing up. Meaning if you don't see it and stand on it, well, you may as well have had an electric shock :P Hopefully this interests some of you :D Thank you for reading!

[OoC] I was thinking about this, I thought we'd go for the type of underestimating the difficulty of the task and when we attempt it, we end up being unsuccessful. Or something similar :P After a short journey in the cart, the group arrive at the Inn. It is an old inn. The stonework is commonly seen in most village buildings, the inn is nothing special, but it is a safe haven, for now at least... "Here it is, the beginning. Shall we discuss the plan once more?" Sir Lloyd said almost nervously.

Scenery wise the map looks great! I haven't been able to test if it's balanced yet but ill let you know soon :)

This is exactly what I was going to try, I never got around to it I'll find out tonight. We may be onto something Nigel :)

I did try all of those yes. I'll just leave the game for a while and see if they fix it :)

Strange how nobody else has experienced the problem. Ive run loads of different games with this graphics card. Perhaps it's just something they need to optimise for AMD drivers. Anyway thank you all for the help :)

"As a distraction maybe goodman, but to fight, it would be bedlam" after a brief moment of silence "I suggest we keep are wits about and don't hesitate to do what you think is best"

Im aware it's in alpha and I did say that I may have been a bit ignorant. From my view that was ignored and I felt that I was spoken to in a rude and impatient manner. Maybe it's just me.

I did contact them with no help whatsoever :P No problem, guess I'll have to wait for it. People down at Stronghold Heavens seemed a bit aggressive and rude when I asked them about it so I'm done with that.

I've changed resolutions yes.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to play again. With exams coming closer and stuff, I'll have less time to play :( I'm sure we will soon :)

Here's the war from my perspective: I personally started off slow, like I usually do. Luckily peace time lasted until we all reached Duke, meaning I wasn't punished for being slow. Eventually I got my economy going, but with the hovel limit, it meant I had to buy a lot of estates to help me raise the army I needed. I fortified all my buildings. With a small wall protecting the keep, then a large wall all the way around it. I then fortified my estates like last time, then placing troops on the walls. Chris may not have noticed but for a long time, the estates leading to Eagle were also fortified with troops. When pt finally ended I saw that Eagle and Chris were busy attacking on their side. I remained silent for a while, just to see how things would turn out. Upon seeing an opportunity to strike, I started to attack Chris on one of the bridges. This lasted a very long time, much longer than it should've. Of course Chris had bigger numbers. Meaning I had to train a lot of crossbowmen to make up for the amount of knights he had! Eventually, I broke through, while Eagle was weakening Chris' estates, I made work on his walls, with a large group of knights, horse archers and crossbowmen to defend my trebuchets. Upon realising Chris' impatience, with good reason as Eagle and I were not attacking each other and also seeing how close Eagle was to getting the kill, I decided to watch Eagle's lord. Noticing his church was outside, I trained a small group of horse archers and knights and waited my his estate. Without Eagle realising, I charged at his lord as he entered the church, giving him no chance to react. Eagle, was killed. Of course, Chris was now severely weakened by both sides. Which for me was a great advantage. If Chris had been killed by Eagle, the game would've been a much harder one for me as I would've had to defend against someone who's taken hardly any damage. Hence why I eliminated him soon. Chris fought well with the remaining troops he had left. At one point, I honestly thought I would lose it. We ended the game with my 12 knights left (attacking troops). A battle well fought :)

No worries Bradley. As for Eagle and Chris I'm on gameranger now so any time you want to start, let me know :)

I too noticed this weakpoint. I usually protect every building I have with walls and towers, this time I did not :p

I'm up for another battle today :P same time?

Now I'm sure I posted a topic like this before but on my attempt to find it, I just couldn't. So I made a new one (if this is in the wrong place or you've seen the other thread then forgive me). Lord_Chris vs Mathew Steel - The Second Battle We had a battle very similar but so different before yesterday on the same map. Last time I managed to win through seeing a small gap in Lord_Chris' defence and rushing through with assassins just to take his keep without having to kill his lord. This time, it was a very different battle. We started out how we usually do. Peace Time until we both reached Duke, Freeman rank - 150 gold and a lot of talking. Lord_Chris always has started his economy quicker than me and this showed again in the battle. He had a large food production and weapon production while I was still trying to clear my estate of gong :P. Eventually I got my act together and started ranking up much quicker. As soon as I unlocked most of the towers and gatehouses, I started to structure together my fortress, placing crossbowmen and archers in the variety of different towers and gatehouses. While I looked over at Chris, I saw no troops and a very small defence. I knew what he was doing, creating loads and loads of weapons and collecting a lot of gold and honour to spam knights and horse-archers when the time came. When I finally caught up and reached Duke, my army was nearly at it's maximum size, just from my defences. I had to disband a few archers and crossbowmen in return for raising a few dozen knights. Lord_Chris had bought the estates on his side of the bridges. Allowing him to place some stone buildings next to the bridges to serve as a wall to place troops on top. I did the same to mine. At the start I pushed back a lot of Chris's troops, giving me control over most of the bridges. I wanted to point this part out as it made me giggle as it was such a clich? moment. I had a group of crossbowmen and some mantlets, moved up on Chris's troops and saw him pull them off the walls, in triumph I taunted "yeah you better run mwahaha!" to which I look at my minimap and see a swarm of orange dots running towards me. Upon looking at those dots on the main screen I see a group of around 50 knights storm my 12 crossbowmen. Rest in pieces. Soon enough my estates were overrun. I pulled my troops back to the keep. Placing my remaining men in tactical locations. My economy burned down, literally - Chris thought he hadn't embarrassed me enough by taking all my estates, oh no, burning all my economy was the tip of the iceberg. I had a massive collection of stone left. Meaning Chris and his trebuchets would've been waiting a long time. While I was repairing my walls and towers, I knew the inevitable was to come, I decided to move all my men to the keep and just remove the towers for one final battle. Upon Chris being distracted fighting all my men downstairs I covered my Lord in archers, so his cape blended in well almost serving as a camouflage. I snuck downstairs, through the bloodshed and mayhem that was occurring and ran to my final stable. Waiting desperately for a horse to spawn as I saw a new group of knights heading in my direction. I mounted the horse just in time and rode away into the sunset. Upon realising what happens if the enemy are the only ones on your keep, I rode back and realised I didn't stand a chance. Before I knew it. My keep had disappeared, along with my dignity and along with my gold. A battle well fought. Chris - 1 Mathew - 1 Note - you can view some screenshots of our battle in the Stronghold 2 screenshots gallery :)

I did try all of those things :( but thanks for the help Charles. Yes, it blocks half of my character and the scenery. Just a laptop :D 1080p HD screen

Thank you for the help Chris. Although the link didn't give me an answer, it caused me to look through my options in frustration and find the cause. Again my fault. It was completely unrelated to me deleting files. I must have accidentally selected an option which said "Delete browsing history" etc on accident -.- Sorry for the pointless thread :P

I just bought Reign of Kings a new game, still in alpha and of course, I expected it to have some bugs. Sadly, I haven't managed to encounter any as I have a super annoying graphics glitch. I usually wouldn't come here for help for a game not related to stronghold, but since the steam community is about as useful as "Clippy" - the Microsoft word paperclip helper, I've come here. Using the my Intel HD Graphics I get no problem. But the FPS drop is huge. As soon as I swap cards to the dedicated AMD card, a huge grey bar appears, covering 15% of the screen: I've checked for driver updates and nothing. I verified the integrity of the game cache. I also made sure it wasn't a bug happening with my graphics card, through testing it with 4 other games. Now if I've just bought a game that doesn't work with my card, without any type of warning about it. I will not be very happy with customer support. Hopefully you guys can help me out, Best regards, Tom :)

May I just say, that is a very dramatic screenshot :D

We just finished. I'll most likely write a very long and "interesting" synopsis on the battle tomorrow :P Sorry you couldn't make it Eagle :(