Mathew Steel

I imagine if you tried this method of using mobile data with the Steam edition of SH2, it would work fine! In fact, I'll try it myself later :)

Ad Hominem Yes, this is in fact considered a logical fallacy. Ad hominem, meaning "to the man" in Latin, is such a common fallacy, that it is even a break of the code of conduct for SHN. Simply put, ad hominem is to attack a person's character, background, appearance, instead of the argument or idea itself. This is where "to the man" is clear, as the response is directed at the "man", or person, themselves, and not the point of the discussion. Interestingly, the terms ad mulieriem?and ad feminam?were used when referencing this type of fallacy towards women. It is important to note that ad hominem is not only insulting a person. This would simply be an insult in that case. Ad hominem is a fallacy as it is an insult used as an argument or evidence towards one's motives. Straw Man Fallacy A straw-man fallacy is where one deconstructs, removes, and essentially downgrades a position or argument, in order to make it easier to attack. The analogy of the straw-man essentially suggests that by making one's argument nothing but a lifeless bundle of straw, it is easy to defeat. The term "Scarecrow fallacy" is sometimes used. These fallacies are deceitful, and are often unnoticed. Sentences such as "So you're saying..." are key to look for, as straw-man fallacies often begin in such a way. Black and White Fallacy Often referred to as a false dilemma, is a line of reasoning in which the conclusions to a position are intentionally limited. Usually, these are limited to two conclusions, hence the use of "black and white", but can be very high in number. The point of this fallacy is that the conclusions or options are oversimplified in order to weaken them. This is often seen in fighting talk, "Either we fight, or we die" being a common one. Clearly, in most cases, fight or die are not the only options. One can flee, one can fight head-on, or they can go behind enemy lines. The options are not either-or as is suggested. Because of this, this fallacy is sometimes referred to as an "either-or fallacy." Red Herring A red-herring fallacy is when a position is countered by making a statement or response that seems relevant, but in fact is not on-topic. The response is often disguised and believable as relevant, even if this is not the case. Somebody discussing theft sentences being increased to 1 year instead of 6 months is a good example of this. If somebody were to reply, "Well, I know somebody who committed murder and got away with it," this would be a red-herring. The reply is mostly relevant, as it is referring to crime and punishment, along with sentencing, however, it is not truly acknowledging or counter-arguing the original statement.? ====================================================================================================================================== Of course, there are many more logical fallacies than these listed. I simply wanted to make a short guide of the most popular ones. My reason behind this is that today, rationalism and logical reasoning seems to be on the rise. However, with this, logical fallacies too become more apparent. Plus, it may teach someone something new, and that's well-worth it in my opinion! :)

Sorry for the late response to this, I never actually saw it! My apologies. It's really impressive that you're doing a PhD! I plan on doing the same assuming all goes well with university. Well done, Eagle! Always good to spend time with your partner. As for photos of the city, that'd be great! Those you shared before were really well taken, you have a good eye for that sort of stuff. My exams are all done now, thankfully. I won't receive my results until August the 16th, so I'm just going to remove it from my head until then. Today was the day of the half marathon, and it was absolutely sweltering heat. However, we managed it! Have so far raised ?324.99 for Cancer Research, and are still collecting more! :)

I'm not actually 100% sure on what you're asking. However, if you know n+5 comes out as "n plus fifth", then you would be correct that n+1 comes out as "n plus first". If it's related to maths, I'm not sure you would need the st, nd, rd, etc. When I did work with n values, we would simply say "n plus one" and so on. If I've misunderstood, feel free to try and explain further :)

Recently, I've noticed that not many posts have been made on the site! It's nearing summer, and for a lot of people, exams, so this is completely understandable! I'm simply curious what everyone is up to, and how are things?? Personally, I've had a few ups and downs, as does everyone, but things are sharply on the rise! Firstly, I've fallen out with a group of friends who I've been friends with throughout school, but, this isn't bothering me anymore. Looking at it, they're not great friends, and I know I'm not going to be bothering with them much when I start university. For this reason, I'm happier. On the up side, I've been in a relationship with an amazing girl (lady...fair maiden?) for the last two months and I've never felt more secure and happy. Also, despite exams being just around the corner, I'm in high hopes. I feel on top of my work and I feel that I'm going to do well as long as there are no unexpected bumps in the road! Shortly after my exams I'll be running a half marathon to raise money for Cancer Research, which I am both dreading, but also looking forward to! I cannot wait for the end of these exams, which will mark the end of my secondary education for good! The British summer better sort itself out this year, because I have a lot of plans. If not, I've always got my computer and its games :P What about you guys? What're your plans for the next couple of weeks? Anything you're excited about? Let me know! As always, best regards, Tom :)

I never even noticed these replies, I apologise! Thank you for answering, Crusader. Eagle, I apologise the poll wasn't applicable for you! :P? Had to make sure the topic was complex, yet not so complex that it would take me years to finish! :D

I've had the same issue when using the disc version of Stronghold 2. Luckily for me, the Steam edition seems to have fixed this issue. It's possible that the issue is down to Gameranger, however, it is unlikely.

When you say the game crashes, do you mean only yours? Could you describe it more for me? Does everybody crash? Does the server itself freeze? Is it stuck on "Waiting for other players"?

I stupidly left my coursework until the last minute and a part of the coursework requires me to gather first hand data for the question I decided on. Because of the subject matter, this poll is only including citizens of the United States or the United Kingdom. Your personal information will not be needed, and any information presented by Google will be kept anonymous. Thank you! Poll link -?https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfHPoX2XLdOrBxsv3e2h095ZpWcP1IrDOYnL33gnolgGnD-Nw/viewform?usp=sf_link

@GOGHacker I saw you uploaded the files to the site. I'll check them out tomorrow if somebody hasn't already.

@GOGHacker I understand you are new to the site, but please avoid double posting in future. If you wish to report a site bug, you can do so in this forum -?https://forums.stronghold-nation.com/forum/32-site-questions-and-support/ Furthermore, I see you've managed to edit your post correctly. If you have any queries, simply post them in the previous forum, or message one of the staff! Thank you :)?

You're more than welcome to upload the mod here for our members! I'll happily look at it and if all is well, authorise the upload!

Edited text colour for clarity. Sadly, I've not used this particular mod, nor do I have time to test it myself currently! If nobody has resolved your issue or taken up the case themselves, I'll gladly install it and test it when I get a chance. I'm sure we'll be able to sort something. Also, welcome to the site, MSTVD! :) Before anything, if you could tell us which Stronghold 2 version you are currently running and on which operating system, that would be great! Take note that the mod was created on version 1.3.1 of the game, and so may not be fully compatible with newer versions. However, this is not a guarantee, and the issue may be solvable!?

If you wish to write to them, you can do so here -?http://fireflyworlds.com/contact/ Good luck to you! :)

No worries! I understood. It's very very impressive. Whoever's the artist is clearly very talented! :)

I have to ask, did you draw these, @Marty McFly?

Fairly recently, Firefly released a digital Steam edition of Stronghold 2 in order to keep up to date with the growing online digital market. Stronghold 2 on disc has not been selling with the change in computer hardware and in consumer needs. CD ROMs are no longer seen as a requirement of a computer and even pre-built systems often come without. Therefore, getting older games into the digital market allows Firefly to gain more and to also keep games up to date with relative ease.? Currently, the newest Steam edition version is v1.5. The final disc version of the game is v1.4.1, released in 2007. That is an insane amount of time between updates and so naturally, you'd expect this 2017 game version to have vast improvements over the 10 (now 11) years old version. That is what this thread will be looking at. Welcome to an in-depth analysis of Stronghold 2 version 1.5.? The Launcher The Steam edition of the game comes with a now common launcher. This has become a more popular method of launching games the last couple of years, with mainly MMO games taking the concept, but also games such as Minecraft and Indie Games using it. Regardless, the Stronghold 2 launcher is fairly neat, with the option to access the Steam Workshop, visit the website, change game settings, and to simply launch the game. To the left of the selections is the "News" tab, with daily updates made by Firefly, not only concerning Stronghold 2, but other Firefly games.? With this launcher we can take a look at the settings tab. However, there is nothing new in the settings tab. The only difference is the colours look slightly more vibrant and clear. This of course makes navigating the settings tab easier on the eyes, and allows us to change settings without any minor inconveniences, not that there ever were. Bugs With any update the most important thing to see are bug fixes. There have been many bugs that have plagued even the latest disc version of Stronghold 2 and because of this, within 10 years, we would expect to see many of these resolved. This is a very sad day for Stronghold 2 fans. Whilst a handful of bugs have been fixed, for example the sound effects slider randomly setting itself to 0, many of the important bugs have been left alone. In fact, with the new 1.5 version, I have found new bugs.? I play at a resolution of 2560x1440. On the disc version, this had no issues in-game, except, not all graphical settings supported the high resolution. Textures such as grass and so on supported the texture fine due to the way scaling textures work. Simply put, the grass textures work similarly to Minecraft textures, where pixel patterns are repeated across the entire texture. For example, if Firefly made a 16x16 grass texture, the game knows to simply repeat this texture over and over again until it matches with the higher resolutions. This of course does not work with character or buildings models, as the shapes and designs of these models are too complex, and simply repeating the pattern would result in overlapping textures.? However, whilst v1.5 has added full 1440p and 4K support, meaning HUDs and character and building models now support these higher resolutions, they have been lazy. For example, the main menu now has this (in my opinion) boring looking grey brick design where black bars would normally show, in order to make up for the extra space brought on by higher resolutions, seen below: This is clearly a minor inconvenience and really does have no effect on the quality of gameplay. Bugs on the other hand - do. When playing at higher resolutions, meaning anything higher than 1080p, we see problems with status bars being displaced. Take the image below, where I have selected the gibbet in order to see the rehabilitation progress bar: As you can see, the progress bar has been placed far to the left of where it would normally appear in the centre. Now, this is not a great issue and really does not effect how the game plays, but it is a bug, and it does appear like one that is fairly simple to resolve. I expect this will be fixed soon, however, this thread is simply comparing version 1.5 to version 1.4.1.? This problem does not only appear in-game, but in the menus too. Looking at the image below, I have selected the Green territory in order to place that AI in a different estate. Once selected, the AI's marker appears off-centre, similarly to the in-game progress bar: Again, this is not huge problem, but it is there, and it really can be quite aggravating to see. Map Editor The map editor has been something many active players have been desperately awaiting an update. Has it been done? Sadly not. The map editor is still looked at 40 FPS no matter your settings, and the old bugs still remain present today. The most notable, or should I say infamous, of these bugs is the waterfall glitch. Simply, when a waterfall is placed too close to the edge of the map, any incline or change in terrain height is replaced with a black void. This void remains until the game is restarted. Exiting map editor and entering a game of Kingmaker will not fix this bug, and the black void will appear in-game.? Below, is an image of me proving this bug still persists. I used every height that is possible to place a waterfall and the bug triggered in every instance. The first image is the setup, with the following image being the results of me placing the waterfall near the map's border (the two stones in the second image mark the placement of the waterfall that caused this bug to trigger): Here is another image showing the results of this bug: As shown, the bug is extremely game breaking, and I cannot imagine anybody wishing to finish a game after this bug being triggered. It is a shame that it exists. It is interesting to see that I did not experience this bug in version 1.4 of Stronghold 2, perhaps I was lucky, but it does suggest that there may be a future fix. I seriously hope so, as I am sure there are many clever map makers who could do some amazing this if this bug did not exist. This is not the least of the problems with the map editor, as it seems not one bug has been fixed. Let us continue. Another issue with the map editor was that the option to use the available text boxes to input a value has never worked and it still does not today. In the image below, you can see the value box I am referring to. No matter where I click on the screen, the numbers on the keyboard and the number pad do nothing: This is one of the more frustrating bugs, as having to mouse scroll to the right value every single time one wishes to set it becomes very tedious, especially when creating double digit missions. I hope this bug will be fixed in an upcoming update. Moving on, the displacement bugs seem to remain in the game too. This name is referring to the "Availability" tab in a mission editor, where the editor may select which buildings are allowed to be built during said mission. For the first half of the list, the response is as expected. If I click on "Hunter's Hut" the state of availability will change accordingly. However, moving further down the list, the selections are displaced. In the image below, my mouse is not appearing, however, I have marked the location of my mouse using the green marker. Despite my mouse pointer hovering over "Sally Port" the value being changed is in fact "Triple Wall". If I were to mouse scroll up one, the reverse would be true, and the value would be eight selections higher?instead of eight?lower: In-Game Menus This section is rather short, but I feel it is worth mentioning. Once in the menus, the player can access different settings not available in the settings launcher. These include game speed, credits, player name, and sound. These menus have had a small update, allowing the player to now reset settings to default, and also allow the player to make right click the command button for units, as is now the norm in the newer Stronghold games. These settings are minor but are a nice little addition that I can appreciate. Below, is an image of the new settings: Presets & AI Gameplay I have already discussed differences in actual gameplay, but what about the AI? What about the different campaigns and sieges? Have they changed at all? Well, I am actually glad to say they have not changed considerably. Campaigns and sieges remain identical to the old version, however, the AI seem far more intelligent when it comes to building. Unlike before, where AI would struggle in maps that did not allow much room, they are far more adaptable. The AI will rotate their castle designs to fit tight spaces, and even the more complicated castle layouts work flawlessly in-game. Shown below, is an image of the map "Pillars of Fate" made by @Charles of Tours (this is an older version of the map, but the newer version can be found here - https://www.stronghold-nation.com/downloads/file/527-pillars-of-fate/) where the AI are accurately responding to the different design. Most preset maps have been carefully designed to allow the AI players build their castles as default, however, even in a map where keeps are located close to an estate border, the AI still successfully start and grow their economy. As you can see, the Hawk's placement is very clustered as a result of the small amount of space between his keep and the estate border. However, what is important here is that he is still developing and playing. Some maps on version 1.4.1 would result in AI simply giving up and not even attempting to play as a result of the small amount of space. It is also nice to know that maps from version 1.4.1 do still work?in version 1.5. Performance Let us get technical. With any computer game, performance is crucial to the overall quality of the game and I am happy to say that I do not struggle hitting the highest FPS possible whilst playing this game. That of course means nothing to the average user, as my computer specs far outweigh the recommended. However, testing the game on a 2012 ?400 laptop I still managed to reach the golden 60 FPS after playing with the settings a little bit. Therefore, optimisation is working well in Stronghold 2. Now, the most vital bit of information you will ever hear in terms of performance in Stronghold 2. In normal gamemodes, such as Campaign and Kingmaker, your FPS is locked to the game speed. Now, be aware, this is not the same as "Locked FPS" (citation - https://www.quora.com/What-does-locked-to-a-certain-fps-mean-in-some-games) but is instead what I call a progressive FPS system. In Stronghold 2, if you set your game speed to 40, the highest FPS you will reach is 40. If you set it to 60, the highest FPS you can achieve is 60. 90 is 90, and 30 is 30. It really is that simple. Well, actually, I reached 62 FPS at game speed 60 but we can mark that as a margin of error on my FPS counter. Before you angry FPS hungry beserkers start swinging your battleaxes at Firefly for limiting your experience, you should understand a few things. Stronghold 2 released in 2005, and was obviously in-development before that. The reason Stronghold 2's FPS is locked to the game speed is to ensure synchronisation between what is actually happening and what you see happening. With newer software and hardware, modern games can take advantage of scaling game speed, allowing the game to set the standard, and leaving it up to the hardware to keep up. With Stronghold 2 however, the developers new the limitations of hardware at the time, and so creating a system where game speed and game FPS are in synchronisation with each other allows animation cycles to look flawless no matter what. Later on, with the change in demands, game developers decided that the players who wish to get more performance for better visuals should have that choice. The higher the speed, the harder your hardware needs to work, and if it cannot handle it, you will notice a decrease in performance. In a way, this is what Stronghold 2 is doing, sort of an automated lock on FPS. The Conclusion Stronghold 2 version 1.5 is by no means perfect, but is by no means any worse. There are only improvements made to the game, and whilst not perfect, I can appreciate the addition of support for higher resolutions in the game. The game has received many quick fixes and minor patches since its release on Steam, and I hope to see more of these in future, with a new game version coming soon to hopefully flesh out the game for good before the next instalment in the franchise.? For its current price, it really is worth a purchase if you are an avid fan of Stronghold 2 and wish to get back into it. With the addition of the Steam workshop, maps are easier than ever to upload and download, however, I personally like to keep my War Scenarios as SHN exclusives! :P If you wish to purchase the Steam edition of the game, it can be purchased here -?http://store.steampowered.com/app/40960/Stronghold_2_Steam_Edition/ NOTE - Images appear blurry on some devices due to JPG compression as well as me downscaling images to 1080p in order to stop them filling up so much of your screen!

I really appreciate the kind words, Eagle! Glad to hear my articles have helped somewhat! :D

Thank you very much, Nigel! :)

Welcome,?@Bronthion, I believe all of the important information you'll need will be in this thread - https://www.stronghold-nation.com/article/62-how-to-switch-between-sh2-and-shl-lords

Unfortunately, I?m currently away on holiday (vacation) and so I don?t have access to my PC. However, there are a handful of modders in our community who may be able to guide you in the right direction. If not, I?ll do my best to assist you when I?m back home! Welcome to the site, blackperils!

Thank you very much, Chris! I really appreciate it. It's honestly been great since the moment I signed up for this forum, and it's nice to see that even today we're growing more and more as a site and community. Big congratulations to?@Crusader1307 on his much deserved promotion! The work you have done on this site is unbelievably impressive :)

I noticed a few members of these forums have added the game "Holdfast: Nations at War" to their wishlist. Whilst I would love to be able to purchase a copy each, I don't have the money. However, the developers have put the game down by ?5 for a limited time 'for King George'. If anyone is interested, as it is a game that seems to appeal to our community, here is the page -? http://store.steampowered.com/app/589290/Holdfast_Nations_At_War/

This was my point! :) Also, the highest settings have better smoke and shadow quality, along with better water reflections and arrow trails. These aren't really dependant on VRAM, but a 1GB card is unlikely very powerful in other ways. This is likely the cause.

Welcome, Taker. Please understand system requirements do not mean you will be able to smoothly run the game at its highest settings. If a system is under the requirements, it is unlikely to run the game well at any graphical settings. At higher resolutions, 1GB of VRAM can be eaten up very quickly, and as most GPUs start at 2GB today, it's likely your hardware is simply too outdated to run the game at max settings. As mentioned above, if you can give us your system specifications, this will help immensely! :)