Nigel

I think that is fine, Chris. Especially as it only seems to affect this particular sub-forum. Andreas, I had a first go at your map finally. Very beatifuy eyecandy. I look forward to discovering what is hiding behind it all. It is pretty hard, too and for now I only got as far as the first "obstacle". I will send you more detailed comments/questions to your Steam mailbox. Don't want to give any spoilers here. :)

A wellcome from me, too, Lord Konstantinov :) Hope you will enjoy the games and your stay on this site. Feel free to share your adventures. And don't hesitate to ask for help if you need some.

Well, I tried it out - the fire ballisa does not hurt the dragon, but it opens another "cheap way out". So it also has to go :D The map will be submitted to download section shortly.

Whow, Chris, I am impressed. You managed to find 2 ways of beating this map, which I had not anticipated. I did not know that you can attack dragons with catapults. And I completely forgot about the ice tunnels. Without these things the map is really hard. But even so, there are at least two more ways to win this scenario, if the right strategy is used. And yes, the fact that you can always build the first wood camp for free is part of it :D If it is ok by you, I will update the map and submit it to the SHN download section for the map library.

Not sure if it helps the troubleshooting, but I can not see any uloaded map in this thread, either. Edit: Surprisingly, I CAN see the attachment, when I am LOGGED OUT. But I CAN NOT see the attachment, when I am LOGGED IN :o

Here is my map for this challange of the 52 weeks competition. The title is Four Elements and it is a pretty hard mission. I would be very surprised if anyone can do it on the first try. Here is the story for it :) Edit: ... and almost 5 hours before the deadline, I realize a small mistake in my map. Since I don't have the rights to remove attachments, I am adding a Version 02 here. If my correction is not too late, please use this one as the contest map. Four Elements.zip Four Elements_02.zip

Thanks Chris, this works ! I should be able to upload the map tomorrow. :)

Ok, I got the patch 1.1a from 4Players and was also able to install patch 1.2. The patches seem to work fine. Only, I cannot add the addtional messages to the maps. I have the new en-us.xml in the location specified, but when I type one of the messages from the readme into the place of the map editor, no text is displayed - although I get Arthur's head showing up in the crystal ball at the right side of the User Interface. The messages from the game work ok, I can get all text messages from the campaigns into my map.

With the 52 Weeks challange for SHL, it is now after such a long time, that I play this game again. The first obstacle I am hitting is, that I now have the version 1.0 installed and no idea where to find a patch. Is there one at this site? Or perhaps a link to a patch? The next challange will be to get the additional messages to work. I found the files and exchanged the en-us.xml but that alone does not make them work. For exapmle, I have written MESSAGE_DragonNest into the Text File ID. Do I also need to put anything into the Sound File Name? It currently just says fx/speech/ there. Well, perhaps I just need the patch 1.2 for it and then it will all fall into place.

This sounds very interesting. I got the file and will see what I can make of it. Some dragon blood shall be shed.

This sounds interesting, Andreas. I would be up for testing it. Do you provide the link? Or will you send it to my by email? Either way, I look forward to it and will give you feedback.

Well, Chris only started advertising it outside of the SHN (on official forum and Steam) at the end of January. I guess it takes time for the word to spread. But also, I was thinking perhaps it could be interesting to make a Leader Board for this contest. Many competitive players are motivated by the possibility of seeing their name on the top - more than by winning some pizes. I think it would be nice and it would also help everyone to see "where they stand". :) It could be done by making a simple table and adding it to the first post of the threads (like I did for the Siege That contest).

It is annoying if computers think the have to tell you what you can and cannot do. I had a similar problem at first, but placed the map in the maps folder. Then I had to use what is described as Option 1 in the guide that Chris has linked to above. Try that and let us know if it helps.

Thanks, Andreas. I am glad you like it. There are many really great maps made by the community for all games of the series. I took inspiration from many of them. But yes, the fact that a multiplayer mission has worked so well is really encouraging. I am now thinking to continue the story of Eskania. After all, we have only just landed and the island should be much bigger than the harbour area where we have fought our first battle - and the Wolf has escaped badly wounded but still alife. Also, EaglePince and perhaps other lords are still on the ship, eagerly waiting to come and join us 🙂 But first, King Richard is inspecting the troops that survived the battle. Regiment led by Duke Chris Regiment led by Sir Andreas "You have done well, men. I am mightily proud of you. Duke Chris and Sir Andreas, you have brought honour to your name. Splendidly done. I thank you for leading the men to victory. These soldiers, of course, are not your troops; they remain the King's men. But the regiments shall remain together and either you or one of the other lords may lead them in furture mission. You shall, however, have the honour of giving a name to the regiment that you have led in this battle. Fameous regiments have always been given names. The Lions, The Eagles, The Unsullied and The Giants are all well known fighters. Please go ahead and suggest a name for these men and they will bear it with pride in in the battles to come."

This is a lovely challange. It is unfortunate, that I have an early weekend ahead of me, going offline after tomorrow. Otherwise I would have tackeled it. .... well, ok, my early weekend is not unfortunate. I am very much looking forward to it, but you know what I wanted to say ... :P

Glad you like the write-up, Chris. I wanted to try out this "illustrative style" but had been afraid that it would make the thread too picture heavy. If you or others think it is too much (long loading time), I will move to more text next time. But if it works for you guys, then great.

Interesting. Did you extract the editor.ed file before making the name changes or are you trying to make those changes while inside the .zip archive? It worked for me, but I always extracted it and only placed it back into the zip file after renaming it back to .ed

Finally it was time to make plans for the attack on the Wolf's castle. The map below shows the situation: the position of the Lord's castle (1) and the towers of the river bastion (2). Duke Christopher wisely chose the position for our army (3) so that the assault would pass over the Wolf's food production. The idea was, that he would loose his food supplies early on, and if it would turn into a long siege, time would work in our favour. And the plan worked. If you wonder why we were not targeting his exposed granary, it is because we could see that it was empty. And 36 days later, it was getting rather lonely around the Wolf on his keep. The Taste of Victory is Sweet ! We were so exhilarated, that we held a little party and gathered our surviving troops for a victory parade. It was a great game. Thanks Chris and Andreas, for joining me. I hope you had as much fun as I did. 🙂 The way it went, I am really encouraged to make another one in the future.

Although the milestone towers were under heavy attack, the main castle was now pretty well secured with 4 towers. While food was still scarce, wood and - most importantly - pitch, was readily available. The lords discussed how to rebuild the destroyed tower and decided to place is a bit further away, leaving the ruins of the old one in place as "natural obstacles". That seemed to work well. ... but it was an illusion. Fortunately, thanks to Sir Andreas' good eye and quick reaction, this time the crossbowmen came off the tower in time and no soldiers were lost when the structure collapsed. A change of strategy was needed and the lords decided to enforce the first tower and turn it into a bastion. Now the defence was holding up and when the second tower was rebuild, the river bastion was finally too strong for the Wolf to get through.

Cool, it is always good to have some nice maps. I look forward to playing it, when it is finished :)

The success of the milestone tower prompted the Lords to build a second one. With that, the river crossing should now be in control of King Richard's men. But the knights had underestimated the old Wolf's strength. The new tower came under heavy bombardment and collapsed. The Knights of Riverbourne lost many good men on that day. * At that point, the first day of battle ended and we had to save the game to continue next day. As it is late at night now and my hand still shakes from wielding the sword, please forgive me if I will take a break now. The story will be continued tomorrow.

But having the estate was one thing, getting the goods home was another. The Wolf was shooting down the carters until Duke Chris sent some archers for their protection. When the carts were finally coming through it was the first turning point. By day 33 our little castle had grown in strength. But so had the Wolf's ... Fortunately, the mining village could be fortified. That wall and tower took care of the estate's protection - a big worry off our minds. By day 52 the King's men had their 3rd tower up and some pitch at their disposal, which came in handy. But the Wolf's attacks were getting stronger, too, and on one occasion he managed to breach the wall and get some troops into the castle. Sir Nigel got a few bruises from that encounter, but Sir Andreas' crossbowmen were there and it all turned out good. Now Duke Christopher decided to move the defences closer to the Wolf's castle. A small milestone tower was erected near the shallows, which the Wolf's men used to cross the river. That prooved very effective and finally provided some protection for the apple orchards.

We managed to do it today. And yes, in the end we did give the Wolf a good beating and a run for his money. But it was not easy - especially in the early days of this mission. Let me tell the story from the beginning. The first attack of the Wolf came early and Sir Nigel only had 6 archers and 6 sprearmen to defend the fort. But Duke Chris (Blue) and Sir Andreas (Black) were quick to send more men. It was clear that the flimsy little fort needed reinforcing. Stone was rare, but on day 15 we had a double wall at the side from where the attackers came. But while the fort was beeing defended, the Wolf had captured the mining village. We knew that we could not leave it in his hands for too long. So while Chris helped to protect the castle, Andreas looked for a way to capture the mines. The Wolf was too stong there for a direct assault, but eventually Sir Andreas found a way through the mountains, where archers could attack them from above. But the Wolf still made good use of the stone he was getting and his castle was growing. All the while he was sending attacks againt the fort and kept destroying the orchards. Food was beginning to be a real problem. Finally, on day 28, the mine was ours.

Well, I passed on this challange - but I look forward to see what next week's challange will be. :D

We have started this mission today. Duke Chris and Sir Andreas have come to rescue my neck from the attacking Wolf. We have faught a hard battle and have not been able to finish, yet. But I can say that we were able to defend and stengthen the little fort. And yes, we also managed to secure the mining village for ourselves. So hopefully we will be able to kick the Wolf out of his stronghold tomorrow - but man, his castle is really stong and who knows if he has some nasty surprise up his sleeve. I have taken some screenshots of the battle and I will surely do a writeup when it is done. So watch this space :)