Nigel

Interesting.... Sir Nigel turns the letter around, reads again, turns it around again. "I cant make head or tail of it. At least for now I have no idea what this could mean." He glances at the other lords gathered around the wooden table in the centre of which the parchment rests.

Thanks for sharing the link to the video, EaglePrince. Hmm, intersting, "a historical setting that was not done before". I really wonder what that could be. They ruled out the Romans (and I am guessing Greeks and Trojans go with that). So it could be Samurai after all - but not shure how that would work with brining in some of our well known characters. It will be really interesting to see what they come up with.

A nice topic for a thread, Matthew. Before I dive into the philosophical part, let me just say that I like this much better than having a politial thread for off-topc discussions. Some other forums do that, but I find that if you dig into politics, things can get to a nasty (or at best annoying) point. That is probably, because political convictions are so close to everyones heart that sooner or later someone is bound to get hurt, even unintentionally. With philosophical topics it is much easier to keep a cool head and a bird's eye view on things. But now to go into the questions you are raising. It is a good question and in my opinion there is not a black or white answer to it (like in many things). I am a firm believer in the notion that "fate is in your hands" and I am sure that - to a very great extend - life is what you make of it. Nevertheless it would be cynical to deny that a person born into a well-to-do and well educated family has a much easier road ahead of him and a much better chance to build a good life, than a person born into poverty, growing up among family and friends who do not care about education. But as you said yourself, there are many individual examples which show that this is not a law of nature and that someone's free will can change things. Luck, of course, does also play a part in it and reading the rigth book at the right time or meeting the right teacher or friend can be all it takes to change someone's life completely. But then again, if the seed of luck does not fall on fertile ground, nothing will come of it. As for the questions wether there is a free will or not, I like to think that there is. I acknowledge the fact that our thinking and decision making, even our feeling towards a subject, is inluenced by our background and experience. But saying that it is all merely a product or our past history sounds a bit far fetched to me. If it was, why do I laborate so much over important questions, having sleepless nights and all that. Why don't I just go: bang - that is the answer, a clear result of my own personal past. With that, although I still think the answer is not black and white, if you put me on the spot I would have to say that I am siding with the free-will-camp, not the predestination-camp :)

Exciting news indeed, Matthew. Congratulations on your A-levels. Good to hear that your hard work has payed off. And goog choice of subjects for university, too. And I am really looking forward to the new event, whatever it will be :)

I know not what you are planning, Lord Mathew, but your verses by themselves deserve applause. :) Looking forward to what is to come.

Stronghold aside, my other great passion is the Total War series (hate that title, but the games are great). Currently I have re-discovered Attila TW and am playing my way through the Carlemagne Campaign as well as having a lot of multiplayer fun. Other titles of that series I have extensively played are Medieval1, Shogun(1+2) and Napoleon. I am sure going to get Thrones of Brittania sooner or later (perhaps rather sooner than later :) ). I also love Mount & Blade Warband. Pitty that there is no MP campaign for this game. I may give Bannerlord a try when it finally comes out. My other great interest (other than the knights and kingdoms theme) is the era of pirates and battleships. I played Sid Meier's Pirates! to death and a less known, but pretty good follower called Cutthroats. A year ago I picked up Tempest, which is not too expensive and really nicely done, considering is it from a small (Indie) developer - almost a 1 man project. That game has some enjoyable MP options - both in PVP and co-op.

Congratulations Matthew. This is good news indeed. )

Well, it certainly did. :) I may have been aware of some of these subconsciously, but it is good to see them spelled out and made aware of. Interesting topic.

Nice. I like the idea of a seetting in Europe. That has always my favorite area for a knights & castles game.

I know I am a bit late, but nontheless happy to say: Congratulations to both of you :) Well deserved promotions and good to see the site continue to grow and be active.

This is a Christmas thread, but I thought I just wanted to add to it A Happy New Year and all the best for 2018 to all of you :)

Far less cringeworthy than you think. You sure have put a smile on my face today :)

A good topic, Crusader. And quite scary things that you both have experienced here :-D For me the most scaring and gutting moment was, when I realized that the Stronghold Knights forum was no more and not going to come back. A whole world of talks, discussions, jokes and stories suddenly gone away. That was really scary - and I still shudder when I think of it.

Yes, it was good to try out the possibilities with the CD and SE versions yesterday, EaglePrince. And thanks for posting your other observations. There are two that strike out to me: Game version is 1.5 for the SE version and 1.4.1 for the CD version. So different versions may be the reason why we could not link up together. SE version has an increased poplulation cap compared to CD version. That may mean that the two versions may never be able to play together. I guess it is just how it is and the price we have to pay for getting improvements in the SE version (and for the possibility to continue getting improvements). In that case we may just have to go with 2 installs until everyone has the SE version. I look forward to your screenshots :)

Hello Lord Dredd, Wellcome :) There are many former members of strongholdknights hanging out here. Hope you will like this place.

:D Chris, money spent on a beautiful woman is always money well spent. If it is any consolation, I scored 5/7. So this quiz was not a mere walk in the park after all. Well done, both of you :)

Browsing the SHC2 Steam forum today, I came across this post http://steamcommunity.com/app/232890/discussions/0/1333474229075333924/ The last comment is from August 8th. Hope it helps.

This one was tough. With more luck than brain I got 3/6. The only one I actually knew was the buckler. The other 2 were just guesswork. And I had heard of the saex before, but still got it wrong. Good quiz, Crusader. :thumbsup:

Haha, I had wondered what is hiding behind that title :D Good luck with this map project. And beware of the dreaded Repetitive Strain Injury in your wrist - a growing epidemic among gamers workers in our modern computer age. :P

The wagon rattled through the night. The dark interior lit only by a small oil lantern. Sir Loring and Duke Christopher were sitting on the hard bench next to each other, their hands tied. With his shoulder Sir Loring moved the curtain from the window and tried to look outside. "Oi, leave that curtain shut", came the command from the guard immediately. The time had been too short and it had been too dark to see anything notable outside. But maybe, just maybe, it had been long enough for someone from the outside to notice the light shining out of the wagon and indicating the direction in which they moved.

Thanks for sharing this link, EaglePrince. Good to see they are maintaining a YouTube channel now. Will be interesting to see what they broadcast in the future. Also, this leads us again to their YouTube video on . As we were talking about the game engine, there are two mentions of this at 4:15 and at 5:55, where they say that they made the SH2 engine themselves. That is what I find really interesting. If they made (and therefor own) the engine, then I find it hard to understand why they are not making any improvements to the game itself. I mean, all the new stuff for the Steam edition is related to the Steam integration. But there would be a few rather small changes in the SH2 engine, which would mean a huge improvement to gameplay. Just to name 3 that come to mind right away: AI in multiplayer games, saving multiplayer games, auto-by/sell at the market. All of those have been added to SH Legends.

Ok, I sent him a message. However, according to his Steam profile, the last time he was signed into his account was 156 days ago. So I would not put my hopes too high. Still, wellcome to the site, Nullfolge. If you want to join some of our other activities, you are most wellcome :)

Thanks Charles. I look forward to your map :D

Good observations about this map, EaglePrince, both about the walls and the balance. I had not thought about the access to the roof as I simply adapted this scenario from my single player map. Indeed if I redo this decision-scenario, I will make the castle more symmetrical and also use a triangular map layout. That is a good idea. But now I am thinking of doinng something else to continue with this map. Perhaps a siege scenario or a raid on a monastry or a battle in front of the gates or whatever else we come up with. :)

I also have seveal screenshots of the first battle around the Saxon Fort and can expand on that story a bit. It was indeed the idea that the fort is only weakly defended and that the main battle should be between the two attacking armies of rivaling Normannic lords (and indeed it was). The decision the players had to make was if they want to attack the fort first and then try to hold it, or if they want to attack the other army first and then the winner hopes to have enough troops lelft to capture the fort. Here you see the starting position with Mathew (orange) and EaglePrince (light blue) against Charles (green) and Chris (dark blue). Well, what happened was that they both decided to attack the fort and clash on top of my head :D And quickly the fighting started on the battlements of the walls.... ... to continue in the castle yard, where the troops of Charles started to get into trouble. Lord Chris started a charge with his swordmen to come to his rescue. Then he decided to move his army around the castle in order to get his swormen to Mathew's archers on the roof (using their own ladder :P) That worked and the archers were quickly dispatched. But now the combined melee troops of EaglePrince and Mathew reached them and the final battle was decided on the roof of the prison. In the end, Mathew and EaglePrince carried the day and managed to get the fort free of enemy troops - with quite a few of their own troops left. Now this land shall belong to the Lloyd family henceforth. Sir Mathew has already said that he wants a monastry with stone walls to be erected here. It shall be done in due course :)