Nigel

So many good ideas here - great. It is almost difficult to make a decision :D Matthew, there are good things in both of your options. What I find attractive in oprion 2 is, that we can give some pre-determined troops to the players and they have to adjust their strategy to the scenario and cannot just use their favourite combo in every battle (trebuches with horse archers seem to be quite the fashion these days). What I would like to do is to start with free to choose armies for the first two smaller castles. Then, as the castles get bigger we can say: "King Richard is sending you some troops to support your attack". The they can use these troops and supplement them with troops of their own choosing from the money they get. EaglePrince, the idea of giving some iron and pitch to allow the defender to set some traps during the battle is also a good idea. And Lord Vetka, you are probably right when you estimate the player numbers to be in the lower single digits. I would consider it a success if we get 5 or more players. But that's ok; I should be able to handle those number of games on my own. I would probably draw the line at 10 players. More than that and you would hear me shouting for help. :) It is true that we may get a different result if different lords defend the castle. But as I said above, it should be fine for me to do it all, as long as the player numbers are not too high. Having said that, Micha!, you have made quite a name for yourself as a very good player. It would be the cherry on top of the cake, if you would take charge of defending the castle for the final level :) But there is still plenty of time to think about that. For now, the thing to do is to get the first castle off the ground. Lord Vetka, I look forward to seeing what you have done with the map editor. I should have time during this week to look at it and try it out.

Excellent stuff, Matthew. This is the direction I want to go :cool: Both options sound very good and are capturing well what I would like to achieve. I am leaning towards option 1, but I will think about it some more over the weekend. But yes, this is the sort of discussion I was hoping to get. :)

Thanks for those comments, ideas and suggestions, guys. Matthew, your idea is good if you want to see time-to-win as the most important factor. To me it is not all about time (I don't like rush games, I guess I am more a chess kind of person). For this game I would like other things to be more important. For expample, saving your mens lives or finding ways to need less money. Another thing is, while giving everyone the same starting army is very fair and good for competitive gaming, I am attracted to the idea that everyone can build his individual army. Thats part of the strategy. But you have a very good point when you say that we should do some playtesting and find out what is the minimum gold needed - even if it is just approximately. We definitely want to avoid that - even for the early, small castles, the players can just overrun them without and effort. So for the small castles, they should get less gold (close to the minimum), and it should still be an exciting battle. And EaglePrince, I know this "Risiko" game that you refer to. I have played it in the past - a very good game. I think such an empire building game could be done with SHC2. I have seen it done with other games. It is really good fun, but it also takes a lot of work for management and administration of the offline part of the game. I want to take a small step first and walk before I try to run. Let's see how the Siege-That game works out. If it goes really well, we can then try something new - and it could be something like you have mentioned above :)

As I am thinking about it, I am getting more and more away from my initial idea. It is too complicated if we really get many players and would be disappointing for those who do not get to play, just beccause they don't sign up fast enough. We should have something which allows every player to get a go (or x goes) and then find some way to figure out who did best. One thought would be to give points for defeating a castle: 3 points for winning at first try 2 points for winning at second try (after having had time to review the map) 1 point for winnning at third try (after getting some more money). Then, if we have a draw, we could look at who needed least game days, least gold or who had the best surviver ratio. Lord Vetka, your idea of making the maps increasingly harder and seeing who gets through farthest is also nice. I will think about it (and will be happy to hear other people's opinion). To your other questions: I thing we should make the castles interesting. Some could be on hills, there could be concentric rings of defences, perhaps with the inner ring on elevated ground (like a motte and baily). There could be a stone inner ring and a wooden palisade as outer defence. Many different opportunities. Also, castle buildings could be added, but for decoration only (or to provide "natural" obstacles and arrow protection for the streetfighting). As defending lord I should get certain starting troops, but should not be able to recruit new troops or repair walls. We do not want this to be never-ending battles (maybe 20 - 40 minute games). Both attacker and defender have to use their resources wisely, as they won't get new ones.

Well, my initial idea was like this (but we need to think it through to make sure it makes sense): I will post the "mission" on the forums (could be several forums, it would be nice to invite other players from SHH or the official C2 forum to join in). Let's say player A is the first to sign up. It goes on a first come first serve basis, so player A gets the to be the first one to try an assault. If he fails, he can try again but for his second assault he has 1 week pause time (in which he can look at the map and make a plan for his second assault, and heal his wounds). If another player (B) signs up during that week, he gets the chance to play his battle before player A has his second attempt. The same goes for the third attempt. I have no idea how many players we will get to sign up. If there is lot (like 5 players signing up within a weeek) we could make a list on a first-come-first-serve basis and if player A looses his first attempt he moves to the back of the line behind player E before he can have is second attempt. Of course if there are really a lot of player who want to play, this does not work anymore (waiting in a line of 20 people is just no fun). In that case we would really need to think of something else. And Micha!, good point about the trebuchets and mangonels. I think with this game we can restrict it to whatever we feel like. We could also say: max 3 dervishes or no fire carts. I am not sure if that is what we want, but restricing the trebs and mangonel towers certainly sounds like a good idea.

Thanks for all the good and encouraging feedback, guys. I think it is fair to say: we have a new project :D Lord Vetka, your idea to set up the attacker so, that he can recruit his troops in the actual game, sounds interesting. I would like to explore that further. Can you actually give different amounts of starting gold to different players in the map editor? If not, perhaps it can be done by placing a resource stash of gold in the camp of the attacker. He can then pick it up and recruit his troops with that money. Also, it is good to see that several map makers seem to be interested. This is great. I think I would never say that I can have too many maps for this game. If you guys have ideas and want to get started on a landscape, by all means do. We can think a bit more what the requirements for the castles should be, but really for landscapes anything goes. So feel free to go ahead and there will certainly be a place for it. I will be happy to act as the defending lord in the mulitiplayer battles, but if someone feels that he wants to take charge of defending his castle himself, I have no objections. It may be worth while putting a 3rd player position on the maps somewhere at the side where it is out of the way. That way we will have a "spectator's slot" available and another staff member, referee or just a spectator can join the game.

I am glad you guys like it. Micha!, I think it is more important that the castles are fun to siege and also good and natural looking. It should be challanging but not to the point where it gets frustrating. Perhaps we can start with an easy castle and get more difficult as we go forward. Basically, in this game it is the attacking lords who compete against each other - not the map creator against the attacking lords. (that could also be interesting, but it would be a different kind of game)

Over the Christmas holidays I have started to think about an idea for a new contest or MP event (it could be either, but I only have permissions to open a new therad in this section. Please, admins, feel free to move the thread wherever it fits best). I exchanged some emails with Lord Vetka on this topic and he encouraged me to open a thread to discus it with all of you guys. The idea is inspired by the Siege That competitions of Stronghold 1, that are held at Stronghold Heaven. Just to summarize what that is: one player designs a castle in the map editor, including troops and all that is needed for a scenario, and uploads it. He then challanges other players to siege that castle. Other players can download the map and see if they can beat it with the troops/gold, that has been provided for the attacking army. I am toying with the idea of setting up a Multiplayer Siege That competition. With the new possibilites of the SHC2 map editor, that should be doable and the battle in MP should be much more interesting and fun than SP. The way it would work is, that I build a castle on a free build landscape (including defending troops), post some pictures of it on the forums and ask for challengers who want to attack this castle in a multiplayer game. The attacker will be given a certain amount of gold and can choose himself, which troops to buy. I will then add those troops to the map in the map editor (recruiting new troops is disabled) and we meet online to see if he can capture the castle with the troops he has chosen. Each player could get 3 attempts to assault the castle. 1. On the first assault he only knows the castle from the screenshot that is posted plus any information that may be given in text form (by his spies). He gets the map when we meet online and that is the first time he can see it all. 2. If he does not succeed, he can try again. Now he has the full map available and can take, say, 1 week to study it and design a new strategy. 3. If he still does not succeed, he will be given a larger amount of money to build a stronger army for his third assault. This could be run as a short contest with a single castle - and the first to beat it, wins the contest. But if it works well, it could be a longer series with different castles (once I have been beaten, I will rebuild the castle bigger and stronger xD ). We could go up to, say, 5 castles. They could be all on the same map/landscape or if we are very productive in map making, they could be on different landscapes. For winners, we could just give a celebration to each lord or lady who captures a castle, or if we do want an overall winner, it could be the one who captured most castles with least number of assaults and most surviving men. I am sure we can work out a good way to determine the Greatest Conqueror.

Well, I don't see how anyone wanting to steal MY food should get away with anything less. ... ok, ok, maybe I am slightly over-reacting. Just slightly maybe. :P

Capital punishment is just a different word for death penalty. The meaning behind it probably is, that death penalty is the highest possible penalty that exists: hence "capital".

Thank for showing those pictures, Eagle Prince. And thanks for bringing this mod back to life and to our attention. The buildings look very good and from what I gather, it has a nice story to it, too. If someone manages to translate it into English, it could be an asset for the international community. Unfortunately I can't help with that as my Russian is pretty much non-existing. But there are several Russian Crusader 2 players (Fire Ranger comes to mind). Maybe support can still be found.

This sounds like a very interesting quest, that you brave knights are on. If you get a chance to post some pictures of the new building designs, that would be cool. :cool:

This is a nice idea :D I remember the Pig's castle from Stronghold 1. It was quite hard, and I needed several attempts. Felt great, when my troops were finally on his keep. About the invading (player) troops beeing controlled by the AI: did you check that they are correctly allocated to Player 1? Also, maybe you need to set the territory where they spawn to Player 1. Just an idea.

Congratulations also from me for the awards and for the new promotions. Charles of Tours and Micha! - well done and well deserved.

Thank you, Lord Vetka. I am back in the saddle after my Christmas break and want to wish everyone a Happy New Year, too. Looking forward to new adventures and activities in 2015. :cool:

Hi guys, just want to let you know, that I will be on Christmas vacation now until 7th of January :D I wish you all a good time and a good start into 2015. Look forward so seeing you again in the new year, Nigel

Nice map, Micha! Interesting thought to make it without stone resource. That means the castles will have more of a village or fort character with wooden palisades instead of big walls. Will you make stone a buyable item, or no stone at all? I also like the way you have placed the 3 keeps for each side. In a 3v3 this makes the roles quite clear. One lord will have to defend the mountain pass, one lord the river crossing and the lord in the middle will have a supporting role - or perhaps be the one who has to build up the attacking army. This should be fun to play.

Congratulations, Micha ! This has to be celebrated :D Lord Chris, where have you stored the ale and the fireworks? Don't tell me you did not bring them over when you moved the server.... ;)

As said in the "Two Cities" thread, lets move here with the discussion of the Steam Workshop. Some good comments were already posted there and Chris may want to copy them here. Meanwhile I will just add my thoughts here. I think the Steam Workshop is the big thing for the Stronghold community right now. It is too big to fight and we would be silly to try to ignore it. We have one thing though, which the Steam Workshop does not have: our maps get reviewed before they are posted. So while anyone can upload a fast and cheap map on the Workshop, we have a way to ensure quality over quantity. The best thing that could happen is, if "Hosted by Stronghold Nation" becomes a recognized sign for a high quality map. So we could upload our maps to the Workshop, too, and provide a link to SHN. And if we see a particularly good map on the Workshop, we can send the author an invitation to have it uploaded here - and perhaps featured on our front page for a certain time.

Yes, Lord Vetka; I shall put my thoughts on Workshop uploading in this thread. But thanks everyone for the good and encouraging replies during this project. I has been a great experience working on it as a team and we surely also learned a lot in the process. I shall look forward to playing the map with you guys. :)

While this thread is going more and more off topic, I might as well continue in that direction. I remember that I also started into Stronghold with a demo - albeit one from SH1. I have always been a friend of knights and castles - and battles of the sword and spear type (medieval or Trojans). I had loved to play Lords of the Realm. But first I was sceptical of Stronghold and not sure I would like RTS (too hectic for my slow brain). But then I found demo of it on a computer magazine and that blew me away. Stronghold is also the game that got me into forums and internet communities. I have been having fun with that ever since. :)

Two more pictures from outside of the cities. The lonely camel. Desert by night.

This one is the mosque in the Arabian city. And the streets of the city at night. I am putting spoiler tags around them, so you dont always have to load those "heavy" pictures when reading this page in the thread. And yes, we are limited to 2 attachments per post (which is reasonable, I guess).

We did play a test game on Thursday - even managed a 2v2 with two other guys joining us. It went really well. An exciting game to play and we did not find any real glitches that would be a show stopper. Here is a screenshot of the greatest lord curves after the match: This graph shows two things. 1. The map is pretty well balanced. All 4 curves run almost in parallel for the first 25 minutes (we had 5min PT). 2. The map can offer exciting battles. The curves go zig-zagging, which is always a sign for several varied battles that happened in the game. The more boring games tend to have curves which only constantly increase until a single battle point at the end. (ok, the curves show one more thing, namely that Nigel and Lord Vetka are hopeless at MP and lost this battle, but let's quickly skipp over this minor detail an move on....) I have made some more screenshots to show impressions of the map. Of course you have to remember they are from the map editor with free camera movement.

Meanwhile now the 2. Round of the Tournament has started. This is the schedule of the rounds: It is going very fast now with Round 3 starting Wednesday and the finals on the next Weekend. I wish good luck to Micha! and the other players who are still in it. :cool: