Nigel

Well, I had been thinking about this, EaglePrince. The problem with having a "draw" is: who will then own that county? The defender I suppose - anything else would not make sense. But then it is for the defender the same as if he had won the battle. Now one could say, that is ok, the defender should have a certain advantage. And I think it would work well, as long as there are some strong players and some less strong players. But later in this tournament, when the remaining players have approximately equal skill, I am afraid we would always only get stalemate battles (turteling defender has a big advantage in Crusader 2). Then the movement on the campaign map grinds to a halt and that's what I am trying to avoid. But hey, let's see how it goes in this tournament. We can always learn. :)

EaglePrince and Tokamaps, this is a very nice idea. It may need some work to set it up, but yes, the idea is cool. Let's keep it in mind and we can open a new thread for it. Meanwhile, I am getting quite a bit of feedback from players about things to look out for in the MP matches. One other thing that was mentioned is camping. In SH Crusader 2 a player in his castle has a really big advantage over an attacker and if both have equal strength, he cannot be defeated. Since it is possible to win by Greatest Lord, an attacker might just turtle up in his castle to become Greatest Lord and sit it out until the time is up. But that would be pretty lame. Camping rules To avoid such a situation, I am adding the following non-camping rule: - The attacker will be expected to move out and make an attack, if he is the Greatest Lord. - But if he is behind on the score, no one can expect him to go on a suicide mission. He can try to catch up on the eco and if he manages to become Greatest Lord shortly before the time is up, the victory will still be his. I hope this will avoid a stalemate situation if two players have about equal strength. If the attacker is the stronger player, he can storm the defender's castle anyway. And of course, if the defender is stronger, there is nothing to stop him from going out and storming the attacker's castle :D

LOL While I have not contributed much here, I am glad to see that you guys are keeping your sense of humour. :D

I am getting quire a few registrations and also had some good chats with players over Stream. One question I keep getting asked is, what if my game lags. And lag is indeed a known problem with this game. Edward Dunferline (=SlowAnice), a player who has taken part in several tournaments, made a suggestion which I quite like. In his experience, lag is not so bad if you play a shorter game with less peace time and a self-controlled troop limit of 150. That is still enough to have a fun game, and less risk of lag. So I am updating the rules to allow 2 options: - A long game for players with high end PCs : 1 hour game time, 15 min PT, medium settings, troop limit 300. - A short game in one of the players has lag problems: 30 min game time, 10 min PT, low settings, troop limit 150. Teams decide before the battle if they want to do a long or short game. The rule is, if 1 player wants to do a short battle, then a short battle it shall be. Only if every player can happily play a long battle without lag, then players can also do the long game. I am really happy abot the registrations that are coming in. Alread we have enough to make the contest work. So after this weekend, I will be fixing the start date for the contest. Keep watching this space. :)

Whow, we already have quite a few applications coming in. That is really nice :) Talking of nice; along the lines of "play nice" I have added some general rules to the tournament post above. I think this is fair gaming for all the tournaments hosted at the Stronghold Nation. The patrons here will know the drill. :)

Your castles look fantastic, Steinhardt. I look forward to playing them. Wellcome to the site :)

Great - FireFly have put out a note about this tournament on their facebook page. It is really nicely written.

Hey Tonkamaps, No worries. I think there will be several players like you and we will go and find teams before we start. Let's see who else wants to join. Marta has helped me get a registration form up and running, similar to the one FireFly uses for their tournaments. Follow the link and put your details in. And hopefully the list of players will fill up over the next couple of days. :)

Some while ago I chatted with Igi.tanas, who is one of the lone champions from FireFly's Crush the Champion Trounament. There seems to be quite some interested in having a 2v2 tournament. As it happens, I had been thinking about an idea for such a tournament for some time and this seems to be a good chance to try it out. Speaking to Lord Chris and Marta from FireFly over the last few days, I have put together a detailed description here and it would be great if we could get a little competition going. The idea is to have a 2v2 conquest tournament. Instead of the usual tournament brackets, we have a map with different counties. For example, I have taken a map of the island of Sicily (simply because I was able to find a suitable map for it). On this map, we should be able to have an interesting tournament, even if we only have 4 teams. At the beginning each team gets the same number of provinces. For example, if we have 4 teams, I will make 12 provinces and each team gets 3. For 8 teams, there will be 16 provinces, 2 each. Now the rounds begin. A round will last 1 week and in each round, every team can attack 1 province which is next to their territory. They choose which province they want to attack and announce it on the forum. Then the attacker and defender meet on the battlefield and fight a 2v2 battle. If the attacker wins, he gets the county. If the defender wins, he keeps the county and the attacker has lost his chance to gain a new county in that round. Here is an exampe of how a round could go: Red attacks county 4 and wins against Yellow Yellow attacks county 7 and wins against Green Green attacks county 10 and looses against Blue Blue attacks county 5 and wins Yellow Then the round is over and now the map looks like this: The rounds continue until 1 team has conquered 60% of the map (i.e. 6/10 or 7/12). But also, to avoid a stalemate, the team with most counties after 8 rounds wins - and in the unlikely case that 2 teams have exactly the same number we can have one last tye-breaker battle. This is how the battles are scheduled: One round lasts for 1 week. This way the players have 1 week time to arrange their battles after everyone has announced where they want to attack. To help with the battels, I will be online on Wednesday evening between 20:00 and 23:00 CET for "battle hours". Why Wednesday? Why not on the Weekend? Well, this is really only because I usually cannot play on weekends due to other responsibilities. I am a typical workday evening gamer. But I know that most players prefer to play on the weekend, and that is absolutely OK. The teams can make their own arrangements to meet and fight whenever suits them best. The "battle hours" on Wednesday are only there to give a fixed day for the last chance to resolve any battles that are still open. If both teams meet online, they go into the game and do the battle. If the attacking team is online during the battle hours, but the defender does not show up, the attacker gets the county without a fight. If the attacker does not show up, the county remains with the original owner (regardles wheter the defending team is there or not - if you want to take a county, you have to get out of bed and be on the battlefield). This way we will be able to get all battles resolved within the week. After the last battle I will update the map to show all the outcomes on Wednesday night. During Thursday the teams decide about their next attacks and let me know on the forum - or by PM if they prefer to keep it secret - by Thursday midnight CET. As soon as I have all the info for the next attacks, I will post that right under the battle map so everyone can see whom he is fighting next and for what county. So from Friday onwards, players can start arranging their battles again and we have again the final battle hour on Wednesday. The battle rules Battles last up to 1 hour including peace time. If no team has been defeated within 1 hour, the team with the Greatest Lord wins. Settings: medium ressources, 1000 gold, 15 minutes peace time, autosave 5 minutes. Defending team gets first choice of starting positions. In case of heavy lag or connection loss, the battle is restarted at the last autosave. If the battle cannot be restarted, the team with the Greatest Lord at the last austosave wins. UPDATE: Edward Dunferline (=SlowAnice), a player who has taken part in several tournaments, made a suggestion which I quite like. Lag is a known problem in this game, but in his experience, lag is not so bad if you play a shorter game with less peace time and a self-controlled troop limit of 150. That is still enough to have a fun game, and less risk of lag. Check top right corner of the screen to see how many troops you have on the battle field. So I am updating the rules to allow 2 options: - A long game for players with high end PCs : 1 hour game time, 15 min PT, medium settings, troop limit 300. - A short game in one of the players has lag problems: 30 min game time, 10 min PT, low settings, troop limit 150. Teams decide before the battle if they want to do a long or short game. The rule is, if 1 player wants to do a short battle, then a short battle it shall be. Only if every player can happily play a long battle without lag, then players can also do the long game. Camping rules To avoid a camping situation where no one moves out of his castle, I am adding the following non-camping rule: - The attacker will be expected to move out and make an attack, if he is the Greatest Lord. - But if he is behind on the score, no one can expect him to go on a suicide mission. He can try to catch up on the eco and if he manages to become Greatest Lord shortly before the time is up, the victory will still be his. I hope this will avoid a stalemate situation if two players have about equal strength. If the attacker is the stronger player, he can storm the defender's castle anyway. And of course, if the defender is stronger, there is nothing to stop him from going out and storming the attacker's castle :D Prizes Yes, there will be prizes. FireFly has kindly offered to support the contest and the winning team will recieve a code to each of their games on Steam as the first prize. The second place will recieve a Crusader 2 DLC of their choiche. But beyond that, there will of course be fame and glory for everyone who is taking part and fighting honourably. Sign up The contest is open to everyone. To register, post here at the forum or use the registration form following this link. Players who alerady have a team (friends, clan members) can give their team mates name at registration, but both players in the team need to officially register. Single players are also wellcome to sign up and we can make spontaneous teams when we start :) We will need a minimum of 4 teams to get going - maximum of 8. My hope is, that we can get this contest started in mid July :) UPDATE: I am happy to announce that we have the full number of 8 teams. So registration is now closed and the battles will soon begin. Several players have already registered as a team, but there were also some lonely knights and I have allocated them together. Here are the teams that will be fighting: Igi.tanas - Dodorus Edward Dunferline - Korsar ErTu?RuL GAZ? - GlorieuX Strahi - Kita CadetKlinge - Tokamaps kiki - kurnaz Rakso - Letonetma Mr.Monk - Tat4ba There are players of all different skill levels. Some of them are very good an have taken part in previous tournaments. It should be a very exciting contest. :D Please go ahead and add each other on Steam, so that you will be able to communicate easily. General Rules The general site rules for the Stronghold Nation site apply also to the tournament. Also, fair and polite behavoir is expected. Rude language and especially comments that are sexist, racist or fascist will not be tolerated. The display of Nazi symbols or Islamic State related content is not acceptable in this tournament. That said, I hope it will be a fun and enjoyable experience for everyone :)

Defeat screens ..... well, I have plenty of those to offer. :P Note that, while it was June when the attacking army entered the keep, it had become July when my lord acually died. He was truely holding out as long as he could with his last breath.

Yes, it was the assassins, that broke my back in the end. They reached the towers and killed off my archers. From then on it was beyond recovery. I did use the oilpot on one occasion successfully against a bunch of 10 swordsmen trying to knock down my gate. They got roasted in their armour and I was surprised how effective this trick was. Maybe I am a bit "spoiled" by Crusader 2, where the oilpot is rather useless. Anyhow, Lord Chris, this scenario is indeed awesome. It would be cool to have more missions of this kind :)

Well, I made it until June 1187 - without the use of "black magic". :) It is are really fun map to play. Easy at first, but then, when your money runs out, the panicking struggle starts. EaglePrince, if you managed to find a way to somehow survive it indefinitely, I can only applaud you. 52d_24_Nigel_invas.sav

Well, I have not answered here, but I intend to give it a try. As I understand it, this it not about actually winning this mission, but about holding out as long as possible. Of course, if you can win it, you will be the absolute champion. :)

Nice one, Floki I missed this one, but surely there will be other challanges, which I am going to take up. Meanwhile, you are catching up .... :D

Thanks Chris. You know I am not too fuzzed about winning, but still, I wondered when you would pick it up :P It was a good challange, too, and very fun to play.

Well, my 2. attempt got me "a lot" further: 4 armor and 8 iron :P It does not sound like a great improvement, but at least I managed to get a stable economy for the last few month before the time ran out. On the 3. attempt I finally made it: just in time in March 1227 52 Weeks_20_Nigel.zip

Yup, this is a real challange. You "only" have to gather 4 armor and 4 swords in this map, but you are really out in the desert here, with not a single straw to support your food economy. My first attempt got me as far as 4 armor and 4 iron ingots - and lots of angry peasants. I shall try again...

This sounds like an interesting challange. I will certainly give it a go and even if I cannot complete it, let's see how far I can get. :)

Hi guys, I just wanted to let you know that I am back from my holidays. 2 great weeks in Andalucia, in lovely Spain. We had good food and wine, sunshine (well, most of the time - a few rainy days, too) and best of all, I saw the Alhambra Castle. 8)

Ahh, another challange for the map makers among us. I will pass on this and will wait for a challange which actually gets me to fight a map. But I do love those historical missions - Battle of Bannockburn that is something. Unfortunately I will miss the next 2 challanges, too. I will be going on a 2 week holiday in Spain. We will be seeing the Alhambra castle in Andalucia. I am really looking forward to that. :D

I actually have one, too. Nigel6Loring So far I only used it to upload a video I made years ago from a Shogun2 TW battle I played with a couple of friends. One of my more spectacular defeats. But in S2TW your units can actually earn names for themselves if they perform well in MP battles and one of my spear units got their honourable name from this fight (my friend used to have a Cashew as avatar at the time :P ). My video making skills are not exactly brilliant. But yes, I do have a YouTube name :)

Nice video, EaglePrince. I enjoyed it a lot (and it taught me quite a bit, too). Also, you are getting pretty good at making videos :) Yes, Narrikis, that is my main gripe with "professional" players as well. Where is that feeling of knights and lords, they might as well be factory directors :P

Whatever it is, Matthew, I wish you all the strength and what else you need now. Come back whenever you feel like it. You will surely find an open ear and always a warm wellcome here.

That is a neat idea. We can set up one "market estate" just for trading. You put something there that I want, I take over the village and cart the goods to my castle and bring the payment goods to the estate and then you take over the village again. Stock Exchange in the true sense of the word :D

Indeed, Sir Mathew, that would be very nice. Look forward to crossing swords with you sometime. And talking about trade, is it possible to send carters to enemy estates? I could have said, "I will buy that estate off you for 200 iron ingots" or something like that :)