Try to appeal to Firefly to give us AI in multiplayer?

[EaglePrince 230]

Hi, what do you think about this idea? This is something almost all of us would want us to have! Stronghold 2 is the best game when we want to enjoy running our castles, and for that reason many of those who choose Stronghold 2 over Stronghold Crusader may not like competitive multiplayer games. Because of that when many of us, when they are about to play Stronghold 2 with their friends, want to play together against AI lords instead of playing against each other.

 

Even if those AI lords would attack only one human player it would be enough for us to have fun, because right now if we want to play a game like this we can only start a game as enemies and fight against outlaws which is that challenging - one can easily kill them once he is able to train archers and spearmen.

 

So, what do you think, would this be worth to try? I realize most of us don't believe they would come back to this game for this, but I don't think it would be to much work (for them) to do. There could be some limitations, but even with them it would mean us a lot. Just look at this forum or at Stronghold Heaven, I'd say that people come often to ask about Stronghold 2 AI Managed which unfortunately works only with 1.3.1 version, and I am sure that there are even more people out there who would love this, but which haven't spoken about this on a forum.

 

Our ideas

  Quote

• AI lords in multiplayer
  
• few more kingmaker mods such as: no rates, no gong, no crime...*
  
• kingmaker mod without honor*
  
• auto-buy and auto-sell options
  
• better looking moats
  
• ability to save game in multiplayer
  
• enable using custom shields in multiplayer games (so I wouldn't be the only one who would see my custom shields and banners)**
  
• making scripted events from singleplayer also possible in multiplayer***
  

 

*I like the concept of honor in Stronghold 2 (and Stronghold 3 as well, though I prefer the one in Stronghold 2), and I also like this part with dealing with hygiene and crime in the castle, but it drives away some players who want to play "a classic Stronghold", so having two checkboxes "no crime, rats and gond" and "no honor" would be appreciated by many Stronghold players.

**Also, they could make the thing with crests somewhat different - for example, I can choose a shield which would be mine, and depending of what my color in the multiplayer game is, the color would change, meaning if I choose the red dragon on white shield, if I get to be the green player, I would have a green dragon on white shield. The game would just pick one of those eight shields. This would work perfectly with all those crests made by Firefly, while if one wants to use his custom crest in multiplayer he would need to make eight crests for each of eight colors, and one doesn't do it that way, the game would choose the default green shield for him if he is about to be the green player.

***This may (or may not) be more difficult to implement. But it would finally allow us to make multiplayer scenarios, like we can do in Crusader 2. And it would be even better, since the scripting of SH2 works much better than in Crusader 2. But it would open up a new way of gaming for us.

 

 

 

 

 

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Edited March 23, 2016 by EaglePrince

[EaglePrince 230]

I am writing here as this is related to Stronghold 2, and after what I was told here.

 

If they don't work on Crusader 2, maybe they could have a look into Stronghold 2. Many games have their HD versions and things like that released years after the original game release. In this case we miss:

-AI lords in multiplayer (it doesn't matter to me if they don't attack all players, or things like that, it's just that it would be interesting to have fight with your friend against six Williams for example).

-they could add few more kingmaker mods such as: no rates, no gong, no crime... which is of the things that drove away many potential players of the game. I like those things, but I think that Firefly could benefit from that.

-they could also add a mod without honor. In Crusader 2 they just took this logic: "simpler it is, more players will like it". To some extent I believe that this is why more people play Crusader. When they see gong in Stronghold 2 they just say "what the heck is this". smile

-they could add auto-buy and auto-sell options like in Stronghold Legends

-they could make moats better looking - they way they look in Stronghold Legends at least. They have the experience from SHL, it should be easier for them those accomplish those two.

-another thing they could give us is ability to save game in multiplayer, or maybe to have autosave as well. I believe this could be done easily - the one who hosts would make a save of the game on his machine, and when they want to continue they just come back, and all players need to remember who was player 1, who was player 2, etc... And when they are in their places the host just loads the game, and they can finish what they started. I say this as I realize that in Stronghold 2 everything is on the hosts PC (or something like that).

-maybe they could even enable using custom shields in multiplayer games, so I wouldn't be the only one who would see my custom shields and banners.

 

And one more thing. Now, years after the original release, we have seen how great Stronghold 2 maps can be, and now there are tons of maps and scenarios downloadable from here and from Stronghold Heaven. So - there are tons of maps, while the original release had few of them, and none of them is as good as The Chokepoint Island made by Tokamaps for example. There are lots of great maps, so:

-the gameplay of Stronghold 2 is way better than the one is Stronghold 2 and Crusader 2, while with those suggestions I had it would be better in anyone's opinion. I mean, come on, Crusader 2 doesn't even have laddermen (correct me if I'm wrong, that is if I missed that they added those guys in a patch)... sad

-they already have this game, so only some small additional work would be needed to accomplish this.

-the graphics in the game is really good, in my opinion it's not that much behind those newer games. Plus, like I said, there are many awesome maps out there, so with those they could show to people that Stronghold 2 maps are not just "huge green plains like a carpet" - they have a great map editor by which stunning landscapes can be done.

 

Sorry for making it too long maybe, I hope you will read this. smile I just think that they could give us those things that we miss in Stronghold 2 really easily, and if you're asking me, I would pay a DLC that would bring us those things. smile

Just look at Rise of Nations: Extended Edition, that is basically the same game with few details added, better water reflection and stuff like that, while this what I wrote about would be completely extended edition which would fit every Stronghold fan! smile

[Lord_Chris 251]

I've sent an email off to Marta, one of the PR officers at Firefly I'm in touch with. I'll let you know if there are any plans to add any more features or bug fixes to Stronghold 2 or Legends.

[EaglePrince 230]

Thanks, Chris! :) I am sure that if I asked this on various forums that we could collect lots of players who would like to see these things, but I should only add that for this we shouldn't try seeking for people only at Stronghold 2 forums, but in other forums as well. In my opinion, after Stronghold 2 and Stronghold 3 they have noticed that many like playing Stronghold with simpler economy, so they could bring a mod with simpler economy for those players.

 

Besides this, all those additional options I have would be really great for most of players: multiplayer with AI lords, stuff that they introduced in Stronghold Legends (which as far as I know uses the same engine as Stronghold 2) such as auto-buy and auto-sell options, better looking moats like in Stronghold Legends, ability to save a multiplayer game, and using custom crests in multiplayer.

 

Also, they could make the thing with crests somewhat different - for example, I can choose a shield which would be mine, and depending of what my color in the multiplayer game is, the color would change, meaning if I choose the red dragon on white shield, if I get to be the green player, I would have a green dragon on white shield. The game would just pick one of those eight shields. This would work perfectly with all those crests made by Firefly, while if one wants to use his custom crest in multiplayer he would need to make eight crests for each of eight colors, and one doesn't do it that way, the game would choose the default green shield for him if he is about to be the green player.

 

All those things are something that were people asking for a long time, it would be great to see those. :)

 

I hope they would make this possible.

 

Also, if we were able to play multiplayer game with AI lords, maybe we could have multiplayer scenarios, but that may be going too far for now. :)

 

 

This would be great because many players have never actually given a chance to Stronghold 2 because of rats, gong and crime. I like this concept, and it doesn't actually make the game any harder, but unfortunately that is the case with many players. If those players learned the game better they would have different opinion about it. And, once again - there are many awesome maps which make the game way more beautiful.

[Lord_Chris 251]

I've received a reply from Marta. She said that Firefly might be adding more fixes and/or features to Stronghold 2 or Legends in the coming months.

[EaglePrince 230]

Thanks Chris! That sounds really great!:) I hope they would implement at least some of those things.

 

If someone else have some ideas about what could be added in Stronghold 2 or Stronghold Legends, me could say it here. Hopefully they will listen.

[Nigel 71]

This is really good news. Well, it may or may not happen, but at least it is not a clear "No, we are done with it".

 

There are 2 things which come to my mind immediately (one is more and one less realistic).

 

1. Saving game in multiplayer. That would be really great to allow long and epic battles and should not be too hard to implement.

 

2. Making scripted events from singleplayer also possible in multiplayer. This may (or may not) be more difficult to implement. But it would finally allow us to make multiplayer scenarios, like we can do in Crusader 2. And it would be even better, since the scripting of SH2 works much better than in Crusader 2. But it would open up a new way of gaming for us.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Nigel

[EaglePrince 230]

I was thinking about both of your ideas here, and yes, that would be really great! Only I wasn't writing the second one, but I will write down in the first post here concisely what are all the ideas we got.

[Lord_Chris 251]

Maybe we could do an "Official Stronghold 2 suggestions" topic which I'll make sticky. It could prove very useful to all of us, and give us a proper place to discuss ideas.

[EaglePrince 230]

I agree with that. We could rename this tread, or you could create a new one, and I would just repeat what I said here in shorth - together with Nigels suggestions.

[Lord_Chris 251]

Done: http://forums.stronghold-nation.com/topic/727-official-stronghold-2-suggestions-list/ :)

[EaglePrince 230]

Thanks, Chris. :)