Fantastic news! I've been pleased with the castle editor, but there's no question that the UI feels very dated and can be hard to work with at times.

Greetings to All! The Castle Editor for Stronghold Legends has been serving us well for almost two years now - at the time of writing -, as it allows for modifying castle layouts for all the Legends lords, in an intuitive and considerably user-friendly way. One example would be the Vlad Enemies pack by @ Sir Windows , which brings us Radu and a handful of other characters to fight in Skirmish mode. However, it is obvious that the Editor's design and overall serviceability does not hold up to what we would expect in current times, since this application is essentially a re-compilation of Lord Britian's SHK Editor, intended for SH2 from 2006. Even though the source code had been somewhat modernised and extended with a handful of nifty features, the underlying visual tech is still the original one. Due to its dated presentation appeal and challenging maintenance hurdles, I decided to start working on a re-implementation. The new Castle Editor aims to bring a similar editing experience that feels more like present times, powered by the same tech presented by our Lord Editors, while also preserving portability for your comfort. The key advantage is that the source code would be fundamentally similar, while the visual style can also reminisce that of SHL with colorful backgrounds and visual elements adapted from the game itself. Some more advanced features could also be added upon request, as always. As a recap, allow me to list the core features to be expected for the Castle Editor: Displaying a Lord's castle on a 100x100 grid overview, with small pictures sized exactly to the footprint of each building. Setting the order of buildings based on their priority. Placing troop markers in the layout to tell the AI where to send its defensive and patrolling units. Placing traps in various key locations. Placing 'no build' tiles in order to restrict the AI from building in places of patrol points, or the way of rolling logs. Taking note of a file history so that you can recall your favourite files from a bullet list. Automatic saving option. And more to come. At this point, the parsing and creation of a castle file is done, and the presentation is being worked on. Should you have any remarks or feature requests, feel free to comment or send a DM to my profile! Until next time, Asophix

Both were pretty bad, but the SH2 behavior was more often frustrating for the player. Map design could fix the AI issue by always putting iron and stone in relatively close proximity in an estate.

This isn't directly related to this pack but I noticed something. While playing SH2 I realized ox tethers work differently compared to SHL. Oxen in SH2 seem to operate across the entire map while they have a pretty limited range in SHL. The SH2 system has the issue that an oxen placed next to a quarry might decide to walk across the map to service an iron mine. Still this is imho much better than the SHL situation where the AI will place all their oxen next to their single stone quarry while leaving four iron mines unserviced. It's be a neat if there was some way to set ox tethers back to their SH2 settings.

I'll take note of giving him more farms. He should have plenty of peasants at the campfire for some more food production anyway. Yes, I've looked at the .uni files before. All the files listed in the .uni are there so the issue must be rooted somewhere else. I've also looked into the AnimList.csv and AnimList.anl. At least as far as I can tell everything is where it's supposed to be.

Have you tried looking at the .uni files? They contain at least from my investigations lists of all the files needed to load the model correctly. You can open them in Notepad++, or use the Granny Viewer 2 software: https://www.stronghold-nation.com/article/62-adding-units-from-stronghold-legends-into-stronghold-2

Thanks for the acknowledgement, @ Sir Windows ! Hálás vagyok a magyar ellenfélért! Hunyadi feels kinda slow to build up, but he is fun to play with once he gets stabilised. It's hard to find a map where he plays on full swing. His consistent attack rate is something I like, kinda like Lancelot. He may be in need of more farms, as he tends to break even on consumption sometimes ~ selling food for gold could improve his standing. Holy Knights with the update is way more consistent, he actually attacks very fast now. His raids are also somewhat annoying, as you can never suspect him bringing out a mounted knight, or just a small band of archers. As a footnote: I noticed some minor graphics differences as well, even though I don't know how the animations work in either SH2 or SHL. In SH2 Steam Edition the swords texture is consistently missing from the armoury, but not in Legends. Simply replacing the one from SHL did not resolve the problem.

Light cavalry was made possible by @ Asophix hard work as he found the unit codes for the unit in the gamerules.dat. I noticed a minor issue though. The animation of the horses doesn't work, despite all the files being present by default in SHL. I wonder if this could be fixed somehow. Initially I thought maybe the SHL files are somewhat incomplete/broken, so I replaced them with the SH2 equivalents for the light cavalry. Unfortunately, it didn't help. Still, it's only a minor issue, as the rider's animation work fine. 🙂

Interesting thought @ Sir Windows ….. Would there be any other changes which would make your mod better? Ie other aspects of the game you’d like to customise which haven’t yet been found?

Well, yes you can indeed. This update took a bit longer since I got distracted by something else but here it is. Many thanks @ Asophix for making it possible with the newest version of the lord editor. Radu builds breweries now Holy Knights granary will now be built outside the castle in order to reduce walkways for farmers steamroll group slightly adjusted And now to the biggest change for this update: a brand new lord is added to the roster! General Hunyadi Difficulty: medium Preferred troops: light cavalry, pikemen, crossbowmen Protector of the Hungary, regent of the kingdom, General Hunyadi is both a mighty warrior and a cunning general. He is a master defender and deadly skirmisher, seeking to undermine his enemies before they can become a threat. The general doesn't think much of glorious combat in open fields, instead preferring to cripple his enemy with his deadly light cavalry raids. His castle is a formidable fortress that will cause many attackers heartaches. Still, one shouldn't underestimate his siege force once he decides the time has come to strike at his enemy's castle.

Hey, can we expect to see updates soon-ish to the existing or the newfound lords? 🙂 The lords each have been given a lot of custom content, so I take it is no small effort to get everything in place.

Hello All! A new version (v1.4) has been released. This version addresses a bunch of design changes and improvements that has been previously implemented for the SH2 Lord Editor. Simply follow the download link in the main post to download! Changelist: Buildings are grouped into their respective categories (SH2 LE). Tooltips have been added to Lords and a few more screen elements (SH2 LE). A few more lines of descriptive summaries have been added to each category's content (SH2 LE). Added Pictish Boat Warrior, Outlaw and Light Cavalry to the unit rosters. These units bring much flavour to the gameplay and it can also open some creative avenues for custom lords. Unique units - Dragons and Magicians - can no longer be set as Siege Army group types. I felt that dragons and casters have no place in a proper siege army. It is possible that e.g. a Merlin accompanying a siege formation could fit well, so upon request I may re-add the casters to the sieges. Validation rules have been revised. Complete list: Weaponcrafter workshop productions must be selected at least one type of product. Army groups consisting a unique unit must be given a maximum count of 1. The Siege Army groups' total size must not be less than the Siege Army base size. An error is thrown if Hovels cannot support the required number for running the economy. An error is issued if a blacksmith or armourer has no iron mines to supply them (thanks @ Sir Windows !). A warning is issued if Fantasy Units have no Special Recruitment Building, or vice versa. A warning is issued if there is no Pantry for supplying Royal Food, or vice versa. Overall run-time memory footprint decreased via code refactor. Attempts to save fail silently while validation errors are present (SH2 LE). About Window opacity slightly decreased for a more pleasant experience (SH2 LE).

Fantastic. Glad to see this kind of work coming along after the recent editor improvements. :D

Some feedback regarding the V2 lords: Radu Just like his original incarnation, he is considerably steady at building up. So far he is the most consistent lord. He builds no breweries for the Inn. I barely saw any harassment groups from him, apart from a few pikemen and archers. I could like a few more macemen, or more of the archers. 🙂 Holy Knights The defensive positions are manned well, however he is still conflicted between raids and armies. He forms his siege army fairly late. I recommend toning down the steamroll group to streamline his raids. The granary could be leveraged more by adding a gate, or pre-placing it in the AIC. The armory could be turned outwards for smoother weapon influx. Transylvanian Lord He is much better now, but still takes quite some time to build. The siege force is quite formidable (more threatening than vanilla Arthur!). The castle layout seems to be suffering from the fact that the walls greatly prolong travel time for workers. This is barely mitigated by having access to a second gatehouse. His pace could be enhanced by adding a gatehouse to the rest of the cardinal directions each. Men-at-arms could be used more in the raid groups. Overall it's a great improvement and can't wait to see the rest of the upcoming lords in the roster. 😉

First update to the lords is out! Thanks to @ Asophix and @ IgnasheunKnight for the initial feedback. The first update addresses issues with the holy knights and Transylvanian lord. Holy Knights Slight redesign of his castle with the goal of reducing stone cost and improving the economy. Engine tower with dragon harpoon removed in favour of more archers Number of lumber mills and quarries increased Number of weapons workshops reduced Apple farms added to food production These changes should hopefully help the knights get set up a bit faster. The reduced weapons production should get balanced out by more income from wood/stone/food which they can use to buy weapons. The engine tower+harpoon was a heavy investment which usually didn't pay out. Its removal should allow the knight to get things like a church built much earlier. Transylvanian Lord Number of lumber mills and quarries increased Number of bakeries increased Number of weapons workshops reduced Poleturner added Raiding behaviour and troop types changed Macemen removed from siege and raid rosters Men at arms added to raid and siege rosters The Transylvanian lord was by far the slowest and most sluggish new lord. Higher lumber and stone production should allow him to get his economy going and his castle completed quicker. Bread should provide him with a new income source as well. Men at arms were added to his roster in order to give him a cheap unit option for raiding and assembling a siege army quicker.

This looks amazing! I definitely need to give it a try 🙂

Maybe something to consider in future in case any mods become available

Glad to hear it! I've tried getting as much use out the voice lines from the campaign as possible. At least Radu should mostly taunt the player with his iconic lines.

Awesome! I can't wait to try it out!

Good day everyone, some time ago I made a lord pack adding Radu into the game. After some time I decided that the other enemies Vlad faces in his campaign would also make for interesting AI opponents. This new lord pack replaces three existing lords in custom skirmish with three enemy lords from Vlad's evil campaign. The screenshots show each new lord's respective castles and the siege armies of Radu and the holy knights. Transylvanian Lord Difficulty: medium Preferred troops: swordsman, man at arms, Round Table units This lord replaces Arthur. The Transylvanian likes building a large and well fortified castle. He might not be the fastest attacker, but his siege armies are strong, and he uses the round-table to its fullest extent. His castle design is based on one of the three castles used in the third mission of the evil campaign. In the campaign mission the three lords run on the Arthur, Lancelot and Alfred AI respectively. As such, I mostly based the siege roster on the scripted invasion during that mission, augmented by round-table units. Radu Difficulty: medium Preferred troops: crossbowman, pikeman Vlad's brother replaces Lancelot. He is a formidable foe and an aggressive attacker. His castle is small and quickly finished, as such his raids and sieges commence rather soon. He's mostly unchanged from his appearance in the older lord pack. Some changes include the removal of knights and macemen in order to keep him from being too similar to the other lords in this pack. The Holy Knights Difficulty: hard Preferred troops: knight, archer, trebuchet These crusaders hail from across Europe and replace Dietrich. Their castle is simple, and they despise all kinds of magic & witchcraft. One shouldn't take these knights lightly, as their industry and siege craft is unmatched. By far the strongest lord in this pack. The holy knights need some time to get going, since they use some very expensive units, but once they attack be prepared for a fight. I wish they could've also been part of the good faction, but with only two slots available they had to end up in the ice faction. General Hunyadi Difficulty: medium Preferred troops: light cavalry, pikeman, crossbowman Protector of the Hungary, regent of the kingdom, General Hunyadi replaces Siegfried. He is a master defender and deadly skirmisher, seeking to undermine his enemies before they can become a threat. The general doesn't think much of glorious combat in open fields, instead preferring to cripple his enemy with his deadly light cavalry raids. His castle is a formidable fortress that will cause many attackers heartaches. Still, one shouldn't underestimate his siege forces either. Vlad & Mordred These lords are not replaced by anyone. Vlad remaining in this pack needs no explanation. Mordred doesn't really fit in but there wasn't really anyone to replace him with. He's received minor updates though. Vlad - Vlad is now the true master of evil. His Saxon warriors are replaced by werewolves across the board. It always struck me as weird that Vlad doesn't use werewolves, which play a central part in his campaign. Mordred - Since Vlad is now the werewolves master, Mordred will be using Saxons instead. Thematically it fits better with him since he was allied with them in Arthur's campaign. His men-at-arm are upgraded to pikemen for more staying power.

I sometimes wish Alfred and Beowulf were available in custom skirmish just for the 3rd good/evil lord slot to put a custom lord in. 😅

The Stronghold 2 Map Unlocker was hosted by Stronghold Knights, a former fansite. This can also be used on Stronghold Legends with no adjustments needed. You can download this from the Downloads section here: https://www.stronghold-nation.com/forums/forum/40-shk-map-unlocker/ Note that this forum will only be used for any changes to a Stronghold Legends version (if one is ever made). If you are looking to discuss the SH2 (current) map unlocker, or for further news please visot the following forum on the Stronghold 2 Modders Community: https://www.stronghold-nation.com/forums/forum/40-shk-map-unlocker/

There’s always time to make new ones 😉 I was going to myself actually but only ever started work on an Ice Queen.

Bigger maps like in Stronghold 2 and more AI lords. At least Beowulf and Alfred should be available by default. There's no third Ice lord in the game but Hildebrand, the dwarf king or Morgan le Fay could've been made into a skirmish opponent.

A new version (v1.3) has been released. Simply follow the download link in the main post to download! Changelist: New validation error rule: unit groups with a unique unit - e.g. Merlin - as type must have a quantity of 1. Replaced auto-complete boxes with combo boxes for unit types. This change is necessary to avoid inconsistencies in the background. Removed Ranged Pool unit type selector, as the Ranged Defense group dictates its type. Streamlined validation check logic.