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I tried the SH4 alpha and it is alright, despite the user interface being a little all over the place and the preview not offering very much for the moment. Basically the whole feeling or gist to it is that it is what Stronghold 3 ever wanted to be, if it could. There are a lot of buildings to aesthetically build your castle, plenty of different resources and what-not, but in the end it's Stronghold. The economic mission is more of a tutorial to getting a feeling for the economy and the honor aspect, while the military mission offers a good, but relaxing challenge. For those who like a simplistic introductory gameplay, will definitely get a basic good feeling from the demo.

Hello Everyone! Firefly has announced that they will be revealing a new Stronghold title at the PC Gaming Show this Sunday. Date and Time: Sunday June 7th at 8pm BST / 9pm CEST / 12pm PDT / 3pm EDT Announcement Video: Have fun and let's see what'll be shown on Sunday! Stronghold 4 Information & Features General Information Release date: 2026 Steam demo launch: 23 June 2026 Main Features 22 mission story campaign set before the events of the original Stronghold Skirmish mode featuring 8 AI opponents Skirmish trail Free-build mode Gameplay features Grid based construction system as seen in Stronghold Crusader 2 and Warlords Honour and rank system like in Stronghold 2 Lord's kitchen and royal foods (honey, grapes, wine and four different types of meat) Houses provide honour and can be upgraded for increased output Turnips added as a new basic food type for the general population, replacing meat from previous titles Cheese reworked into a multi building production chain (dairy farm to produce milk and cheesemaker to turn milk into cheese) Daily random events Weather types such as rain and snow Stronghold & Crusader style inns rather than a Stronghold 2 ale consumption slider Three different religious buildings - shrine, chapel and church New weapon types such as short bows and war hammers Moats, pitch traps and killing pits Stone and wooden versions of the barracks New and returning units Armed Peasants, men at arms, macemen, crossbowmen, pikemen, swordsmen and knights return Archer split into two unit types - shortbowman and longbowmen Shortbowmen shoot faster and can set pitch on fire Longbowmen have greater range but slower rate of fire and are unable to set pitch ablaze Sergeant unit armed with war hammers (more information to come) Battering rams, catapults, tower mounted ballistae and tunnellers return Story & Characters Set before the events of Stronghold The player takes on the role of Penryn of Wethel, a shepherd who rises to become a leader during a time of calamity Sir Longarm, Duke de Puce (the Rat) and Duke Beauregard (the Snake) confirmed to return Lord Woolsack, pig and wolf hinted at as returning

Hello All! As known, Stronghold 4 got its first preview demo with humble, but almost complete gameplay and content. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, it has been possible to peek into the bundled game contents and uncover fun details, which have been left out, or unimplemented. Without further ado, follow me as the mystery of SH4 unfolds! Read at your own risk.

Guau muchas gracias Asofix me siento muy honrado de poder aportar a la comunidad de Stronghold Nation. Es de destacar el trabajo de los administradores y moderadores que dirigen esta comunidad. Mi aporte es pequeño comparado con el esfuerzo tan grande y notorio que ustedes hacen a lo largo del tiempo para mantener este espacio vivo y ordenado. Sin su dedicación, no seria posible. Crear estos escenarios ha sido genial gracias al editor de Stronghold Legends. Es una herramienta increíblemente intuitiva con posibilidades casi infinitas para plasmar cualquier idea. Por eso, quiero animar a los demás jugadores a crear y sigan aportando mapas y demás as contenido tanto en Legends como en los demás títulos de la saga, incluido Stronghold 4. Me daría mucho gusto verlos jugar en mis mapas y, sobre todo, probar las creaciones de ustedes. ¡Muchas gracias a todos por el espacio y por jugar! --- Wow, thank you so much Asophix! I feel very honored to be able to contribute to the Stronghold Nation community. The work of the administrators and moderators who run this community is truly remarkable. My contribution is small compared to the enormous and noticeable effort you all make over time to keep this space alive and organized. Without your dedication, it wouldn't be possible. Creating these scenarios has been fantastic thanks to the Stronghold Legends editor. It's an incredibly intuitive tool with almost endless possibilities for bringing any idea to life. That's why I want to encourage other players to create and continue contributing maps and other content, both in Legends and in the other titles of the series, including Stronghold 4. I would love to see you play on my maps and, above all, try out your creations. Thank you all so much for the space and for playing! (moderator's note: added English translation, powered by Google Translate)

Well that was fun. Things I liked: Visual presentation is very good, even on medium-low the game is nice to look at. Castle life is booming and one can watch the peasants doing all kinds of jobs in great detail New music tracks and old tracks from SH1 & SH2 blend together well New production chain for cheese is a good addition Building walls works well and there are a lot of options to design your stone or wooden castle Lots of options for wooden fortifications are a nice addition Random daily events might be interesting once more are added Formations and unit collision work well enough Returning to the original medieval England setting was a good idea The demo was pretty stable for me Things I disliked: The UI feels cluttered, and it took me a while to get a hang of it The wood cost for some building is very high (200 wood for an inn). It feels very SHC2 like in this regard, the market will be pretty essential in this game. Longbowmen look a little odd While the music is good, the pauses between tracks feel too long, sometimes one forgets there is music I wish spearmen would carry their spear in their hands before throwing it like the old games, rather than on their back The rat's forces appear in blue rather than orange, hopefully this'll change in the final release All in all it looks promising, and I was pleased with the demo. Hopefully they'll fine tune and optimize the game before launch. Not a fan of the UI but that's something that's unlikely to change at this point.

Behind the scenes In the original SHK Editor there is a weird quirk, when it comes to displaying buildings. Even not long after its release, people complained about the Engineer's Guild being off by one tile, when rotated east. Even though this itself is an easily fixable problem, delving into the buildings list reveals that almost every building has a whole slew of corrections applied on top. When adapting the Editor for the Legends buildings, all buildings got vastly different dimensions, so all corrections had to be painstakingly found out and updated. Still, the in-game Map Editor in SH2 & SHL is able to effortlessly rotate buildings. Is the math behind it so complex and difficult? What could cause this mismatch in HicRic's interpretation? The answer lies in the anatomy of a building. See, building footprints starting with SH2 are slightly more complex than for example in SHC, as buildings are comprised of two components: Occupied Area: this footprint is reserved for the building itself, and can't be built on Walkable Area: this footprint outlines a general area for peasants / units to approach the building. While still can't be built on, walkable areas can overlap for multiple buildings. Since most buildings effectively carve out a rectangle or square, HicRic's interpretation was that this could apply to every building, and as such a rectangular 2D area was assigned to each of them. There are however buildings with more complex footprints, like the Keep, where the campfire's 4x4 area is attached to the occupied area of the building: Going further with the above theory, it seems that rotation around a center point always results in a consistent position, however it is almost never the case, if the building's footprint is not a perfect square and is included a walkable area. HicRic also realised this and implemented a correction system on top, which adjusts the building to its real position. This does not follow a pattern however and takes unjustified effort to implement. What HicRic failed to account for, is the fact that the focal point of the rotation is the center of the occupied area, not the center of the building's effective rectangle footprint. See how the yellow point is about two tiles away compared to the real point of rotation, visibly misplaced: In short, all buildings in SH2 & SHL have occupied areas each that assumes the shape of a rectangle or square. Using this knowledge, the brute force correction system can be dropped and building administration can become more intelligent, further improving invalid building placement checks and other related features. Thanks for reading! 🙂

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

Hello Everyone! There are multiple news in the SH4 department, as it is a double whammy: a new demo version has been made available for download on Steam, as well as details about the early access period arrived. About the Demo There are two demo versions coming up: one already available as of October 8, while a second one will release on October 19 with the Steam Next Fest. The current demo is featuring a Free Build mode to play around with the toys at our disposal, as well as resources can be added at will along with preset invasions to lay siege on your fortification. On top of it, the tutorial missions have been preserved for play, should you prefer a more narrative approach to economy and military alike. The second demo will come with the yet unseen Skirmish Mode, where you can battle it out against three computer opponents in 1v1 or 1v3 preset settings: Penryn, The Snake and Sir Longarm. The download link for the current demo is unchanged: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2153760/Stronghold_4/ (4.6 GB size). About the Early Access As alluded to in earlier news: an Early Access period will precede the 1.0 launch, starting on December 7, 2026 and it is going to last approximately six months. According to the game's Steam Store page, the EA will contain partially complete features and builds may vary based on community feedback on the studios' Discord. Pricing is not yet known, however the early access price may be increased by the full release. At this time, SH4 EA promises to include a prequel story campaign, Skirmish mode against 8 opponents, Freebuild and a Skirmish Trail. Please note that this public demo does not reflect the ready product and as a result, bugs and unfinished features may occur. Refer to the SH4 megathread for more information about potential features, as well as the Stronghold 4 Steam page for system requirements. Have fun with the demo!

Hello All! With Stronghold 4 having taken a spotlight for the last few weeks, Crusader DE was forced back in the shadows. Not anymore though, as news of the Summer Update has surfaced with a new teaser from Firefly Studios. This humble content update is planned to release on August 4, 2026. Following suit, the Summer Update brings two-fold content in the form of free contents and paid DLC contents respectively. The downloadable content: The Surgeon and Baibars will be available for purchase at the cost of 5 EUR / 5 USD / 4 GBP on Steam. Note: Kindly be advised that the Summer Update is scheduled to be the last one that is about to bring new content in the game, concerning the devs. Additional content will still be available via the Steam Workshop and alternative sources. Contents - Free Update 3 new maps A new cooperative trail (Dance of the Scorpions) Contents - DLC New Sands of Time Trail: Trail of the Vulture New AI opponent: Sultan Baibars Sultan of the Mamelukes, Baibars is the literal panther of the desert: he will attack and defend ferociously, while neglecting his economy somewhat. His square-shaped castle features medium-sized towers, as well as a large Round Tower with double crenellations on the walls, and all sorts of nasty traps in the perimeter. Wields a streamlined Arabic-Bedouin mix of troops, with a particular emphasis on Eunuchs and Arabian Swordsmen. Also seems to deploy Tunnelers for assaults. New AI opponent: The Surgeon A more mysterious, kind-hearted opponent who likes to build his domain with a sprawling and thriving economy, similar to the Emir or the Trader. His enclosures are densely packed with an average-sized industry, surrounded by Round Towers with Ballistae on top, as well as Killing Pits in generous supply, as well as Moat in his larger designs. Uses European ranged units to defend with Pikemen, backed by an overall preference to Skirmishers.

Greetings Everyone! In recent days, another article collection of our AI lords has been completed: this time for Stronghold Crusader. These articles intend to help with the inner workings of the computer characters, when faced in Skirmish games, such as what troops they use, what kinds of castles they attempt to build, and in general how much they go on your nerves with their raids. If a character has had a major change in the Definitive Edition - e.g. Frederick who buys weapons there -, it is also indicated. With this collection in place, I also recommend checking out our similar article collections for other games: Stronghold Crusader 2 AI Lords (from @ Sir Windows ) Stronghold 2 AI Lords (from @ Lord_Chris ) Stronghold Legends AI Lords Until next time, m'lord!

Hello Everyone! Stronghold Nation has been given newfound vigor and content in the form of a SH4 quick peek 🙂 Though many of us have already plowed through the modest content the demo offers, we hope that we can spread the fun for more castle fanatics like us. We also wish to bring more interactive videos on a semi-regular basis, with diverse topics like SHN content coverage, or other goodies you wish to appear. We are open to feedback at any given time, under this thread or even in DMs. The Nation serves you all! 🙂

Thanks for sharing those things. I wish I could have tried it, but I haven't had enough time. I hope they didn't name them "longbowmen", they were a thing in the 14th century...[emoji1] I preferred the old spearmen, that didn't throw the spear. But that's just my option. That being said, I don't have much against them throwing their spears. I also hope they'll improve the interface. Sent from my motorola edge 50 fusion using Tapatalk

So the official Stronghold 4 website also contains some more information. The first thing I noticed is four videos of different characters featuring the rat, Sir Longarms and two new characters. I'm guessing the boy is Penryn of Wethel, the new main character. It'd be pretty interesting if he's a possible skirmish opponent. Then there's the girl archer from the trailer. Also further down is a screenshot of the snake. I'd say it's safe to assume we know five of the eight skirmish opponents by now. Maybe even more if we assume that the wolf and pig aren't going to miss out on showing up later. Spoiler 01.webm Spoiler 02.webm Spoiler 03.webm Spoiler 04.webm Spoiler

Here's another video about Stronghold 4. I like how the gameplay feels like Stronghold 2, and has a story like Stronghold 1. Stronghold 3 also wanted to continue the Stronghold 1 story, but it went much darker.

I am indeed optimistic. If they are going to use the same engine as for SHC2 and SH Warlords, then my guess is that they learned from all their mistakes. They made SHC after gaining experience from SH1, and now they do it after gaining experience from SHC2 and SHW. Fingers crossed![emoji1696] @Lady Ivonne I think that players liked that additional stuff that would reward you, like the lord's kitchen, clothes, candles for church, etc. On the other hand, crime, rats, and gong are there only to punish you; you need to dedicate some place and resources inside your castle for cleaning those, and you can't ever count on having the popularity impact of those three consistently at +0. I can defend those three "baddies", since, once you build them, they just do their job. And you simply don't dedicate some +2 of your positive popularity impact on covering a few rats, criminals, and gongs now and then, which in the end costs you stiker gold. But that's how you do it if you want to focus on fighting just in Crusader. Sent from my motorola edge 50 fusion using Tapatalk

They announced Stronghold 4 this evening. Seems exciting! I'm not sure, from the trailer, it feels like the old Stronghold with Stronghold Crusader 2 & Stronghold Warlords engine? Disappointing if that would mean no moats in the new Stronghold, although I like the idea of going back to the original theme. They especially need to get back to it because of Stronghold 3, which they messed up. Also, my guess is that we won't have a unit collision. Sent from my motorola edge 50 fusion using Tapatalk

Hey guys. I haven't been around for a while, until recently. Unfortunately, I've been too busy, though I'll have to change something about that. It just seems like I took too many obligations; sure, it's great to have some additional money, but it really s*cks not have enough free time.[emoji53] That being said, there have been a few good changes. In February, I got married, and in March I became a father. I plan to raise him so that he loves Stronghold games, naturally! [emoji38] However, that exact same thing is the reason why I really think I should cut off some of my obligations - if it didn't matter enough until two months ago, now it matters far more! That additional work had just been affecting me too much. As for Stronghold, I wasn't able to play it enough. For two years, I've had only my laptop, while the desktop PC stayed at my parents. And this isn't good enough even for Stronghold 2 - at least because I feel quite uncomfortable while the fan blows at full speed. Now we plan to buy a new desktop PC.[emoji846] Beside games, I started playing some board games with my friends, which is also quite enjoyable! Those are board games like Catan, Castles of Burgundy, Terraforming Mars, etc. I even played those on my PC as well. Now that @Sir Windows mentioned fixing AI castles, he just reminded me how enjoyable Stronghold Crusader, Stronghold, and Stronghold 2 actually are. Especially when I try to relax after a hard day. Therefore, I better buy that new PC already.[emoji16] On the other hand, the kid is still quite young, less than two months, so I can't expect that I'll be able to play whenever I want, but I'll try to find some balance with that. Sent from my motorola edge 50 fusion using Tapatalk

Do glad to see these being mentioned. Also, awesome that you brought up those other issues with some of the other AI lords! Well, a lot has changed in my life lately. I got married in February this year, and we became parents in March. We have a baby boy now. This might be something to write about in the appropriate thread for off-topic, and I should definitely do that! However, I find that related to this topic: now I've come to enjoy some relaxing activities, and playing Stronghold 2 could be one of them. That, and fixing those AI castles! So glad you mentioned all these issues needing to be fixed! Also, if somebody manages to make those fixes before me, they have their permission to include my fixes for Williams castles in that larger "castle fix pack".[emoji4] Thank you do "summoning" me with that great idea! Sent from my motorola edge 50 fusion using Tapatalk

I have been long overdue in writing this thread, but I wanted to let you all know some of the exciting changes we have made over tree last few months. Firstly, a congratulations is in order to @ IgnasheunKnight for coming on board and joining us as a team member! @ IgnasheunKnight has been a long time contributor to our Stronghold Legends downloads (over 2 years!) and we are thrilled to have her on board. She will primarily be continuing her role by creating content for Stronghold Legends, and now joins our phenomenal Legends team of me, @ Asophix , @ Sir Windows , @ Daerandin , and other notable community members as well. Thank you to everyone, and thank you to @ IgnasheunKnight for being part of the journey. It’s a pleasure to have you here 🙂 Site updates There are quite a few updates to inform you about… notably: The old Contributors and Experts groups have been removed and replaced by a new VIPs group instead. VIPs include any noteworthy figures in the community, or those with long standing expertise, experience or reputation. This includes figures on other communities such as @ Doomsword from Stronghold Heaven, @ LordPaultheDubious from Stronghold Knights and @ Krarilotus from the UCP. Previous groups have been adjusted and you may find yourself no longer get in one of those groups. The Contributors and Experts titles have been removed and replaced by Awards instead. You can find out how you are sliceable to become a Contributor or Expert by visiting this page: https://www.stronghold-nation.com/forums/awards/ VIPs typically will not be changed, and you would have to be known in the Stronghold community, including on other websites or groups, to become a part of this group. There are several other awards possible you can gain through your profile, by visiting the link above to explain more. Next, Multiplayer discussion has been removed from the Gaming Events forum, and game specific forums respectively, and instead placed into a new Multiplayer gaming community. The idea behind this is that you can quickly find and identify those members who are playing multiplayer games, and schedule Tournaments with them. When you visit an individual game related forum, you should find a sub forum at the top with a link to the respective place for Multiplayer discussion on those forums. You will need to join before participating in discussion there. Before joining please make sure you read and understand the rules. Each. Game will also receive its. Own modding community/club available at. The following link: https://www.stronghold-nation.com/forums/clubs/ it has long been a goal to organise Tournaments through the site. I am pleased to say we can technically do this through our Tournaments feature. You can also design and create your own factions, and join factions created by other users: https://www.stronghold-nation.com/forums/tournaments/teams/ The existing team is a test and will be removed, but you can now though create your own teams and join others if you wish. Next, in to the site. We have received major updates in a few areas over recent months thanks to my hard work. The navigation menu has been restructured, we have a new “subscriptions” page, where you can view those files you have subscribed to, a new advanced search engine has been produced which can search most of the entire site (excluding one or two things, and the forum), and a new game subscription is being developed. This will allow you to subscribe to games and receive email notifications for any articles posted into either a certain category, or a whole game itself. There are still a few changes to discuss which I will do in another post in coming days. Again, I want to conclude by wishing @ IgnasheunKnight well in her new role, and thanking her once again for her dedication to the site. You rock! 🙂

Hi All! A small update has been added to the site, as now the main page "Quotes" section now has a chance to display the Arabic mercenary troops' voice lines. Both the original Arabic and translated English transcripts can be read, so now you may understand what "Mustahil" or those other frequently heard lines may mean! Courtesy to Ali Aziz on Youtube for providing the original transcripts in his videos, which were then ever so slightly refined with the help of Google Translate. Enjoy this small crumb of update! 🙂

As a next round of changes, the Bedouin mercenaries' lines have been transcribed and added to the quotes database too. Some compromises had to be made for a few lines, as the database allows up to 75 characters only, resulting in slightly reworded English translations - the Arabic lines have been fully preserved. Enjoy! 🙂

Hi All! On the day of writing this post, I had a very intense match with @ Lord_Chris as Arthur against Ice. I also wrote a detailed article about a year ago to-date about how the Arthur faction is vastly the underdog compared to Ice and Evil, at least when it comes to utilising their faction-specific toolkit. This prompted me to revisit the idea and share my findings with you. Point 1 - Arthur is not a muscle faction Like in my previous post, I pointed out how Arthur's Knights of the Royal Table are geared towards controlling an area and exerting control there at an opportune moment. They are indeed excellent and there are definitely a few who you always want on the battlefield. This doesn't mean however that they are the workhorse of your military. Quite the contrary. Special units are very expensive and given how Legends feeds you only so much honor with a proper economy, you can't always rely on them, not to mention their gynormous ability cooldown time! Siege Tower concentrations with missile troops and casters are a common thing, which you can't immediately remove by your siege engines, or your Green Dragon. Even if you manage to take out a bunch of enemies, they will just print reinforcements. Moreover, the enemy caster often comes in under the forest of mantlets to safely erase your army. Not even hundreds of men-at-arms chew through that much wood. This is where a paradigm shift comes into play: you are supposed to play by trying to overwhelm your enemy with control. You are supposed to divert their attention. Let's just face the fact: Arthur's army's unit power is the WORST among all three factions at maximum size. Ice can always pump out Giants, Evil can always bring Werewolves, not to mention Bats and Stake Hurlers can just rain on your carefully constructed siege position at whim. Instead, if you create a second or even third army and try to create opportunistic attacks elsewhere, the enemy will suddenly be unable to solve all their problems right away. Getting around an entrenched position may mean running down enemy estates left vulnerable, flying in your Dragon or sending in Percival as a major threat, only to strike somewhere else by setting up a second siege camp and running down their defenseless flank. Point 2 - Men-at-arms should be your core unit Men-at-arms are cheap units that are easy to sleep on: their staying power is relatively low, they don't generally do much damage, and they are bad in sieges. What they excel at however, is mobility and skirmishing. Usually with Arthur you can't afford all those shiny troops right away, and even if you do, you will find how your other options all come with a drawback: Macemen are very expensive and they tend to get bogged down in melee once engaged. Even though they are a decent shock troop, they have problems taking over garrisoned village halls or wall defenses. Crossbowmen are very slow, even though they declare an area a pin-cushion in their immediate vicinity. They make a bad response troop, due to their abysmal movement speed. The same can be said for Pikemen and Swordsmen. Archers are another mainstay unit, however once the enemy starts fortifying its key positions, they barely put a dent into shields and crossbowmen. Moreover, their firepower is insufficient when the enemy approaches en masse. On the contrary, Men-at-arms are a great candidate as a core unit, because: They are cheap. Even if you don't build poleturners, their equipment is easy to come by on the market, consequently they are always available for recruitment. They are fast. As interceptors, Men-at-arms can traverse the battlefield quickly. It's not uncommon for an enemy to throw a bunch of troops against your outlying guards or flanking your position into your Siege Camp. These interceptions are what give you the option to intercept, or show up on another front to cause mayhem, where the enemy forgot to put sufficient troops. They throw javelins. Believe it or not, Men-at-arms' javelins actually cause respectable damage against light troops and siege engines, even Mantlets. If the enemy tries to wear you down by deploying Catapults, streams of White Wolves / Hellhounds, or other shooty things, Men-at-arms can run them down and pick them apart in a cost-efficient way. They can bait expensive stuff. Men-at-arms are such units that could be thrown into the mouth of the enemy army with impunity. An Ice Queen or Sorcerer is attacking them, or a caster is throwing an ability at them? Who cares! Replacing 30 weak units isn't as regrettable as replacing 50 Crossbowmen, or heavily armored units. Baiting out abilities and drawing firepower to an extent can make room for your own special units to attack or strike with your own ability. Surely, Men-at-arms are a one-timer, which loses efficacy as the game goes on, however their mobility and ability to counter certain ground units makes them a prime affordable troop. Their reinforcing and intercepting ability is second-to-none, and they may even stand their own ground if controlled correctly against smaller formations. Point 3 - Bedivere & Gawain can always find value In the previous post, I alluded to how Gawain has insane potential, but wrote off Bedivere. Turns out they both carry value throughout the game. Gawain is the core unit beside Merlin and Percival. His ability to conjure a shield that absorbs all types of projectile attacks can declare a zone safe for quite some time, giving your main army a good way to advance from a bogged down area. While a large army doesn't fit under it fully, this protection can make all the difference for attacking the enemy's impenetrable defenses, or allow your casters to fire off an ability or two. A lesser known fact is that Gawain's shield negates the projectile-based effects from the Ice Queen's and the Ice Dragon's freezing attack, divebombing Bats and even siege projectiles' knockback. Consequently, it can also be used to protect against these devastating abilities as a reactionary tool, if your army is caught bare out in the open, or in an entrenched position. Bedivere is kind of a one-trick-pony due to his very obvious niche ability. What however cannot be underestimated is his ability to circumvent an area and create an opening in the opposition's defenses, causing a quick ruckus. On larger maps where the enemy can be attacked from multiple positions, the Horn of Camelot assigned to an attacking infiltration group can cause the enemy to react haphazardly, or divert reinforcements from their main position to deal with the threat. Combined with Men-at-arms and Archers, a commando can cause noticeable damage or even conquer the Keep, if the enemy forgot to fortify it even slightly. Point 4 - Streamlined build order trumps economy This section is obviously geared towards games with peace time and/or with low starting tech. Probably moreso than the other factions, Arthur loves to enjoy a fast Rank 8 due to the unlocked units and Automarket. Getting to this point ASAP however comes at a cost of your ability to partake in the arms race that comes with the expiry of peace time. Here is a build order that served me well in various versions throughout the eco phase (assuming 10-15pt, rank 1): Immediately set taxes to -16, build the granary and give +8 rations. Buy 5 non-meat food if starting with no food. Build two or three chicken farms from your sold stone and starting gold. You may be able to squeeze in a dairy farm if you are extra greedy. Build a wood camp when you can't build anything else. Until you build your first hovel, you can freely sell food and buy wood for additional farms. We prefer buying wood over having it delivered from wood camps, because the workers are considerably slow and peasants come at a premium early on. Keep selling meat whenever above 5 units and try to get at least one unit of food of each type to leverage potentially +12 honor per month. Don't forget about popularity. If your rate approaches 55, dial back taxes to -8 to break even with your granary. After the first hovel we prioritise building farms, slowly shifting to cheese. Build chicken farms for 'firefighting' purposes, however dairy farms will eventually bring in cheese. Because of the increased granary consumption, we switch to a pantry without any production, set royal food consumption to double and buy royal food there. Keep selling cheese and meat whenever above a combined 10 food. Keep buying wood for your industry, building hovels whenever low on free peasants (constant influx is required due to reduced migration speed!). When your farms bring in a steady stream of food, you can eventually start adding iron mines. Add tethers only when the miners produce ingots, or ingots start piling up. Also build an eel pond fairly early to slowly ease the burden on your coffers. Always sell excess iron. Build stone quarries once you are nearing 5-6 minutes peace time left. About 3 or 4 quarries should do, constantly add tethers to prevent storage overflow. Once your stone quarries deliver, start investing into a Church and chandler's workshops. Keep a keen eye on your stocks and once your production is steady (about one chandler per hovel), then raise the mass to extravagant level to cash in on honor and raise your popularity back to 100. Once done, set taxes to -12. By this point, you should be nearing the end of peace time. Buy assorted weaponry (a little bit of everything) for your preferred troops, and be ready to face thine enemy! Closure Hope this tablet of text has entertained you and provided you valuable insights. Any time you would like to ask questions and leave comments, you can do it either here, or in a DM to happily discuss the matter further. See you on the battlefield!🙂

Hello All! Firefly Studios recently unveiled details about their next "Winter" update for Stronghold Crusader: DE, which is scheduled to release on February 3, 2026. Much like the Autumn Update, it will feature free additions to the base game, as well as a paid downloadable content called The Sergeant and the Lioness for 5 EUR / 5 USD / 4 GBP. Take a look at the contents below. Contents - Free Update 3 new maps A new cooperative trail Custom Trail Editor Create your own skirmish trail up to 50 custom skirmish missions, with a selection of opponents and maps tailored to your liking. Trails can be exported and shared with other players too! CPU Lord and Castle Editors Akin to our editors offered for SH2 and SHL (as well as the UCP!), Firefly will also grant us the ability to customise the preferences and castle layout templates built by any AI opponent. Both utilities seem to be standalone applications, with the Castle Editor visually greatly resembling its earlier counterpart for vanilla Crusader. Contents - DLC New Sands of Time Trail: Trail of the Cobra New AI opponent: The Sergeant Metal man! An aspiring veteran of a "dozen campaigns", who earned fame in his battles prefers his armored troops to chew through enemy defenses. Builds similarly to the Marshal, erecting large castles divided into multiple elongated quarters, and lots of towers on the sides. Seen using the sturdiest troops there are: Crossbowmen, Pikemen, Arabian Swordsmen, Demolishers. New AI opponent: The Lioness A bloodthirsty but playful dame? She is the proclaimed "Queen of the Sands", being an all-rounder overall. Her castles are much like an upgrade on the Kahinah, featuring an outer wall, moat and better productivity. Seen using a mix of Arabic and Bedouin troops: Arabian Swordsmen, Arabian Bowmen, Skirmishers, Heavy Camels.

I ended up finishing the campaign on easy mostly because I was kind of interested in just reaching the end, so I don't have too much to note about Mission 19 or Mission 20. They were pretty easy on easy (as one would expect); I'll have to do them again on Normal to see if they are any harder. That brings us to the final mission. Mission 21 - Final Vengeance This mission is another siege mission, and it is actually pretty difficult as I had to reload about 30 times. You have more options here than you do with the End of the Pig, but the Wolf has a very well-fortified castle with many defensive siege equipment as well as a lot of pitch ditches. I started the level by moving all my troops a bit south some to make sure they were outside of the range of the Wolf's tower ballistae and then waited. Like the Pig, the Wolf will send out some troops to harass you at the beginning of the level, so it's best to wait them out and let your archers and crossbowmen kill the knights and macemen as they run towards you. After they were dead, I used my engineers to build trebuchets. I built two of them to begin with to take out the two enemy towers with siege equipment that were closest to my starting position. This was successful, and the trebuchets also took out the first gatehouse which was also nice. Next, I took my portable shields and crossbowmen, and used them to clear out the enemies in the outer towers. This might not have been the smartest move as I lost like two-thirds of my ranged troops doing this (down to 19 + 11 and no shields from 52 + 27), but it didn't prevent me from winning the mission later. I just had to be a lot more careful with my remaining ranged troops. After this, I used two knights to trigger the pitch ditch in front of the moat. I tried to retreat them to safety, but one of them still died from the fire. Then, I used about 30 of my spearmen to clear the moat in front of where the gatehouse used to stand. I then bought another two trebuchets to take out the ballista tower to the lower-left of the second gatehouse. It would have been nice if I could do it with only one, but it seemed that I always had to destroy the smaller tower first before it would let me destroy the bigger tower. I use my remaining archers and crossbowmen to clear out a few more of the enemy ground troops now that the ballista is gone. I also attempted several times to get rid of the four archers in the tower to the left of the second gatehouse, but I never seemed to be able to do so without sustaining heavy losses, so I ultimately gave up on that idea. Instead, I send in two of my knights again to trigger some pitch ditches, and then I sent in the remaining knights to join in on taking down the second gatehouse. The knights were relatively safe taking down the gatehouse, so I didn't lose too many troops doing this. At this point, I only have one gatehouse between the Wolf and me, so I thought I could just do a reckless all-in attack and go for the Lord. Unfortunately, like the Pig before, the inner courtyard is also filled with pitch ditches, so I had to reload a few times and take a different tactic. I commission another trebuchet near the west wall of the Wolf's castle and use it to take down the mongonel on the lone round tower. I got lucky, and the trebuchet took out the mongonel without taking down the entire tower, so I told it to fire at the tower with the obnoxious unreachable archers with its remaining stone instead. It took out that tower as well. I then used my siege tower to dock at the lower left wall, and used my remaining ranged troops to clear out the remaining troops in the outer two gatehouses. (I set up there because it still kept me out of the range of the enemy's ballista near the third and final gatehouse. At this point, I'm running out of troops and want to still save my knights for the final courtyard. So instead of sending some knights towards the final gatehouse, I instead send my spearmen. They ended up all dying from the flames and the enemy fire before they could really do any damage to the gatehouse, but I sent in my battering rams in behind them, and the rams were successful in destroying the gatehousee. Once the gatehouse was down, I sent in all my knights to trigger all the flames in the courtyard. All the knights died, but at least the path towards the Wolf was now clear. I then sent in all my swordsmen towards the Wolf while I moved my archers and crossbowmen to the square tower to the right of the second gatehouse. I had the ranged troops pick off the remaining ranged troops while those troops were distracted by the incoming advance of my swordsman. The Wolf still had one boiling oil engineer that I wasn't able to kill off, so I lost some swordsman to the fire, but my men still prevailed in the end. All in all, after a ~3 hour siege, I managed to take the Wolf down! The image is a screenshot of the map as I head for the final kill.

A new version has been uploaded with slight tweaks and greatly expanding on raid group functionalities. Changelog: Raid groups functionality improved: Increased number of unit slots from 2 to 8. Increased catapult and fire ballista upper caps from 2 to 4. Fixed a bug where an unset unit slot preceding a set slot would result in the AI not forming raid groups. Base units and variance slots caps slightly tweaked. Population validation rule now takes an additional 2 people in the population used category to account for the treasurer and other AIC-relevant building workers.

With the October Skirmish demo and two preceding ones released prior, we got a good taste of how SH4 will play out - so far. Despite the overwhelming similarity in the core, the game has quite a few quirks that might need explaining, and getting a feel for the early-game in particular. There is virtually no difference between Skirmish matches and scenario missions in terms of mechanics - save for random events, so if you haven't played the demo, or want a semi-comprehensive list, this post is for you! Pacing and Scale SH4 in general is a very slow game: slightly faster than SH1, but much slower than every other Stronghold game. Unit and building counts are also low, as both are relatively expensive, capped by upfront resource cost and Honor respectively. Early on they don't cost much, but the really productive/effective ones spike by quite a bit. Gold is way less of a hard commodity. Selling excess resources is viable collecting it, but taxation is the most effective way. Food is consumed very fast. This is augmented by early producers dropping off very little food, forcing you to switch to the more effective chains as soon as possible. Units have pronounced difference in terms of capability. The earlier units are generally faster and lighter, while armored units are really slow, and ranged units don't reign supreme against them. Mechanics The Rank system returns. Each rank unlocks new units, buildings and potentially mechanics; climbing the ladder costs Honor. The game's basic time unit is the day. One day equals to 1 minute on normal game speed. Popularity is back to its classic 0-100 system and it can be influenced in the following ways: Rations, Taxation, Spirit, Fear Factor, Inns, as well as Daily Events constantly rotate to sway it. There are different types of Hovels, each being more expensive and providing a larger trickle of honor than its precursor. These can be built upfront, or upgraded gradually as resources allow. The Granary must contain at least a little bit food in order to prevent a hefty Popularity loss, any type suffices. The Lord's Kitchen serves feasts in a continuous manner granting Honor, richer servings providing more. Fear Factor boosts production in return for negative Popularity, or vice versa, based on population covered. Units don't get extra health from positive FF. Religion (known as Spirit) consumes Candles to function, and different buildings provide popularity based on population covered. Taxation works as normal. Utilising High Taxes and above requires having a staffed Treasury. Dances are a returning mechanic providing honor. It requires a Bedchamber and Clothes for consumption. Production Stone Quarries and Iron Mines require an Ox to haul away mined resources. The handler doesn't take up population. The Hunter's Hut can be assigned meat production one of the three herd animals: Rabbits, Deer and Boar. Beekeeper's Stations double as Honey makers for the Lord's Kitchen, and Candle makers for Religion. Weapons workshops have very long production cycles. They also consume and produce various quantities of materials. Two workshops can produce two goods: Fletchers can make normal Bows and Longbows, and Forges can create Maces and Hammers. Dairy Farms produce Milk, which needs to be refined into Cheese in a Cheese Workshop. Its efficiency is comparable to Wheat, albeit it takes a very long time to start. Combat There is a big selection of wooden and stone fortifications, Units on elevation are granted bonus range and damage reduction. Siege Engines must be constructed by Engineers in the form of Siege Tents, after which the engine cannot be unassigned its crew. Traps can be constructed in bulk, drawn in lines easing placement. Several units have activated abilities, like the Captain can rally troops around him to boost their damage output. Levy arrive with a torch, which they can use to lob at buildings and set them on fire. Trebuchets can fire different types of ammunition.

Greetings to all! Firefly Studios started teasing the upcoming SH4 game with bits of information in a Q&A video. As time goes by, we obtain more and more information that we eventually are going to administer in the on-site wiki. Until then, the SHN staff pleasantly summarises you the points we find most worthy to know about Stronghold 4's lifecycle, release date and other features, in this thread. :-] We ask you however to kindly discuss SH4 in the dedicated forum rather than here. Thanks to the baseline Unreal Engine 5, datamining has been possible to a great extent. If you are really curious and want no stone unturned, you can read about additional potential features and characters here at your leisure. Be warned, there is no turning back! Key Points Release and Support SH4 will be released in 2027. The release will be preceded by a six-month-long early-access period that starts on December 7th, 2026. The price tag for both periods is unknown and will be subject to vary over the course of development. Early Access will launch with Skirmish Mode (8 bots), a 10-mission-long Skirmish Trail, a 22-mission-long Story Campaign and Free Build modes. During Early Access, the Economic Campaign, the Online Multiplayer (with or without bots at will) and a Co-op Skirmish Trail will be added. In the pre-EA demos, the Freebuild mode and two Tutorial missions have already been available with reduced building and troop availability. The Skirmish mode with preset scenarios will arrive on October 19, the Steam Next Fest. Gameplay Features Most known features so far have already been unveiled by the first public demo, which we announced a while back here. Map sizes will go as large as 1000x1000, starting from 400x400 with increments of 200. Weather will have limited effect in the form of random events. Unit abilities will return, such as the man-at-arms can throw a recharging spear, or the longbowman can randomly land a critically hitting shot. Most buildings will be able to peeked into with a close enough zoom, or by hovering the cursor above the building while a worker is operating it. Building will be possible in a certain radius around the Keep, rather than anywhere within the borders of the estate. Building and troop limits will be set for each player (numbers unknown). Story The main lore precedes that of SH1 by several years, featuring a bunch of characters well-known from that game. The protagonist will be Penryn of Wethel, a shepherd who is forced to climb the ranks. It will not be centered around either The Boy or The Wolf; the Boy is confirmed not to return due to his assumed young age. Members of the Wolf's unholy alliance will return: The Rat, the Snake and the Pig, as will do Lord Woolsack and Sir Longarm. New characters among others are: The Crow, The Fox, The Toad. Stronghold 2 characters will not return. Most of the story will be narrated through interactive pre-rendered cutscenes. If you still got questions remaining, don't panic. Hit us up in the SH4 sub-forum to discuss your ideas, or anything you want to clarify. Until next time, my lord! :-]

V1.2 has arrived for the SH2 Lord Editor! A fellow SH2 modder @ Kyr0sus has requested an update for the program so that he can incorporate it for a broader modding utility, which focuses on bugfixes and other tweaks. The Lord Editor release has no dependencies on said program, as it will later be used as a plugin there instead. The most important feature of this release is the localisation support, which allows the Lord Editor to display text in different languages. The multi-language support will also arrive for the Legends Lord Editor at a later time. Changelog: Added multiple language-localisation support, replacing about 95% of the program's built-in texts with dynamic ones. The program draws its sources from the i18n folder. If no valid files are found, the program will refuse to start. Language files are identified as .txt files, with exactly two letters in the name; no more, no less. Each language file must contain the exact number of rows and the exact identifiers. Empty lines or other gibberish ones are not permitted. The current language may be changed in the main menu, by selecting a desired language in a dedicated dropdown (found in the bottom-left corner). This version of the Lord Editor ships only with an English language file. Upon request, more can gladly be added to facilitate a future release. Greatly reworked and extended the handling of Editor settings in the background. The gamerules_location.txt file has been superseded by a config.json. Apart from the last opened Game Rules file, the following options are additionally "remembered": Application Language State of Autosave function

Thank you for the hard work! 👍 Right off the bat, it's pretty good news that the mercenary tent and monks are back. I find the idea of monks being a healer unit quite interesting as well. Concerning the new mercenaries some of the names are intriguing. I'd assume the Viking is basically the good ol' berserker from SH2, same for the hobilar. No idea what the role of the shield maiden, squire and saboteur will be. Maybe the squire is a faster but weaker swordsmen (like the Arabic swordsman in SHC)? Shield maiden could be that as well, or she's a support unit? Wasn't there a female samurai unit in one the Warlords DLC? The custom content manager sounds interesting. It'd be a huge surprise if Firefly provides a lord/castle editor for SH4 right away.

This is good! Stronghold 3 was moving in the right direction in some ways, but it was not designed properly. Blending everything that worked in the three main series titles into a cohesive system (rather than the modge-podge of Stronghold 2's system designs) will be extraordinary!

Ahoy Sirs and Ladies! A playable demo for Stronghold 4 has been released on Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2153760/Stronghold_4/, 10.53 GB size). This alpha version gives a glimpse into the story of Penryn of Wethel, situated prior to the events of Stronghold 1. SH4 Alpha allows you to play one economic and one military invasion mission, akin to the classic Stronghold 1 presentation with some inspired mechanics from Stronghold 3. The demo is scheduled to be up approximately one day long after its release (April 24th 16h GMT+0), The demo is very likely to be available for an unspecified period of time, after which it may become unavailable to play. Please note that this public demo does not reflect the ready product and as a result, bugs and unfinished features may occur. Refer to the SH4 megathread for more information about potential features, as well as the Stronghold 4 Steam page for system requirements. Have fun with the demo!

Just noticed an interesting building at the 0:21 mark. It doesn't show up among the buildings unlocked by different ranks later in the video. At first, I thought it was part of the kitchen, but it's not. I wonder what it could be? The balcony makes me think this could be the bedchamber for the lady.

@ EaglePrince @ Lady Ivonne by the way coming back to the castle life topic. Apparently the kitchen and feasts inside the keep will be animated after all. The current demo is simply missing the animations.

Good catch! The same section also mentions that tunnelers are back as well.

The steam page does mention moats, so I imagine they will be in there. It looks pretty cool, but I'll probably wait and see before trying.

Being able to look inside the keep would certainly be nice. Hopefully it'll get added later on as from the previews it's possible to look into the treasury and watch the clerk count coins like in SH2. Not sure about the kitchen, but I'd assume it's the same.

So far it looks like they took inspiration from SH2. The honour system, the lord's kitchen, treasury and ranks are all back. No gong, rats or crime by the looks of it though. Also, unit collision is in! I believe it was in warlords as well but not sure any more. Hopefully moats are going to come back as well. There's going to be a steam demo on June 23. Sir Longarm, the rat and snake confirmed to be returning characters. I guess the pig and wolf are going to show up as well. Looks pretty exciting so far, especially since it's the first Stronghold set in Europe with a skirmish mode in twenty years (hard to believe SHL came out so long ago).

Hey there, fellas. I've been quietly engineering something. If you are familiar with Stronghold Legends, then you're aware that the in-game music has some glitches. The battle music hardly ever plays outside of a campaign scenario. Even then, it often glitches and ends abruptly and starts a peacetime song after the first few seconds of the battle track. The map editor never switches over to peaceful music like it did in Stronghold 2, even though those tracks still exist in the system files. Some special tracks made specifically for SHL, like the beloved Thorns on a Rose which featured prominently in the demo, never play when they should. Certain tracks play too often, and some hardly ever, and the mood conveyed can feel somewhat random and out of sync with what's happening. I may have sufficiently figured out the music system well enough to solve (or at least mostly resolve) all of the above problems. Testing for it so far has been great, and I think I'd like to have some other people try it out. What's cool is that it *should* be an entirely localized patch, so it should run on any game mode, including in multiplayer, without file issues from different languages or the like.

I gave it a try and for me it was a clear improvement. The new loading screen music surprised me a bit, I'm so used to ancient battle by now. Then I played a match as evil and I finally got to hear some music. Will try it out with good and ice later. 👍

Glad you enjoyed those! They're about twenty years old now. For it being on the internet, that user reacted pretty well, I'd say. I suppose that went better than expected. One glimmer out of a load of rotten luck!

Nice discussion here. Well, I would have to get back to SHC DE, and then form a strong opinion. However, I can say that, if the game doesn't have some game breaking bugs, then it's all cool. Indeed, we cannot expect them to continually bring new stuff. I'm satisfied the most by the fact that they brought huge maps, and I am yet to experience the potential of that. I've been wishing that this whole time! I like that they finally introduced a healer unit, too! Likewise, if they move on with SH2 DE, I'd love to see multiplayer games with AI lords. Since the release, there hasn't been any good way of enabling AI lords in multiplayer. Yes, there are some ways, but even then AI lords don't act the way they would in singleplayer games. Those are great changes for me, not the new AI lords. Let's keep in mind that Stronghold Crusader had been thriving for years, long before the Stream Editing, and even the Stream Editing wasn't receiving many updates when it arrived. Back then, so many players, including me, still preferred 1.1 and 1.2 versions. Sent from my motorola edge 50 fusion using Tapatalk

Hello All! Firefly Studios recently published a status update video, detailing plans about continued support for SHC:DE in two waves of separate seasonal updates. Both updates will continue the tradition of featuring two new AI lords and Sands of Time trails in the form of paid DLC, as well as a cooperative trail and an assortment of new maps as free content in each. Nothing else is mentioned regarding upcoming new features or fixes, implicating that these updates serve solely as additional content to the game. Expected Contents - Spring Update (scheduled April 21, 2026 - price: 4 GBP / 5 USD / 5 EUR): AI Lord - Baldwin (paid DLC) A well-known legend of the Crusades, Baldwin IV ruled as King of Jerusalem in the twelfth century. His rule was riddled by infighting among other Crusader lords, while he also fought to strengthen his fiefdom against the ever increasing pressure of Saladin and his united Arab support. His castles and economy resemble much like those of Richard the Lionheart, with an extension per se. The castle with a square-shaped layout, a densely packed interior and square towers, with a second ring of walls being present. He also utilises pitch and stake traps in his outer defense. Baldwin's economy is very efficiently supported by bread production, a lot of weapons workshops and tightly packed religion buildings. His troops feature the sturdiest Barracks troops as backbone, mixed with Bedouin Skirmishers, Demolishers and a few other types of troops, with Tunnelers added in to sieges. AI Lord - Bullseye (paid DLC) Bullseye is the name coined for the European messenger, who informs you about invasions and various other events, predominantly in the historical campaigns. He wears a kettle hat with a mail coif and a red-colored padded vest. He is more of a humble opponent, who is said to be rather defensive in nature. His castles seal off a large swathe of the land, packed to the brim with Crossbowmen. The walls are thick and are surrounded by killing pits. Bullseye's economy seems to be mostly supported by sheer raw material extraction and weapons industry. Thematically his one and only favoured troop seems to be the Crossbowman, however in the preview a handful of Macemen can also be discerned. Sands of Time Trail - Trail of the Eagle (9 missions, paid DLC) Cooperative Trail - The Ravens' Duet Map Pack Expected Contents - Summer Update: AI Lord - The Surgeon (paid DLC) AI Lord - Baibars, the Mameluke lord (paid DLC) Sands of Time Trail - Trail of the Vulture (9 missions, paid DLC) Cooperative Trail - Dance of the Scorpions Map Pack --- More information will be known over time, as the Studios reveals them. No additional news is shared, except that from now on the Steam Workshop has more categories for SHC:DE submissions in order to make content management and searching easier. Feel free to share questions or your feedback in this thread!

I'm still documenting the findings, and I do want the initial experience to be "felt" rather than "assessed", so I will not explain anything as of yet. The only forewarning I'll give you is that I opted to change the loading screen music to a shorter track since the lovely Ancient Battle track is too lengthy to appreciate any of it with modern PC loading times. Download this zip: https://mega.nz/file/S7ZVXbaC#BK1VN4QFunzUk-yd-KEqgudrF7g1rYGs9hrvLTQSx2A Place all the contents in \Stronghold Legends\fx\music - overwrite any files as requested. Just let me know how it feels. See if you get tracks, especially battle tracks, more when you'd expect to get them. Let me know if the music trends more peaceful / more darkly ambient the longer you go without fighting. Let me know if Thorns on a Rose plays while playing as Evil.

There has been a semi-official update to how long the Crusader:DE will be supported by Firefly Studios. According to this Reddit post, a community manager Tasha has provided the following points on the studios' official Discord server: The main takeaway is that the game will stop receiving content and major patches after the Summer Update rolls out sometime in Summer 2026. At the time of writing this post, the studios already have started transitioning away from the DE to other projects, which haven't been provided any details at all to-date. The justification given for the decision has been the fact that creating custom content takes up less resources from the team, letting them focus on their other endeavours. --- Where does this leave the community? Basically on top of adding custom maps, SHC:DE allows sharing overrides for the game's AI opponents (profile and castles) and custom trails on the Steam Workshop, as well as modifying the media and voice lines for them, which can be shared on third-party sites without a license. Personally saying, I predict that the SHC:DE will fizzle out some time after support ends, just like the majority of the games post-SHL. Even though the sheer quantity of content can provide a lot of playtime, the game will essentially stop delivering an engaging gameplay experience without massive community effort, because the AI - one of the main selling points of the game - still plays very close to the vanilla 2002 SHC, being very predictable and ineffective compared to a human player. Not being able to play with a modified AI opponent in the Coop trails also hurts the experience. We here on Stronghold Nation naturally encourage playing Stronghold games and enriching it with content; a hill we will die on, figuratively speaking! But there is a chance that Firefly leaving the game will do a disservice to this potentially enjoyable game.

Done. I changed it to 125.

Been a few years now lets keep the inn going xD may have to come out of sh2 retirement and make one last map one of these days xD hope everyone been well

Greetings Everyone! The Winter Update (v2.5) is out on time and it is now available for download on Steam. Please make sure that you update to the latest version in order to access multiplayer via Steam (auto-updater). Refer to the following detailing the announced features: Winter Update Custom Lords and Trails As part of the update, the developers also include two tools - "Castle and CPU Lord Editor" & "Custom Trail Maker", which are available on Steam as a standalone application each. Much like our published editors hosted here on SHN, you can customise the existing AI Lords, as well as create your own Skirmish Trails consisting up to 50 missions. These are also added Steam Workshop functionality to share and access your content with other players. Firefly Studios also implemented / borrowed some custom castles (like Evrey's Improved Castles from the UCP) for starters. In order to access the editors, make sure to tick "Tools" in the Library filter: Spectator Mode Originally another UCP feature, Firefly implemented a spectator mode that lets you watch a cage match as the player, as the AI lords battle it out between each other. New Maps and Coop Trail As usual, Firefly added three new maps to the roster: Oasis Crossing: 600x600 Skirmish map Mind Games: 500x500 Skirmish map Approaching Seas: 700x700 Freebuild map Additional Changes Extreme trail difficulty: AI Lords start the mission with their castles pre-built. Pinging option in multiplayer matches by Alt+P: this sends a blip on the minimap, which can be clicked to place the view on the exact location. The Sultan now hires Slaves for filling in enemy moat. The Jewel starts harassing with fewer knights. Various bug fixes covering missions, AI behaviour (such as the CPU incorrectly destroying his buildings when moat & drawbridges seal off its domain) and units. Have fun with the new patch and editing, my lord! 🙂

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.

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.

Come one, come all! We have arrived to another milestone, as a new game's tough shell has been cracked open: Stronghold 2 has given its own Lord Editor! This version of the Legends Lord Editor has been adapted to SH2 and redesigned in its outlook. Alter the lords at your own leisure, while enjoying the generally darker atmosphere of SH2 with burgundy buttons and embellished parchment panels. Newfound additions to the editor are improvements in the design, as well as a lot more descriptive text have been added to guide your hand more, should you feel lost in the forest of numbers and categories. You can now spawn Crime, Gong and Rats for the computer lords to bring them on an even playing field, as well as a lot of new buildings can be added to them. Perhaps will you be the first one to give the Bishop Warrior Monks? You can download the program here, where you will find additional information about how to use and what you can do with the utility. A fixed definition is also bundled in the release (gamerules_fixed.dat), which you can use to overwrite the faulty Firefly definition that hinders the King and the Hawk from launching proper sieges, as well as bars the Bull from recruiting guarding Spearmen. The Editor will be semi-regularly provided updates. Any feedback or feature request is welcome either in a DM or the SH2 Modders club! Also hereby I'd like to thank @ Sir Windows for the features and testing, as well as @ Lord_Chris for providing guidance during development! Happy editing and see you in the tavern! Asophix