Lord_Chris

Now Alcohol 120% is known in the past to trigger SecuROM which has prevented the game from running although it runs in Task Manager. Any of the following programs can trigger this: Alcohol 120% BlindWrite Daemon Tools Game-Jack CloneCD Game Jackal Xoom Game Clone CDSpace Virtual CD Fantom CD Anti-Blaxx GetRight Virtual Drives Speaking Clock Nero ImageDrive Usually in the past, this has typically resulted in an error by SecuROM, but on Windows 10 you never know as this is a very modern OS on a game that was built way before its time. And like I said, Microsoft pushed out that update which disabled SecurROM, so you may not even get an error anymore. I'm not using Windows 10 so I can't really comment on that. I would strongly recommend using the original installation media. I do have to caution you though that we're heading into precarious territory while talking about making copies of the game, which is contrary to the site rules.

Do you have this problem in other games as well? The thing which instantly comes to my mind here is an update that Microsoft pushed out in, I think, 2015 (KB3086255). This update essentially disables SafeDisc and SecuROM on Windows 8 & 8.1 machines, thus breaking many older games. Microsoft then decided that it was such as great update they'd push it to Windows 10 to the point where you can't even remove it anymore. The following page explains how to try and start the SecuROM service on Windows 10. I don't use Windows 10 so I can't verify any of this, but hopefully if this is the problem it will fix it for you: https://appuals.com/enable-secdrv-sys/ You will need to enable SecuROM prior to trying to launch the game. You aren't the first person who has reported this issue on Windows 10, so this may well be the problem. However if this doesn't work, we will need to explore other options. One possibility is that an anti-virus may be interfering with the game, it is also known to have happened in the past (offhand I seem to recall McAfee and one other whose name escapes me may have done this in the past). If the first solution above does not work, try disabling your anti-virus and launch it again.

So there's a lot going on here and it's not really easy to digest it all because there are so many files involved now. What I think caught my attention most of all is the fact that as you've previously pointed out there are two shaders, one for DirectX 9 and another for DirectX 11 (some textures also seem to have shaders for DirectX 10 as well, but at least in the case of the water this isn't happening). I suspect that in this instance the DirectX 9 shader would be used on DirectX 10 installations. What version of DirectX are you actually playing the game using? It's important not to just assume this, but to actually try and verify that (a) this version is actually installed on your machine, and (b) that the game is definitely running using this version (not as important if you only have 1 DirectX version installed). You can check this through creating a DxDiag file. The minimum version is 9, so I'm guessing it will probably be 9.0c as the lowest possible value (pretty common on older games). With Windows 10, I've be surprised if it wasn't 11 now, unless you have manually configured something. Once you've established this, you should also check to make sure that your hardware (specifically your graphics card) is fully compatible with Stronghold 3, and that it is fully capable of displaying all of this. I know that it probably is, so please don't think I'm being patronising, I'm just trying to make sure we've covered every possible angle first outside of the game before we start trying to look at the game itself, so we can quickly establish that it's definitely the game that is at fault. Next, you should check the graphics settings in Stronghold 3 itself. You can do this by finding the options.xml file in your My Documents/Stronghold 3/Profiles/ folder. The second row will look something like this: <graphics ssao="2" dof="false" terrain_detail="2" terrain_shader="2" terrain_detail_textures="true" rim_light="true" bloom="2" tone_mapping="true" lod_scaling="2" dynamic_lights="true" vertical_sync="false" shadow_quality="2" particle_detail="2" water_detail="1" texture_detail="0" overall="2" fullscreen="true" /> Please note that these are personalised settings, and will probably have been created automatically by the game on installation, depending on what it perceived as being capable by your hardware. You can also check or modify these via the graphics settings in the game as well. Once you've done this it's probably a good idea to enable error reporting. This is something you should always have enabled if you're playing around with the game files because it will alert you to any programming problems. It is possible that when you've changed the values, it could be causing some kind of mathematical programming error but because the game is handling it and error reporting is off, you don't know about it. To do this, locate the config.xml file in the bin/win32_release folder, and replace 0 with 1 on the following lines: <errordialog enabled=0 /> <!-- Enable/disable pop-up error/warning dialog. --> <onscreenprint enabled=0 /> <!-- Enable/disable drawing Vision::Message.Add() messages --> After this, restart the game and try creating a map with your river texture in. Save the map, play it in the game, and see if any errors appear. If nothing appears, nothing crashes and it all seems fine, then you can be sure that the values you have changed (that are actually editable) are being accepted by the game. I have a couple other files you should look into as well. I opened the River.ShaderLib shader file you mentioned and just from an overview I can see that this is an important file. I can see that the DirectX version is set to 9 from here. Whether or not this is a safety measure, i.e. a fallback in case DirextX 11 is not installed, I do not know. Have a look in some of the other files and see if you can find a class called WaterShaderPass. This could be significant. My instinct is that this is one of the compiled C++ or C# classes, so it might not be viewable, but I don't know as I haven't looked into it. I can also see from that shader file there's a potentially important DDS file called \textures\particles_and_effects\marsh_foam.colour.dds. Maybe looking at some of the .normalmap files might be useful as well, particularly in relation to opacity. This is the foam colour for marsh, but it's equally possible that this could be also loaded into the river texture as well, so it's worth ruling this out. As well as this, you should take a look at the RiverShaderPS.inc, RiverShaderVS.inc and WaterShaderHelpers.inc files. All of these have references to specifically the water depth. It's my honest opinion that a lot of this is being mathematically calculated by the shader files, which is probably why changing settings in the XML file is not having much effect. However, it might still be possible to change this through changing the algorithms. I don't want to overload you with info and I feel this has been quite a lengthy post so I'll pause here for now and we can continue again once you've had a chance to review all this. P.S. It's great that you're trying to add in new values with the XML file, but sadly as these values have to be parsed, adding in totally new values probably isn't going to work. That's really because the ones that are there already are hard-coded somewhere for the game to parse those values, and then use them. What I suspect is happening in relation to the Water depth is that the game is calculating it based on some kind of formula, and therefore, it's not using anything in the XML file, because Firefly didn't create it that way. So adding in new values only modifies the XML file, not the wider game where the XML values are read and used.

Hi @Geralt of Rivia, welcome to Stronghold Nation! So if I understand correctly, you have the standard edition, and are trying to download the 1.3.1 update and install it, at which point your game will no longer load? Or is it the case that you're installing the 1.3.1 straight off your disk, and it doesn't work? Do you get any errors when you try to run the game? What happens?

Yeah I'm sorry that we still haven't been able to conclude it yet. I'm aware it's been dragging on for a while now, but through extenuating personal circumstances I just hadn't managed to reach any of the previous deadlines set. I'm pretty sure I will be able to reach this one now, though so hopefully it shouldn't be too much longer.

Sure, we had 4 entries. Yourself, @artofmath, @Andreas9541 and @Lord Mordred.

I'm pleased to announce that after a small (and complex) renovation, the site downloads section is now back online and running as usual. You can now submit your files to us again. Not much has visually changed, however there have been massive changes behind the scenes that have taken many hours to complete. I've essentially rewritten the entire downloads section from the ground up and restructured all of the database tables, which is not easy considering it's live data. One of the major changes I've been able to make is the addition of a number of options available for each file your submit. Prior to the change, each download section had a number of set inputs of: estates, map balance, number of missions, and map difficulty (slightly different for CivCity Rome with Mission Type and Map Size). I'm pleased to announce that after putting considerable thought into design improvements, each download section now has unique field inputs tailored to that game. These are: Stronghold Difficulty Balanced Number of Missions Number of Players Map Size Stronghold Crusader Difficulty Balanced Number of Missions Number of Players Map Size Stronghold 2 Number of Estates Difficulty Map Type Balanced Number of Missions Number of Players CivCity Rome Difficulty Mission Type Map Type Number of Missions Stronghold Legends Number of Estates Difficulty Map Type Balanced Number of Missions Number of Players Stronghold 3 Number of Estates Difficulty Balanced Number of Missions Map Size Mission Type Random Events Number of Players Stronghold Crusader 2 Number of Estates Difficulty Balanced Number of Missions Map Size Mission Type Random Events Number of Players The files that have already been submitted to us have data available only for the options which have already been input. However, if you go to update your files, you will now be able to populate the additional data which we have available. I'm hoping this will provide more information for users when they try to download files. I've also refactored the submission form as well. Tags are obsolete, and the site will now programmatically determine which keywords are relevant to your file and generate them by itself. You also have the option to subscribe to your file upon submission now. You can subscribe afterwards once it has been approved by visiting your file's page, but you can also subscribe right away if you want and get notified when it's approved. In addition to this, based on feedback submitted by @Krarilotus and other members, I've changed the way downloads are submitted. Once you hit submit, a loading spinner will appear and you will be unable to do anything until the submission is complete. If you switch to another browsing tab during the upload, then the page title will animate informing you that the file is still submitting, so that you don't accidently close the tab. We also have a malware scanner now. While all files are downloaded and checked for safety reasons, I felt it was important to protect everyone as much as possible from any kind of threat. All files are scanned on upload to the site. As well as this, I've also added a number of new security measures, including file checks to ensure downloads are legitimate. Many other things have been optimised and improved, but I hope you guys notice a difference in how things are running. I'd like to thank all the members who have provided input into the new downloads system, and everyone for their patience while I've been busy working on this. I've tested everything thoroughly but as always there may be one or two small outstanding issues, if you can identify the cause or find an error message please shoot me a PM and I'll get anything fixed ASAP.

If the Sea is transitioning, but the River is not, then this is something to do with the game itself. I've checked the water.xml file and I can only find an entry added for River, not Sea. So you only changed one entry for the river water, right? It's also possible that Sea has different files to the River. I don't know about this as I haven't looked closely enough, but if this is the case, you would need to modify the files themselves and change the colour- try a really light colour at first, to see what happens, maybe something that isn't even a water colour at all like White, because this will stand out regardless of where it is placed, and will give you a clearer indication as to what shading works and what doesn't. In the particles folder there are also two files for water splashing and water mist. I don't know whether these may be of any use in this case or not. Additionally, it is also possible that this feature just isn't available for rivers, for whatever reason- even if it seems to be and the option is there. I know that in Stronghold Crusader 2 for instance the game has a whole load of files from Stronghold 3 such as environment, I think off hand, that just aren't used, but the functionality is still there. Firefly have a habit of leaving unused files within game installations, so this may be why if it still continues to not work. P.S. Without knowing the exact changes you're trying to make (i.e. seeing the code) it's very difficult for me to debug and see what might be going wrong. It may be worth posting your code below so I can run it in my own game line for line and see if it's working for me, or I see any issues with it.

Now that is interesting, particularly as I'd already thought it may have been an archive and tried to open it as a .zip and .rar. That means that if it is an archive, it's a pretty uncommon format. My instinct would be that a lot of this is down to the game engine. I don't really think Firefly will have customised some of this. The .v files are obviously done to stop people from being able to easily change things, almost like a protection. The .model file is obviously the same, because it's sensitive data and Firefly wouldn't really want people being able to get a hold of what they're doing easily. The .shmap file doesn't really matter, because it's only a saved map file with textures etc that are already existing within the game. So, it doesn't really matter if somebody gets a hold of the textures and saved map data.

That's fine Take as long as you need there's absolutely no rush. I'll definitely look forward to reading it, though!

Would you be interested in writing an article for us on how people can do this kind of thing? Or if not, possibly explain it to me so I could have a go and write something? I really feel that this could massively help people in customising the newer games and it's quite an exciting opportunity.

Crusader 2 (and from what I've seen of Warlords) also use the .model extensions, and use the same kind of file data for them too. If we find out the correct file format and how to open/modify it, this will work on all three games. I will continue looking and see if I can find anything on this.

This is pretty incredible I have to say. You have some awesome graphical skills, which has always been an area where I have lacked personally. The way you've brightened up that terrain really is quite remarkable. Do you think this is something that can be taught to people if we were to put an article up about it? Or does it depend more on the person's individual skills?

Yeah that's a nice addition to the downloads section as a stand-alone mod. If you have any others, please do consider doing the same! Users tend to download files more easily if they're small rather than packaged together, so don't feel that any one file or mod is too small to upload. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure what format they used to create it. But I would say we're on the right track in finding out. The description there of a pch file actually sounds pretty accurate to me, because we know that this is compiled code and not readable code. And we also know that Firefly have used variations of C in the past, on Stronghold 2 for example they use what I believe is some form of C or C++ in the shading. You inspired me to take a look if this is some kind of archive knowing how they do this with other files, so I attempted to open this file as a zip and a rar, but this doesn't work. So it's compiled code, not an archive containing other files. This makes it trickier to edit, but not impossible. I definitely think that we will be able to find out what this file format is, but it'll probably take a bit of work to do. It may be worth using the game engine website to take a look and see if anything is on there. Firefly originally used the Trinigy Vision engine, but in 2011 Havock bought this out and it has since been rebranded to the Havok Vision Engine instead. I have a feeling that while some things have clearly been customised (i.e. the shmap extension for maps) a lot of what Firefly are doing is 'out of the box' stuff in terms of the file formats. I could be wrong, but that's just a strong instinct I have with certain things. From the image in the following article you can clearly see that there are similarities between what you are using to try and open the software, and what is shown here: https://www.cgw.com/Press-Center/GDC/2011/Vision-Game-Engine-Goes-Mobile.aspx If you want to add models, you would have to use the same formats as exactly are there already for the game right now. So dds files for skins, model files, materials.xml, resources.xml etc. It's probably worth choosing a unit that is already pretty close to what you want to achieve, and then duplicate it and try to adapt it first, rather than completely create a one from scratch.

Apologies @Lord Aquila - this is a known issue as I'm currently in the process of updating the downloads section. It should be done within the next few days (I didn't think you'd be ready to submit quite yet ). If you want, send it to me in an email or via the PM as an attachment, and I will upload it for you (under your own account)in a few days when the downloads update is totally complete. Or, I can let you know when the update is complete so you can upload it again then. In terms of the downloads section, try our Site Questions/Support forum- you should be able to create a new topic in there to discuss any site issues you might have

I must be thinking of a different game then in that regard. I'm not sure which one. LUA files are a part of the game structure, but there's a lot more going on than just those. The game LUA files are mainly for behaviours and the mannerisms of the various units in the game. But it also controls things such as starting goods in multiplayer games. Firefly first used LUA scripts in CivCity Rome, and they've been re-used again in Stronghold 3, Crusader 2 and now in Warlords as well. In my opinion they're a really neat way of being able to control aspects of the game and make them more flexible. It's also great for us modders who can finally get to some things. I keep meaning to do an article on them actually, but I haven't ever been able to look into them in enough detail, or know the language well enough, to properly know how this would be best written yet. Given the way Stronghold 3 is so different to the earlier games and how flexible it is, I'd be surprised if you couldn't add in new units so some degree. There's certainly the functionality to do some of this. However, this isn't ever something I've really looked into, and it's probably a pretty complicated process. I would certainly be open to working with you on this and exploring it in more detail though if it's something you're interested in pursuing. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you'd like to talk a bit more about your project in person, or you could create a new topic on the forum if you'd like a more public audience. Once you understand how the game is structured, that's most of the battle and most things are just a case of renaming or altering. Yes, you can unlock the maps using the following tutorial. It's written for Stronghold Crusader 2 but it also works with Stronghold 3: https://www.stronghold-nation.com/article/244-lockingunlocking-stronghold-crusader-2-maps

Greetings @Lord Aquila, welcome to the Nation! Sorry for my slow reply. I've been very busy lately. That looks like a very nice modification! You may wish to upload it to our downloads section when you are done so other map makers can find it too I can't remember which way it is off-hand, but the game will automatically look for files within the directory or files within the archive, and load one of those first. I think it will look for files within the archive and if that doesn't exist fall back to any folders that may exist. You might want to make sure that the files are only in one of those formats first to ensure the game is loading the correct files. In terms of the .model files, I'm not really sure what software will actually open them. They definitely are not corrupt, though. It's just a case of the software not recognising the format of the file so it wrongly assumes they are corrupt. I suspect they're kind of like a hybrid file of some kind where Firefly have simply changed the file extension but are using a different type of file (such as gr2). They aren't gr2 though, I've checked. Don't forget that in earlier Stronghold games, they used .uni files. To this date there's still nobody who really knows how to open those either, although we do know they are compiled with information on how to load the model. It's my suspicion that .model files are something similar for Stronghold 3, with the extra addition of having a data folder containing resources and materials XML files to load the relevant shading and graphics file for the model. So in summary the model file is probably just a similar variation to the old .uni files built in a different format for the newer game engine used in Stronghold 3. We know that this engine is used again in Stronghold Crusader 2, and again in the upcoming Stronghold Warlords, and I know that the file formats for all three of these games are the same in terms of how the models are structured. If you're actually looking to modify the model, I'd recommend taking a look at the DDS files, because you'll have far more luck with changing the skin of a unit than the actual structure of a unit, and changing a DDS file is very easy in today's age and can be done in free programs such as Photoshop or personally I use Paint.net (software, not website).

It will definitely be ready before the release of Warlords, that's a cast iron guarantee. You will all get your prizes as soon as we've both graded and averaged your submissions. I'm sorry it's taken this long without any results. The things that have happened have been totally beyond my control, but I haven't been able to do this or much else because of them.

Unfortunately with delays due to covid and my own extenuating personal circumstances, I still haven't been able to grade any of the submissions yet. I'm very sorry about this, but there's not really anything I could have done about it. However, I have agreed to let @EaglePrince judge alongside me and both of our scores will be averaged out. The new deadline for grading the contest is therefore 30 November 2020. We will try to reach a conclusion by that time. Thanks to everyone for your continued patience and support!

Thanks My ideal scenario would have been to have had a panel of 3 judges, separate from the person Administrating the contest, unfortunately as nobody else stepped forward I was the only person who was able to do it.

Welcome to the Nation, @GamerBillii! I hope you find your stay here a pleasant one I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the maximise function just isn't available in the AI Editor. It's been disabled for some reason. I don't know why as I wasn't active in its development. The Stronghold 2 AI Editor was created all the way back in, I think, 2008 by Lord Britain and HicRic among others from Stronghold Knights. I do have contacts with some of the former admins there, but as is always the case there's a lot of "ambiguity" around who created things, and who still has them .etc.... so sadly I don't have the source code of this application to be able to make any changes to it. If so, I would actually create a Stronghold Legends AI editor too, because the AI castles in Stronghold Legends work in exactly the same way as those in Stronghold 2. I don't have the relevant Java knowledge to be able to do something like this from scratch unfortunately, but I am sure there is someone out there who does. However, I have emailed the only address I have for HicRic to see if he responds. He may be able to provide the source code of this application to us, so that I could also update it and make sure it still runs efficiently in 2020.

Hi guys, Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to get your feedback within the 21 days I initially thought. There have been a lot of personal circumstances and complications since the contest closed, including a bereavement and also contracting covid, although luckily I appear to have been ok. Nonetheless, I feel like I need some time to rest from this, and I don't want to push myself too much with anything. I also want to make sure that I can take my time to look at your entries and not rush anything, so I I'm going to have to delay judging for the meantime. I'm hoping that I should have the entries properly looked at and graded by 8th November.

I tell you what that looks very nice, it certainly looks like it was difficult to create. I honestly don't think you could have created that much better - with the compact space available within the editor, this is a very very nice natural landscape. I can already see invasions happening on all sides of the map! Really looking forward to how this progresses.

Backup plan: Is it possible to re-configure your keyboard function keys? This probably depends on exactly what kind of computer you have as it's normally specific to each model. You might have to take a look at your manual, but it should be possible to change them. Another issue which can sometimes occur, is that "F" keys can sometimes toggle. Try pressing the F1 key + the function key which can provide the correct function for you if just pressing the relevant "F" key does not work. If the F1 + Function key does work, this is often something that can be reversed in the BIOS. There will definitely by a way to reverse this change, it might be worth taking a look at your machine to see what changes have occurred recently as well, and see if any of those might have affected anything.

Sorry I didn't get back to you! I thought I'd replied, but must have got sidetracked. I'm loving this, I think it's fantastic. Drawing out maps before starting them is something that never really occurred to me before, but it makes a lot of sense. Have you got much further with it?