Sir Windows

@ EaglePrince @ Lady Ivonne the newest demo build includes animations for both the kitchen and feasts held at the keep.

Could you post some screenshots of the castles or maybe share the related AIC files? Maybe the castle editor can read those. That's unfortunate. Is the AI actually capable of functioning with crime enabled?

Sounds pretty interesting, especially the parts about Edwin building torture devices. I wonder if he also builds a courthouse and if he's affected by crime. Is it possible that the AI needs to build stables to trigger something that'll make it mount the knights up? I don't think any lord builds that building ever, so maybe that's just a feature we've never seen used.

If they release him later they can also make sure he’s by far the strongest lord. Since they’ll have an idea of how all other lords perform and tune him up accordingly. In games with only eight launch characters Firefly also likes to group lords into pairs according to difficulty. In Crusader you had very easy opponents like rat and sultan, easy like snake and caliph, medium like pig and Richard and finally hard with Saladin and wolf. After the newest trailer just by the looks of their castles and troop selection Woolsack and the crow seem to the hard opponents. Penryn and the pig are probably medium difficulty. The snake and rat would occupy the same spots they do in Crusader. This leaves Longarm and Ysella for the very easy or easy opponents slots.

I think you might be onto something. When they showed the skirmish opponents during the trailer we saw six characters. This would leave two missing. One of those is surely the rat. So either Ysella or the wolf aren’t going to be a skirmish opponent at launch. Lord Woolsack also uses grey as his team color in the trailer that’s usually the wolf‘s color. That would be very sneaky of them. But I could see them holding back the wolf for a while in order to keep things fresh. Also speaking of characters, didn’t they make a big deal out of that other new villain called the fox? He’s probably also not going to be a skirmish opponent at launch either.

I had to set it to full screen and zoom in to make out any units. 😅 There are also a couple castles in the trailer which aren’t tied to any lord yet. I like that some lords will be using wooden fortifications or combinations of both like Perwyn or the Pig. The Pig appears to be very close to his SHC appearance so I maybe the Snake will follow suit. Possibly using both types of bowmen along with men at arms. No idea how they’ll translate his slaves raids to SH4 though. Definitely an exciting trailer in my opinion. 😁

The skirmish trailer just dropped. Showing us the castles of some of the lords. We can also see some of their units. I could make out following units. Lord Woolsack - Crossbowmen, pikemen, knights and some infantry I can’t make out. Perwyn - Shortbowmen, men at arms, swordsmen and monks (which is really interesting) Pig - Crossbowmen, macemen, armed peasants and shortbowmen (can‘t tell for sure) Crow - Knights, swordsmen and longbowmen Surprised the crow seems to be such a formidable lord. I’d have thought her a medium or easy opponent but her castle and troop roster look rather formidable. Also it seems longbowmen are no longer bald. They wear helmets in the trailer.

I would be interested in seeing how the version 1.0 AI differ from the current ones.

This looks pretty interesting. I wonder if it's possible to adjust the size of the blue area in front of the barracks. That one is needlessly big in SH2 somehow.

Congratulations on finishing the articles for the Crusader characters! 👍 I can only imagine how much work it was given the huge amount of characters in that game. It's also a great opportunity to look back and review the new lords added with the definitive edition. Now I guess this only leaves Warlords as the final game to get its characters.

It would be interesting if each lord had a wooden and stone castle design, which they would both use during a match. Stone walls only become available at a later rank iirc. So each lord would first construct a wooden castle and then replace the wooden walls & towers with stone ones as the game progresses. I'm not sure if this would be possible or really worth though. 😅

Communicating with the AI would be great. Hearing the original rat, pig and snake reacting to your requests should be pretty funny. With the four dukes coming back, I wonder how Firefly will depict them in skirmish. The rat is obviously going to be the weakest opponent, so I don't expect many surprises there and an army mainly made up of armed peasants, men at arms, archers and catapults. Pig and wolf also have some very well established personalities over the games. Although the pig could probably use a bit more unit variety this time. Longbows might be a good fit since they're bald just like the macemen. I wonder if he's going to use pikemen this time around again like in the original SH. The specialists you've data mined are also quite interesting. If they're going to be present at launch I could see the snake using them intensively. It would fit with his military doctrine from SHC. Mixing European and mercenary troops. So aside from men at arms and archers, maybe the snake is going to come at the player with Vikings, saboteurs and hobilars as well. I'm assuming the Viking is going to be very similar to the SH2 berserker or SHL Saxon warrior. No idea if Sir Longarm will retain his knights focus. I could see him turning into the men at arms & swordsmen lord akin to Sir William or Lancelot from SH2/SHL. Given how we have two units related to the Norse with the Vikings and shield maidens I've got to wonder if one of the new characters will be a Viking. Basically an Olaf like character with a wooden castle and primarily using Norse specialists. It would be an interesting idea for sure, given how extensive wooden fortifications are in SH4.

Greeting fair lords and ladies, upcoming SH4 is going to feature a skirmish mode vs AI opponents. According to Firefly the game will launch with eight such opponents. I thought it’d be fun to share ideas, dreams or concepts on how these opponents could behave. My hope is that the opponents will behave more like SH2 lords. Since SH4 will feature ranks again, it’d be great if the AI opponents‘ castles and economy reflected their rise up the ranks. In SH2 even weaker opponents such as Edwin, Lady Seren or Sir Grey used all kinds of buildings/towers which were unlocked at higher ranks. Another hope of mine is that for the first time the AI will be able to use the stables properly and mount knights on horses. What’re your hopes, thoughts or expectations for the skirmish AI.

A positive development in comparison to SH3 is that the core mechanics seem to work at least. Building walls and towers isn't an exercise in patience. 😅

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.