Sir Windows

Greetings, everyone, The idea of an LotR mod has been floating around since the moment Asophix introduced his SHL lord editor. Last year I even started some work on a mod. Though I've put it on hold eventually. The biggest hurdle was getting enough voice lines for each lord, as SHL skirmish lords have ~30 voice lines each. What I realized recently is that almost half of those are never used in the game. Unlike SHC or SHC2 there's no real way of communicating with your allies, so all those lines related to sending goods, requesting goods, thanking, helping, and so forth are completely irrelevant. I've also remembered that there is a decent source of already prepared LotR voice lines out there. The Battle for Middle-Earth strategy games from the early 2000s featured every major character as a unit, so their unit lines could be repurposed. Lords The initial work I've done last year was narrowing down how to distribute the six available lord slots. This was the breakdown I've settled on. It may be a bit basic. Spoiler The good lords Arthur and Lancelot would be replaced by Aragorn and Theoden. The evil lords Vlad and Mordred would be replaced by Saruman and Sauron. The ice lords Dietrich and Siegfried would be replaced by King Dain and the Witch-King. Ice featured units that can be seen as part of both the forces of good (dwarfs, bears) and evil (giants, wolves, dragons). So dividing it between good and evil seems logical. I've attached the old gamerules.dat where I've attempted to give each character a fitting unit roster. Here's a breakdown of my train of thought. This is all from last year, so maybe I'd do things a little different now. Spoiler Aragorn I wish the game had the ranger unit introduced from SH3 onward, alas it doesn't so Aragorn is most the archer lord. Now the editor received a great update since, allowing the use of outlaws and light cavalry. I believe outlaws could be used to represent rangers and be part of Aragorn's army now. Also, he uses Merlin, who is a stand in for Gandalf. Theoden The current Theoden is very outdated. Mostly working as men at arms and knights lord. These days, he should probably use light cavalry as well. Fully embracing the horsemen nature of the people of Rohan. The knights of the round table could be renamed to different famous Rohirrim. Dain He's the King under the Mountain and as such focuses on dwarfs and crossbowmen. Polar bears are also used representing the Beornings. Witch-King The Witch-King is the evil ice lord so to say using all the evil creatures of the north such as giants (trolls), white wolves (wargs) and dragons. Crossbowmen and macemen would make up his main fighting force. Saruman The fallen wizard would mostly use Saxon warriors (orcs), hellhounds (wargs) and pikemen in his armies. Sauron Sauron would be the toughest lord and mostly using units from the sorcerer's tower. Saxon warriors (orcs), bats, werewolves, dragons and demons would feature in his roster. Now, all of these were just ideas I've been playing around with. Everything is subject to change and suggestions are welcome. I've not designed any new castle. Orcs, trolls and other creatures of Middle-Earth Middle-Earth wouldn't be what it is without its iconic creatures. I've discovered an entire unit reskin pack in the SH2 download section. If the creator gives his blessing, the orcs could definitely be reused. Units like the white wolves and hellhounds can get away with a name change, imho. Same with Merlin and the kights of the round table. Saxon warriors becoming orcs is pretty much given. Macemen are another unit that could also turn into orcs, though I'm not sure how popular this idea would be, since a player might want to use them when playing as a good faction. Again there are also the Battle for Middle-Earth games which have models for each unit from the movies, I don't know how easy/difficult it would be to port the models from that game into SHL. Anyway, these are some thoughts I had about this project over the course of last summer/fall, which I've since forgotten to share. Any ideas and suggestions are welcome, as nothing here is final. gamerules.dat

This sounds great. I've been wondering, for some time now, why there's no music during skirmish matches when playing as evil.

Thank you for the short summary of the community post. I was sure they'd still release a fall and winter DLC lord pack. SHC DE will probably continue to be the most popular SH title for a while, especially with how easy it is to create custom content (lords, missions, trails). Hopefully some daring modders will eventually make a version of the Stronghold Europe mod for the SHC DE. Now concerning the future of Stronghold, I guess they're moving on to SH2 DE.

Thread moved to modding club section from Legends general discussions. Also in light of new features added to the editor some updates were made to existing AIs. The rat has lost his swordsmen. His assaults will now consist of men at arms only. His defensive swordsmen were replaced by pikemen. The snake received a major overhaul. Gone are the Saxon warriors and men at arms. His armies and raids will now contain a large number of outlaws instead of men at arms. The Saxons have been replaced by macemen.

It was a pretty intense battle for sure. 👍

Interesting, I didn't know they paused castle construction. I don't see a reason why they should, and that's probably why Firefly abandoned the idea in later games. You mention Frederick and the marshal, but is the pause before or after they build their stables? If it's before then, my guess is that it's a balance decision to prevent them from harassing too early.

I kinda like the lioness' castle design. It reminds me of Richard, just with samller towers and more archers.

The lord editor looks promising. Hopefully it's going to have custom art and sound assets support.

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

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

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

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.

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

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