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Everything posted by Sir Windows
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Stronghold Crusader: Definitive Edition Discussion
Sir Windows replied to Asophix's topic in The Town Crier
My thoughts are: Crocodile - I like his design but I'm not sure about his castle. Also they said he's a lord who takes his time but his main units are skirmishers+slingers. I have to wonder if he's going to be any challenge if he turtles only to attack with such light units. Canary - She looks a lot like she's related to somebody rather cowardly and squeaky we all know. š So she's going to be lower tiers as well. I somewhat suspect she's going to be like Lady Seren from SH2. Seren's kit can pretty easily be recreated in crusader now. Hobilars get replaced by light camels and it's done. Could be an interesting opponent if done right. Trader - I have no idea what to expect here. old AI - At least the Jewel now builds enough houses. Now if they could only fix her not training any knights despite building stables. Economic campaign - Yay! -
Crusader de - Trail of the Lamb M1
Sir Windows replied to Asophix's topic in Stronghold Crusader & Crusader Extreme
First thing I did was to buy as many crossbows and leather armours as possible then sending my new crossbowmen to the rat's keep. The rat is basically useless but his keep makes for a great defensive structure. This should help keep the rat alive and the nomads distracted. I also fortified the river with a gatehouse and crossbowmen. Really crossbowmen were the key to beating the nomads here. This is what my castle looked like once things were pretty stable. Not very impressive or pretty but it did the trick. -
I wasn't aware that they rebalanced Carving a Path in DE. That's pretty interesting. I remember using a similar approach to yours with making sure to clear the towers and putting my own ranged units there instead.
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Thank you very much. Iām truly honored by this promotion and love the new blue color. š I hope to provide further contributions to stronghold-nation soon. Hopefully the first few updates to the Stronghold 3 section will arrive over the weekend. Eventually I hope to tackle the Stronghold and Crusader sections as well. I look forward to working with you all.
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Thank you very much!
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Possible Remnants of a Cancelled Skirmish Mode in Sh3
Sir Windows replied to Sir Windows's topic in Stronghold 3
Probably since he's the oldest of the lot. There are also sound files for the scribe announcing a message from Greytail or Silverback. Unfortunately Firefly never got to implementing them properly. Another issue I ran into is the pig. Currently there's only a single set of of pig voicelines but both Swinefoot and Redham have portraits. If one sets up a message from the pig event in editor it'll play the lines and show a picture of Swinefoot but the scribe will say it's a message from Bishop Redham. š Edit: Fortunately the issue has been solved. I've managed to build a separate Redham from Swinefoot. Fixing Swinefoot was easy as I only needed to change "Messagefrom3" to "Messagefrom2" in the Pig's entry within the overlord.lua. Getting Redham in was a bit more tricky. Create a new entry in the overlord.lua for the bishop using the tag [BI]. Overlord.Codes["BI"] = {"bishop", "MESSAGE_FROM3" }; Edit the sound_defs.lua and copy all the pig's entries but change PI_ to BI_. This way he's still using the pig's voice lines. Head into the assets/sounds and add the necessary entries into sh3_overlord_sounds.txt. In order for the game to play the proper subtitles unpack loc.v. Edit the xml in /interface/i18n. Find the corresponding Pig lines, copy+paste and change PI_ to BI_. It took a while to figure where everything is located but now both pigs work. šš -
Possible Remnants of a Cancelled Skirmish Mode in Sh3
Sir Windows replied to Sir Windows's topic in Stronghold 3
We'll have to wait and see what Firefly has got in store for Stronghold 3 if anything. At least from some of their statements, it seems like Stronghold 2 will get a DE. Also, the feature to have lords talk to the player in Stronghold 3 works, and the default rat is Roger Scabcoat for any lore enthusiast. The editor event to play an overlord message is fully functional. Somehow, I didn't even think to check if it exists until now. There's the option to suppress the scribe, if it's not turned on then he says "A message from Roger Scabcoat" before the message plays. Here's a small test of the event on the second Blackstaff mission. The scribe is set to suppressed. The rat addresses the player at the start of the invasion and once its troops are all dead. -
Possible Remnants of a Cancelled Skirmish Mode in Sh3
Sir Windows replied to Sir Windows's topic in Stronghold 3
In Stronghold 3? I was wondering if it might be possible to create an event for the editor that would play an AI message. I somehow didn't think of those two. Probably because I've mainly been playing Legends and Crusader DE recently. š It's tempting for sure, but as far as implementing a skirmish mode into Stronghold 3 is concerned, I think it's best to either let Firefly do it in a Stronghold 3 DE or make a Stronghold Europe 2 mod. It's should easier to implement Stronghold 3 assets into Crusader 2 than to attempt to try and build a new game mode for Stronghold 3. -
Greetings, Lords and Ladies! Stronghold 3 is certainly a controversial entry in the series. From its troubled launch to bugs to broken features, the game struggled to make a name for itself. One of the standout odd decisions made by Firefly was the exclusion of a skirmish mode. This made Stronghold 3 the first game since Crusader to lack this feature. An official statement by Firefly even says: Recently, I replayed the game and got a bit frustrated by the fact that the lord has weird dark grey skin like a vampire. š§āāļø So I followed the guide found here and got into digging around the files in core.v to change the texture. I ended up finding some things that make me question Firefly's statement from fourteen years ago. In my opinion, there's a mountain of leftover content in the game, which clearly points to a skirmish mode being originally planned and likely scrapped late in development. Let us investigate this mystery.šµļøāāļø Remnant #1 - Lord models The first remnant doesn't even require looking into the game files. It's enough to open the map editor or host a multiplayer game. In the game there are nine mostly unused lord models depicting Lord Longarm, Thomas Blackstaff, the Iron Duke, the Sultan, the Pig (Bishop), the Pig, the Rat, the Jackal and the Wolf. These models aren't even used in campaign missions where you face off against these characters directly (Military Mission 15 and Mission 3 & 5 Blackstaff DLC). There are also models for the generic lord, Lady Catherine and the King. These being the only ones used in the campaign. The only way to use these models is on custom maps or the multiplayer. Firefly would later go on to reuse the Rat, Pig, Jackal and Wolf in Crusader 2. Remnant #2 - Sound files Now, the lord models themselves are interesting, but they might simply be multiplayer content for the game. The story becomes fascinating once we go into Stronghold3/assets/sound/en/ folder. There we find an interesting file called speech_overlord.fsb. Again, using a guide found here, we can extract the contents of the folder. What we see is something anyone familiar with sound files from Crusader, Stronghold 2, Legends and Crusader 2 will immediately recognize. The folder contains all the skirmish related sound bits for Lady Catherine, the Rat, the Pig, the Jackal and the Wolf. Even sound bits like adding a player or removing them from the lobby are present. No speech files exist for Lord Longarms, Thomas Blackstaff, the Sultan or the Iron Duke. Either they were never meant to be in the skirmish mode, or Firefly scrapped it prior to recording their lines. All of these Stronghold 3 speech files would also be reused in Crusader 2. Lady Catherines lines would be used by the Princess. This also explains the Princess' odd choice of words when capturing an estate, "I claim these lands in the name of the queen". If one considers this was originally recorded for Catherine who is the Queen of England by the end of SH3 it makes a lot more sense. Remnant #3 - Portraits Now we dive into the aforementioned core.v file. Following the guide, we unarchive its content and head into the interface/scaleform/portraits folder. This folder contains twenty portraits depicting the Pig (Bishop), the Jackal, the Pig, the Rat and the Wolf as angry/pleased/despaired/taunting. These were certainly intended to be used in-game when these characters send the player a message. For one, these four emotions are used by AIs in Crusader 1 & 2, but there are also comments by the developers themselves stating that. For that, we need to head into the /scripts/interface/ folder and open up overlord.lua. There we have the following description of what the file does from the devs: -- Handle overlord interaction: -- Given an overlord speech code (should correspond to the sound/localizationTag desired) -- 1. Play an announcement from the scribe (specific to the overlord) -- 2. Show an image of the overlord with appropriate emotion -- 3. Play the specified speech -- 4. Show subtitles -- 5. Fade out So the game was supposed to have a message system like the previous titles where the enemy/allied lords would contact you. It seems that Stronghold 3 was supposed to use something like a cross between Legends and Crusader, wherein the message is accompanied by a still image (Legends) but in multiple emotions (Crusader). Unfortunately, this feature didn't make it into the game, not even as part of the campaign. It certainly would've lifted the story if the player had interactions with his enemies like in Stronghold 1 at least. Concerning Longarm, Blackstaff, Sultan and Iron Duke; these characters have no portraits either and there is no mention of them anywhere. Though we have to consider that we don't know at which point in development this file was written up, as another comment shows that this feature wasn't complete. -- Store a lookup of overlord code to a table containing: -- { "image name prefix", "scribe announcement" } Overlord.Codes = {}; Overlord.Codes["PI"] = {"pig", "MESSAGE_FROM3" }; Overlord.Codes["RT"] = {"rat", "MESSAGE_FROM5" }; -- also, 6 and 7 for other rats... need separate images Overlord.Codes["JA"] = {"jackal", "MESSAGE_FROM4" }; Overlord.Codes["WO"] = {"wolf", "MESSAGE_FROM1" }; -- Overlord.CodesToNames["ca"] = "catherine"; -- TODO: Add if we get Catherine images Lady Catherine didn't have portraits yet either, but was supposed to, as were the two other rats from the story. Currently, it's impossible to tell which of the three brothers the portrait depicts. Remnant #4 - Multiplayer rules comment Finally, the last significant piece of evidence concerning skirmish mode is found in the /scripts/multiplayer/ folder's game_settings.lua file. The file itself is only interesting for two comments found there. -- Clear any settings that must be reset for single player games -- Ensure that single player settings don't propagate to MP if not explicitly set there These two unassuming lines are interesting since there is no mode in single player that shares any kind of setting with the multiplayer. Maybe the scrapped skirmish mode was meant to have the same options as the multiplayer. Conclusion This concludes this little investigation into Stronghold 3's missing game mode. While all of this isn't stone-cold proof, these little remnants paint a picture that there certainly was more to the game than what we got in the end. It's truly unfortunate that Firefly wasn't able to fully complete their game. Now with the Stronghold and Crusader Definitive Editions out, there's a glimmer of hope Stronghold 3 might get the update it is missing. In my opinion, Stronghold 3 deserves a second chance. For all its issues and bugs, the game still has a certain charm and has a lot of potential. In fact, I would even say it has the potential to become one of the best 3D Stronghold game out there if its issues are finally addressed and missing features implemented. Thank you for reading. šāāļø
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Thank you very much. I'm honored to be featured on the home page. š
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Greetings! Today my big lord pack for Stronghold Legends was approved, and I thought a thread going more into details on its contents would be a good idea. Mostly, I want to give a more in-depth rundown on the six new lords featured in this lord pack and the thought process behind them. I am looking forward to feedback, comments, questions and suggestions on the lords., Links to Download Section Richard the Lionheart "My banner will fly atop your keep before this day is out!" Sir Longarm "We fight for the honour of those that have gone before!" The Rat "You impudent upstart! I shall take great delight in dispatching you myself." The Pig "Blow the horn, bang the drum! The Pig is coming to town!" The Snake "Can you hear it, hm? That's your death drawing near." The Wolf "Soon you will see what it means to wage real warfare!"
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Stronghold Crusader: Definitive Edition Discussion
Sir Windows replied to Asophix's topic in The Town Crier
Five new lords and a lord editor is pretty amazing for post-launch content. -
In hindsight, it's really odd how Morgan le Fay never made it into skirmish mode. She'd make the perfect third ice lord with a focus on witches.
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I can help with this one. Getting Beowulf into custom skirmish was the first thing I did with the Lord Editor when @ Asophix shared the draft version. The .zip contains all the files to change Vlad into Beowulf. Alternatively if you'd like to replace Mordred I can help with that. Beowulf EN.zip
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Congratulations! šš I've already got a question. What's the process of sharing new lords going to be? Do we simply submit them to the Legends Miscellaneous section or should we make a thread on the Legends subforum as well previewing the new lord?
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Introducing: the Stronghold Legends Ai Editor!
Sir Windows replied to Lord_Chris's topic in The Town Crier
I tried rebuilding one of the Wolf's castles from Crusader using the editor. It worked out pretty well, even with the relatively large size of the castle. The only issues I noticed were related to AI behavior rather than castle building. Even with a priority of 2, the AI had an issue with placing the sorcerer's tower. It placed the barracks, armory, pantry, and engineer's guild just fine, but when it came to the tower, it would always block itself out of placing it by building a farm on its location first. The best solution for this was to simply not have it in the AIC and let the AI pick the spot freely. The AI has some issues placing ranged troops atop towers. It places the units at the right spot before building the tower, but then has them standing next to it after building it. It seems like it's unable to tell them to go up the tower. If the unit in question dies, though, a replacement will man the tower just fine. Other than that, I had no issues, and the editor was a lot of fun to use. Looking forward to the AI editor as well. I feel Legends has a lot of untapped potential in terms of modding. -
An Analysis on the Good / Arthur Faction
Sir Windows replied to Asophix's topic in Stronghold Legends
I don't know how much this applies to multiplayer but throughout the skirmish trails I've also found Merlin and Galahad to be extremely good. Not really Percival level but more useful than Lancelot, Gareth or Bediviere. Especially Merlin can be a game changer when facing Siegfried since he's useful against both giants and shield maidens alike. -
I'd be very interested in how to alter Legends' AIs. Truth be told, I only noticed Lancelot's behavior while testing a small graphics mod. It really bothered me that Alfred and Beowulf aren't available in regular skirmish. So I replaced Vlad's interface, fx, binks, text and castle files with Beowulf's. Their army comps are roughly comparable, since staples like Saxons and dragons are there. The big difference being the siege units and vampiric creepers. Under usual circumstances, I wouldn't have noticed the macemen, but I ended up paying more attention to the AI during a test match. For the most part, I wanted to make sure Vlad's AI can function with Beowulf's castle. This was when I noticed the macemen but dismissed them as event units. But then they kept showing up during further testing, including matches against Lancelot. This was when I decided to do the initial 1v1 test against Lancelot. Honestly, I also find this pretty amazing, since this means there's an AI that uses macemen in the game.
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I forgot to mention that I play without starting troops and weapons. My initial assumption was that they must be event related. I've followed your suggestion and did another test run. This time with events turned off, no starting weapons and no starting troops. The result was the same. After I sent a creeper up on one of his towers Lancelot recruited around five macemen. I've recorded a video of the test. It shows all the setting and nothing much happens until 4:42 when the macemen come out of the barracks. I don't know how Stronghold Legends AIs are designed exactly but in Stronghold Crusader aside from their attack & defence troops they've got some more specialized troop categories such as moat digging, moat filling, ranged sortie, patrols, siege defence, raiding and others. It would be interesting to know if Legend's AIs have a category for defence units against creepers. Now, this might be a long shot, but has anyone checked if Dietrich trains swordsmen when facing Good or Ice as an enemy? I've seen him train defensive swordsmen on a very rare occasion but until now I never bothered to check which faction he was facing.
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Greetings, I've been using Stronghold Nation as my main source for looking up information on units, AIs and every other aspect of Stronghold recently. Specifically for Stronghold 2 and Legends most recently, as the coverage here is excellent. Yesterday, I noticed something that doesn't seem to receive any mention anywhere online. It seems that Lancelot's unit roster isn't limited to swordsmen, archers and men-at-arms. Lancelot also trains around five macemen whenever his units are threatened by vampiric creepers. I noticed this first when playing with an ally Lancelot against Vlad and then checked it myself in a 1v1. I've attached screenshots from two different games showing the macemen in action. The macemen were spotted on the Steam Edition of Legends. I've not played the original release of Legends. Did Lancelot use macemen back then as well or is this a balance change made by FireFly for the steam version only? Edit: On the second screenshot there's also a pile of my own macemen fighting men-at-arms. The group of four macemen ahead of the swordsmen in blue belong to Lancelot though. https://cdn.stronghold-nation.com/community/monthly_2025_05/20250517220435_1.thumb.jpg.dc698e84e6c0092376ded391d85d04dd.jpg https://cdn.stronghold-nation.com/community/monthly_2025_05/20250517225656_1.thumb.jpg.7a27cff1621ba554f1ccba7c9598f42e.jpg https://cdn.stronghold-nation.com/community/monthly_2025_05/20250517225911_1.thumb.jpg.6419f145175a19f41bf382d41c752b42.jpg