Sir Windows

It was in a Stronghold 4 discussion by the German video games journal GameStar. They got to talking about the castle life aspects of the game and one of the journalists mentioned that the feasts/kitchen animations are still missing.

@ 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.

I've got to wonder if the mercenary camp will make a comeback. It's been absent from the demos and I don't believe it's mentioned anywhere in the previews. Hopefully Firefly didn't decide to cut it. With the game set on the British Isles again there's potential for Irish, Welsh, Viking or Scottish mercenaries for sure.

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

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).

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

Certainly fitting as the hawk or hammer would lead a much more competent siege.

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. 👍

Adding some narrative to ones game is always fun. I always enjoy reading stories or after action reports people write about their experiences. Judging by the quotes the attacker during the first siege was Sir Edwin? 😄

Welcome back and congratulations! 🥳 I've made some of the fixes already, but there are still other lords and I'm not sure if their castles aren't broken. Just off the top of my head, Edwin builds a mercenary tent in each of his castles which he doesn't need. If anyone is interested in testing out the fixed castles I've attached the AICs. Bishop01.aic bull01.aic Queen01.aic

Greetings everyone, as we all know castles built by AI in SH2 feature a number of issues from William's towers facing the wrong way to the Queen's giant hole in the wall. I thought maybe a list of known issues would be a good idea, which in turn could then be turned into a modpack that includes fixed AICs. Currently known issues Sir William builds his towers facing the wrong way or messes up his moat. Fixed by @ EaglePrince back in 2016. The queen leaves a hole in her wall. This one is the result of a misplaced engineer's guild. If the engineer's guild is moved one tile east in the editor the queen will place her square tower. The bishop has a misplaced engineer's guild. Same issue as with the queen. Guild needs to moved one tile east. The bishop also tends to mess up his moat. The bull will mess up his moat and prevent himself from placing a mercenary tent. This happens most often at free man start. Can be fixed by moving the tent away from the moat. Lady Seren places her engineer's guild outside her castle. Not really much of an issue, but she has plenty of room inside for a guild. Something to consider. Any further suggestion and notes are welcome.

First off welcome to Stronghold Nation! That's quite a level of documentation and I quite like the dedication to civilian life on your blog. 👍

The stake hurler was a bit too hard to read for the AI it seems. 😄

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. 🙂