EaglePrince

Seems fine to me. 20:00 by CET?

I don't know, could that be possible that the engine used for Stronghold 2 and Stronghold Legends got outdated, and that its support from its developers had ended, or was about to end? I mean, otherwise I think that it would have been better for Firefly to stick to the old engines instead of learning how to do stuff on another one, and as we can see - they didn't handle it so well with the new engine. And my guess is that they could have known that it wasn't going to be easy for them with the new engine. I mean, if the engine is not supported, then they might have worries whether their new game would be supported for newer Windows releases, and stuff like that. Or maybe that older engine couldn't support higher quality models, and stuff like that... Does seem so much likely to me, but who knows. As about not getting AI lords in the multiplayer... I think that Firefly simply wants to make it easier for themselves. Keep in mind that they did have to do some work on enabling Steam achievements, Steam multiplayer, etc. I don't think AI lords in multiplayer would be harder for them. After all, it is there, only its disabled. Otherwise, how would we be able to add AI lords using the AI manager... But as we know, it still doesn't work so great, AI lords don't attack with siege equipment, so Firefly went the easier way: disable AI in multiplayer, other than trying to fix the issue with AI lords not laying sieges. But if you ask me, it would be much better to have AI lords even without them laying sieges, than not having them at all.

So, guys, we have one Thread for our plans regarding Stronghold 2 field battle... But what about the rest. Some of us would like to play Stronghold Crusader as well, I hope? Or maybe some other Stronghold game? Nigel, which games would you like to play? Would you be willing to play Stronghold Crusader as well? How about others? What do you say for Stronghold Crusader? :)

Aaaannd, my signature picture is finally back. :D Damn, that Photobucket, now stopping to host images for free, I guess that wherever I put an image from Photobucket, I would need to replace those links... Boy, that sucks... :angry: As about my free time to play - I would be free to play starting from Thursday, but I may be able to play on Wednesday as well. Only I'm not sure whether I'll be able to focus on playing enough. But I'd say you could count on me on Wednesday as well!

Psst. :) Strife replied at Stronghold Heaven that there's a unit cap of 1500 total, including military, civilian, and wildlife. :) http://stronghold.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forum/display.cgi?action=ct&f=4,3990,,10

Well, now when I think about it, yes, Stronghold 2 and Stronghold Legends are also 3D games, and they both have good performance. I suppose it could do something with the engine, what you suggest does make sense.

Well, they obviously rushed it too much, and they released it without kingmaker. And what is worse, they didn't even come back with their experience with Crusader 2 (since it uses the same engine) to implement kingmaker into Stronghold 3. So from that point of view, Stronghold 3 is simply waste of their time. Unless we count that they earned some experience with it which they later used for Crusader 2. Not to get me wrong - I do like Stronghold 3, but it's such a bummer that it doesn't have kingmaker like you said, and that it is not optimized. But the entire idea is really great - finally being able to build walls in any direction, and the way how the walls got damaged or destroyed is perhaps the best among all Stronghold games. First it would just crack, and soldiers could still walk on top of it, while if it gets hit few more time, then it would collapse as well. Also, if a catapult hits the top of the wall where are some droops, then it would knock them off. Just like in Stronghold 2, but in Stronghold 2 it knocks them off in all cases, which is not as good. Now, speaking of prices... I don't know, I've recently got a laptop, it's an HP 250 G5, and I can't say the game runs smoothly on it. It appears that Crusader 2 is going to be fine in low settings, but when it comes to Stronghold 3, I feel that it's not going to work so great... Yup, this is not a gaming laptop, but it's an about 400 bugs laptop, and Stronghold 3 is a six years old game. So they failed with Stronghold 3... Performance is far below acceptable. I can accept that 3D game doesn't have to have bad performance, but if they cannot make a 3D game with better performance, they better give up, and make what they can. :) Also, a 200 euro GPU is not a cheap GPU. There are many people living outside EU, or USA who don't have couple of thousands salaries, and who work their asses for 400 bugs - if they are lucky. Only Western Europeans may not give a damn about that. :D

The best balanced maps for me are those who have enough details added so that it doesn't look too "squarish". :) Well, because I prefer natural looking maps, even if that puts me in worse position. :D But this map seems that it's going to turn out really well, I'm looking forward to play it. :)

Unfortunately, although Stronghold 3 is from some aspects the best Stronghold game, they left out too many things. Same holds for Crusader 2 as well. No moats, no laddermen, etc... No skirmish at Stronghold 3, bad performance on many computers... I hope that the guys from Firefly learned what they need to know in order to deliver us an awesome game. And I get it that they needed 3D to sell the game, but in long terms it would be better for the game to be 2D is that will improve performance, enlarge the multiplayer community, and make the gameplay better.

I don't reminder these issues from before. That's why I've came to think that this is a bug with 1.4 version. One could easily check that. But there is another thing as well... Maybe you came to this issue because of the eat how you made the scenario. I mean, you said that you made the map, then you started the game, and them you saved it, and changed the extension in Windows Explorer. Did you have to do it by the way? What did you actually want to accomplish with that? To fight together with an AI against invading enemies, or to fight against the AI allied with the invaders?

It might be interesting to see few screenshots, just to satisfy out curiosity. :)

Any day after Wednesday would suit me great. :)

I agree, but I wish they supported it by giving us larger maps ability to add more players into the game, or something like that. I would pay for a DLC like that! And same with Stronghold 2. They are bringing those Steam related stuff, which is good, it is, but I was hoping for more stuff that regard the actual gameplay, such as adding AI lords into multiplayer games, making moats look better (which is less relevant, but still...), etc.

I'm for it! :) Plus, if we're going to have a field battle, we can do these both at once maybe. I mean, a field battle could be ended fairly quickly, don't you think? I mean, compared to a "normal" multiplayer game. Or, we could fight few rounds. Anyway, I'm for having at least two gaming events. At least one for Stronghold 2, and at least one for Crusader 1. I think these two are the most popular over here. But we could do even more - to try to play Stronghold 1 as well, or maybe Crusader 2 too. Stronghold 3 is interesting for me as well, but let's the low priority... I don't know how would my GPU handle it with more players, but we could do it by limiting army sizes (and or castle population) to something like 50 or 100 (depending of how much of us play it). Sure, we have Stronghold Legends as well. As you know, I'm not so good in Stronghold Legends, but I do have the Steam version of Stronghold Legends, so I would be for it as well. I hope we could make few gaming events this for the following week, or at least one! In fact, I wanted to write a post such as this one you made, but then I was writing some other replies, and later I forgot, and thought "oh well, I'll do it later". And then you wrote it before me, and now we're talking about it. :)

1.4 version of Stronghold Crusader has been released. http://steamcommunity.com/games/40970/announcements/detail/1330101023049338879 Now some stuff work smoother, but now I need to see how to make my game work on my other PC as well. :) Also, I haven't managed to play a multiplayer game less than an hour ago with any version of the game. I hope I'm going to make it work. Plus, it appears that the .cfg file of 1.4 is not compatible with 1.3 version. Make backups of your cfg files just in case!

Is this the Steam version, or retail version? And is this 1.3, or 1.4 version? Now we have another HD version of Stronghold. :)

Oh, I see. Thanks for clarifying what is exactly what you did. :) Is there a way to download the latest version of your mod?

Sounds good! Could be interesting to see all buildings fit 13th century Russia. But when it comes to sounds, to say the truth, I'd still prefer it in English. But we do have that choice. By the way, have nobody tried to translate Stronghold Crusader into Russian? I think that Stronghold Crusader is not available in Russian language, I'm I right? I'm asking about this because now Firefly has given us a tool to translate the game, or something like that. Now Stronghold and Crusader have gotten new versions - 1.4, and in which Stronghold HD got translated in few new languages.

Yes, I was speaking to you! :) I saw that was your first post, and some time before your first post I mentioned SHN forum to him hoping that he would register here. But just to make it clear - I'm not disappointed, what is more, I love the fact that there are even more of us over here! :cool: I hope that all of us who are going to get Stronghold 2 Steam Edition will play at least few multiplayer games in honor to that. :)

Well, we could play few games in honor to the beginning of the new era of Steam multiplayer at Stronghold 2. :) By the way, are you rfortuna from Stronghold Heaven maybe? :) And one more thing. There has been another video about few maps from SHH picked by Firefly for the Steam Edition. One of them is a map from our dear friend Lord Vetka, also knows as Sir_Vet. :) Stronghold 2: Steam Edition - Top 5 Custom Maps

Well, we may have misunderstood each other now... I didn't mean on stuff that were worn maximum four times, or something like that. Still, I don't think that you HAVE to do it, but you do it to spare some money, and you're looking maturely at that. Still, it all depends of where you live, and where you're from. In some places people are just more practical, while in some other places they act like snobs no matter whether they are actually rich or poor. I often criticize people here in Serbia for being too snobbish... I mean, people are not snobbish in general, but they raise their kids in such a way. Later those kids learn that life's not easy, but parents should teach them that earlier. That's just my opinion. I realize that everybody wants to best for their children, but I hope that if I would buy something to my kid (when I have it), that it wouldn't make fun of another kid whose parents couldn't afford that. That disgusts me... Only that I can understand when some people feel ashamed to buy second hand stuff because I also grew up among such people. BUT I cannot actually say that this is something that regards to Serbia. Maybe it was only something about my part of the city, or my grammar school, or something like that. One good thing is that I very often hear younger kids speaking about selling their books, buying used ones, and about trading them for other books.

AI lords in multiplayer! :D I would really love to have some gaming events with us fighting against AI lords together... EDIT: If we were able to play against William's, and without using knights and some siege engines, we would have to fight like lions in order to win the war! Oh, but there goes an easy one! Suggest them to implement castle layouts by Ericgolf instead of their own, and to replace two Williams castles with mine in which I fixed their mistakes. This makes even singleplayer a lot harder and more exciting. I'm gonna write them about it myself too, but it's much more likely that they will consider it if you tell them.

Wow, those are great news, I'm gonna check it this evening! Regarding FPS, I'm 100% sure that with speed 60 FPS would be 60 as well, but that's just too fast. Just forget this FPS thing, Stronghold and Stronghold Crusader simply don't work like that.

Finally some news! Stronghold 2 Steam Edition is soon to be released. This is what is going to be new. -Steam Multiplayer: quite good actually! -Steam Workshop: heck, does anybody really need that... :D -Some new maps: no way those are going to be better than maps made by Sir Vet, or Tokamaps for example. :D -Artwork, etc. -Steam Achievements: might be interesting. -Visual Enhancements: few new textures, and more resolutions available, so no more stretched screen. Too bad that they are not going to bring us AI lords in multiplayer. That part is so disappointing for me, and I also see many others asking for that very same thing.

Well, I don't know if that is truly more efficient, but I like Charles' creativity! :D I mean, for me it seems to be more efficient to build woodcutters right away when the game starts, so I would sooner get more wood. In this case Charles gets 3 wood for building one woodcutter free of charge, but does "lose" some wood for building his woodcutters some time later. Still, it's not that he gets only those 3 wood for the first woodcutter, he would get some other materials sooner as well. So I guess we really cannot tell without knowing how does exactly Charles start the game. But let's not think about efficiency so much, and just enjoy the game. Let everybody choose for themselves what is the best tactic for them. :) Stronghold games are where I simply love diversity! :D