EaglePrince

You did it quite well, interesting battle reports. Though, you said that you didn't rush in the mission with two Pigs not to make it easier to yourself, but I believe it would be pretty hard to rush those two pig so much close to each other and with that much starting goods, while you get only 2000. Maybe you could make it to kill one of them, but killing the other as well... I don't know, it just seems more challenging to me. :) I would like to add that I started that mission slightly differently from you - I was using mangonels from very beginning, it seems to me as a better option when opponents have more gold and I have little. The only thing I was doing and you may have not was - firing upon their castles as soon as possible. It doesn't matter if I cannot attack any of his buildings, I just aim in front of his castle, and the damage will be done - like you said, those are not that accurate. :) We can use that in our favor sometimes. Also, it could be even better if I fire upon a spot where he tents to build a catapult - this way you make him constant damage, and if he tries to construct a catapult there it is possible that mangonel hits one of those two engineers. :)

Me too, though I should mention - if I would ask him for 20 cheese he wouldn't send it to me, but if I ask for 5 cheese four times he would do it, and he was sending the food to me that way. :) Regarding mission 28, I have played it few months ago, it is interesting one. :)

Those missions you won recently are all interesting to me, I remember them being hard to me to win them when I player them for the first time. :) Mission 25 - no stone and no iron, and yet you handled quite well there. The next one is also pretty nasty, as they start sending massive troops upon your castle pretty soon. Also, the mission 27, I needed a lot of patience there, and I remember asking Pig for cheese - he was feeding my people. :)

It seems really interesting, thanks for the short battle report. :)

Interesting battle reports. :) Regarding one with the Caliph, I believe most of us do it in similar way, though with difference that I had mangonels on my towers. The second one - well, I would say that would be how an overkill in Crusader looks like, my friend. :D And the third one, yes, it might have been more interesting if you had less gold there... It would be interesting to see how could one handle Sultans in that land with almost no resources. I should also mention that this map is the perfect one for Sultan, he's the only one that doesn't build any farms at all. :) He can fight in this mission with 100% of his capacity, and it is possible that he would eventually take down any other opponent. :) I have never tested that though, I could be wrong about that as well, as he doesn't have some great attacking nor defensive tactic, and some AI lords would have larger economy even here: Wolf builds up to six stone quarries for example.

Nicely done. :) Well, regarding some mistakes you mentioned, I find it more interesting when you win with those mistakes and without loading back to the saved game and without restarting the game. :) Not everything goes so ideal, but you managed to win anyway. :) Nicely done.

I was also surprised with smaller range of crossbowmen when I started playing Stronghold 2, but on the other hand it was a smart decision by Firefly - in Stronghold 1 and Crusader 1 those are most powerful ranged troops, and when you have them on your castle walls, if you have stone supplies no one can do you any harm, they can cripple any army, and there's little other troops can do to them. :)

That's what I like to hear. :) Well, it may be more likely that I would install windows 10 on one of my computer at some moment, but windows 8 is also pretty good as I were able to see, and what holds me back in those decisions is not knowing if my favorite games will work on that newer OS. :)

Well, in multiplayer it is wise to build more woodcutters than you would in skirmish, as you won't be attacked for a while, and it is more efficient to have wood brought by woodcutters than to buy wood. It does bring your economy up faster. In skirmish where you fight from the beginning you need everything, you cannot wait for your woodcutters to bring you the wood and then you would buy some of it. Still, it is clever to build some more woodcutters in skirmish as well, as that would would serve you well later in the game to build even stronger economy in shorter time. Yet, this is not the reason why we have this rule. While you're in game you can turn off some of your buildings - this you would do if you don't need a particular resource (we would be brought from those buildings), and that would be fine, but you could also do if you need to get some troops fast - to defend yourself or to march into an counter attack, and that would be fine as well. Unfortunately, those "pro" players, as they call themselves, like to build lots of woodcutters (more than 50 - that's for sure...) only to get larger population and that only for the two following purposes: -when you take taxes from people, more people you have, more gold you get; plus they would periodically turn those on and off when they need to train more troops; and furthermore this way they can get more worker than they actually need, shut woodcutters down, give people no rations and take maximum taxes (to -24) and get lots of gold in little time without harming their economy as they they don't have only 24 workers around their campfire - they could have 100 or even more... This is an exploit I don't like to use against AI lords nor against human lords, though I do shut down buildings now and then when I need to get some troops fast, but that I do only with my working population, not with population I made without actually needing them. For similar reason we have the rule against building unnecessary many mills or unnecessary many waterpots - those can be exploiting in similar way, only woodcutters are cheaper: it's only 3 wood per man. I don't remember exactly about stone quarry trick, it's something about building wall around the deposit box, and something would happen then... Your ox tether should be able to get that stone from any part of the map without needing to walk to it (so, instantly), or those stone gets transferred to the stockpile instantly. I think it's something among those two. :) Obviously an exploit. :) Nicely done in the mission 20 against Caliph with Lionheart by your side. :)

Welcome to Stronghold Nation, CyberCorpse! Right now I'm mostly pretty busy with my work, but I'd gladly hear some suggestions. I should also mention that when it comes to Stronghold The Medieval England, Lord Stronghold (Lord Lowenherz) is the one who's in charge. :)

No one could possibly fool our lord Nigel the Wise. :D

Oh, thanks, I didn't notice them. :D EDIT: I'll share the link so others could more easily find it. :)

Thanks for telling us about this game... :) It seems interesting, though I didn't understand everything in the video. It seems somewhat similar to The Settlers VII maybe - I mean because of the concept with villages. I must tell that you Germans gave us really interesting games, this one seems like it could be another one in that row. :) Before asking some further questions I would first try to understand a little bit more myself.

I certainly agree with you. Well, we all wanted larger maps, also what's next: it's logical that more land means more power, but if there weren't estates there wouldn't be any point in exploiting resources far from our castle. The only thing that's mission is unit collision, and they didn't bring that even to newest Stronghold games. :( But oh well, we can survive without that... Only we are forced to have field battles when fighting in multiplayer, and it would be way more fun if we had this unit collision. On the other hand, then they would need to rebalance troops - stronger troops would get more advantage as those weaker would be attacking them few by few - it wouldn't be possible for hundred spearmen to attack a knight at once. I only believe that field battles would be more exciting this way. :)

That's great to hear, so AI in SH2 is more intelligent regarding that than AI in SHC... In Crusader they just want to destroy everything that doesn't belong to them or their allies.

I agree with Crusader1307 at this one. I have only one question though... Do AI lords troops try to destroy the bridge? In Crusader 1 they would try that, even when the building belongs to a neutral player that isn't in the game at all (8th player on 7 player map for example). I ask this just our of curiosity. Thanks for this nice tutorial. :)

This one looks really great, if you need a playtester you can count on me. Just to ask - each IA will act like in a skirmish game: attacking, defending, and rebuilding its castle? This looks like it's going to be a really fun map to play.

Here they are. http://forums.stronghold-nation.com/topic/200-stronghold-crusader-multiplayer-rules/ One can find those rules in the Gaming Events forum, there are rules for Stronghold 1, Crusader 1, and other Stronghold games that we thought bring up some rules would be needed. In case of Crusader you felt on your own skin why we wanted those rules. :D Most importantly, what matters is that none of us intentionally brakes those rules, and we believe that everyone who wants to play without dirty tricks wouldn't do anything from those rules anyway. :)

Or, we could call our playing "vanilla" as it is more "the way it was meant to be played", while that thing he saw online would be some sort of "competitive" MP games, or if I may say "garbage" MP games. :D (just joking a little, but the point still stands)

Nicely done, one again. :) I remember playing that mission for the first time, it was pretty exciting for me as well. :)

You did quite well in this mission. I agree, it may not have been much challenging, as even though Saladin's had more gold, they also need it more to build their castles, and more time will pass until they are ready to attack. It's different with Lionheart for example, who builds only the most necessary stuff, and goes forward with some men and catapults. :)

Well, yes, that is my weak point, those buildings can get burned, but I tend to build those behind my castle, so Caliphs slaves can't reach them nor any ballista is able to set them on fire. Regarding those two missions you just won, you did it great! Speaking about your castles there, well, you weren't actually able to do something like that, that map was too small, and it was more important to have defensive structures... And of course, in this case Lionheart would have fired from mangonels at your castle if you didn't do that first, so it was all necessary. Also, you were able to build a small castle afterwards, but that wouldn't be much fun though, considering that the was was already won. :) You are correct, their tactic isn't much impressive, but that's why I find it fun to fight against AI lords with as less starting goods, and less resources around my castle, while I also take care that AI lords have enough resources to give me their best. :) If he doesn't have enough stone around he wouldn't decide to build some iron mines instead just to sell those and buy stone if needs or train more troops. I mean, that's just one simple thing, while I understand that it's not an easy task to make AI lords more intelligent when it comes to fighting. Maybe in other games, but in Stronghold when they should know how to attack a castle (which may have plenty of defensive structures) most effectively - that wouldn't be indeed a hard task. :)

Thanks. :) The map is called Petrovaradin. It can be downloaded from Stronghold Nation downloads central. My mom made the map, and this time I was playing with her. I was in northeast while she was in southeast. Northwest from me was Caliph, while southeast was the Pig, and in the northwest position was the Wolf. In the valley were two Wazirs and Emir - Emir was in the western position, while on the other two, closer to us, were Wazirs. It was a crusader game, and we gave computer the advantage - they started with 4000 gold. We tried with 8000 gold as well, but I haven't played Crusader for a while, and we couldn't handle it this time like that, we gave up. :) Then we decided to give them only 4000 gold, and then it was less a mission impossible. :) First I took down Caliph (after I set my economy and defenses), and then I heard the Pig talking "Pig don't like this...", and I was like "oh, right, I could kill you as well"... :D Before attacking these two guys I had weakened them by mangonels by the way. Later we started attacking Wazirs from the hill with trebuchets and ballistae - we destroyed their defenses and we set their castles to fire. Later we easily killed both of them. Emir was next one to go, now we both had huge armies he simply wasn't able to handle. After that we had even more troops, and Wolf was defeated pretty easily as well. :)

Well, I'm glad I got you in the mood, you now showed us a nice castle. :) Regarding multiplayer, I know... There are many players who spam buildings that they don't "actually need". That is, they don't build mills so they could produce flour faster, they build it to get troops fast, and also to get more gold - they make large population, they set food rations to zero and taxes to maximum. People would slowly leave the castle, but as there are so many "unneeded" workers the players economy wouldn't suffer even they people don't have food and people pay those cruel taxes. We here consider that as a "less honorable" way of playing, and we avoid using any such tricks and exploits of the game. ...so, if that is why you don't prefer multiplayer, that's because you played with the wrong people. :) Or, to be more precise - there are people who like to play in your playing stile. They care more about winning, while we care about other things more. Oh, and regarding those "sleepers" (that's how we call those unneeded workers), even though we don't build buildings we don't need only to get those sleepers, it is useful that you are able to shut down a group of buildings to get more troops fast, and then to turn them on again... You can always do that, but you do that with buildings that you actually need: if you shut down bakeries you will have less bread, if you shut down quarries you will lose some stone, etc... I myself in multiplayer only shut down quarries and iron mines now and then, others don't like doing that at all. :) I don't do that with woodcutters, as that way one can get "cheap sleepers" - 3 wood per 1 sleeper only. That's useful if you don't want to let your opponent recover from your attack and to attack again quickly, or if you need to defend yourself. :) Here are my castle, and castle of my ally - we played a game yesterday.

Thanks for sharing this with us, Mathew. There are some of us here that play games without going online on Steam, and we wouldn't notice this issue.