EaglePrince

I haven't tried Windows 10, but I have been following articles about it, and it seems pretty good. Still, just like Mathew, I will not be upgrading my Windows 7 PC's - at least not until I buy a new PC... Speaking about Windows 8, I wasn't able to play around with Windows 8 much, until this year, as this school where I work has PC's running Windows 8 in most of classrooms. It's not that bad, it is pretty nice, but it is much pleasant to have the menu. Also, although it is possible to install some additional program to be able to have the start menu, I could say that it is not possible in my case - in those classrooms, as most of them don't have a fast internet connection, and I don't have much time to handle with that. When they offer their own menu, people will surely use MS's product more gladly then some third party program. Hmm, and now when we came to the fact that it is possible to have a menu at Windows 8... I wonder how didn't Microsoft release their own menu, as that would satisfy a lot of customers.

Indeed a great tutorial, thanks Lowenherz. :)

Now when Chris mentioned it, I would be glad to play Stronghold 3 gaming event - if I have the time, of course. :)

Right now I am scanning both my PC's, and I am unable to try it, but I will, and check it out. I think that when you hit the MULTIPLAYER button you are being directed to multiplayer lobby (powered by GameSpy) which doesn't work, and you can't do anything there. Then Chris's game crashes, while mine acts like I described...

I thing that, if you are a Stronghold fan, then you need to have Stronghold 3 as well! It is very playable, besides that bad rating, one can play the campaign - several of campaigns, and there are custom scenarios as well. You should be aware of the fact that it doesn't have skirmish mode, but Firefly bring really a lot of great stuff into this game. For example I like how the wall acts in Stronghold 3 when being his by a catapult - first it only cracks and looses its health, and after that it also collapse. Troops on top of the wall do lose their health if catapults hits it, but it is not as drastically as in Stronghold 2 for example. Only you should patiently wait for a sale. Which reminded me of one thing I saw! It is available in this bundle now for ?2.20: http://www.bundlestars.com/all-bundles/trinity-bundle/ The offer ends in about 8 days. I must say that I am not much familiar with buying games online, so I am not much familiar with this website as well, but those guys on Steam said it's fine, and that they used to get stuff from there before. I'm not saying it is a reliable, nor it is not, I just know nothing - like John Snow. :D

That is interesting, I didn't know about this bug; although I do assume that if you hit those men in a way that would bring them out of the map or into the see, it would cause their disappearance, or death... Similarly, if a soldier is being hit by catapult or ballista and that hit brings him to wall, it is also natural for him to die - he isn't hit by a regular arrow, and the wall doesn't make it any easier. :D Another thing is that in Stronghold games we don't have troops collision, so it is possible to do this to 20 men at once if they are on the same spot, but that is another issue, and we are used to it. :)

You're not alone there. When I try to go into multiplayer menu, it doesn't crash, but I have to wait for a while, and after several minutes of sitting in front of computer it would say that multiplayer is unavailable or something like that. So, if I accidentally click on multiplayer, I have to wait, or to shut down the game, and run it again. :) I have never seen an option for LAN in Stronghold 2, but maybe there is such an options, I'm not sure.

Well, speaking about bugs in Stronghold 2, I haven't seen some major bugs in this game. Also, it is really stable, it hasn't crashed to me in any multiplayer game, and same applies for multiplayer. It is a whole different story with 1.4 version which used to crash in singleplayer quite often. Regarding Stronghold 3, people are saying about it's bugs, but those bugs are not that much present as people tend to say. Both singleplayer and multiplayer work quite will there!

That's interesting, cause having double rations is one of main ways how I get gold in Stronghold 2. :) Especially with food from my villages. :)

This is indeed very interesting. :)

Still, I wouldn't judge Firefly by looking at 1.4 version - it is the fact that 1.4.1 the one supposed to be installed on our PC's and it is indeed a stable version. This is why I would recommend installing the 1.4.1 patch, and this way you would be able to play all custom maps there are without any crashes. Since it is possible for all of us to have 1.4.1 I think that's the best option - with exception to map makers who have their own reason why they like 1.3.1 more.

Well, it is not much challenging, but what we can say is that it is harder to bring up a castle in ruins then it is in Crusader 1 or Stronghold 1. I haven't tested it, but I assume that in Stronghold 2 if my castle and economy went down along with the popularity, the one who wants to rise again need to deal with: rats, gong, crime, and food supplies - not only to deal with food supplies. On the other hand, it is not much challenging if your economy is up, and everything is working well - keeping rats, gong, and crime under control under good conditions is pretty easy. At least that's how I look at that. :)

Really nice, this is something I was interested to know for a while, and then you came here. :) Thanks for this! By the way, can you tell, does any of AI opponents have any issues after you do this, and do you know how does it act in multiplayer? :)

I just starting writing about it, and then I saw you handled it. :)

That Stronghold 2 isn't dead is something knows to us very well. :) But still, what you are talking about is something new to me, and it sounds pretty interesting. :)

I have found the read me file, and this is what it says about minimum system requirements: So it does require at least 768 of height, while this monitor can get at most 1024x600... Now I still hope there is something we could do about it... :( He does like Empire Earth, and he would like to win the campaign once again. I tried having a look at some config files, but I found nothing useful. It seems that all those user files are located at C:\Sierra\Empire Earth, but nothing seems to be what I would need. I also tried to open default.dll file I found there, but I only found a bunch of some nasty characters there. :) Any ideas what I could do further? I will also have a look at some stuff from my PC where I Empire Earth running, or perhaps there could be some official or unofficial patch to solve this issue. Or, maybe I could do something with display downscaling, or something like that... Thanks for your assistance. :) ADDITION: Right now I tried installing the game on my PC, and it works well, but I also noticed that changing the resolution inside game doesn't effect the game menu, which might be causing the problem. I mean, it is possible to set lower resolution than my brother has on his laptop, but the menu would still be in higher resolution than that.

Thanks, @Isaiah, I will have a look at that, and see if I get something. As usual I unchecked "view ream me" after the installation. :angel: I will have a look those stuff. Regarding minimum system requirements, the laptop's specifications are high above of what you have found, like you suspected. Another thing I would like to tell is the fact that this game does work on both of my PC's which have Windows 7, so when it comes to that, the game should run normally I think... The only thing that the laptop lack is the fact that the screen resolution is already set to maximal possible one, and I think that height is less than 600, if I remember correctly. It is pretty small laptop. :)

Hey guys! I tried to install Empire Earth on my brothers laptop, and after I finished everything, after he starts the game, everything seems to start normally, but after the video on the beginning finishes, the screen stays black, the game doesn't crash, but the only thing I can do then is shutting down the game in task manager. I believe that the problem is that fact that it's a small laptop with low maximal resolution, and that I need to enable display downscaling for this game (or any other game as well - during this process). Do you have any idea what might be the problem; could I be correct with this downscaling option? If yes, how could I do that? Oh, and by the way it's Windows 7 operative system. I've got feeling that this thing is done more easily in Windows 8 though... Thank you in advance!

Glad to see you come here. :) I have similar obligations too (like I explained to Nigel in PM as well). I am sure we would organize everything so all of us could participate. :)

Hmm, I guess we could try to find some time to play all together some time. We could make some unfair map in which we would give computer 40,000 gold and put them on the rich side of the map where they could have all that they may need, and to put us on another side of the map where we could have almost no resources. Something similar to mission 80 of Crusader (Warchest) Trail!

Those two questions are ones I hope others could jump in. :) Which do you prefer: Catapults or Trebuchets? It depends... For example if I am attacking Caliph, or any other opponent that doesn't have ballistae or mangonels on top of his towers, but if the one has mangonels or ballistae, then I would try to test what is my opponents range, so I could put those in just right position where he wouldn't be able to touch my siege engines. But what I like to do is putting trebuchets in one long line before enemies castle, but not too close to the enemy. This way he cannot destroy my siege equipment easily even with mangonels. Still, a downside of this tactic is that it is harder to defend siege equipment positioned like this. I also have feeling that trebuchets are not less precise then catapults, in fact - they may be even more accurate than those, and each hit from a trebuchet deals more damage - or so it seems to me. Regarding the thing with precision - I think that it does depend of our target, as while a trebuchet hits his target from above, a catapults hits his target from the front; because of this, if you are attacking a segment of wall, catapults may indeed seem more precise as it cannot hit behind the wall. In Crusader, what's your average siege army size? This one depends of whether I play Stronghold 1 or Crusader 1 - in Crusader we all have larger armies I think. But it always depends of my economy and of the maximum army size. But when I am able to train more troops, I almost always group my soldiers in groups of 70 or so, and I would be moving them in formations like Romans would do with their legions. This may not be that much visible in multiplayer though as I am constantly moving my troops, and I am supporting them with archers, bowmen, horse archers, and crossbowmen. Also, if I expect my enemy to throw cows on my army, or to place pitch so he could put my army to fire, then I have to split those groups of 70 into smaller groups, so they could evade those stuff more effectively. ADDITION: Still, if you have enough gold, you can un-man your trebuchets from the back lines, and to send those engineers to build new ones in the front. Oh, and about the catapults being good in numbers - when I was a kid, my brother would be telling me how he would be able to destroy "my fancy castle" with mass of catapults, so I cannot describe how happy I was when I saw that my mangonels are able to stop tens of catapults. I believe I withstood attacks of hundred of catapults, and in few sieges my castle lost several of it's towers, but I did manage to defend my self. The only thing I need to have before the siege starts is full stockpile of stone though... :)

Indeed, and @Crusader1307 only showed us his good will by showing up in the thread. That's what we should value most. We should indeed give our best to be maximally polite to each other, so we would keep this place as a pleasant spot to rest, which it is right not to me. :)

I do understand that... Still, I hope you will solve this issue, so we can meet some day on battle field. Side by side, or the nother way. :)

The previous message I made a day ago... The reason with connection could be valid, but still, I don't know how fast (and reliable perhaps) internet you have. The other argument in invalid, as there are plenty of Stronghold Crusader players out there - there are a lot of them at GameRanger, but you can play it here with us if you want. We can make a gaming event if you want. If that was your only reason I would only say you're missing a great fun, but I understand what you said about connection. I do hope you connection is good enough for Crusader though.

Off topic, is there any concrete reason why you haven't tried playing Stronghold / Stronghold Crusader multiplayer? If remember correctly, that's what you said...