EaglePrince

That is interesting thing indeed, I didn't know about that.

I've just took a look at your map - it looks great! That cliff in front of the sea, sea coast itself, the river, the castle, and even that path - just like in some fairy tale, or some medieval movie. :) I haven't tried to play it, but I already like it. I hope I'll be able to play it tomorrow. :) I'll create another tread to tell my impressions - not to go off topic here. Some people paint beautiful pictures during their free time, while you create beautiful maps. :)

"-Different type of lords have different looking buildings/walls/towers. Along with new names and different resource requirements to build." I wasn't aware of this one - interesting indeed! I would only like to add that some of things you mentioned were included in older Stronghold games, such as game-speed hotkey: one could click + or - to increase or decrease the speed of game. Also, barracks rally point, that is something that all Stronghold 2 players know about, but it is also available in Crusader 1 and Stronghold 1 - after selecting barracks you could click "4" for example, and this way, you would be able to put rally point for the forth unit from the barracks. Similar works with engineers guild and mercenary post. :) Speaking of siege camps - I hope they would make it in such a way that AI could build his siege camp only when at least on his unit is near. In Stronghold 2 AI lords can build their siege camps deeps inside your territory. I don't know about Stronghold 2 multiplayer games, but if humans could do that same thing, that might get misused, but luckily for me, in Stronghold 2 I played only with men who fought with honor. :)

Well, 200+ is definitely enough for a strong economy. Speaking of making nice maps - I have faith in many good map makers, such as Lord Vetka. :) I hope you would see one of mine as well, but until that, I hope I would create at least one Stronghold 2 map as well. :)

I do not own Stronghold Crusader 2, but I've been watching how it looks, works, and everything, and I do like it. I hope I would get it, but right now I'm playing the smallest violin in the world. :) I guess I could catch some promotion, or something like that. :)

Downloaded it, and moved it to maps folder. :) I do have 1.4.1 version, so that shall not be any problem. This could be my next game to play. I'll have a look at the river as well. :)

Well, speaking of AI difficulty, AI opponents in each Stronghold game were easy - they are never equal to human. On the other hand, fighting against seven opponents giving them starting advantage is another story. :) Speaking of moats - yeah, that is a good argument: why do we want moats in desert; but still, in those deserts we do find enough oasis and some water already (lakes and rivers). Pitch - I don't know how it works in Stronghold 2, but in Crusader 1 it is very useful - I used it a lot during our battles against AI lords. If your opponent is attacking you with heavy armored troops, pitch can help you a lot.

Does someone know if there is any population limit for players castle? If it is 150-200 people, I believe players would rather produce weapons in their castles than in estates. Those workshops take much less space than in Stronghold 2 - it's more similar to the original Crusader, so it is possible to put this industry within the castle walls. This way, it would be less likely for someone to interrupt your production, or even destroy your industry. From what I have seen, there shall be great Stronghold Crusader 2 maps. :)

Thanks, Vetka! It is familiar indeed, I going to send you a PM about it right now, but you noticed it first. :) For those others - I made the screenshot in Lord Vetka's Arden map. :) I put this shield of mine, set graphics to highest quality, and I did it. The river looks really great!

Well, this might be good indeed. In Stronghold 2 you build massive production in other estates because of population limit in your castle estate, and you need workers for stuff needed for earning gold and honor. Here you can build a massive production of weapons inside your castle, and rely on your villages to send you food. Maybe I didn't elaborate this quite well, as I haven't been playing Stronghold 2 for a while, and now I started to play it again; but I am quite certain that in Crusader 2 you might do similar thing - only you wouldn't use villages for producing different good. This thing would also make sense - you produce food in villages, while your industry is in the city. Still, we should mention that in Crusader 2 villages are not that much present like they are in Stronghold 2. If you put eight players, it seems like there wouldn't be much space for villages, although one could create a map with few villages in the middle of the map, for example, and all other players would fight over that village.

Germany is Central-European, so same as Belgrade - Serbia. :) It's 19:30.

I hope they'll add most of other stuff at least.

I agree about that. Mathew could have written the post a little bit differently, so others would feel need to reply something. :)

I believe we cannot say Firefly was not thinking when releasing this game, or something like that. What we can see now, is that they were trying to make it as simple as possible, so player could focus on fighting. This might be the best, as right now we have all three possibilities: in Stronghold 2 we have the most options, and everything is the most detailed, in Stronghold Crusader we have less options, but we still have to take care of our economy, while in Stronghold Crusader 2 we can build a stable economy which would, once we build it, take care of itself. Right now I have that feeling how it might be oversimplified as well, but we shall see. If they added some more features, so Crusader 2 would be somewhat closer to Crusader 1 by this matter, this would turn out to be a great game. They don't have moats, but I do have to admit - right now the desert looks more like it should look - it is dryer that the ground in Crusader 1 in some way, and if there were moats, one could indeed wonder "where did this water come from?". So if they add some more stuff, so it could be something like the old Crusader without moats, that would be great. Still, I believe that we should be able to build mangonels and ballistae on stone towers as well - not just on those wooden structures. And of course, I have always liked it more when we need to send engineers to our siege equipments, including mangonels and ballistae. Also, I have played Stronghold 2 lately, and those things are not right to me. I conquer some villages, and then AI builds siege camp deep inside my territory, and attack my castle. He doesn't do any harm to me, but still, that is not right.

I do understand that, it's just, we taught that newer ones could come to the top, instead of older ones. :) Thanks for your reply. :)

In fact, I believe this one doesn't have to be in a PM. Mathew only wanted to share how he's satisfied with how pitch is done in Crusader 2, and I believe I am not the only one who is curious about that. Could you post a screenshot of pitch, and perhaps one more with a small army burning on that pitch? :) But only if that doesn't take you much time, of course. :) I must say, this thing was one I was the most curious about before the game was released.

That is interesting - they made that pretty smart. Well, if they do add laddermen, and if they make them work like in Stronghold 2, which would be likely, it would be great! :)

I agree. :)

I meant to ask, what to you think about having a different forum layout over here. The reason I'm asking this is because we have Stronghold Crusader 2 now, and it is all way down now, and if someone wanted to see it, he would have to scroll all way down. This is one of the reasons in fact, but it is the most important one, but I also don't want to tell this is very much important. I'm just opening a discussion, to hear what you think. My suggestion would be to put games in this order: Stronghold Crusader 2 Stronghold 3 Stronghold Legends Stronghold 2 Stronghold Crusader Stronghold Stronghold Kingdoms CivCity Rome Another option would be: Stronghold Stronghold Crusader Stronghold 2 Stronghold Legends Stronghold 3 Stronghold Crusader 2 Stronghold Kingdoms CivCity Rome Again, I don't say I am sure that we need this, I'm just asking for opinion, and I've got feeling how Crusader 2 shouldn't be all way down there. :)

I have just read the story, it seems like a great battle. Considering to your story, Stronghold Crusader 2 did turn out to be a nice game - I hope they will also add some more features in future - such as those laddermen I've been speaking about. It's nice how you were able to send each other resources. By the way, were you able to send those instantly, or you were sending it like in Stronghold 2, using carters? I did notice Crusader 2 has carters, so I guess the answer is obvious, but I still had to ask. :) Also, if you did have to send your resources this way, I'd say it was even more fun. One more thing I was glad to read about was how Caliph was resisting! I'm glad to hear that Firefly did make it to make Caliph a difficult opponent to kill. I must admit I was skeptical about that after seeing his castle design.

If I got that right, it does come with the game, but it is not ran from the game - one can start it from Steam, before starting Crusader 2. Nevertheless, I should tell, I do have the game, I read this on a forum. :)

I don't have my own copy of the game yet, but I am sure this will serve at least to some players, who like to share their maps. :) I will mention to that guy at Crusader 2 forum, that he can upload his maps here.

Hi, I meant to ask do we have sections for Stronghold Crusader 2 maps in our downloads section. I saw one guy over at Stronghold Crusader 2 forum who uploaded his maps to some random file hosting website, and I wanted to recommend SHN downloads central, but I didn't see any section for Stronghold Crusader 2 maps. I do realize that players will be able to share maps using Steam, but I believe many will still continue to use this method, because this way one could share the link to his master-peace, it would be way easier. I mean, I do admit I don't know how it works at Steam, but I guess one wouldn't be able to send the link to his map uploaded to Steam?

"Against AI lords so no need to worry about losing :) " Hehe, speaking of that - you may just ask me how to setup the game, and to lose - it's a appear I am the expert here for putting too hard games for myself and my team. :) At least when playing original Crusader.

I must tell I am very glad to see so many good reviews of the game. I see also those players complaining about bugs in the game, but I do have that much fate in Firefly to believe they will fix those bugs and issues. I will ask in my the store in my town if they are getting Crusader 2, so I could get boxed version. If not, I will see about the Steam, but definitely I will not rush into anything. I still want to see those bugs fixed, but I am an optimist about all this right now, and I believe Firefly will do a good job with this new game. There are still few things I think the game is missing, such as siege towers and laddermen, but since they were added in Stronghold 3 in some later patch, I hope they would do something similar with Stronghold Crusader 2. Laddermen were part of any medieval siege, and they should be having their place in Crusader 2 in my opinion. :) Thanks for that nice review Mathew! I haven't tried the game, but I agree with those things you said - which would apply in general. For example, what you said about user interface, and right-clicking to move troops. There are many games that use that right click, and it does have it's advantages. Speaking about interface - we will get used to it. Also, about what you said about 3D - I am sure there is no one who wouldn't like 3D. 3D is a great feature, and I do like it. The only thing I was worrying is performance, and them not being able to put some other features such as moats and other stuff. Now I shall wait to see how's Firefly doing fixing those bugs and issues, and like I said - to see if there's any chance of buying a boxed version (although I wouldn't be buying it right away).