EaglePrince

I just saw your message. If you want, you can try with one of us, as there are not many rooms for Stronghold 2 at GameRanger. I come online there, so if you read this, you can come. If you don't have time, don't worry - I will just leave it online, while I'm doing other stuff.

OK, and I will make your crest to be crest1 in my crests folder. It does complicate stuff a bit, but it is worth a try like you said. :)

Thanks, Vetka! I am also considering to change it a little - I've got feeling that it would look better if I made it in dimensions 400x75 instead of 400x100.

Also, we were speaking about this before... If you want, we could exchange the crests we're gonna use, so we could see each other just the way we want. This is the crest I would use. http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z427/samir89ns/Stronghold%202%20crests/crest1.png I don't know, maybe we just shouldn't do this - and simply play. :/ Those who don't like the idea, and don't want to do anything with those crests, don't have to do anything. The downside of this is that we would have to pay attention to that who should be be player 1, player 2, player 3 etc... Maybe I'm just complicating this thing - in that case I don't know, maybe we just shouldn't do this - and simply play. :/ I'm sad how FireFly didn't enable this option.

I may join as well!

Thanks, Chris! All resources I used for this were taking from Stronghold Crusader - the knight and the castle are from Crusader, and the background is edited heading at "Greatest Lord" screen which opens after winning a crusader game. I was considering making screenshot from Stronghold 2 as well, but since I am more dedicated to Crusader, I decided to do it this way.

I'm applying for the contest! This is the signature I proudly present! It is a knight leaving my castle on his way to help others to protect the villagers outside the castle. EDIT: New version:

So you did it better that I did then, that's nice to hear. :) Perhaps we could try a multiplayer game similar to this map? I could be in the same position where I was on this mission, and you could be in the south-west position. We would fight against four Lionhearts with same settings (it's crusader game). It might be interesting. I know I wouldn't be able to survive, so I would have to rely on your help with resources or troops. Yeah, I played it again as well, and I did similar thing as you did. My problem back then was the fact that I didn't see how useful horse archers can be. Nice victory! :) I have reached mission five - where I need to fight Wolf allied with three Rats.

I understand. I must also admit, it would be a relatively expensive prize. But I don't want to sabotage myself or some other potential contestants, so instead of that, I should say "Hey, yeah, great idea! You should do something like that - that would be our way to celebrate the new Stronghold game!". I'm just kidding right now. :)

Woah, if that is the case, I shall be one of the contestants - that's for sure! :) Only I shall see minimum system requirements for the game before anything else. Or that, or Uplay is way less annoying than Steam - I haven't tried Steam yet.

I've been visiting Stronghold Crusader 2 forum for a while, and I must say that, although I had low expectations (I just didn't want to end up disappointed), now I think it can be a really nice game. I've got feeling like FireFly did learn something from their past 3D Stronghold games, and that they have realized that people want a sequel of Stronghold Crusader. There will be some changes, and although many of us are resisting those, I must say: if something doesn't seem attractive right now, it doesn't me we won't like it. :) Speaking about Steam - well for all of us it is something we don't need, and therefore we don't want it (plus - those stuff said by Chris), but if this turn out to be a great game, I guess most of players will tolerate it. I had similar experience with Uplay when buying Settlers 7, but in the end, I still tolerated it in order to play a good game (although I still don't like how one cannot access some parts of the game if the player isn't online - it is possible to play offline, but then some maps wouldn't be available for example). There are many downsides, but I guess I will tolerate it. By the way, are there any chances that the game price to lower a bit some time after releasing? I never bought a game just after being released - I didn't have powerful enough PC. I would always buy a game after I get a new computer. :)

Thanks. :) When opening this tread I had some more missions on my mind. Also, just before writing here, another idea crossed my mind! If the mission was hard no us not because we didn't know something, but because it WAS hard - maybe we could return there, and try to win that mission again? This is one of Crusader Trail missions that was troubling me: 33. The Misty River. If I remember right, it's not just it took me days to win this missions - maybe it took me even years! This was one of the missions I used chicken on, and I skipped it. I simply didn't know how to win it, although I knew everything about training army and building and using siege engines (only I never wanted to use shields)! I was trying to start my economy, and to build up my defenses by building one square towers towards each Lionheart, and I was putting mangonels and archers on those towers. Later on I would complete my castle as I always do, but this time they were always taking me down. At some moment they would destroy my towers, after what they would start destroying my economy as well... BUT ONE DAY, ONE IDEA CROSSED MY MIND! I decided to try to do only one thing differently! And then I managed to win. :) I was always feeding people with bread - this time I tried feeding them with apples, because I knew apples take up more oasis, and with them I will not be able to feed my people. But they are better for beginning of the game, because they are cheap. Later I destroyed those apple farms and I build wheat farms and bread production. I will try to play this mission again! I may also try to win it again by feeding people with bread from very beginning.

That's right, I see nothing now. I didn't see anything related to your new post. Also, I replied in my first test tread, and I also created another test tread. For all I can see now, it all works as it should work.

Many of us are Stronghold Crusader veterans, and we have about ten years of playing this game behind us. Tell us about your achievements or even failures from the game that you remember to the present day. Those may be whole missions, or parts of a mission (from historical campaigns or crusader or warchest trail), such as besieging a specific castle, or your struggling to survive overwhelming early enemy attacks. You may tell us about some of your skirmish games as well.

What I am do pretty often is to attack and defend with only two unit types - one range unit type and one melee units type. In fact this was my style of playing before I started playing in multiplayer. As a Crusader lord, I was finding it easier to decide what units I want to use before any fight begins, as I need to decide what weapons to produce. Those are mostly archers or crossbowmen and swordsmen. I also use engineers every time, so it would make three unit types, but still - those three units are the only units I would use. This always worked pretty well for me I must say. :) As about attacking with only one unit - I guess it could be an impossible mission at some cases. Even if those units are horse archers or crossbowmen, unless you have already taken down some opponents and you are able to train more troops than your enemy can! For example, I believe ti would be pretty hard to kill Caliph only by sending swordsmen with no archers to backup them. Also, the smallest, but still the best defended Wolf s castle would be pretty hard to conquer using only those guys because he can have lots of crossbowmen on his castle, but even then you would have to send more crossbowmen than he has. Maybe we could play a little with those stuff! I could start a game against some AI lords including Wolf and Caliph and to give them 8000 gold (crusader game). After I manage to build my defenses, I could send my save file to you guys, and we could see if some of those things are not possible? :) I do remember very well how I was trying to win Principality of Antioch mission (the third Crusader States mission), when I was fighting against two Pigs which were across the river. This missions was almost impossible for me to win, because I didn't know how to construct catapults and how to train European army - I was trying to kill him with assassins and Arabian swordsmen, but most of those wee failures. In fact, I did manage to kill the southern Pig relatively easily, but the northern one was really hard to defeat. Oh, and by the way, this is the mission where I learn how to trade. :D I was building market, but I was expecting for it to bring me gold somehow (just like iron miners bring me iron without my commands), although I saw nothing was happening - in this mission I saw what options do I get when I click on my market. :) Sweet memories. :) Perhaps in this same missions I found out how to produce produce weapons and how to train European units, but I'm not sure about that. I am certain about finding out how to get gold from selling goods. Also, I do remember how I was playing this same mission and how I was producing weapons there, but that could be some other attempt to win this mission again.

Nice tactic! When I attack Caliph, as I often use swordsmen as the only melee units, my tactic is to send them in groups of twenty men. I first attack him with catapults or trebuchets, and when I destroy few towers in front of his keep, I send the first group of swordsmen, and some crossbowmen. The job of crossbowmen is to take down engineers with boiling and flame throwers. Just after the first group of swordsmen I send another group, and after that one I also send the third group (if I have more then 40 swordsmen). This way it will not be possible Caliph to burn all my invading army at once - I can lose up to 10 or 20 men in fire - no more than that, before I make it to kill him. I wasn't thinking about use of spearmen much (except in some war scenarios), but now when you said it, they might be very useful. :) Now when I think about it, in this case - when besieging Caliph, they could be better choice for the job not just than swordsmen (which is not very hard to notice) but than pikemen as well. Spears are being produced pretty fast as I noticed - one can easily raise a massive spearmen army... By the way, I used spearmen in one multiplayer game yesterday - the map we played had no iron, and opponents were buying iron to produce swords and armors for knight, while I was attacking with horse archers, assassins and spearmen. It was pretty interesting and dynamic game. My team won, by the way. :)

Then I see only what I should be able to see.

That's right.

You're right, that's especially useful when you haven't enclosed your castle yet, and when horse archers come close to your keep and start killing your people. Although it will depends of how many archers does the enemy have on his castle walls. If he has lots of archers, like Snake or Caliph, I'm afraid you will have to destroy almost every tower before sending spearmen to attack him. Similar thing is when you want to attack a castle inside of which are lots of strong melee units - such as macemen inside Pigs castle. Still, they can be useful, but in my opinion, you would have to quick fast all the time, and always to be ready to attack again. Also, you would have to refrain from sending those guys too quickly on enemy. But it is all possible, and perhaps it could be easier to kill the opponent this way than buying iron (if you have no irons mines) to train stronger units. I used slingers a lot when I was a kid - I was combining them with Arabian bowmen, and they were doing the job. :) And speaking about fire throwers - the are far from underrated, at least to me. :) I do remember :) , although I must say that horse archer are not weak units - they are stronger then European archers, and they can fire while riding which is great. Yes, it would be, but if you have swords and armors, and enough gold. :) Training macemen or knight is always better than training spearmen when you can train same amounts of those units, especially if we consider that the speed we can train our troops is limited. :) If those slaves are the only units attacking your castle, then yes, but certainly 4-5 archers are not enough for me to feel safe. But if your castle is under attack by horse archer for example and slaves at the same time, one of them can reach your granary and set it to fire. ;)

This is what I was able to see when you created a new tread: http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z427/samir89ns/images%20for%20forums/ssstrongholdnation1.jpg And this is what I saw when I followed the link to see the tread: http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z427/samir89ns/images%20for%20forums/ssstrongholdnation2.jpg

Well, I guess that every forum which is tending to grow into a larger community is a real magnet for those guys with no good intentions. :) I also agree BB code is easier to use. :)

Now I saw you replied me there, Chris. If you did create another topic, or post a reply in some older topic there - I wasn't able to see it this time. :)

After your reply I googled a little... There are ways to automatically convert html code to bb code, which is nice, and I'm sure I'm gonna use those. :) I understand that about html code - there are lots of people who just wait to misuse those great options html offers. :/

Well, in Stronghold Crusader and in Stronghold 1 each units has its advantages. The only problem is when we don't see how we could use those cheap and weak units. Spearmen are the ones that are the most underrated among all units perhaps! Besides slingers maybe... But still, in some skirmish games I have recently started to use spearmen: I always build several fletcher's workshop (for bows) and poleturner's Workshop (for spears). Spearmen are too weak when you send them outside our castle, they are especially vulnerable to enemy archers, but if you are aware of this, you will keep them away from enemy archers, and they will be able to defend your archers from enemy melee units. They are especially useful when opponent send slaves or other units to your castle, quarry, or something else. They are very useful when you need melee units to protect your granary, armory and other vital buildings, AND you can save more of your people and resources. When a swordsman kills few of your woodcutters, oxes and fletchermen, you also lose those goods they were carrying. In fact, whatever units you use, you always have to pay attention to their vulnerability, because each of unit has them. :) I could say archers are underrated as well, but they are better than crossbowmen in stopping spearmen army, or slaves on their way to burn down your castle.

I have created a test topic there, and I can access it (just as I should be able to). As far as I see it, it works just the way it is supposed. There is only one more thing still... I believe that members can see if something was posted there, just like I saw that you were posting something, and I saw names of those topic with names of members who posted latest (unread posts there). Maybe you could do those two thing, just to test it once again - maybe that was fixes later: to post a reply on a topic in which I wasn't involved, and to create a new topic. I would tell if I can see some of those info. I guess I shouldn't be able to see none of those thing.