Lancelot's Macemen

[Sir Windows 10]

Greetings,

I've been using Stronghold Nation as my main source for looking up information on units, AIs and every other aspect of Stronghold recently. Specifically for Stronghold 2 and Legends most recently, as the coverage here is excellent.

Yesterday, I noticed something that doesn't seem to receive any mention anywhere online. It seems that Lancelot's unit roster isn't limited to swordsmen, archers and men-at-arms. Lancelot also trains around five macemen whenever his units are threatened by vampiric creepers. I noticed this first when playing with an ally Lancelot against Vlad and then checked it myself in a 1v1. I've attached screenshots from two different games showing the macemen in action.

The macemen were spotted on the Steam Edition of Legends. I've not played the original release of Legends. Did Lancelot use macemen back then as well or is this a balance change made by FireFly for the steam version only? 

Edit: On the second screenshot there's also a pile of my own macemen fighting men-at-arms. The group of four macemen ahead of the swordsmen in blue belong to Lancelot though.

https://cdn.stronghold-nation.com/community/monthly_2025_05/20250517220435_1.thumb.jpg.dc698e84e6c0092376ded391d85d04dd.jpg

https://cdn.stronghold-nation.com/community/monthly_2025_05/20250517225656_1.thumb.jpg.7a27cff1621ba554f1ccba7c9598f42e.jpg

https://cdn.stronghold-nation.com/community/monthly_2025_05/20250517225911_1.thumb.jpg.6419f145175a19f41bf382d41c752b42.jpg

Edited May 17 by Sir Windows

[Asophix 56]

Hi!

We are glad you like our articles! 

Lancelot himself doesn't recruit macemen (he's limited to archers, men-at-arms and swordsmen, as well as knight summons), and I don't think he did back then either. It's more likely that he started with some of them due to starting settings. To be fair, I don't know at all how the AI handles their starting troops. Most of the time they are used to patrol the outlying buildings, nonetheless it's possible that some of them were grabbed to form a siege force. 

The Legends AI has simple definitions that define three dedicated teams for sieges - and many other purposes really -, composed of a single unit type each, as well as an ever increasing minimum troop limit for a siege force. Lancelot launches siege attacks with very small armies, so it is very likely he just swiftly grabbed a few of his starting macemen and sent them to attack.

To verify the above assumption, try playing with little to no starting troops and random events off (just to eliminate the possibility of getting troops though events). Lancelot should never lay his hands on macemen, just the three mainline troops mentioned.

[Sir Windows 10]

I forgot to mention that I play without starting troops and weapons. My initial assumption was that they must be event related. I've followed your suggestion and did another test run. This time with events turned off, no starting weapons and no starting troops. The result was the same. After I sent a creeper up on one of his towers Lancelot recruited around five macemen.

I've recorded a video of the test. It shows all the setting and nothing much happens until 4:42 when the macemen come out of the barracks.

I don't know how Stronghold Legends AIs are designed exactly but in Stronghold Crusader aside from their attack & defence troops they've got some more specialized troop categories such as moat digging, moat filling, ranged sortie, patrols, siege defence, raiding and others. It would be interesting to know if Legend's AIs have a category for defence units against creepers. Now, this might be a long shot, but has anyone checked if Dietrich trains swordsmen when facing Good or Ice as an enemy? I've seen him train defensive swordsmen on a very rare occasion but until now I never bothered to check which faction he was facing.

Edited May 18 by Sir Windows

[Asophix 56]

Okay, this is really interesting because I have never seen this in my all life, yet here we stand. 😄 Your discovery is something really amazing.

I'm going into a little bit of detail:

• Legends has similar specialized unit groups. There are less categories, but it's also much more simple than a Crusader siege AI. All variables aren't known yet, but enough of them are that they could be altered (I can share details a bit later).
• There are the usual groups. Notable differences from Crusader:
  • There is only one sortie group which goes to the last destroyed building's location. Most of the time these are almost non-existent due to small sizes and being comprised of small troops.
  • Troop pools are reactive ranged defenders, who can take the place of fallen primary ranged defenders. They are more like a reserve ranged force.
  • There are up to 8 raid groups that the AI can deterministically send to enemy estates. Catapults/stake hurlers/bats/dragons go explicitly to player home estates, while others may go take villages. 
  • There is a dedicated 9th raid group which can be considered a death wave targeting exclusively players. This seems to be created once the AI has lots of gold. Most AI recruit 50 archers for this.
  • Siege attacks have three unit groups that behave slightly differently from each other. There are two wave groups and a ranged group, moreover almost each siege engine type and Royal Table knight has a count. The AI doesn't seem to cheat here, e.g. it recruits as many siege engines as it can, then it ceases once it runs out of gold. The AI controls the siege and the units by itself deterministically, the definition has no control over it.
• Legends AI has known sell limits only. Buy limits are not yet figured out (there must be something as Arthur buys one single iron, while other AI don't).
  • For the granary, minimum stocks are bought (up 10 each as far as I'm concerned). 
  • The pantry is bought royal food only if the AI lacks honor (and only of the type it produces).
  • Weapons are bought up to 5 per type, based on the barracks troops used by the AI. Once the need arises for it, the equipment is always bought.

Dietrich recruits 2(!) swordsmen as a sortie group, independently of any faction. He also has a bug with his trading behaviour, as he is set to sell all armour and swords. This works against the buy engine, resulting in Dietrich constantly selling his bought armor and swords. Depending on the recruitment cycle, Dietrich may or may not recruit the swordsmen in any given game (50% chance).

 

[Sir Windows 10]

I'd be very interested in how to alter Legends' AIs. Truth be told, I only noticed Lancelot's behavior while testing a small graphics mod. It really bothered me that Alfred and Beowulf aren't available in regular skirmish. So I replaced Vlad's interface, fx, binks, text and castle files with Beowulf's. Their army comps are roughly comparable, since staples like Saxons and dragons are there. The big difference being the siege units and vampiric creepers. Under usual circumstances, I wouldn't have noticed the macemen, but I ended up paying more attention to the AI during a test match. For the most part, I wanted to make sure Vlad's AI can function with Beowulf's castle. This was when I noticed the macemen but dismissed them as event units. But then they kept showing up during further testing, including matches against Lancelot. This was when I decided to do the initial 1v1 test against Lancelot.

Honestly, I also find this pretty amazing, since this means there's an AI that uses macemen in the game.