Epic Stronghold Crusader II Battles!

[Mathew Steel 151]

We have one for SHC1 and as the first event for Stronghold Crusader II was today, I feel it is time for the topic to be added to Crusader II. So I would like to start us all off with a great game today I played with @xiiMaRcLeoN against 6 AI opponents!

 

 

The First Post

We started the game with medium resources, 15 minutes of PT (peace time) and with a balanced gold amount for us and the AI. The map was as I like to call it, the SHC2 version of Grasslands (8 Player SH2 Map). I was in the top left corner, with xiiMaRcLeoN beside me to the right.

 

I started off by using all my wood to make woodcutter huts and then to place some hovels. I spent some of my gold on wood to be able to start wheat production early. xiiMaRcLeoN started by placing a few towers and apple orchards as food production. We continued to grow our economy during the first 10 minutes of peace time. xiiMaRcLeoN started to run low on food as I ran low on other resources such as stone. We traded these items to help each other out. xiiMaRcLeoN placed a wall all around his territory to protect everything with the issue of needing to have troops along the whole wall. Where as I went with a different approach to protect my keep and the hovels surrounding it with a few towers and a small wall. This of course made protecting my other buildings a little tricky.

 

Peace time had ended and we were hit straight away with attacks from all the AI, as xiiMaRcLeoN predicted. We reacted quickly and managed to hold against the small attack forces. Not long after this, I gathered a small group of men and with one attempt killed the rat (neighbouring me). This made things slightly easier. As I continued with weapon production I saw that xiiMaRcLeoN was struggling with constant heavy attacks from The Slave King (neighbouring him). I sent a small group to take him out. The first attack failed but it left a clear route into the keep. xiiMaRcLeoN and I continued to send men to attack but the units The Slave King had wiped us out constantly. Eventually he was overrun and killed.

 

A bug occurred soon after this where Saladin's troops were stuck inside a wall right next to my keep. This made things very hard for me as I could not rebuild hovels/walls/gatehouses etc near it. I was left with an open path straight into my keep for at least 30 minutes. Luckily xiiMaRcLeoN was reinforcing me with crossbowmen and swordsmen. With constant attacks coming from the front, I decided to go around the border with my men and take out Saladin from behind. Again this was successful. This meant that I could now rebuild my walls and hovels.

 

xiiMaRcLeoN and I continued to grow our economy until it was near perfect. xiiMaRcLeoN struggled to grow an army as he was being constantly attacked by The Wolf (who although was nearer me, decided attacking xiiMaRcLeoN was more fun). I went on to attack The Caliph, who was 2 territories in front of xiiMaRcLeoN. My attack managed to break a hole in The Caliph's defence, leaving a path to the keep. I sent 30 swordsmen to finish him off, but surprisingly they were all killed by firethrowers located on the keep. xiiMaRcLeoN sent 50 of his men to finish him off, with the same outcome again. I had to go afk for 10 minutes. When I returned the Caliph was dead and I saw xiiMaRcLeoN sending the last couple of men to finish off The Sultan, located right to the Caliph.

 

This left only The Wolf. xiiMaRcLeoN and I decided it would be best to do a 2 sided attack, as The Wolf was the strongest opponent and had time to build his castle's defences well. I attacked from the back while xiiMaRcLeoN attacked him from the rear. We timed our attacks to sync with each other. Using trebuchets to destroy his towers and walls, then sending archers to finish off the ground units. I sent small groups of macemen to cause havoc in The Wolf's castle while xiiMaRcLeoN sent all his swordsmen to attack The Wolf himself. His men reached The Wolf, just as my swordsmen were clearing out the remaining troops. Before I knew it, The Wolf, was dead.

 

The game went on for almost 2 and a half hours I would say. It was a great first match, I am already looking forward to another one soon. Thank you for reading :)

 

Be sure to post your epic SHC2 battles in the reply section below.

Edited September 27, 2014 by Mathew Steel

[EaglePrince 224]

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.

[Mathew Steel 151]

Well it may seem like an obvious answer but it is not. Carter Posts are non-placeable by the AI or the Player. They are automatically placed in villages and automatically send goods. It is good to note that they actually send the resources you are low on instead of sending whatever you like. The trading system is exactly like in the first Crusader.

 

Yes, it would seem this is true for many of the enemies. The Slave King looks weak, where in attack this is true. His defensive units are very powerful!

 

I am sure laddermen will be added in soon :)

[EaglePrince 224]

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! :)

[Lord_Chris 241]

It is good to note that they actually send the resources you are low on instead of sending whatever you like.

 

I think that's pretty disappointing actually. I much prefer the carters from SH2.

[Mathew Steel 151]

I'm not sure. I think I prefer this version. It has its advantages and disadvantages!

[Lord_Chris 241]

Can you place extra carters in estates or not?

[EaglePrince 224]

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.

[Mathew Steel 151]

You cannot. Only in the editor. Depending on the estate size they vary from 2-3 Carter posts and if destroyed, new ones will be placed.

 

As for moat. I've always thought it to be silly for a game located in a desert.

[Lord_Chris 241]

Well, I can see good and bad in that - it stops players from mass producing in one estate (like me) but it's too standard and would be better just putting a limit on carter posts.

[Mathew Steel 151]

That's true. Really nobody uses estates much. I don't know why but any game ive played not many people use estates or there just aren't any on the maps

[EaglePrince 224]

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.

[Lord_Chris 241]

Maybe player created maps would be better for playing SHC2 then, since you can add estates in those but can't use estates when they aren't there...

 

Personally, I'm looking forward to see what maps people can come up with.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Lord_Chris

[Lord_Chris 241]

Off-topic, isn't this thread going?

 

 

Let's keep this on topic folks, it's not going anywhere. ;)

[Mathew Steel 151]

Good point Lord_Chris :) perhaps it would be an idea to move some of the replies to a new topic :)

[Lord_Chris 241]

I've split posts #14 and #15. There is no real cut-off point between on topic & off topic for the rest so I'll leave them here as it would be otherwise too tricky.

 

Split thread: http://forums.stronghold-nation.com/topic/285-population-limit-for-players-castle/

[Mathew Steel 151]

Yesterday @xiiMaRcLeoN and I played another match of SHC2 against AI lords. We decided to try the new feature of a co-op territory. This means both of us were in control of resources/buildings/rations/troops and you get the idea. The game lasted for an hour and a bit against 3 AI lords. Unfortunately I had to end the match because of family reasons before we actually finished, but the outcome would have been a win.

 

We decided for the 15 minutes of PT that I would focus on food (bread) and xiiMaRcLeoN would focus on defence and troops. When PT was over we had a small wall with 3 great towers and a gatehouse. These were all filled with archers and crossbowmen, also we had a very good height advantage for upcoming attacks.

 

We were sitting in our castle planning our first attack for a while. We managed to get a group of archers/horse archers/knights/macemen and men at arms. The first attack wasn't successful. We took out all of Saladin's archers and we broke a hole in his walls. By the time all this happened, we only had 4 knights and a couple of macemen left. We had no choice but to send them to kill Saladin. Saladin was defended by a lot of Arabian swordsmen and healers. Meaning after the attack failed, Saladin was back to full health.

 

As I attacked for the second time, xiiMaRcLeoN was busy holding off our castle from 2 enemy attacks, The Wolf and The Sultana. The first time I used too many useless troops. So the second attack was 43 crossbowmen, 30 Arabian swordsmen, and horse archers, about 20. Again we broke through the wall and took out Saladin's archers using trebuchets and our crossbowmen. Now I sent the crossbowmen and the archers in front of the keep to hold off incoming reinforcement, this proved to be efficient. Then, with the last 5 Arabian swordsmen, Saladin was killed.

 

From here nothing much happened. We started an attack on The Sultana, which we were easily going to win. At this point I had to go, unfortunately. Now although there wasn't much time playing the game, the gameplay itself was indeed "epic". I only wish I shared some screenshots of the game to prove how great it was.

 

I feel the co-op castle was okay with AI lords, but I also feel that against real life players, it will be a lot more challenging and fun. Thank you for reading this short battle :)

[Nigel 65]

I guess today's battle deserves to get a place here.

 

I met Mathew on Steam by chance today and we decided to turn it indo a spontaneous event. xiiMaRcLeoN picked up the call to arms and joined us for a 3 player co-op game against 5 AI Lords: The Rat, the Slave King, the Sultana, the Wolf and Saladin.

 

While the two of them got their castles up pretty quickly, I was struggling a bit in the beginning, but with some reinforcements after the first attack on my caslte (many thanks for that - really saved my bacon), I managed to hold my own pretty well against the attacks.

 

After the Rat and the Sultana were beaten, the Wolf decided to be a regular guest at my doorstep. I had to keep re-buildinng my walls, but fially I learned to appreciate the use of pitch and that put an end to his trebucet threat. :)

 

Eventually we joined forces to move forward and started our assault on their castels. They were falling one after the other until we finally assaulted Saladin. Attached is a picture showing us move in after the wall was breached (xiiMaRcLeoN in green, Mathew in red and myself in blue).

 

Edited October 16, 2014 by Nigel