Stronghold Crusader 2: 2v2 Conquest Competition

[Nigel 71]

Some while ago I chatted with Igi.tanas, who is one of the lone champions from FireFly's Crush the Champion Trounament. There seems to be quite some interested in having a 2v2 tournament.

 

As it happens, I had been thinking about an idea for such a tournament for some time and this seems to be a good chance to try it out. Speaking to Lord Chris and Marta from FireFly over the last few days, I have put together a detailed description here and it would be great if we could get a little competition going.

 

 

The idea is to have a 2v2 conquest tournament. Instead of the usual tournament brackets, we have a map with different counties. For example, I have taken a map of the island of Sicily (simply because I was able to find a suitable map for it).

 

 

On this map, we should be able to have an interesting tournament, even if we only have 4 teams. At the beginning each team gets the same number of provinces. For example, if we have 4 teams, I will make 12 provinces and each team gets 3. For 8 teams, there will be 16 provinces, 2 each.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Each county will have a certain map associated with it.

I have 6 multiplayer maps from the Steam Workshop, which are balanced and suitable for competitive matches.

(Credits go to the map makers: Igi.tanas, Mars, Korsar and PowerPlug).

 

With 12 provinces, they can be distributed over the island so that you don't have the same map next to each other:

 

1 - Team battle middle

2 - Mars Siamese

3 - Templar 2v2 map

4 - Mars Battle

5 - Highland

6 - Crackland

7 - Team battle middle

8 - Mars Siamese

9 - Templar 2v2 map

10 - Mars Battle

11 - Highland

12 - Crackland

 

 

 

 

 

Now the rounds begin. A round will last 1 week and in each round, every team can attack 1 province which is next to their territory. They choose which province they want to attack and announce it on the forum. Then the attacker and defender meet on the battlefield and fight a 2v2 battle. If the attacker wins, he gets the county. If the defender wins, he keeps the county and the attacker has lost his chance to gain a new county in that round.

 

Here is an exampe of how a round could go:

 

Red attacks county 4 and wins against Yellow

Yellow attacks county 7 and wins against Green

Green attacks county 10 and looses against Blue

Blue attacks county 5 and wins Yellow

 

Then the round is over and now the map looks like this:

 

 

The rounds continue until 1 team has conquered 60% of the map (i.e. 6/10 or 7/12). But also, to avoid a stalemate, the team with most counties after 8 rounds wins - and in the unlikely case that 2 teams have exactly the same number we can have one last tye-breaker battle.

 

 

 

This is how the battles are scheduled:

 

One round lasts for 1 week. This way the players have 1 week time to arrange their battles after everyone has announced where they want to attack.

To help with the battels, I will be online on Wednesday evening between 20:00 and 23:00 CET for "battle hours". Why Wednesday? Why not on the Weekend? Well, this is really only because I usually cannot play on weekends due to other responsibilities. I am a typical workday evening gamer.

 

But I know that most players prefer to play on the weekend, and that is absolutely OK. The teams can make their own arrangements to meet and fight whenever suits them best. The "battle hours" on Wednesday are only there to give a fixed day for the last chance to resolve any battles that are still open.

 

If both teams meet online, they go into the game and do the battle.

If the attacking team is online during the battle hours, but the defender does not show up, the attacker gets the county without a fight.

If the attacker does not show up, the county remains with the original owner (regardles wheter the defending team is there or not - if you want to take a county, you have to get out of bed and be on the battlefield).

 

This way we will be able to get all battles resolved within the week.

 

After the last battle I will update the map to show all the outcomes on Wednesday night.

During Thursday the teams decide about their next attacks and let me know on the forum - or by PM if they prefer to keep it secret - by Thursday midnight CET. As soon as I have all the info for the next attacks, I will post that right under the battle map so everyone can see whom he is fighting next and for what county. So from Friday onwards, players can start arranging their battles again and we have again the final battle hour on Wednesday.

 

 

 

The battle rules

 

Battles last up to 1 hour including peace time. If no team has been defeated within 1 hour, the team with the Greatest Lord wins. Settings: medium ressources, 1000 gold, 15 minutes peace time, autosave 5 minutes. Defending team gets first choice of starting positions.

In case of heavy lag or connection loss, the battle is restarted at the last autosave. If the battle cannot be restarted, the team with the Greatest Lord at the last austosave wins.

 

UPDATE:

Edward Dunferline (=SlowAnice), a player who has taken part in several tournaments, made a suggestion which I quite like. Lag is a known problem in this game, but in his experience, lag is not so bad if you play a shorter game with less peace time and a self-controlled troop limit of 150. That is still enough to have a fun game, and less risk of lag.

Check top right corner of the screen to see how many troops you have on the battle field.

 

 

So I am updating the rules to allow 2 options:

 

- A long game for players with high end PCs : 1 hour game time, 15 min PT, medium settings, troop limit 300.

 

- A short game in one of the players has lag problems: 30 min game time, 10 min PT, low settings, troop limit 150.

 

Teams decide before the battle if they want to do a long or short game. The rule is, if 1 player wants to do a short battle, then a short battle it shall be. Only if every player can happily play a long battle without lag, then players can also do the long game.

 

 

Camping rules

To avoid a camping situation where no one moves out of his castle, I am adding the following non-camping rule:

- The attacker will be expected to move out and make an attack, if he is the Greatest Lord.

- But if he is behind on the score, no one can expect him to go on a suicide mission. He can try to catch up on the eco and if he manages to become Greatest Lord shortly before the time is up, the victory will still be his.

 

I hope this will avoid a stalemate situation if two players have about equal strength. If the attacker is the stronger player, he can storm the defender's castle anyway. And of course, if the defender is stronger, there is nothing to stop him from going out and storming the attacker's castle :D

 

 

 

Prizes

 

Yes, there will be prizes. FireFly has kindly offered to support the contest and the winning team will recieve a code to each of their games on Steam as the first prize. The second place will recieve a Crusader 2 DLC of their choiche.

But beyond that, there will of course be fame and glory for everyone who is taking part and fighting honourably.

 

 

 

Sign up

 

The contest is open to everyone.

To register, post here at the forum or use the registration form following this link.

 

Players who alerady have a team (friends, clan members) can give their team mates name at registration, but both players in the team need to officially register. Single players are also wellcome to sign up and we can make spontaneous teams when we start :)

 

 

We will need a minimum of 4 teams to get going - maximum of 8. My hope is, that we can get this contest started in mid July :)

 

UPDATE:

I am happy to announce that we have the full number of 8 teams.

So registration is now closed and the battles will soon begin.

 

Several players have already registered as a team, but there were also some lonely knights and I have allocated them together.

Here are the teams that will be fighting:

 

Igi.tanas - Dodorus

Edward Dunferline - Korsar

ErTu?RuL GAZ? - GlorieuX

Strahi - Kita

CadetKlinge - Tokamaps

kiki - kurnaz

Rakso - Letonetma

Mr.Monk - Tat4ba

 

There are players of all different skill levels. Some of them are very good an have taken part in previous tournaments.

It should be a very exciting contest. :D

 

Please go ahead and add each other on Steam, so that you will be able to communicate easily.

 

 

General Rules

 

The general site rules for the Stronghold Nation site apply also to the tournament. Also, fair and polite behavoir is expected. Rude language and especially comments that are sexist, racist or fascist will not be tolerated. The display of Nazi symbols or Islamic State related content is not acceptable in this tournament. That said, I hope it will be a fun and enjoyable experience for everyone :)

Edited July 12, 2016 by Nigel

[Tokamaps 27]

I could imagine joining this fight, though i dont have a team member :)

[Nigel 71]

Hey Tonkamaps,

 

No worries. I think there will be several players like you and we will go and find teams before we start.

Let's see who else wants to join.

 

 

Marta has helped me get a registration form up and running, similar to the one FireFly uses for their tournaments.

 

Follow the link and put your details in. And hopefully the list of players will fill up over the next couple of days. :)

Edited June 21, 2016 by Nigel

[Nigel 71]

Great - FireFly have put out a note about this tournament on their facebook page. It is really nicely written.

[Nigel 71]

Whow, we already have quite a few applications coming in. That is really nice :)

 

 

Talking of nice; along the lines of "play nice" I have added some general rules to the tournament post above.

 

  Quote

General Rules

The general site rules for the Stronghold Nation site apply also to the tournament. Also, fair and polite behavoir is expected. Rude language and especially comments that are sexist, racist or fascist will not be tolerated. The display of Nazi symbols or Islamic State related content is not acceptable in this tournament.

Read more  

 

I think this is fair gaming for all the tournaments hosted at the Stronghold Nation. The patrons here will know the drill. :)

Edited June 23, 2016 by Nigel

[Nigel 71]

I am getting quire a few registrations and also had some good chats with players over Stream. One question I keep getting asked is, what if my game lags. And lag is indeed a known problem with this game.

 

Edward Dunferline (=SlowAnice), a player who has taken part in several tournaments, made a suggestion which I quite like. In his experience, lag is not so bad if you play a shorter game with less peace time and a self-controlled troop limit of 150. That is still enough to have a fun game, and less risk of lag.

 

 

So I am updating the rules to allow 2 options:

 

- A long game for players with high end PCs : 1 hour game time, 15 min PT, medium settings, troop limit 300.

 

- A short game in one of the players has lag problems: 30 min game time, 10 min PT, low settings, troop limit 150.

 

Teams decide before the battle if they want to do a long or short game. The rule is, if 1 player wants to do a short battle, then a short battle it shall be. Only if every player can happily play a long battle without lag, then players can also do the long game.

 

 

I am really happy abot the registrations that are coming in.

Alread we have enough to make the contest work. So after this weekend, I will be fixing the start date for the contest. Keep watching this space. :)

Edited June 25, 2016 by Nigel

[EaglePrince 233]

This seems like an interesting contest, and right now I am have even better idea. We could make a map with cities instead of territories (or it could be territories with their cities), with all roads that we allow to be traveled by armies. Then, we could "imagine" a huge world with all those territories, but this world being too huge would not be able to be covered by the largest map size in the game. For this reason we would make a certain number of maps, and those maps together would be covering our world.

 

Then, we split these cities among each other, and we start fighting! We would play it as Risiko for example. In each step, one player can attack another, and conquer a territory. For this reason it may be interesting to have some prebuild castles on those maps - but only with basic stuff and weak defenses (no workshops or economy buildings, unless few of them - just to make it look better), unless it is a capitol city maybe.

 

Also, we can make this world symmetrical, so there wouldn't be too much maps to make.

 

Maybe this could be an interesting suggestion to Firefly - it would be great if we could copy/paste the entire peaces of landscape. This would be great for stuff like this, though we could do it even without that as well.

 

What do you say? This could be done in any Stronghold game!

[Tokamaps 27]

That would be really great.

 

For example in Stronghold legends an Stronghold ;)

[Nigel 71]

EaglePrince and Tokamaps, this is a very nice idea. It may need some work to set it up, but yes, the idea is cool.

Let's keep it in mind and we can open a new thread for it.

 

 

Meanwhile, I am getting quite a bit of feedback from players about things to look out for in the MP matches. One other thing that was mentioned is camping.

 

In SH Crusader 2 a player in his castle has a really big advantage over an attacker and if both have equal strength, he cannot be defeated. Since it is possible to win by Greatest Lord, an attacker might just turtle up in his castle to become Greatest Lord and sit it out until the time is up. But that would be pretty lame.

 

Camping rules

To avoid such a situation, I am adding the following non-camping rule:

- The attacker will be expected to move out and make an attack, if he is the Greatest Lord.

- But if he is behind on the score, no one can expect him to go on a suicide mission. He can try to catch up on the eco and if he manages to become Greatest Lord shortly before the time is up, the victory will still be his.

 

 

I hope this will avoid a stalemate situation if two players have about equal strength. If the attacker is the stronger player, he can storm the defender's castle anyway. And of course, if the defender is stronger, there is nothing to stop him from going out and storming the attacker's castle :D

Edited June 27, 2016 by Nigel

[EaglePrince 233]

I have another suggestion. Why would one of the players have to win? :) Maybe we could make a rule like "if one doesn't manage to defeat his opponent in two hours, that is a stalemate". I am not too much familiar with Crusader 2 tactics, but isn't it possible for players to try to rush their opponents, or anything - just to stop him from turtleing? You could also fix this by putting some of the resources out of players territories, so no one could wall himself with his farms and quarries in a corner of a map. This way, the attacker could raid the farms from around the besieged player, and by the time the one who doesn't want to fight on the field would suffer a defeat.

 

Don't you agree?

[Nigel 71]

  Quote

Why would one of the players have to win? Maybe we could make a rule like "if one doesn't manage to defeat his opponent in two hours, that is a stalemate"...

Read more  

 

Well, I had been thinking about this, EaglePrince. The problem with having a "draw" is: who will then own that county? The defender I suppose - anything else would not make sense. But then it is for the defender the same as if he had won the battle.

 

Now one could say, that is ok, the defender should have a certain advantage. And I think it would work well, as long as there are some strong players and some less strong players. But later in this tournament, when the remaining players have approximately equal skill, I am afraid we would always only get stalemate battles (turteling defender has a big advantage in Crusader 2). Then the movement on the campaign map grinds to a halt and that's what I am trying to avoid. But hey, let's see how it goes in this tournament. We can always learn. :)

Edited June 28, 2016 by Nigel

[Nigel 71]

But now, I am happy to announce that we have the full number of 8 teams.

With that, registration is now closed.

 

Several players have already registered as a team, but there were also some lonely knights and I have allocated them together.

Here are the teams that will be fighting:

 

Igi.tanas - Dodorus

Edward Dunferline - King In The North

ErTu?RuL GAZ? - GlorieuX

Strahi - Kita

CadetKlinge - Tokamaps

kiki - kurnaz

Rakso - Letonetma

Mr.Monk - Tat4ba

 

There are players of all different skill levels. Some of them are very good an have taken part in previous tournaments.

It should be a very exciting contest. :D

 

Please go ahead and add each other on Steam, so that you will be able to communicate easily.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Nigel

[CadettKlinge 0]

Hey,

if you want i can make a map for this. In the past i did familiar maps and i can make a map which isnt based on a real one.

[Nigel 71]

Yes, that would be nice.

I have 10 maps now and there will be 16 counties. If we manage to get 16 maps, that would actually be fantastic.

Just make sure the map is not biased and suitable for competitive 2v2 matches.

 

Looking forward to what you will do. :D

[CadettKlinge 0]

Okay i will do tomorrow some workouts.

[CadettKlinge 0]

Oh and when you want to see my latest work just check my Steam Workshop site.

[EaglePrince 233]

  Quote

  Quote

Why would one of the players have to win? Maybe we could make a rule like "if one doesn't manage to defeat his opponent in two hours' date=' that is a stalemate"...[/quote']

 

Well, I had been thinking about this, EaglePrince. The problem with having a "draw" is: who will then own that county? The defender I suppose - anything else would not make sense. But then it is for the defender the same as if he had won the battle.

 

Now one could say, that is ok, the defender should have a certain advantage. And I think it would work well, as long as there are some strong players and some less strong players. But later in this tournament, when the remaining players have approximately equal skill, I am afraid we would always only get stalemate battles (turteling defender has a big advantage in Crusader 2). Then the movement on the campaign map grinds to a halt and that's what I am trying to avoid. But hey, let's see how it goes in this tournament. We can always learn. :)

Read more  

 

I don't think that is a problem. In fact, you could make it like this to make it more interesting: the two players have two cities next to each other. City of player 1 declares war to a city of player 2. Then both of players can lose their cities, and in case of stalemate none of them loses their cities. This would make it somewhat more realistic as well. Indeed, if you attack, and the opponent cripples your troops in the battlefield, there's nothing to stop the attacked player to march into counter attack and take what over some of the attacker cities. Only in our case that could be only one city from which the attack was launched. In our interpretations we could say that the attacked one cannot easily go further, because other cities are garrisoned.

Read more  

[Nigel 71]

Now that we have the teams, I can fix a start date for the contest.

As it happens, I will be afk next week from Monday to Wednesday. Since I don't want to start the contest and then go afk for some days, we'll start as soon as I am back.

 

Start day: Thursday 7th of July

 

I will upload the campaign map on the night before (16 counties, 2 per team).

On Thursday you can all look at it and decide which county you want to attack.

Send me your decision by Thursday midnight. I will then show it for everyone to see.

 

Then, on Friday 8th, you will know who is attacking you and who you have to fight.

You can arrange battles yourselves during the weekend just as you like.

 

On Wednesday 13th at 20:00 I will be online for the battle hours. If you have not been able to arrange a battle during the weekend, come to the battle hour and any remaining battles will be resolved then.

 

After that, Round 1 is finished and I will upload the new map and on Thursday 24th the Round 2 will start.

 

 

I hope I have explained this well. If it sounds a bit complicated, don't worry. I will be online on Thursday evening and I can answer any questions that you still have.

 

Looking forward to an exciting and interesting campaign. :D

Edited June 29, 2016 by Nigel

[Tokamaps 27]

i only have to say one thing:

 

During the week I cant surely say if i can ply at 20:00.

 

on week its ok.

[ErtugrulGhazi 0]

omg ertugrul using my nickname and he is noob..please kick him from tournament...you can ask kurnaz i'm real Ertugrul..my steam acc?http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198239984834

Edited June 30, 2016 by Lord_Chris
Linkified-link

[Nigel 71]

@ Tokamaps: that should be fine. I think most players will prefer to do their battles on the weekends :D

 

@ ErtugrulGhazi: interesting. I will talk to him and if it is indeed true, I will request him to change his name.

Just out of interest. What does the name stand for? It is Turkish, right? Is there a story associated with the name?

 

EDIT: so we chatted on Steam and resolved it. It turns out that the name is written differently and that our player is not a fake but just happens to choose a similar nickname (Ertugrul was a fameous leader of the Turkish people, father of Ottoman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire). So all is well now :)

Edited June 30, 2016 by Nigel

[Nigel 71]

Ok guys, I have to go offline now for the next couple of days.

 

When I come back, we will get the contest started.

If you still have questions at this point, don't worry. For the first round, I am going to take you through it, step by step.

 

Looking forward to the start of the battles :D

[CadettKlinge 0]

Hey iam sorry to tell you that i dont have enough time for making Maps. You better search for other maps cause i could only do one which isnt looking like a pile of s**t. Sorry about that :/

[Nigel 71]

No problem, CadettKlinge. At least you gave it a try. :)

 

I have enough maps now for all the 16 counties. So we are ready to go.

 

 

One more thing happened.

Unfortunately, Korsar had to drop out from the tournament (sending many apologies). This is leaving Edward Dunferline at a bit of a loss. The good news is, that I recieved another last minute application: King In The North. I have not been able to speak to him yet, but if I get his confirmation, we still have our full 8 teams.

 

Meanwile, I am sticking to the planned start date and will upload the campaign map in the next few hours.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Nigel

[Nigel 71]

And so it begins.....

 

 

This is the campaign map - now with 16 counties, 2 for each team.

 

Strahi - Kita : Orange (2 and 4)

Edward Dunferline - King In The North : Green (1 and 3)

CadetKlinge - Tokamaps : Yellow (5 and 6)

ErTu?RuL GAZ? - GlorieuX : Red (7 and 9)

Igi.tanas - Dodorus : Blue (8 and 16)

Mr.Monk - Tat4ba : Purple (14 and 15)

kiki - kurnaz : Dark Red (10 and 13)

Rakso - Letonetma : Black (11 and 12)

 

 

 

And here are the battlefields for the counties:

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Each county has a certain map associated with it.

I have 16 multiplayer maps from the Steam Workshop, which are balanced and suitable for competitive matches.

(Credits go to the map makers: Igi.tanas, Mars, Korsar, Kp|Deadpool, Kronos and PowerPlug).

 

1 - Team battle middle

2 - 4 Corners

3 - The Great Falls

4 - Mars Battle

5 - Highland

6 - Crackland

7 - Xaribdi

8 - Mars Siamese

9 - Mars Wood

10 - Dardamen

11 - Mars Road (without AI)

12 - French Paradise Lost

13 - Death Valley

14 - Mars Kisses

15 - Templar 2v2 map

16 - Igi Party

 

In case someone cannot download a map from the workshop, the defauld map will be FireFly's Breath of Life.

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, my lords: Round 1 is now open.

Look at the map and see who you want to attack.

 

You have the whole day (until midnight CET of Thursday 7th) to let me know your decision.

You can notify me by PM, email or Steam chat.

 

After midnight I will show you what battles are going to happen in round 1 and you will then know who your first opponent is and can make battle arrangements for the weekend.

 

May the best team win :D

Edited July 6, 2016 by Nigel