The next event ... a field battle?

[EaglePrince 234]

Maybe Tokamaps would like to join us as well. :) I'm going to send him a PM. :)

[Tokamaps 27]

Hi, ive read your pm Eagle prince.?

 

Im having holydays right now which i'm spending on the Canarys.?

 

I'm coming home late on tuesday ( 22:00 cet)?

 

And on wednesday i have a to undergo a surgery.?

 

Thursday next week would be my soonest time to do it.?

Or Maybe wednesday evening.?

[Mathew Steel 151]

@Tokamaps, I hope the surgery goes well! Let us know once it's done! :)

 

 

 

As to when we play, I don't want to make any promises as I simply do not know the plan with school or work next week. Feel free to arrange it, and if I can join I'll let you know a few hours ahead, and if I don't, then we can play another time! :)

[Tokamaps 27]

Hey, it would be nice maybe wednesday evening.?

 

If not, i still have 3 weeks no school.?

[Nigel 71]

Tokamaps, great to see you :D

 

Hope you are enjoying your holidays.

And may your surgery go smoothly when you get back.

 

 

For this event, let's stick with Tuesday, since most people have already confirmed (and also I may be home late on Wednesday).

But that does not mean that we can't get together for another event in the next 3 weeks. :)

 

Same for you, Mathew. If you can join on Wednesday - great. If not, we will make sure you get into the next one.

[Nigel 71]

And I actually managed to set up the 2v2v1 scenario I had in mind, before going off into the weekend :)

 

It is based on my map Saxon Fort, that I submitted for the 52 Weeks of Stronghold contest.

But now it is a multiplayer scenario with fixed forces and the story is slightly different:

 

 

 

After the battle of Hastings was decided in favour of the Normans, their task is now to conquer the rest of the country.

There are great opportunites for the Norman lords to win land and titels for themselves.

 

One Saxon fort remains to be taken in the East and two rivaling Norman families set their armies in motion. Only one side can capture, hold and claim this land for their reward. Their armies arrive at the same time and now they face each other with the fort between them.

 

 

The fort itself is poorly manned and no match for either one of the Norman armies. But now they face a different choice. Will they attack the fort first, suffer some losses but hope that the walls of the fort will compensate for that when their rival attacks? Or will they attack their rival first, hoping that after they win they still have enough troops left to take the fort from the Saxon lord?

 

The map has 4 Norman armies, two on each side for the 2v2 part. All of them are identical and about 100 men strong. But the map can also be played as a 3 player game with only 1 Norman army on each side. There are only about 30 Saxons defending the fort. Their role is just to tip the scales in the battle between the Normans and their only chance to survive is, if the Normans do indeed decide to attack each other first.

 

 

 

 

It is a short scenario and even with 5 players it should take only about 15 - 30 minutes.

If you like, we can play it as an appetizer on Tuesday and then go on to the bigger map that Charles has made.

Saxon Fort FF.zip

Edited July 12, 2017 by Nigel

[Mathew Steel 151]

I did finish texturing Charles' map, so you all know! Just waiting on a reply from him, I don't want to upload it here if he plans on uploading it properly to the downloads section :)

[Charles of Tours 70]

Wow, @Mathew Steel did an amazing job texturing the map while keeping the balance. This one's a keeper. :)

 

And here it is (woohoo!): https://www.stronghold-nation.com/downloads/file/527-pillars-of-fate/

Edited July 15, 2017 by Charles of Tours

[Nigel 71]

Nice !

 

I look forward to playing with you guys tomorrow :)

[Mathew Steel 151]

Looks like I'll actually be able to play, guys! Not sure if there's room, though :P

[Nigel 71]

Great !

We will make room, dont you worry :D

[Mathew Steel 151]

Just checking, we'll be using GameRanger, correct? :)

 

Also, daylight saving is in effect, so I'm fairly sure CET and BST are currently the same? I may be wrong. It's currently 16:16 as I post this.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Mathew Steel

[Lord_Chris 270]

Yes, they're the same.

 

And yes we'll be using GR.

[EaglePrince 234]

Just checking, we'll be using GameRanger, correct? :)

 

Also, daylight saving is in effect, so I'm fairly sure CET and BST are currently the same? I may be wrong. It's currently 16:16 as I post this.

I think CET and BST are not the same. I'm posting this at 18:38, while I think it's 17:38 in Britain, and what I believe is that we're going to play in 22 minutes. :)

Edited July 18, 2017 by EaglePrince

[Mathew Steel 151]

Ah, I see! Currently Nigel and I are online, as well as Charles, however, neither of us can contact Charles.

[Nigel 71]

yup - Charles needs to put us on his Friends List :)

 

Well, I am going to open a room with the name "Stronghold Nation Event"

 

Password: SHN

Edited July 18, 2017 by Nigel

[Nigel 71]

We had a great session yesterday. Thanks everyone.

 

Two games were played:

- a fixed forces battle with the Saxon Fort map I upload above

- a regular SH game with the Pillars of Fate from Charles of Tours.

 

Both games were really good fun.

I managed to take some screenshots and will upload them here. The story of these battles shall be told :)

[EaglePrince 234]

I shall be the first one to write the battle report. :)

 

But before that, I would like to remind you that Stronghold 3 actually has four types of multiplayer games. That is Deathmatch, which is a standard multiplayer game, King of the Hill, Capture the Flag, and Coronation. I'm not entirely sure how do the later three work, but we could try them some day if you want. Or maybe even Crusader 2 has these types of multiplayer games?

 

Still, I do admit, even though Stronghold 3 seems a lot interesting, it is questionable how would it work in multiplayer game, it is possible that the game would lag to some of us, which would be an issue,

 

Now back to the topic.

 

 

When it comes to the first one - the field battle, it was quite enjoying, but we had that lag, and somehow I feel that my team won by pure luck, only because the other team wasn't able to control their units properly. We don't know how did we get that lag, but perhaps it simply happened... What would be more interesting would be to try to play a similar scenario, but with a stone castle. In this one the defender had little troops, and only wooden walls which didn't help him much. But don't take me wrong, it that was quite fun, I'm just giving some suggestions for future events!

 

 

And now the regular game. I started the game as usually, but at the same moment when I became knight, and when I wanted to start bow production, outlaws attacked me in large numbers. I was trying to deal with the situation myself, and somehow I didn't ask Mathew to come to my aid. Somehow I assume that he didn't have any troops to help me, but when I saw his archers coming to help me I was so much revealed! Outlaws cripples my economy, and destroyed my granary, so I needed to start over with almost everything, but luckily I had enough wood, and of course - I was a knight already, so that was very helpful. I walled myself, and started over.

 

For a long time I was much weaker than others, and I saw that my only chance was to use the other villages to boost my economy, so as soon as I was able to train about 25 swordsmen, I sent a unit these swordsmen and about 30 archers to deal with outlaws. Before that I had already taken the village close to me, so I could produce more food there, and more iron, but I saw that the outlaws were attacking these villagers from the cliffs. There was no time to wait with destroying their camps. The campaign was successful, although I needed to sent reinforcements consisting of another 30 archers. It was a tough mission for these swordsmen and archers! In the end they marched back into the village, wounded, but proud!

 

After this mission, I decided not to disband the garrison in the south of the village, because somebody from the other team could use the path over the cliffs to deliver a surprise attack. Then I got my second village which was to the west of my castle, and there I started production of candles and cloths, while I decided to buy fancy food for the lords kitchen. After some time I became a duke, and I was able to train knights. Mathew and Chris became dukes before me, and I think Charles did as well (though he was using swordsmen some time later, but seemed to me that it was simply his decision - to mass-produce swordsmen instead of training knights), but later it turned out that my decision to buy these neighboring villages was good. Soon I caught up with Chris and Charles.

 

I started some fights with Chris and Charles now, and at the moment they started to push me from the river Mathew decided to attack! He attacked in two directions - to north, where Nigel was, and to south, where I was pushed by Chris and Charles. I joined his troops in south, and that was hell of a bloodshed. In the end Mathews and my troops won the fight, and we wanted to look how to attack Chris.

 

Now here comes my stupidity. :D I thought that I needed to kill Chris, and that taking his castle wasn't enough. Assuming his lord isn't in his castle I didn't decide to catapult the walls, and to enter his keep, but instead I decided to rush onto his walls, attack his economy with archers, and later to continue destroying it with knights. Then Nigel came as well, and by that time Chris' knights were already inside the keep. We made a hole in his castle walls, and then we rushed into his keep. I was surprised when I was Chris' castle collapse, I didn't expect to defeat him like that. Too much of Stronghold Crusader I guess. :P

 

Then we continued to push Charles and Nigel. We were careful with Charles as we assumed that he most likely had traps inside his castle. At some moment I noticed that I can send my knight, who by this time had their horses (which they previously lost during the previously mentioned bloodshed), though Charles castle into Nigel's castle. They didn't make a wall between each other on the hill. When my knights came to Nigel's keep Mathews troops broke through his walls as well, and then we managed to kill his lord.

 

Later we regrouped in front of Charles castle, and at some moment we just rushed into his keep. We had a lot of fight there, he was waiting for us with crossbowmen and axe throwers inside together with his knights. But we managed to brake through, and to get to his lord, and win the war. :)

 

This was very interesting game! We could play it again on that same map, and I believe that it wouldn't be less fun. Now we would only be prepared better to deal with bandits. Damn, now when I think about it... I could have bought bows and trained archers myself, that would have worked as well. :D I just forgot about it. :D

[Nigel 71]

A brilliant account of the Pillars of Fate battle, EaglePrince.

And congratulations on your and Mathew's victory - and to you on beeing the first one to destroy his bandit camp :)

 

 

All I can add to your story of that battle are a few victory screenshots. I did not get one for Lord Chris' castle, but here are the one from Tour Castle and Loring Castle :P

 

 

After Lord Chris, my own castle was the next one to go down.

You can see the attack of Mathew's army on my front gate and some of Eagle's troops already among my workshop buildings.

 

 

 

 

And Charles' castle was the last to fall.

You can see how heavily his keep was defended.

 

Edited July 20, 2017 by Nigel

[Nigel 71]

Edit: I see that EaglePrince posted in between the two posts for my battle report on the Saxon Fort, so I am moving the text into the second post. That should be easier to read now.

 

I still need this one for holding the pictures (there can be only up to 5 pictures per post).

Edited July 20, 2017 by Nigel

[EaglePrince 234]

I have another idea for a map like this. Almost the same, but with bandit camps in the middle, so that players would have to break through the outlaws in order to reach to each other. Maybe that could be done by editing this map. Just replace one river with two rivers between which would be bandits, and move the castle estates closer to the edge of the map to make more space for bandit camps.

 

Another interesting thing for making the ambient more interesting might be to make marshes between the two rivers, so that bandits would be inside that marshy forests.

 

I don't know what I would do with those bandits on the cliffs though. Maybe move them into the middle of the cliff.

 

With a map like this we could make rules to start attacking each other after somebody breaks through the outlaws camps. Or in other words, we would have no peace time, but only time until we are able to start attacking. :P Or, we could simply play as we used to play. :P

 

 

Oh, and Charles. You were using burning carts to attack our army. That is something that we were discussing before that we shouldn't use it, because it is unrealistic, and it can devastate slow troops such as swordsmen. I mean, I would definitely approve it if it was used to attack some buildings, and if I have some troops between those burned buildings, then it does make sense for my troops to burn. :D

 

But I would leave to others to discuss it. I should note that burning charts are easily countered by archers, and by some fast melee units (in which case it would be smart not to send many soldiers to destroy the carts, but only few of them, because they will be caught by fire.)

[Nigel 71]

I also have seveal screenshots of the first battle around the Saxon Fort and can expand on that story a bit.

 

It was indeed the idea that the fort is only weakly defended and that the main battle should be between the two attacking armies of rivaling Normannic lords (and indeed it was). The decision the players had to make was if they want to attack the fort first and then try to hold it, or if they want to attack the other army first and then the winner hopes to have enough troops lelft to capture the fort.

 

 

Here you see the starting position with Mathew (orange) and EaglePrince (light blue) against Charles (green) and Chris (dark blue).

 

 

Well, what happened was that they both decided to attack the fort and clash on top of my head :D

 

 

And quickly the fighting started on the battlements of the walls....

 

 

... to continue in the castle yard, where the troops of Charles started to get into trouble.

 

 

Lord Chris started a charge with his swordmen to come to his rescue.

 

 

Then he decided to move his army around the castle in order to get his swormen to Mathew's archers on the roof (using their own ladder :P)

 

 

 

That worked and the archers were quickly dispatched.

But now the combined melee troops of EaglePrince and Mathew reached them and the final battle was decided on the roof of the prison.

 

 

 

In the end, Mathew and EaglePrince carried the day and managed to get the fort free of enemy troops - with quite a few of their own troops left.

 

 

Now this land shall belong to the Lloyd family henceforth.

Sir Mathew has already said that he wants a monastry with stone walls to be erected here.

It shall be done in due course :)

Edited July 20, 2017 by Nigel

[EaglePrince 234]

Oh, but about the Saxon fort... I think that my suggestion still holds, but there's another one as well. :)

 

First, now when we look at the map, and the way how we were positioned, there was actually not other way, but to attack the castle first. The castle is in between. So maybe it would be better if the castle and the two armies formed a triangle?

 

The other things is that, not only the castle was weak, but wooden walls are so weak, that we could have actually destroyed it really easily. That is why I think stone walls would have been better. But in this case players would need to have one or few catapults in additions to laddermen. I would give one catapult to each player.

 

Oh, and this thing - the game wasn't balanced like this. :) You can see that we were able to climb on the stone barracks more easily than you, and that gave us an advantage. But that is no big deal to fix - just move the barracks to be more between the armies. You could also add an engineers guild at the opposite side of the fort, as well. To make it more interesting.

 

And in the middle I might try to put a square tower with a ballista. Yup, this is a cruel one. :D Regarding the castle walls, it would have no towers, or maybe few small lookout towers.

 

ADDITION:

Yup, I made a mistake. It weren't barracks, but courthouse.

 

Looking forward to see the monastery. :)

Edited July 20, 2017 by EaglePrince

[Nigel 71]

Good observations about this map, EaglePrince, both about the walls and the balance.

I had not thought about the access to the roof as I simply adapted this scenario from my single player map.

 

Indeed if I redo this decision-scenario, I will make the castle more symmetrical and also use a triangular map layout. That is a good idea.

 

But now I am thinking of doinng something else to continue with this map. Perhaps a siege scenario or a raid on a monastry or a battle in front of the gates or whatever else we come up with. :)

[Mathew Steel 151]

"Nave!" :P

 

This really was a lot of fun! I enjoyed both games, especially when the lag decided to die down. Two victories to Eagle and I, can't complain! :D

 

We should definitely do it again sometime, perhaps on an unbalanced map in future?

Edited July 21, 2017 by Mathew Steel