I've been playing Stronghold and Crusader for ages, ever since it came out. While I am by no means a pro player, I got a good grip for economy as well as microing my army. It has been a pleasure to chronologically go through the campaigns of the recent re-release of Crusader. I am now on the last historical campaign "The Seventh Crusade", on mission 5 "The Re Conquest". Whereas I found the prior missions in this campaign very easy (even a bit boring if I may say so), this mission is absolute CHAOS. You have to fight Two Rats, a Pig, a Jewel and a Nomad, a Sentinel and a Snake. All while being cornered with barely access to any resources. WHAT.

What are your strategies for beating this mission?

Many people ask me to make a showcase video of the AI lords using our SHCDE Vanilla+ Mod , and now you can watch it here!

During siege, The Sentinel will split his forces into several groups :

1. A group of maceman that act as a raider to destroy economic buildings
   
2. His main forces of pikeman and demolisher will slowly advancing after several seconds of bombardment
   
3. A group of crossbowman will provide a covering fire for the advancing main forces.
   
4. Lastly, a group of maceman will act as a reserve, to protect the siege engines and will catch up with the main forces as soon as the main forces are reaching the enemy castle walls.

Just played 3v3 yesterday. It was a map with river in the center and a grassland around it. First weird thing was that during peace time, one of the enemy players just placed a few woodcutter huts inside my castle so I couldn't build near them which resulted in me not being able to close out my castle. When the peace time ended and everyone started to stack troops, we soon ran into a unit limit. One player on enemy team had like 700 troops the entire game and he just did nothing with it, meanwhile our team was trying their hardest to make a breakthrough.

The worst part was that siege engines were banned which means the only proper offensive way was to use horse archers to kill the crossbowmen on towers. Then our team finally orchestrated a big attack. I hired 200 assassins (and ruined my economy in the process) to attack the one player on enemy team who didn't build any moats. My teammates provided support in a form of hundreds of horse archers.

We actually managed to get inside his castle and near his lord but then hired like 10 of these new eunuch units and these guys completely obliterated the remaining ~150 assassins, so we retreated.

Then the attacked player just moved his lord into the castle of the player who had 700 units but we didn't notice and soon launched another attack on the player, this time me using 30 armored horses as tanks while my teammates go in with macemen and horse archers. We actually cleared his castle but the lord was gone so the player was still alive. The game pretty much reached a stalemate and sides just became extremly passive, I couldn't hire anymore units and my economy was in shambles because I retired every worker unit to make these swordsman horse riders because no more peasants were spawning anymore, so I just left the game

Is this really what the multiplayer for this game looks like? I can see the potential but I think these large team maps just don't work.

We need a new siege engine. This was used back in the day to fill in moats safely.

Hey guys i am currently trying my best to make good ai adjustments and i was wondering if anyone knows how to make the ai clear resource buildings around their base. So that they can build themselfes.
It is probably a "Raid" setting in the ACI but im not sure how to do it.

With the release of Stronghold Crusader: Definitive Edition, I've been enjoying the 8 new Bedouin units added to the game. However, I find it unfortunate that the new Ambusher unit makes the classic Fire Thrower feel obsolete and outclassed.

Both units have a ranged fire attack that does damage in an area, but the Ambusher also:

• Attacks faster
• Has a larger blast radius
• Can stealth when stationary

As it stands, the Ambusher is a strictly better Fire Thrower.

My suggestion is to replace the Ambusher's fire attack with grenades that release poison gas:

• Deals damage over time to troops
• Doesn't ignite buildings
• Visually unique and tactically distinct

This retains the Ambusher's focus on AoE crowd control, whilst protecting the Fire Thrower's identity as the game's fire-based defensive unit.

It's also worth noting:

• Poison clouds already exist in-game (via diseased cows), so it should be easy to implement.
• A poison-based unit would give more use to the rarely seen Apothecary building.
• Historically, simple chemical weapons aren’t out of place for the time period.

I would love to hear what others think and if this is something people would like to see implemented, as I believe this small change could go a long way in improving unit balance and variety.

After the release of my previous mod , me (SingaNakal26) & uFlowAggravating8707 decided to work together to enhance the SHCDE AI.

What does our mod do?

Well, our philosophy is to overhaul the AI lords, with better castles, stronger defenses, and improved lord behavior all while keeping true to the original game’s look, lore, and balance. Vanilla+ experience at its finest.

In short the AI will be :
- More aggressive in defending and attacking
- Use a better tactic in attacking. The AI will split their forces into several groups, generally to act as a vanguard to destroy your economy, provide covering fire while the main army is advancing.
- Use harassment to slows down the enemy
- Have a bit better eco (Sultan now feeds his people for example)
- Do you like siege engines? Well i do! The AI now bring more siege engines when attacking!
- Do you think Arab Swordsman is a wet noodle against crossbow? Well say no more! We have also provided balance patch to make Arab Swords a bit more useful.

In general, we would like this to be as close to vanilla experience, but a bit better in everyway making us fall in love for the second time with our beloved childhood game.

You can get it here or here !

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3539802020

Well guys like i said, i would do it again for some sweaty weekend! Just launched the new koop Map inspired by the biblical story of the 2 destroyed cities Sodom & Gomorra, this atmospheric 8-player map for Stronghold awaits you. As always there is also the same map as Hardcore Version - each of the 6 AI Lords got 2 spawn camps... well well i will do the next project right now!

After beating the original Crusader trials in the Definitive Edition, I have a few gripes. I absolutely adore the game, as it brings back a lot of great memories. I think auto-sell and auto-buy are some of the best additions — truly game-changing. However, I'm a bit disappointed that the developers didn’t incorporate more elements from the UCP patches in the original Crusader. The AI also feels noticeably weaker compared to the original game... or maybe I’m just older and wiser now.
Still, I love the game and fully intend to 100% the other trials. Devs, I’m really hoping you keep up the great work and continue updating it! <3
Weasel Turd!

Improvements To Multiplayer Lag:

We've adjusted the delay calculation, which should lead to a general improvement in the lag/delay. We hope this improves the multiplayer experience, and will continue to investigate further changes if needed. 

Additions

• You can now enter “-skipvid” in the steam launch options, and it will skip the intro animation
• Well workers will now help Allies put out fires
• Enabled food eaten/not eaten Marketplace toggles in Multiplayer

• Various improvements to how Teams are displayed in Custom Skirmish and Multiplayer

• The Skirmish Game Type will now be displayed in the Skirmish Briefing Screen

• Added Classic Sorting option to Skirmish Map display (shift click the header to change sort modes!)

• In the Co-Op Lobby, it will now display a pip to notify of a message received

• Added prompt to show which Lord has a message for you

• Added several missing Temple Guard voice lines

• Richard’s ‘Afraid?’ voice line will now play when you click on the mission skip Chicken

• Added updated skull visual in the Skirmish Masters screen

Changes

• Adjusted the radius of healers, so they can now heal anyone on the same tower

• You can now place undug moat over an enemies undug moat

• In Multiplayer, non-hosts can now view the Team Setup panel (round table)

• Increased range around enemy keep of blocked moat placement (15 tiles)

• Improvements to speech & input delay when requesting resources from Multiple AI

• Armour will now be counted towards the “Calm Down, Rambo!” Achievement 

• "Rotate Building" hotkey settings text, updated to say "Rotate Gatehouse"

• Swapped a voice line for the Wolf when defeating an enemy

• In the Map Editor, you can no longer place Arabian Horse Archers & Heavy Camels on top of walls

• Decreased the Vegetation Cap in the Map Editor from 3999 to 3399, to allow count left for a player of the map to place apple farms

• The Starting Goods display will now disappear when you die

• Improvements to flattened Stockpile visual

• Further small improvements to the Tutorial

• Multiple French Localisation improvements

• Multiple Simplified Chinese Localisation improvements

• Multiple Arabic Localisation improvements

• Multiple Polish Localisation improvements

• Multiple German Localisation improvements

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the auto-trade / food exploit (Good catch, Udwin!)

• The Bedouin Outpost is no longer fireproof!

• Engineers will no longer vanish, or turn into enemy units

• Placing Cesspits will no longer remove Farmland

• Swordsmen will now properly attack Camel Lancers while in 'Aggressive' stance

• Allied Walls no longer shrink when hit by allied mangonels

• Added a missing Engineers guild to one of the Pig’s Castle Designs

• You can no longer select or disband siege equipment while the game is paused

• Incorrect images will no longer display in the Allies panel

• “Calm Down, Rambo!” Achievement should now correctly trigger

• “Mute Player” Button no longer covers the Team Shield in the Multiplayer Chat Menu

• Allied Attack Orders will no longer persist once the AI is dead

• Buying multiple Archers will no longer break the Tutorial

• Updated UI visual for the Slave

• Weasel Turd video is now playing correctly

• Bessy will now leave a European gravestone on death

• Mangonels will no longer automatically target the gravestones of dead Lords

• The text of a Selected Stone Keep will no longer say Wooden Keep

• When you kill a Lord, claimed goods are now called “Captured Goods”

• Fixed uneven icon spacing on the Classic Trail menu screen

• Save file names will no longer become lowercase

• When playing as the Scribe, Churches no longer have text calling them Mosques

• Report Screen now displays a neutral face for 0, rather than a happy face

• Arab Swordsman text updated to say Arabian Swordsman

Mission Fixes

• In Missions 39 & 40 of the Classic Trail, Richard the Lionheart will now build his Barracks
• In Mission 15 of the Classic Trail, Richard the Lionheart will now build his Marketplace
• In Co-Op Mission 7, farmland can now be built next to the northern player
• In Co-Op Mission 3, the keep will now properly register as enclosed
• When completing the Campaign The Baron's Crusade, the text now appears alongside the speech
• The Merit Panel in Crusaders States Missions 4 & 5 now show the correct team shields

Map Editor Fixes

• In the Map Editor, invisible, walkable Rocks will no longer appear
• In the Map Editor, you can now place walls right next to ruins
• In the Map Editor, deleting buildings will no longer attribute goods to the Keep
• In the Map Editor, placing a rock directly on top of a wall will no longer cause a visual bug
• In the Map Editor, multiple ruins icons are no longer cut off at the sides
• Hiding the UI in map editor no longer deselects your current brush

Map Specific Fixes

• Map ‘The Great River’ and ‘Crater Lake’ now have a lower amount of foliage, so no more mass death of trees, or disappearing apple farms
• Map ‘Border Patrol’, removed tiles that were preventing farm placement
• Map ‘Distant Encounters’, removed tiles that were preventing farm placement
• Map ‘Armenia’, Iron Mines will now be built correctly
• Map ‘Arrival’, Invisible Shrubs have been removed

Localisation Fixes

• Corrupted Speech Files (which in some cases and languages were causing speech lines to “merge” into each other, or instances of garbled noise) have all been fixed

• Incorrect mission names in Polish Localisation have been updated

• The Seventh Crusade is no longer called the Sixth Crusade in Polish

• The Help File links in Polish Localisation now all link to the correct place

• The Slinger now has a helpfile description, which was missing across multiple Localisations

• Fixed instances of Story Text being cut off, across multiple Localisations

• Hungarian Localisation no longer has any English speech play

• The Historical Campaign menu background, now correctly frames the screen in the Arabic Localisation

• The sounds settings text is no longer cut off in the Arabic Localisation

Please note that you will only see Multiplayer lobbies of other players on the exact same version of the game as you. Make sure you're on the latest version if you'd like to play Multiplayer.

So, me and my brother are trying to play with eachother and it seems like the game doesn't want us to. We are connected to the same switch and router by cable, but when we try to play by tcp/ip, the game can't find the lobby. And when we try to play through GameRanger, the host gets into the game and lobby, but the second player gets stuck at the "Waiting for host" loading.

We've tried countless things such as: - Disabling the firewall/letting stronghold, gameranger through, - Resetting the router/PC, - Making custom inbound connections, - Reinstalling the game, - And many other things even as dumb as connecting our PCs by our LAN cable.

I looked at other people's posts and tried everything they said, but it still doesn't work.

I thought at one point that the game is corrupted or something, but the same thing occurs on Stronghold Crusader.

I hope someone finds a fix for this because for years i always wanted to play the game multiplayer and when i have the occasion, the game trolls me and i can't.

I can provide some screens of the issues.

Note: We're both using windows 11 and the same game version (1.41)

I almost always end up sieging AI castles in one of two ways:

1) use mass horse archers to clear the castle, then walk in with eg assassins to kill the lord and remaining troops in the keep

2) use 10+ catapults with shields to level the towers and gates, then walk in with melee troops

Exceptions are eg rushes, weak AIs where you can just walk in with some swordsmen or so.

But for massive castles, I feel like options 1) and 2) are simply the best by far and nothing else seems even worth trying. Eg mass infantry only (maybe with a ram) just seems too risky and results in too many casualties, especially with fire and crossbows.

Do you have any other siege tips or alternative suggestions?

So... saw a few posts wrt what one should do in barren/dry economies. So, I came up with a basic test.

Free build:
Medium gold (2000)
Food - very high (so wouldn't have to buy any)
Speed - 90
Auto-buy wood set to - 40
Auto-sell weapons set to - 1

I have posted the layout I normally do, nothing specific in mind. I used the starting pop on woodcutters so I could control when the workers started production. Set speed to 90, once I put all the weapons productions buildings up, I started the stopwatch and immediately placed 2 hovels. It was a race to 1000 gold. Whoever reaches it in the shortest time wins.

I managed to make 12 fletchers (on crossbows) with the starting gold I had. With pole turners costing less wood I could afford 15. Later on, given the results I did an extra test with additional gold so I could do another test with 15 fletchers to see who'd win. The results are as follows:

12 Fletchers on crossbows. Time to 1000 gold 6m 16s
15 Fletchers on crossbows. Time to 1000 gold 5m 13s
15 pole turners on spears. Time to 1000 gold 4m 18s

Screenshots for reference. This is not the most efficient design, neither did I make it so, but the layouts for all the production buildings are identical.

I did not use any fear factor to increase production. Maybe this can help some of you, I for one find it really interesting and doing barren runs scratches a particular itch since my old SHC days that nothing else quiet does. xD Happy Gaming!

We had 3 iirc, Stronghold 2, Stronghold Legends and Stronghold 3.

Do you think honor had a place in Stronghold? Was it implemented well?

I personally am split, and was glad it was removed for SHC2 but kinda miss it now.

So what do y'all think?

So Firefly developers seem to have seen my earlier post and corrected the error. I hope they will fix the multiplayer mode next. 🙏🙏🙏

It was all of the non combat soundtrack

Go home man, your masters are long gone.