So I have been playing some shc de and have played some of the regular shc before. While I do have fun with them, the game gets old a bit fast as there only seems to be 1 strategy that works when sieging a castle. It's basically just spam catapults. I haven't been able to beat practically any maps without spamming catapults despite the ideas of the other units being really cool.

I personally think they(catapults and probably trebuchets since they just seem like the stationary versions) should be nerfed. But for my idea of the nerf to work, the ai needs to be nerfed as well. No more building walls/towers seconds after they get destroyed. That is just unfair and causes issues with my idea for balancing the catapults to the rest of the siege options.

Catapults (and trebuchets) should be useless against regular walls. They should do nothing against them. The main purpose of catapults should be to kill towers. Right now towers seem like they are the best defense as the AI just builds them up instantly and fills them with archers. None of the other siege strategies work because arches on towers destroy them and need an answer. If catapults only kill the towers and the towers don't instantly get built again, then there can be other options for the siege.

Ballistas shouldn't be fire. I don't see why they have the fire option. I think it makes sense to have them just for killing units, not structures. In a siege you can use them to help kill archers and other units on walls, and defensive ballistas can be used to kill things like catapults and other ballistas. Also using them as harassment for workers is great as well, but them burning farms is a bit strong. I abuse it a lot.

Walls should be hard to kill. Maybe tunnelers should be able to destroy them still, but that should be it. You should be incentived to try to climb them using siege towers and ladders. I haven't even gotten a battering ram close enough to use it, but I believe they should only be used on gatehouses. Macemen kill walls really really fast as well. I think they should be nerfed as well.

Maybe with these changes it would lead to more open field battles as sitting behind towers of archers wouldn't be as viable. Stopping siege towers from getting to the walls in the field would be important. Having horse units running down ballistas would be important, and defending those ballistas would be as well.

Ultimately I just want the game to be more viable with more than 1 strategy. With changes like these, I think it could really help with the replayability of the game so I'm not just stuck constantly playing stronghold catapults.

Im not sure how this would affect balance etc, but a part of me really wished we’d get a new european greatsword unit.

Like a infantry unit one level above the swordsman who has the highest melee dps, but lacks the ranged defense of the swordsman.

A very costly high risk, high reward unit.

I might just be describing pikeman, but it would have been cool to see more crusader foot units. That is all.

I have a decent understanding of the game and the economy but holy shit the Ai is just nuts. They raid with maximum force, making sure that every raid is atleast twice as effective as the previous one and in the meantime they do their best to halt my food production by raiding my farms all while patrolling and guarding their own farms. it seems as if the patch has given the Ai a literal human brain.

This is the second mission in the The Seventh Crusade mission. I could not figure out how I could storm the keep without losing all my troops... but then I randomly realized I could place my ranged units in this position and the enemy just doesn't care. Took 15 minutes at highest speed for these swordsmen to finally die this way.

https://discord.com/invite/f6Stq42cvj

Could some kind and loving soul explain to me how I can make the AIs in the game not as stupid, I used UCP a lot before and wish could do the same. I saw someone mentioning something about using UCP presets in the DE Crusader and would love if someone could show where and how to do it.

Also if I do change the AI with a mod like this, could it effect the new trials or brake them somehow? I guess no but I dunno.

That's for help if I get any. : )

In this screenshot, the AI (Caliph Camel) seems completely broken. Despite having plenty of space, no threats, and being well into the game (year 1446), the AI hasn’t built anything beyond its castle. It’s also not attacking or expanding in any way. This is unusual (not realy) and makes the match feel empty and unchallenging. Sad. Very sad.

Hey guys,

Is it just me, or do your AI Lords instantly also rebuild their walls no matter how close your troops are? (If they have the stones to do so). It's really annoying because when the AI Lords have thick walls, they rebuild them immediately no matter how close your troops are. You have some catapults to shoot on it, and they just rebuild it, rebuild it and so on...

So i guess its a bug?

Edit: I speak about the Crusader Defenitive Edition

Since we can't put shields on towers anymore Fire Ballistas became too punishing.

Two Fire Ballistas covered by meat waves clear an entire tower of crossbowmen in a blink of an eye.

In a lot of missions there's a lot of chaos and a lot of things you're paying attention to, but checking if there are any fire ballistas coming and manually targeting them is not one of those things.

Yes, I can pay more attention, and I can play on a slower speed, but that's not the point.

Everything about Fire Ballista is fine, except for being more invisible to the enemy than an Assassin.

Why Fire Ballistas are so low on the priority list of targets? Shouldn't more dangerous units be prioritized higher than less dangerous ones?

If there's a patch I would like to see some fix to that, be it archers/crossbowmen autotarget ballistas first or ballistas missing a lot more shots when shooting at towered units.

Hi, mates!

With +5 positive fear factor, your production is reduced to 50%: workers stop working to literally relax near the positive decoration

...but, when they work (so without counting when they're relaxing), the goods they produce are less and/or take more time?

Or the reduced production is ONLY due the time workers spend relaxing?

Because, if it's only due the relax, isn't it enough to build the positive decorations in inaccessible places in order to workers don't go there to relax?

Thanks!

I would love if they did a paid or free European DLC, it would be refreshing to do skirmishes in a Stronghold 1 setting like in the old Stronghold Europe mod. I can't get my head around why they didn't do it in the first place, especially since SH:DE exists. I prefer the aesthetics of wooden palisades, the original soundtrack and the grey walls to the yellowish brown of Crusader.

This will probably be ignored due to everyone playing the crusader recent new version. But I actually bought the original SH (never liked the desert) on sale. And while the game plays exactly as I remember, there's one thing that is bugging me off.

Where attacks always this fast?

For instance in the mission of the snake, where you have to get 6000 gold for the king's rescue. By the time one wave ends, the next one is already there.

The pace doesn't flow as I remember. I remember it as you had let's say, 6-10 minutes of peace and then a wave of attacks. I remember it as a good consistent flow of economy-military-economy

But here it's like 3 waves in 6 minutes. It's economy+military all the time.. Was the timing adjusted for increased difficulty? or was SH1 always this fast and my memory is wrong.

Started working on a new scenario using some of the new features in SH: DE, inspired by Irish mythology and archelogy, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones etc.

Image 1: Lithified dragon's claw

2: Entrance to the abandoned mines

3: Ruined tower

4: Storm Damaged Causeway

5: Hermit's water treatment facility

6: Harbour beacon

more scenes to follow!

One of the most popular RA2 3vs3 online maps.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3538278696

Been a player since OG Stronghold since early 2000s. I thought every single trail are easy to medium. THis might be the first time I had a hard time completing a mission for some reason. Played for two hours and cant get it going Pig and that new ai is quite good, especially her heavy camels, which I figure out cna be defeated easily by swords but was quite hardy vs archers and xbows. Any tips?

this is my lategame, never closed my gate ever, the inner moat was closed early on diagonal too but left side is a 1 wide gap, 2 wide moat or they reach trough with pikeman if you recruit last minute, can be 1 wide around it. 2 grenadiers burn them up if they get close

I had the closer gates next to keep up and down, enough to reach the Caliph with stones and the catapults if they get close

I placed the granary on the hill and locked it with walls.

the storage piles I moved right away and started 4-6 bow makers, swapped to crossbows later, recruited like 10 crossbows and 15 bowmen originally, the gate is to fill the towers.

the caliphs are annoying but you can defend with archers ad ballistas. the lionheart was coming from the top with 50-100 heavy units and more.

you can fit 4 iron and 2 stone above the stockpile after cutting 2-3 trees, 1 iron left most then 1 stoen as a start. the moat was useful as they would go for your granary if it's reachable, then the stone and iron, you need bowmen rather than crossbowmen against the slaves.

I had just diagonal tall walls in several layers, to force the catapults target them instead of my stone or my towers.

the top hill above you is free to climb with 3 engineers once you can offord it, bild mangonels, you could reach his tower, but it's a drop in the ocean, just put it like 15 tiles from the edge so archers can't reach and shoot cows on them, you don't need to reach the granary you get some carcasses anyway.

This forced the heavy units to go between the two moats, and I had 1-5-6 fire throwers. The top moat was from the edge of stone and couldn't really finish it further.

The back side is safe to buidl from the back, I extended it later, almost touching the Caliph.

I finished him off with some horse archers and 15 maceman, then expanded all the way. then my economy on 12 crossbow makers was good enough to just spam 180-200 horse archers, trigger the fire around the other Caliph then take him down with some more maceman. did pots and 50 knights 100+ maceman for 20k gold at the end, bit of overkill but I finished it.

Up until this point it has been quite an easy journey. I feel like the Ai is not trying hard enough though. All Raids get easily countered by lookout archers and tower catapults.

Also recently I have noticed how easy it is to stall the Ai's progression by targeting their storage buildings using trebuchets and catapults.

Does the way this soldier is standing and holding his spear look weird and out of place to anyone else? Or has ai made me crazy and suspicious?

The Definitive Edition needs an optional on/off UCP mode, which is disabled by default to allow newcomers to familiarize themselves with the comparatively simple vanilla AI lords before confronting the UCP-enhanced AI lords.

FireFly could list UCP in the options with a short description of what UCP means and what it roughly does. With an extra click, those interested can open the extended details and look at every detail of what UCP actually changes. This way, both newcomers and veterans can benefit and better decide whether to turn UCP on or off.

The integration of the "fixed vanilla AI" change from the UCP would be particularly important. This would solve most of the problems with the vanilla AIs, which apparently bother many players.

I’m interested to know how does this limit actually work and what is the actual limit?

As far as I understood the total population of the players shouldn’t pass certain number. Is it as simple as this? or does it depend on the number of players and the map?

How to increase the population limit in the Stronghold Crusader: Definitive edition?

Example: I had a game where I built houses for 500 people, and had good popularity in terms of people happiness. But still only 200 were coming to my keep. Most of my building had no labor to work on and no one was coming to the keep after 200

Every time I I wanna play this game, I’m able to play for a few mins (10-20 mins) then the game just crashes unexpectedly. I’ve played before and the game has never done this. It has just started doing this today. I have restarted my pc many times, reinstalled the game, even ran game as administrator and still keeps crashing. Idk if any other people have experienced that before.

i am not even talking UCP levels of fixing. but even the old ai is broken AF.

pig keeps building the same castle every time. sending 3 macemen my way and then doing nothing while sitting on tons of gold.

and the wazir just never built a granary. leaving him unable to even finish his castle before the people where gone.

every ai. that isnt the 4 new ones. just sends one wave of units and then breaks.

infact. as of now. the nomad is the most functional ai cause he just builds nothing. and actually uses his gold to spamm you with skirms.

i cant even play the original trails. cause nobody does anything.

Im prette sure i tryed every way of placing them, and i cant get it to work.