Nigel

Greetings Ladies and Lords, I am happy to announce that I am starting a Community Challenge on the Official FireFly Discord. 🏰 The Freebuild Multiplayer Challenge 🏰 - You build a castle in Freebuild and add some troops as garrison force. - I will convert it to a multiplayer map and add some troops as attacking force - We meet online and see if your castle can hold the attack. You can choose the difficulty of the attack from 120% to 300%, or anything in between. I will calculate the value of your defending army by troop and weapon costs. Difficulty 120% means, the army value of the attacker will be 120% of the army value of the defender. At 120% you should be able to defend your castle easily, even if it was built more for beauty than for strength. At 300% I don't think you will be able to defend your castle, unless you are extremely good. Think and choose wisely, a difficulty that is to your liking. The game is played without recruiting during the siege. We only use the troops that we have at the start. No repairs of walls and towers during the siege. You can use as much gold for buying your troops as you want. Some additional rules apply (see below) but there is no need to build a super-efficient power-economy. You are free to build a beautiful, realistic looking castle. There are some additional rules for the defender and attacker to make the battle interesting. Check out the full rules and information in the competitions section of the FireFly Discord. https://discord.com/channels/439428269822181376/619185103574401025/1177628674804162650 This challenge will start today and run until 31. Jan. 2024. You can sign up for this challenge on the FireFly Discord or just let me know in this thread here. I also want to say thanks to Eagle Prince, who gave me permission to use one of his great SH1 maps, Danube River, as map for this contest. 🙂

Hi guys, sorry for beeing absent for such a long time. I seem to spend most of my time on the official FireFly Discord these days. But glad you are still active and talking about the current games 🙂 There was quite a discussion on the Discord about "bugs" in the map editor, that allows mapmakers to create some really cool stuff: the magic eraser trick, the 2000 stone trick and other things. I think these are the bugs that Nick has in mind when he says that they will not fix them. Skrimish, for sure ist not coming and I could imagine that it would be a major re-work of the game code to achieve that. When the initial code was written, the idea of skirmish was not there at all. Larger maps, they are still trying to implement, but it is not easy and may or may not be possible. For higher unit limit, Nick is more hopeful and it is quite possible that we will get that. What I am rally happy about it, that there will be some nice Quality of Life additions. Auto-market will probably be implemented and I am hoping for a "recruit 10 units with 1 mouseclick" feature. There is also a demo on Steam (not sure if it is still available for download) and they have a feeback form where they are asking for our opinions.

Thought I would open up a thread for it 🎄 Merry Christmas to all of you and all the best wishes for the New Year 2022. ☺️

Hi guys, as this is as much an AOE4 thread as a "how are you doing" thread, let me join in here. I also saw the AOE4 release and it is much covered on youtube and other media. There was even a lengthy discussion on it on the official FireFly discord 😀 As for myself, I still prefer Stronhold style games with more focus on beautiful castle building and not purely RTS gameplay. But that said, AOE4 certainly looks like a good game and I will probably get it at some point. Probably also at a sale like you, EaglePrince. I am sorry to hear of the death of your girfriends father, EaglePrince. And also about your loss, Chris. Best wishes, for your grandmother's recovery, Eagle. This crisis is really harsh. Some of my friends an a cousin of mine got severe cases and required hospitalization. Fortunately they are all better now. I myself and my closer family have been spared so far. We keep beeing super careful. Hopefully, when this winter is over, we will have overcome this crisis. Glad to hear that your career in Academia is developing, Eagle. Teaching students and designing your own lectures must be a really interesting thing. I had the chance to teach some younger students during my own student days. I always had liked that. 🙂

Today is a special day for Stronghold. It is the 20th anniversary of the release of the original Stronghold 1 Tasha from FireFly has posted a little pic on the official FireFly Discord to celebrate the occasion 🙂

Hi guys, Just to let you know that I am hosting a Map Making Contest for Warlords over on the FireFly Discord. If anyone wants to check it out, here is the link: https://discord.com/channels/439428269822181376/875060707174002688/875060708713312307 All wellcome to join 🙂

Looking forward to seeing some nice videos from you now 🙂

Yea, I love the field hospital. Not so much for it's strategic benefit - I don't know yet if that is big or small. But you know I like to role-play my games. And finally I no longer have to make this tough decision about what to do with my veteran heros, that return from a battle with 10% HP. Do I send them to their deserved retirement and thereby loose the value of their equippment? Or do I keep them for another battle, and thereby send them to their certain death? Decisions, decisions.... but with a field hospital, I know what to do 😄

Hi guys, the new roadmap for Warlords is out. Stronghold: Warlords - Summer & Autumn Roadmap (Kublai Khan, New Unit & Skirmish Trail!) - YouTube Enjoy the video 🙂 I wonder what that new mystery feature will be.

The "namely" does not sound too bad to me. But then again, I am also not a native English speaker, just someone who uses English a lot during his work. Maybe you could also substitute the "namely" for "This is, since". Your sentence would then read "The equation ... has no real solutions. This is, since ... and therefor ...". It sounds a little more long-winded to me, but it would avoid the doubt about the word namely (and would also work for your Persian example 🙂 ).

Yes, I think this game is better than Crusader 2. In so many ways it has improved: unit collision, the warlord system, different levels of housing to name just some of them. Unfortunately it also has a few points, where it falls behind Crusader2: game balance and exploits. Regarding exploits: There are some really strong ones, which allow to play with a cheesy strategies. But yea, I dont understand the complaints about this: if you don't like exploits, don't use them. Of course this is a problem in MP, when people want to win at all cost. But like you said on the Steam forum: it has always been better to play with friends. Playing randoms can often just be annoying and a waste of time. Regarding balance issues: it is actually possible to create a very strong, but one-sided economy. I won't go into details here, because I don't want to spoil it for anyone reading this. But again, it is the same as with exploits. If you don't like it, don't use it. For MP however, it means that we will need some good house rules to make it fun and exciting. At least for competitive MP. For casual, just for fun MP games, it is not a problem at all. Ah, well, I am not bothering to try fighting the trolls. I respond to those players who give fun and constructive feedback and just enjoy the game 🙂

Yea, unfortunately the Steam Forum is in a pretty bad state. It was dominated by haters right after release. They were bashing FireFly for the bugs that the game had. And yes, to remain honest, there were many bugs and balance issues on release and there still are. But I even so, I do not think that the game deserved the s******m it was getting. But as a result of it, the Steam Forum is pretty deserted right now. I am mostly on the official FireFly discord. The people there maintain a positive attitude and try to give criticism in a constructive way. If you want to join it, the link is https://discord.gg/qMG7Zae. You have to join one of the "factions" to get full access to the site. Type ?dynasty, ?horde OR ?shogun in the chat box. I am with the Shogunate, but the other factions are also cool. You can't go wrong, whatever you choose.

Glad you jumped on the boat and made your way to Asia, EaglePrince. I hope you will like the adventure. I myself am half way through the campaign so far. Taking in at a leasurly pace. Hit me up if you want to do something on multiplayer 🙂

AAron from FireFly has just started a new series of videos: The Stronghold Show. Welcome Sire! - The Stronghold Show - YouTube It is a new format where FireFly is combining updates on their games with spotlights on community created content. Check it out and support it if you like it. If it is successful, they will make it a monthly show. I really think that is a good concept, in particular as they are giving recognition to what the community is creating. 🙂 This issue is highlighting Jergy's wonderful SH2 maps and Udwin's work on YouTube videos for Stronghold.

For those who are interested: there is currently a 20% discount on Steam for this game. Offer ends 10th of May.