Stronghold Next

Hey, guys! We have some new information about the Stronghold Next. Watch this video with Firefly's chief programmer.

So it seams that we are about to get another Stronghold game in Europe, like Stronghold 1, Stronghold 2, or Stronghold 3, and we would have skirmish. He says they bring into the game those things that made the original Stronghold games popular. I'm not sure what exactly he means by that though, but we shall see.

Nice.

I like the idea of a seetting in Europe. That has always my favorite area for a knights & castles game.

Indeed. Although I would love to see them bringing different fractions, even if those would be in expansions that bring more units skins, building layouts, and terrains. Medieval Europe was vast, we had everything, from England and Western Europe, to Byzantine Empire, and from Saracens in Spain to Eastern and Northern Europe (Vikings and Russians), and even The Golden Horde.

I mean, even in Stronghold 2 we can make desert maps if we want.

Of course, I know I'm asking for too much, this is just my imagination talking. :D

Also, I think now is the time to finally get unit collision in Stronghold, but I'm not too much optimistic even about that. For start the game needs to be optimized, without many bugs, and exciting. Somehow all Stronghold games lacks this excitement for me like in Stronghold 1 and Crusader 1, where you can build tons of troops and lose them so easily if not being careful. Stronghold 2 became more exciting for me while hanging with you guys. :) As about Crusader 2, maybe I haven't given it enough chance, but I just can't imagine it being more exciting to me than those three mentioned earlier as it has simpler gameplay, i.e. less options for defending the castle (no moats for example), and less options for attacking (no laddermen, etc.). Crusader 2 is good, but just not as exciting for me. And yes, maybe that has something to do with my cheaper hardware. :P

That would be interesting, @EaglePrince. The two things which I've like to see and have personally been calling for a very long time now, are seasons in the game, where the map reflects a specific season at a time, and buildings .etc. do as well, and also, the ability to use randomly generated terrain maps for Skirmish along with other user-made ones.

That would take the game to a whole new level.

Exactly, that with seasons would be awesome! In fact, that would bring may more possibilities, such as: farmers not working during winter, troops moving slower, but being able to cross frozen rivers, etc. But then again, that seams to me like too much work for Firefly. At least considering how many things they didn't make it to implement into Crusader 2 and Stronghold 3. Or it could be done much simpler. Sync farms with weather, add more textures, and viola! That wouldn't be hard at all.

As about randomly generated maps, although that would be interesting, it would feel strange to me as all Stronghold games have relied heavily on customs maps. Also, when it comes to Stronghold, the ones who make this script would need to take care about much more thing than in Rise of Nations for example where both human and computer players adopt easily. For that they might also need to make AI lords being smarter when building their castles. I.e. they should either pick smarter which castle layout to use, or even be able to improvise when there is a rock, a river close to the castle. Of course, I don't have to say how much I would love to see that more adoptable AI. :) But that again seams like too much to expect.

In fact, that would bring may more possibilities, such as: farmers not working during winter, troops moving slower, but being able to cross frozen rivers, etc. But then again, that seams to me like too much work for Firefly.

Yes! This is exactly the kind of thing I have in mind. I don't know whether you played the Settlers, Heritage of Kings back in the day, but especially things like frozen water happened in Winter seasons. I'd love to see something like this done. I'd try to include it myself if the SH2 code were open source.

The thing that I imagine for randomly generated maps is that you'd have the choice. So you'd still have all your maps as normal, but there would be an additional option of "randomly generated" in the Skirmish screen. You'd click on this, it would open a new window to select a specific map type, e.g. Continental, Hilly, Plains, Mediterranean etc.. you'd select one type from that, and it would randomly generate a terrain for you based on that map type for the number of lords playing. It's a pretty advanced technique but it was used incredibly well in Empires, Dawn of the Modern World by Activision- right back in 2003. Things have massively moved forward since then, so it should be a lot easier now.

Yes, I know. I haven't played it myself, but I did get the game for my mother, she enjoyed Settlers, Heritage of Kings for quite a while. I recently bought the game on GOG as well. It doesn't work on Windows 10 Creators Update, but they say there is an unofficial fix...

I think what you describe with randomly generated maps could be achieved more easily by some additional tools in the editor. One thing to be able to would be to divide the map in chosen number of areas, and then the editor would work on one peace of the map, and this way they would edit all other sections simultaneously. Also not all areas would have to be symmetrical... Well, there would be a lot of possible patterns to choose, and maybe they could give us ability to make these patterns. It would all be a matter of symmetries actually.

BUT, if they made a game with huge maps, then what you say might be a necessity. And having huge maps, I think that's something we've all been wanting for years. :) I mean, being able to put 8 players on a map, and each of them to be able to build a castle without any of them being able to aim at each other from castle to castle.

Hey, guys! We have some news about Stronghold Next. Firefly has made a video answering some of fans' questions, and in the future they will give us more answers. Here's the video.

Stronghold Next - Mega Q&A (Part 1)

In short, what I found the most interesting, is that it will have colon in its name. It will be "Stronghold: [something]". We don't know what will this new Stronghold be about, but they did say it's not going to be Legends, nor Crusader, and it's not going to be about Far East either.

Whatever they have chosen, there are plenty of stuff. My assumption is that it's going to have Europeans, but what exactly... Viking Invasion on British Isles, The Golden Horde (yup, they did not invade only Russia, once they even reached heart of Europe while fighting against Hungarians and Poles), Arabian invasion into Europe during Charles Martel, something about Byzantines (which dealt with many different nations including Turks, Slavs, many nomadic peoples, Crusaders, Venetians, Saracen, etc.)...

But Viking Invasion is my favorite guess, and I would like the idea with Mongols too.

On one hand, Byzantines and the Ottoman wars would be amazing! It's such an interesting period in history! On the other hand, I'm not sure it would fit the Stronghold theme very well!

I agree. From that point, what've they choose, it would be challenging. Another thing about Byzantines and Ottomans would be that Fireflies fan base is mostly in the UK, Germany, Poland, etc. We love it here in Balkans as well, but I'm afraid that my fellow Balkan buddies just don't have as much money to post for the game as those in Western and Central Europe, and Firefly is aware of that. Therefore I'm also almost sure that Byzantine Empire, with their neighbors: Bulgarians, Serbs, etc., is out of question.

But Anglo-Saxon England is something I would love to see! With all that diversity with Welsh, Picts, Irish, and Vikings, it could be great. And something we are familiar with.

Regarding the Stronghold theme, I think any part of Europe would fit, especially if they want something new.

Thanks for sharing the link to the video, EaglePrince.

Hmm, intersting, "a historical setting that was not done before". I really wonder what that could be.

They ruled out the Romans (and I am guessing Greeks and Trojans go with that). So it could be Samurai after all - but not shure how that would work with brining in some of our well known characters. It will be really interesting to see what they come up with.

I really do hope it isn't samurai. I really have no interest in samurai themed games. 9/10 the storyline turn out to be extremely cringeworthy. They said we'll see many common units. However, it's likely this just means archers and spearmen. I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Nick (from Firefly, the guy in the video) actually said it wouldn't be something regarding Far East, thus samurais, Japan, China, nor Korea will not be the theme of Stronghold Next. (I hope I haven't memorized something wrong here.)

He also said it wouldn't be about Romans either because they want castles, not city management. For the same reason I think we can rule out ancient Greece too. Yes, Romans shouldn't imply "no castles", but perhaps their reasons is Romans (and Greeks) having very reach city life. Their cities were huge, while Roman fortresses were not self-sufficient. I might be wrong there.

But that is why I think it would be Middle Ages (or maybe Dark Ages), and that it would be something in or around Europe. They want something new, but not too much different.

Q&A part 2 -?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wYSxse3NMs

Updated map editor, trailer soon to come, emphasis on the new mechanic, confirmed campaigns, skirmishes, and AI multiplayer...talks of upgrades...

Thanks for sharing! I was just going to do the same.

By the waym what is this?

Could that be a hint? And what nation could this be?

I've been out of the loop for a while. What's going on with Stronghold Next? Are they managing to keep the community interested still?

This is somewhat late reply, but yes, I have the same feeling as you do. Few days ago I took a look at their YouTube channel, and it seems like they still don't have anything new concrete to show. I myself have also lost interest in listening what they have to say about Stronghold Next, but not that I'm not interested. I am very interested in what they are about to bring us, but I've just stopped paying attention. They are just giving us some teasers, but we haven't seen a single screenshot yet. We still don't know what is it going to be about either? Only that it's something new - not Western Europe, and not Crusades.

Good news everyone!

Firefly has finally announced what is good to be the Stronghold Next. Here's the video.

It's going to be called Stronghold: Warlords, and it's going to be about Far East. However, we should hold out breath, it's planned to arrive in 2020.

What are your thoughts?