Did you read the whole thread Ouly and I wrote? The answer is probably in there. If I remember correctly, you have to delete them all and then lay them all out again at one time.

[This message has been edited by Doomsword (edited 03-09-2016 @ 06:31 PM).]

Actually, I haven't read. It's pretty late here, and I was hoping I would figure it out as the editor is quite simple.

Thanks for the fast reply, Doomsword, I will read it entirely tomorrow, and I will consider what you said. Now I made another test, and I have noticed that when I leave those marks as they are, troops act like they should have acted before - they don't climb to the top of a tower, they just go to the middle level. I believe this confirms what you said. I hope I will find some more time to hang up with this, and to finish what I started. I will let you know.

And off topic, your AI castles are great! It's really way more playable with them.

Thanks, I put a lot into them.

The AI editor has some bugs and interacts with SH2 in some weird ways. There are a lot of notes on troops along with some other important details in that thread, like adding pitch and the miss-placed building.

For any readers that may come to this tread, they may ask themselves what tread Doomsword was referring to. It's about this tread AI Castles .aic files.

Till now I wasn't paying too much attention to AI castles, though I've been seeing those details that would need to be fixed. You did that fixing, and you also improved them a lot. There are many beautiful maps one can download, and what can be said for lots of them is that there are spots which are not so much good for a large AI lords castle. Those makers just didn't want to sacrifice the beauty for better playability, and with these castle I can only be glad that they didn't do that. With those castle you made one can play them normally just like he would any map with larger estates.

I am going to add that tread to my reading list, there's a lot to be read, and for now I will just try to do what you suggested - removing all rally points and putting them in again.

EDIT: Regarding those bugs, I believe it's more about the game itself. For example, when you put a moat next to a wall or a tower what you expect is the AI to dig moat exactly where it was told. Unfortunately he doesn't do that, he acts like you gave him a plan, and "what the heck, what's gonna happen if I dig a little bit more to the left", and as a result of that castle wouldn't look as we wanted it to look, and maybe even AI wouldn't be able to build a tower. Williams castle with four round towers had moats, and because of them he would build only one tower sometimes... Also, there was an error in this castle - because of the treasury he was unable to build one of the towers no matter what.

[This message has been edited by EaglePrince (edited 03-10-2016 @ 04:43 AM).]

I believe I have finished the castle, and that it works well now after removing all of the troops rally points and putting them back again. Still, he doesn't send archers to all of the towers equally, but I hope it's a normal thing - he builds this tower last, so in the end most of troops will be sent to those towers that were built first.

It is a pity that, although in Stronghold 2 troops limit is pretty high, the AI lords leave little troops to protect their castles, but that is the way the game works I guess. It would be great if AI lords were programmed to have tens of archers or crossbowmen on their towers instead of about five of them on each towers.

I will submit those two castles later today I hope. Those are not new castles of course, I just made things a little bit different, so one wouldn't be able to take down William as easy as it was the case by now - by simply walking in through his towers or walking through the hole in his castle were was supposed to be tower.

Right now before I would submit the castles I would like to ask something... Is it normal that William often doesn't build his engineers guild, or is it something that happens only to me only for some reason? When William builds one of your castle he would build those, but when he builds his original castle, or his original which I edited, he just leaves an empty space, and I am unsure if he is going to build the engineers guild at all...

I took a look into the castle in the editor, and in original castles it has priority 6, while in your versions it has priority 14. Maybe this is no issue in fact, maybe he would build it in some moment, but only he doesn't need that building at the moment. :/

Here are the images of edited (fixed) castles of William.

Quoted from Ouly:

Quoted from Doomsword:

More bad news is the moats. You place them in the editor with single tiles but the game places 2x2 tiles. It would be easy enough to know which way the overflow goes except that the game will rotate castles to fit sometimes so moats can get in the way of gates and towers. Rotating the castles also developes problems with non-rotating buildings where the image ends up rotated but the actual model in game is not, some tile may appear black.

I thought I had moats figured out but I hadn't considered castle rotation. Typically the moat extends up and to the right. Moats may need to be kept at least 1 tile from all the walls and they certainly can cause trouble near towers.

One of the buildings shows up one tile off from where it looks like it will. I can't remember if it is a Gatehouse or the Engineers Guild. I also haven't run across a post about it. If you look at my castles you might see something in the editor that looks out of place because of this. Or run a test, add a keep then make a square of wood wall with the Engineers Guild in the middle with one space around it, then see if it builds centered or which way it is off.

Adding the Granary is important to me too, but I'm not sure the instructions for that weren't lost with StrongholdKnights.com. I'd have to fire up my XP machine to get that info if you want it.

Another secret I never posted was the selection order of castle files by the game if you don't name your castles correctly, you might never see them since they don't come out randomly but in order by size so you need to order them properly to get the biggest one that will fill the space to show

Sometime William might be pressed for space and build something in the way of a large tower before he has the stone to complete it, looks like this is in the second image. If you lay out a few extra sections of wall it will block other buildings but a tower can drop right over them when the time comes.

After looking into your files, it seems that it is not engineers guild which gets misplaced, while it is not the gate either. Maybe larger gate though, I haven't worked with large gatehouse though.

Also, about the granary, I agree, it would be better if those were placed inside the castle for example - and close to gate, but I won't be changing that for now. I don't want to change too much, I only want to try to fix some errors from the original castle made by Firefly. I just don't want to push you too much. For now I only want to see if he can build this engineers guild. I will look again later into your files, and I will also try to do that experiment with the guild - just in case.

I have noticed that you have ordered them by the size, though I thought it was coincidence.

Right now, he didn't build anything in the position where the guild should have been placed. The hole you see isn't for a tower, it is for the guild actually - which he doesn't build...

It works now, now he builds the engineers guild as he should do. Like you suggested that it may be possible, he builds engineers one square off, so although in the editor it wasn't overlapping with the armory, in reality it was the case. First I removed the armory to see what happens, and then it was clear.

Now everything looks great, and it looks as I planned.


Now, another issue I have isn't a problem, it would be a decision. I saw how your way of placing moats works really well at your castles for William - as far as I have seen. On the other hand, you said it yourself that it can act somewhat unpredictable, so I should also have a closer look.By removing the moats I did weaken him - though not too much. Those old moats were stopping laddermen, but only few steps away were walls without those moats, which makes that peace of moat pretty useless. Maybe I leave it without moats, I shall see...

And another thing I could do is also one detail you mentioned - he has gaps in his castle until he is able to build round towers, which can be an issue in games where players start as freemen. I could close this gap with a wall, and later he can build a tower over that wall. Maybe I can try those stuff tomorrow evening if I don't do it this evening.

Yeah, that's it.

I think you should add the moats, if it only works half the time, that's better than nothing.

Closing the walls early is an important defense against early marauding horsemen.

Yes, the only issue is that part when it doesn't work - when it doesn't work then it disables William to build a tower, and I think it is better for him to always have a tower, than to have moats an in half of cases not to have some of the tower. Still, your way of placing the moat seems quite well - I can put one line of moat around the castle, and hopefully that moat would never go into the part where a wall or a tower needs to be placed.

Still, I am optimistic about this with moat.

Now I was trying out few more stuff before going to sleep, and I concluded one more thing...

This aggressive troops rally point - it seems to be meant for collecting troops for attack. What I noticed is that these troops include sometimes lots of archers (in William's case). Were you considering to move this aggressive rally point to top of the keep? That would make AI lords at moments way stronger - a decent number swordsmen and archers on the keep protecting their lord! Until they leave the castle of course, but still, when they are being collecting down there those archers are useless in case of our attack, while this way they could make you some problems - depending of what troops you have.

With lords who use cavalry this wouldn't work like in William's case. Those troops can't go on top of the keep, but we could do this for those lords that don't, and to see how how those with cavalry acts when their aggressive rally point is being set to the keep. Maybe their cavalry would be collected in front of the keep, which would be fine.

This way some castles may be well defended almost as in Stronghold Crusader with lots of crossbowmen and archers - hopefully some AI lord would use this combination.

[This message has been edited by EaglePrince (edited 03-10-2016 @ 06:21 PM).]

Haha, I shall not underestimate you.

EDIT: I have added moats in similar way like you did, and I tested it now with seven Williams. They made those moats somewhat differently, but all of them were able to build their castles completely.

Tomorrow I may try putting the aggressive rally point on the keep to see what happens, and if something goes wrong then I would I could say that these latest versions of Williams castle I have are final versions. If not, I will try to make him defend better with those troops.

Of course, before trying to edit the castle I want to make another test... I want to see if William gathers those troops no matter what, or this was the case because I dag moats around my keep. If he wouldn't be gathering troops there if I didn't dag the moat, then changing the aggressive rally point wouldn't have so much good effect as I assumed yesterday.

SECOND EDIT: These are the castles now.

[This message has been edited by EaglePrince (edited 03-11-2016 @ 05:34 PM).]

Some of the rally points didn't seem to do much, but you never know.

I would add some rock tippers on the gatehouses to discourage ladders.

That would definitely be a good thing. I will do that as well.

So, this is the newest version of my castles for William. I have added rock tippers, and I also added some man traps in front of the gatehouses and those parts of the wall which are exposed to enemy attacks, or in other words those that can be accessed without digging.

I also made few tests about what I said about aggressive rally point, and my latest conclusion that this unfortunately wouldn't make him much stronger. I believe those files are ready to be submitted, only it may need few more tests - I haven't seen how it acts when I start as a freeman. Still, I assume if everything works well this way (starting as dukes), it should work well if I start as a freeman too.

I have tested everything, everything works well. I picked a fight against five Williams now as freeman, and it's hell of a fight. I still own only one estate, they are pushing really hard, though it's a lot easier to deal with them now after I dag moats around my castle and my economy. Farms and many other important building that are not inside my castle are behind the castle, and they can not reach them because of the moats which are attached to the edge of the map. It's calmer now after I did this, and now I shall collect knight and try to defeat them one by one.

I also tried to attack one of them relatively early - with swordsmen, but he repelled that attack unfortunately for me. That one had to be the first to fall.

So, the castles are ready and I shall submit them now.

For anyone who wants a challenge in Stronghold 2 I have a suggestion - pick a fight against these Williams! Now William is really "Richard the Lionheart" from Crusader in Stronghold 2, just what we would expect from him.

Now while I was playing I saw that I did actually a good thing by leaving aggressive rally point on the ground and not on the keep. Those troops are not only getting ready to attack, but they are there as the first line of defense as well, and for that they shouldn't be on the keep in in front of the keep in case they need to go outside the castle to deal with enemies, or if enemy has attacked the castle with laddermen, in which case they would deal with those enemy troops on the walls.

[This message has been edited by EaglePrince (edited 03-14-2016 @ 07:14 AM).]

Hi EaglePrince!
When i was speaking about AI ceconomy I thought that Edwin and Serena sell food! Edwin also sells bows and armour. This is annoying...

I must check this agressive trops! I remembered that for me this rally point didn't work.

Edit:
Nope. AI don't send any trops on this agressive trops.

[This message has been edited by mati555 (edited 04-30-2016 @ 01:18 PM).]

Well, it does depend... I mean, AI lords don't send their troops to the rally points the way we would expect them to. I don't know why is that the case, but maybe they have a limit to total number of troops on their walls, or something like that. Sometimes they don't send any troops to the aggressive rally point, sometimes they don't send them on a tower, and so on. I just wish that AI lords would keep more troops inside their castles - such as more crossbowmen and more archers, and more swordsmen. They send away so many troops, while they would be able to use those troops to make us a lot of trouble when we decide to besiege their castles.

I think that AI have trops limit and this limit is just.... dumb. I know, this game was released in... 2004/6 and computers weren't as good as today's PCs.
We can change it by editing data file in main game folder, but it's impossible for player.

I was trying to forbid food selling in a war scenario, but unfortunately it doesn't work....

There is hope for Firefly to change this. We have created a tread at Stronghold Nation for ideas for Stronghold 2, if Firefly decides to work a little bit more on Stronghold 2.
http://forums.strongholdnation.co.uk/topic/727-official-stronghold-2-suggestions-list/

After they have have finished their work on Crusader 2, they might do something with Stronghold 2 as well. It would be great thing if they improved it a little bit more, as its graphics is still great - in my opinion, and by many players it is the best Stronghold game. I realize that they may not make another Stronghold game with such detailed castle life, there are many kids that prefer simplicity over this, but considering that this would require not so much of their time - this would be great.

Oh, it's great! But I think Firefly don't support anymore Stronghold 2

And also Firefly wants to do the next one Stronghold game.

I think there is hope for something like that. I believe I did hear that they might come back to Stronghold 2 or Stronghold Legends at some moment. Still, no one can tell what they are about to decide. Fortunately for us, what we would like to have shouldn't require too much of their time, while all that would mean a lot to us - such as being able to play against AI lords in multiplayer, save the game while in multiplayer... also kingmaker settings with no rats, no gong, no crime, no honor - this might be welcomed by those who ran away from Stronghold 2 because they disliked this concept with rats, gong and crime, etc...

There are many ideas. You could write at least short comment there - just so say that you like the idea. The more people say there that they would like to see those improvements, the better our chances are.

I can't register at strogholdnation so I write there my suggestions.

1. AI edtior
Place where we can change everything for AI lords. What they sold and how many, which and how many buidlings they build, how many trops and which trops they "produce" etc.;
2. Escort from SHL;
3. Balists can automatically fire;

At this moment I think it's enough :P

These two are for the discussion maybe...

AI Editor we use here wasn't made by Firefly I think.

I am not familiar with escort option from SHL, but it sounds interesting, I think I have an idea what that might be.

About ballistae firing automatically, I think they did that not to make them overpowered. I believe that those acted like that in earlier versions of the game.


I will post your suggestion in the tread at SHN.