We have just released a new update for Stronghold Crusader 2. Today’s release introduces numerous small improvements, optimizations and tweaks to the game, as well as several bug fixes addressing issues reported by players:

Additions

• Improvements to various cursors and their hotspots.
  
• Multiplayer games remain listed in the Lobby when in progress, but display a crossed swords icon in the Locked column.
  
• Friend's or ‘Invite Only’ games are now correctly displayed as Locked in the
• Multiplayer lobby.
  
• Enemy units and buildings are now highlighted red when targeted by selected player's units.

Bug Fixes

• Numerous optimisations for group pathfinding.
  
• Several fixes for curved movement in formations.
  
• Optimised collision checks for pathfinding.
  
• Fixed slowdown when woodcutters are searching for new trees.
  
• Fixed crash which occurred occasionally when Mantlets and other siege equipment moved over Man Traps (Thanks FireRanger!).
  
• Enemy peasants and workers no longer prevent players from building if they are too close during Peacetime.
  
• Braziers no longer block access to walls when placed at the top of stairs.
  
• Fixed an issue where kicking players in Skirmish Lobbies would sometimes kick the wrong player.
  
• Lord death will now result in defeat in Sandbox missions.
  
• Fixed Restart Mission not working in Sandbox missions.
  
• Fixed melee troops not being able to attack engine towers when they were placed inside a section of wall.

Your feedback and reporting of issues really does mean faster bug fixes, refined game balance and a better game, so please keep it coming! The Crusader team is currently hard at work on an exciting new content update that we’re hoping to release soon. You can expect a full announcement on this next week, but for now please enjoy today’s update and let us know YOUR ideas for future updates - Stronghold Crusader 2 Forum

Please Note - The above version number should now appear at the bottom of the main Crusader 2 title screen. If the version numbers do not match up please exit the game and restart your Steam client, doing so until you force the new update to download.

If you experience an issue not listed in the fixes above the fastest way to get a fix is by letting us know. Please do so by submitting a report - Support Site

We have just released a new update for Stronghold Crusader 2. Today’s release introduces numerous small improvements, optimizations and tweaks to the game, as well as several bug fixes addressing issues reported by players:

Additions

• Improvements to various cursors and their hotspots.
  
• Multiplayer games remain listed in the Lobby when in progress, but display a crossed swords icon in the Locked column.
  
• Friend's or ‘Invite Only’ games are now correctly displayed as Locked in the
• Multiplayer lobby.
  
• Enemy units and buildings are now highlighted red when targeted by selected player's units.

Bug Fixes

• Numerous optimisations for group pathfinding.
  
• Several fixes for curved movement in formations.
  
• Optimised collision checks for pathfinding.
  
• Fixed slowdown when woodcutters are searching for new trees.
  
• Fixed crash which occurred occasionally when Mantlets and other siege equipment moved over Man Traps (Thanks FireRanger!).
  
• Enemy peasants and workers no longer prevent players from building if they are too close during Peacetime.
  
• Braziers no longer block access to walls when placed at the top of stairs.
  
• Fixed an issue where kicking players in Skirmish Lobbies would sometimes kick the wrong player.
  
• Lord death will now result in defeat in Sandbox missions.
  
• Fixed Restart Mission not working in Sandbox missions.
  
• Fixed melee troops not being able to attack engine towers when they were placed inside a section of wall.

Your feedback and reporting of issues really does mean faster bug fixes, refined game balance and a better game, so please keep it coming! The Crusader team is currently hard at work on an exciting new content update that we’re hoping to release soon. You can expect a full announcement on this next week, but for now please enjoy today’s update and let us know YOUR ideas for future updates - Stronghold Crusader 2 Forum

Please Note - The above version number should now appear at the bottom of the main Crusader 2 title screen. If the version numbers do not match up please exit the game and restart your Steam client, doing so until you force the new update to download.

If you experience an issue not listed in the fixes above the fastest way to get a fix is by letting us know. Please do so by submitting a report - Support Site

Winter is coming. It is time to gird your loins and join the Stronghold Crusader 2 European Tournament hosted by Firefly superfan and strategy YouTuber SergiuHellDragoon! Sign up now and within weeks you will be locking horns with Stronghold players of all skill levels, with exclusive prizes on offer for those who stand victorious when the dust settles:

Winner

• All AI Character DLC
  
• Signed boxed copy of Crusader 2
  
• Stronghold Crusader 2 T-Shirt (Medium)

Runner-Up

• First AI Character DLC
  
• Signed boxed copy of Crusader 2
  
• Stronghold Crusader 2 T-Shirt (Medium)

Semi-Finalists

• First AI Character DLC
  
• Signed boxed copy of Crusader 2
  
• Stronghold Crusader 2 Lanyard

To enter simply fill out the tournament sign-up sheet by 17:00 GMT on November 18th - Application Form

The tournament will begin on Monday November 24th and feature 63 matches in total, with the grand final streamed live on Wednesday December 18th. This schedule is designed to give players enough time to practice before the tournament and between matches. You do not need to live in Europe to take part in the tournament, but to allow us to referee games matches will be held daily between 17:00 and 21:30 GMT.

The Christmas Tournament will accept a total of 64 contestants, who will be chosen randomly on November 17th from the pool of applicants. If you are lucky enough to be selected, you will receive an email with the tournament schedule and the date and time of your first match. All applicants must send a friend request to our official Crusader 2 tournament Steam account to confirm availability during the tournament hours and allow us to referee matches - Steam Account

Please Note: If you do not complete the application form, agree to the tournament hours and add our tournament account as a friend on Steam we cannot accept your application.

Full details of the tournament format and rule set can be found here - Contest Rules

The tournament winners will be announced on December 19th, with the final match streamed live the day before. To honour the most fierce Stronghold warriors, the final eight games will be published to both our YouTube channel and Sergiu’s. This is your chance to defeat some of the world’s greatest Crusader 2 Lords and be crowned European Champion!

Winter is coming. It is time to gird your loins and join the Stronghold Crusader 2 European Tournament hosted by Firefly superfan and strategy YouTuber SergiuHellDragoon! Sign up now and within weeks you will be locking horns with Stronghold players of all skill levels, with exclusive prizes on offer for those who stand victorious when the dust settles:

Winner

• All AI Character DLC
  
• Signed boxed copy of Crusader 2
  
• Stronghold Crusader 2 T-Shirt (Medium)

Runner-Up

• First AI Character DLC
  
• Signed boxed copy of Crusader 2
  
• Stronghold Crusader 2 T-Shirt (Medium)

Semi-Finalists

• First AI Character DLC
  
• Signed boxed copy of Crusader 2
  
• Stronghold Crusader 2 Lanyard

To enter simply fill out the tournament sign-up sheet by 17:00 GMT on November 18th - Application Form

The tournament will begin on Monday November 24th and feature 63 matches in total, with the grand final streamed live on Wednesday December 18th. This schedule is designed to give players enough time to practice before the tournament and between matches. You do not need to live in Europe to take part in the tournament, but to allow us to referee games matches will be held daily between 17:00 and 21:30 GMT.

The Christmas Tournament will accept a total of 64 contestants, who will be chosen randomly on November 17th from the pool of applicants. If you are lucky enough to be selected, you will receive an email with the tournament schedule and the date and time of your first match. All applicants must send a friend request to our official Crusader 2 tournament Steam account to confirm availability during the tournament hours and allow us to referee matches - Steam Account

Please Note: If you do not complete the application form, agree to the tournament hours and add our tournament account as a friend on Steam we cannot accept your application.

Full details of the tournament format and rule set can be found here - Contest Rules

The tournament winners will be announced on December 19th, with the final match streamed live the day before. To honour the most fierce Stronghold warriors, the final eight games will be published to both our YouTube channel and Sergiu’s. This is your chance to defeat some of the world’s greatest Crusader 2 Lords and be crowned European Champion!

We have just release an update for Stronghold Crusader 2, which can be downloaded automatically through the Steam client. This new update introduces a new skirmish map, unit stats, map balancing and bug fixes for player-reported issues:

New Features

• New skirmish map: ‘The Breath of Life’
  
• Tooltips for all troop command buttons.
  
• Well sprite for mini-map.
  
• Anti-cheat protection.
  
• Unit and building stats.

Balance Changes

• ‘Close Encounters’ multiplayer map re-balanced.
  
• ‘Isolation’, Desert Heat Trail mission re-balanced.
  
• ‘Hope Springs’, Way of the Warrior Trail mission re-balanced.
  
• Trebuchet damage halved.

Bug Fixes

• Help icons now all linked to correct help file pages.
  
• Lobby type (Public, Friends and Invite) now displays correctly for clients.
  
• Players prevented from moving troops into neutral estates during peacetime using the mini-map.
  
• Gatehouse will not continue to be captured once enemy troops are no longer on top of it.
  
• Exploit removed where player Lords could be pushed out of the playable map area.
  
• Walls are now always built at correct plateau heights, fixing various wall bugs.
  
• Rally points no longer visible for enemy or ally players in multiplayer.
  
• Saves and resyncs now always work when using a custom map sent to clients through the multiplayer lobby.
  
• Knights will not dismount before crossing bridges on horseback.
  
• Iron Mine workers will not die when an Iron Mine is deleted or destroyed.
  
• Engine tower armour values fixed.
  
• Fixed various crash and sync issues.

Full list of updates since launch - Update Blog

We hope you enjoy the new content and look forward to future updates in the coming weeks and months. We are just getting started and, after we have finished working on fixes and optimisation, the team will be adding more features and content. Extra AI characters will come in the form of paid-for DLC, but the majority of this post-release content will be free and automatically downloaded via the Steam client.

After downloading the update if you are experiencing an issue not listed in the fixes above please let us know. You can submit a ticket by heading to the Firefly support site and reporting the issue in full - Support Site

Please Note – If you have successfully updated Crusader 2 the correct version number (1.0.19574) should appear at the bottom of the main title screen. If these version numbers do not match up please exit the game and restart your Steam client, doing so until you force the new update to download.

We have just release an update for Stronghold Crusader 2, which can be downloaded automatically through the Steam client. This new update introduces a new skirmish map, unit stats, map balancing and bug fixes for player-reported issues:

New Features

• New skirmish map: ‘The Breath of Life’
  
• Tooltips for all troop command buttons.
  
• Well sprite for mini-map.
  
• Anti-cheat protection.
  
• Unit and building stats.

Balance Changes

• ‘Close Encounters’ multiplayer map re-balanced.
  
• ‘Isolation’, Desert Heat Trail mission re-balanced.
  
• ‘Hope Springs’, Way of the Warrior Trail mission re-balanced.
  
• Trebuchet damage halved.

Bug Fixes

• Help icons now all linked to correct help file pages.
  
• Lobby type (Public, Friends and Invite) now displays correctly for clients.
  
• Players prevented from moving troops into neutral estates during peacetime using the mini-map.
  
• Gatehouse will not continue to be captured once enemy troops are no longer on top of it.
  
• Exploit removed where player Lords could be pushed out of the playable map area.
  
• Walls are now always built at correct plateau heights, fixing various wall bugs.
  
• Rally points no longer visible for enemy or ally players in multiplayer.
  
• Saves and resyncs now always work when using a custom map sent to clients through the multiplayer lobby.
  
• Knights will not dismount before crossing bridges on horseback.
  
• Iron Mine workers will not die when an Iron Mine is deleted or destroyed.
  
• Engine tower armour values fixed.
  
• Fixed various crash and sync issues.

Full list of updates since launch - Update Blog

We hope you enjoy the new content and look forward to future updates in the coming weeks and months. We are just getting started and, after we have finished working on fixes and optimisation, the team will be adding more features and content. Extra AI characters will come in the form of paid-for DLC, but the majority of this post-release content will be free and automatically downloaded via the Steam client.

After downloading the update if you are experiencing an issue not listed in the fixes above please let us know. You can submit a ticket by heading to the Firefly support site and reporting the issue in full - Support Site

Please Note – If you have successfully updated Crusader 2 the correct version number (1.0.19574) should appear at the bottom of the main title screen. If these version numbers do not match up please exit the game and restart your Steam client, doing so until you force the new update to download.

We have released a new update for Stronghold Crusader 2, introducing various balancing changes and a number of hotfixes aimed squarely at addressing player-reported issues:

Balance Changes

• Wood Camp footprint reduced to 2x3 tiles.
  
• Wood Camp cost reduced to 10 wood.
  
• Updated starting troops for all AI Lords.
  
• Updated all AI Lords' castles.
  
• AI Lords will now randomly select their castle size and rotation when starting Custom Skirmish or Multiplayer games.
  
• AI Lords will now try to build the largest castle size possible within the available free space in Custom Skirmish and Multiplayer games.
  
• Skirmish Trail missions rebalanced to curb rushing the AI Lords:

1. Breath of the Infidel - Pit of Despair
   
2. Desert Heat - Isolation
   
3. Way of the Warrior - Lord of The Desert, The Two Brothers and Hope Springs
   
4. A Trail of Tears - Mighty River, Predator and Sands of Time
   
5. Hell's Teeth - The Peninsula and To The Summit

Bug Fixes

• Fixed - Slowdown caused by no trees or wood being available on the map for Woodcutters.
  
• Fixed - Players receiving a popularity bonus for multiple food types when rations are set to 0.
  
• Fixed players’ estates being changed on the mini-map when they were added or removed from a team.
  
• Fixed - Players that aren’t in a team in Skirmish and Multiplayer games not being kicked out on game start.
  
• Fixed - Multiplayer game lobby not showing correct values for clients when they first join the game.
  
• Fixed - Greatest Lord screen being available in non-skirmish missions.
  
• Fixed – Issues with Ranger's animation and props.
  
• Fixed - Exploit where placing a free wood camp would refund half the cost in wood.
  
• Fixed - Village estates colour issues in the Map Editor.
  
• Fixed – Various crashes.

Misc Changes

• Added support for changing available keyboard layouts using ALT+SHIFT.

Please Note - The above version number should now appear at the bottom of the main Crusader 2 title screen. If the version numbers do not match up please exit the game and restart your Steam client, until you force the new update to download.

As a small independent team of developers we really appreciate players taking the time to report bugs and even submit saved games, which is a huge help to us. Going the extra mile like this means we spend less time recreating bugs and more time fixing and testing them. If you are experiencing an issue not listed in the fixes above the fastest way to get a fix is by letting us know. Please do so by submitting a support ticket - Support Site

We have released a new update for Stronghold Crusader 2, introducing various balancing changes and a number of hotfixes aimed squarely at addressing player-reported issues:

Balance Changes

• Wood Camp footprint reduced to 2x3 tiles.
  
• Wood Camp cost reduced to 10 wood.
  
• Updated starting troops for all AI Lords.
  
• Updated all AI Lords' castles.
  
• AI Lords will now randomly select their castle size and rotation when starting Custom Skirmish or Multiplayer games.
  
• AI Lords will now try to build the largest castle size possible within the available free space in Custom Skirmish and Multiplayer games.
  
• Skirmish Trail missions rebalanced to curb rushing the AI Lords:

1. Breath of the Infidel - Pit of Despair
   
2. Desert Heat - Isolation
   
3. Way of the Warrior - Lord of The Desert, The Two Brothers and Hope Springs
   
4. A Trail of Tears - Mighty River, Predator and Sands of Time
   
5. Hell's Teeth - The Peninsula and To The Summit

Bug Fixes

• Fixed - Slowdown caused by no trees or wood being available on the map for Woodcutters.
  
• Fixed - Players receiving a popularity bonus for multiple food types when rations are set to 0.
  
• Fixed players’ estates being changed on the mini-map when they were added or removed from a team.
  
• Fixed - Players that aren’t in a team in Skirmish and Multiplayer games not being kicked out on game start.
  
• Fixed - Multiplayer game lobby not showing correct values for clients when they first join the game.
  
• Fixed - Greatest Lord screen being available in non-skirmish missions.
  
• Fixed – Issues with Ranger's animation and props.
  
• Fixed - Exploit where placing a free wood camp would refund half the cost in wood.
  
• Fixed - Village estates colour issues in the Map Editor.
  
• Fixed – Various crashes.

Misc Changes

• Added support for changing available keyboard layouts using ALT+SHIFT.

Please Note - The above version number should now appear at the bottom of the main Crusader 2 title screen. If the version numbers do not match up please exit the game and restart your Steam client, until you force the new update to download.

As a small independent team of developers we really appreciate players taking the time to report bugs and even submit saved games, which is a huge help to us. Going the extra mile like this means we spend less time recreating bugs and more time fixing and testing them. If you are experiencing an issue not listed in the fixes above the fastest way to get a fix is by letting us know. Please do so by submitting a support ticket - Support Site

At the end of week one we decided to tally up all gameplay stats, revealing the most interesting figures in the snazzy infographic below. Take a look at your first week of gameplay, which outlines important information such as the number of diseased animals thrown, longest multiplayer game and the total number of castles destroyed:

Stronghold Crusader 2 Infographic


We also feel this is a good time to discuss our current update plan for the months ahead. As we have said before Stronghold Crusader 2 is a hugely important game for us and a title we plan to support with lots of new content. Over the coming weeks and months we will be releasing various updates for the game, focussing at first on bug fixes and fine tuning game balance. Following on from that we have a number of exciting feature updates and DLC planned:

• Eight additional AI characters
  
• New maps for various game modes
  
• Classic Crusader 1 maps
  
• Steam Workshop Supprt
  
• Player requested features such as Strongwall

We could not be happier with the response from players, who have our sincere thanks for supporting the team over the past two years of development. We enjoy reading any comments that reflect fans’ love for the series and those that give us ideas for where to take Crusader post-release. The team is looking forward to implementing some great suggestions and seeing what players can come up with in terms of user-generated content, from custom maps to castle designs. If these early gameplay stats are anything to go by Stronghold Crusader 2 has a long life ahead of it!

At the end of week one we decided to tally up all gameplay stats, revealing the most interesting figures in the snazzy infographic below. Take a look at your first week of gameplay, which outlines important information such as the number of diseased animals thrown, longest multiplayer game and the total number of castles destroyed:

Stronghold Crusader 2 Infographic


We also feel this is a good time to discuss our current update plan for the months ahead. As we have said before Stronghold Crusader 2 is a hugely important game for us and a title we plan to support with lots of new content. Over the coming weeks and months we will be releasing various updates for the game, focussing at first on bug fixes and fine tuning game balance. Following on from that we have a number of exciting feature updates and DLC planned:

• Eight additional AI characters
  
• New maps for various game modes
  
• Classic Crusader 1 maps
  
• Steam Workshop Supprt
  
• Player requested features such as Strongwall

We could not be happier with the response from players, who have our sincere thanks for supporting the team over the past two years of development. We enjoy reading any comments that reflect fans’ love for the series and those that give us ideas for where to take Crusader post-release. The team is looking forward to implementing some great suggestions and seeing what players can come up with in terms of user-generated content, from custom maps to castle designs. If these early gameplay stats are anything to go by Stronghold Crusader 2 has a long life ahead of it!