Stronghold: Warlords News

• Added new Halloween mission ‘The Dark Mist’
  - Halloween mission is playable from 26 October through 2 November
  
• Added 2 new Freebuild invasions
  - ‘Terracotta Army’ - Made up of new special unit (Terracotta Warriors)
  - ‘Ghosts’ - Made up of new special unit (Jiangshi)
  

• Optimised stalls created by path distances being calculated through long maze like structures
  
• Optimised AI troop tile-based pathfinding from main thread to pathfinding thread
  
• Fixed AI clan attacks becoming interrupted when encountering barricades
  
• Fixed a bug where players could receive infinite food if food is delivered via stashes or events with no granary placed
  
• Fixed an issue with the way buildings would stamp their height layers when on raised terrain.
  
• Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur when farms are destroyed
  

• Added new Skirmish Trail, ‘The Trail of the Tactician’
  
• Added 3 Classic Skirmish maps, recreated from Stronghold Crusader
  - The River - A mighty river courses through the desert on The River, attracting many who would wish to control its bounty.
  - Tyre - Venture too far south on this map and you may get your fingers burnt!
  - Border Patrol - This is a four-player map with a large border stopping each player moving troops over to the other side. The access point is through the center of this border and if a player manages to patrol the center they will be able to control the game.
  
• Added new unit, the Thunderbomb Thrower
  - A lightly armoured unit that throws explosive bombs, setting fire to troops, land and buildings caught in its blast radius.
  
• Added new Warlord, the Wolf Warlord
  - The Wolf specialises in heavy weaponry, providing cheap siege equipment to his allies. He attacks with ferocity, using strong armies to overwhelm his enemies and builds a heavily fortified castle to form a well defended lair on the battlefield.
  

• Gunpowder workshop worker dropoff: 1 > 4
  
• Gunpowder buy/sell: 40/80 for 5 > 30/60 for 5
  
• Saltpetre buy/sell: 20/40 for 10 > 30/120 for 10
  
• Reduced the speed of crossbowmen bolts from 85 to 80
  
• Fire lancers that are standing on keep stairs can no longer fire at enemies standing on the keep roof
  
• Actors which are knocked straight down (e.g. by a monk attack or samurai charge) now stay on the ground for just 0.8 seconds, down from 2 seconds
  

• Increased fire armour from 2.0 to 0.5x for imperial guardsmen, imp warrior, imp cavalry, imp bannerman, general, samurai
  
• Increased gunpowder cost for fire oxen from 1 to 2
  
• Increased warrior monk cost from 30 to 40 gold
  
• Increased hoarding health by 50%
  
• Increased rice given for starting food settings:
  - Very Low: 50 -> 75
  - Low: 50 -> 100
  - Medium: 100 -> 150
  

• Moved the bulk of troop pathfinding and formation movement calculations from the main thread to a secondary pathfinding thread. This permits these calculations to be done during the rendering phase, smoothing out a major source of stalled frames in large games, and generally improving frame rates.
  
• Moved troop displacement and pushing logic to the pathfinding thread, speeding up all game logic frames, especially with many active troops.
  

• Fixes for desyncs that could happen during saving in Multiplayer games
  
• Fixed AI castle building getting stuck when trying to place turrets
  
• Fixed bug where the cursor suggested arrow carts could attack buildings
  
• Stopped players from being able to type in the name of the Skirmish Trail
  
• Fixes for selecting engine towers
  
• Walls built on unpathable tiles now show a barricade on top of the wall
  
• Ninjas now decloak when in range of enemy tigers
  
• Fix for some range units being able to continue to firing at targets that had left their effective range
  
• Siege weapons can no longer spawn from the siege camp on tiles with walls on them
  
• Melee troops can no longer be ordered to attack arrow turrets
  
• Fire lancers now stop attacking when their target goes out of range, instead of attacking but doing no damage
  
• Fixed siege weapons and ranged units not attacking turrets when ordered to attack them from out of range
  
• Healthbars now appear over hoardings and turrets when they are damaged
  

• Re-added the ‘Purge Entities at Origin’ command to the Map Editor
  
• Field Hospitals can now be placed in the Map Editor
  

• Added Kublai Khan AI Lord
  
• Added 3 new Skirmish maps:
  - Kings and Mountains - Any king may rule from the safety of their throne. Will you be bold enough to venture forth and hold dominion over your enemies?
  - Distributary - Open grounds are separated by three river crossings. Each player will need to manage large sections of walls to defend their space, while being wary of attacks from two fronts.
  - Entrenched - Land and resources are plentiful for each player, but the map position can be key. Battle from the high ground on two fronts or stay grounded and defend one side. The choice is yours.
  
• Horse Archers now speak Mongolian.
  - Note: This only happens with the game set to English. All other languages use localised voicelines.
  

• Fixed a crash that could occur when updating pathing for tunnels that no longer exist
  
• Fix for Clothes as Starting Goods being set incorrectly in custom maps
  
• Stopped Custom Missions having different starting goods based on previously selected difficulty in campaign missions
  
• Stopped Traps and Castle defences from being placeable on tiles with walls
  
• Fixed Tigers that would displace outside of cages when placed adjacent to other tiger cages
  
• Fix for pathability of walkable but damaged walls frequently becoming unwalkable after saving and reloading the map
  
• Fixed Edict tooltip formatting to be more readable
  
• Optimisations to how grass and fire particles are handled
  
• Optimisations for pathfinding through tunnels
  
• Optimisation for town builds/path regeneration
  
• Fixed emigrating peasants sometimes lingering indefinitely after their owning player died and the keep was destroyed
  
• Fixes for certain scenarios where the AI could block their work buildings with too many silk workshops
  

Medieval RTS game Stronghold: Warlords continues its glorious march through its post-launch content plans. Hot on the heels of a new patch that fixes numerous bugs (including several pesky castle wall issues), Firefly Studios has revealed its Summer and Autumn roadmap. You can expect two big updates in the next few months, and one of those will be the addition of the new AI lord Kublai Khan.

Grandson of the legendary Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan was the fifth ruler of the Mongol Empire, and lived from 1215 - 1294. In Stronghold: Warlords, Firefly says he'll behave similarly to Genghis Khan - the major difference between them being Kublai Khan's preference for expensive things. The armies he fields will be mainly built around imperial troops, and he'll demonstrate his royal privilege through his in-game taunts.

Kublai Khan will be accompanied by an all-new castle design as well as "fresh strategies to outthink and armies to outmanoeuvre," Firefly says. He'll also feature in six new missions that introduce two new warlords, and this mini-campaign will follow Kublai Khan's military exploits in China, rather than his ventures to Korea and Japan.

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