One of the most striking features of Stronghold 2 is the introduction of the estates system and its subsequent effect o­n the gameplay. This, however, has added a whole new layer to map-making that didn't exist in the previous versions of the game and it is an absolute necessity to understand this aspect before you can make any type of Stronghold 2 map.  If your maps are giving an instant defeat or instant win when they are played, you probably forgot to perform this vital task...

Submitted by BraveSirRobin, WitchHazel, HicRic, Darron, Aubergine, LordBritian, HicRic

Painting Estates

Regardless of what type of map you want to make it is essential to mark out, or 'paint', estates, define what sort of esates they are and specify who owns the estates (where required).

Failure to do this will almost certainly result in an Instant Defeat (or in some cases, an Instant Win), when you try and play your map.

The painting of the estates can be done either before, during or after working o­n the landscape but it MUST be done before any buildings are placed. If you try and paint the estates after you've placed buildings, the land beneath the buildings will remain unchanged and not part of the newly painted estate - you would therefore have to delete the buildings, paint the estate and then replace the building.

For the purposes of this tutorial we'll split a small map in to 4 simple estates.  You could of course, have almost any number of estates and they can be any shape and size desired.

Edit the map and go in to the terrain editor then select the Flags and Estates palette by clicking these buttons:

The screen will turn red - don't panic! This is just the default colour for the entire map and it means your map starts life as o­ne giant estate.

Choose the desired brush size from the available choices o­n the right hand side of the palette:

It's usually best to start with a big brush size to paint the majority of your estates then use smaller brushes if you want to make more intricate designs.

To paint your estate, you need to select the desired colour from the palette.  There are sixteen colours (curiously, numbered 1 to 17 with no number 11) to choose from:

We have assugned names to all the estate colours, based o­n the HTML colour specification, and these can be see in our Image Gallery.

It is important to note that you can o­nly have 16 estates o­n a map.  If you paint two seperate areas with the same colour, they will be treated as the same estate.

Although the colours have no relevance to who will own the estate, many map makers will choose colours similar to those for the AI Lords who they want to own the estate.  For example: The red colour (#1) is normally associated with the human player o­n most map types.  The yellow-green colour (#13) is often assocated with bandit estates.

So, after selecting the desired colour, simply paint it o­n the map to define the new estate.  In our example, we have split the map in to four square estates:

When you switch to any other palette in the map editor, the view will return to normal, showing the thin coloured estated borders:

You can, of course, click the little flag icon o­n next to the minimap (or go back to the Flags and Estates palette) to highlight estates if desired:

Castle or Village Estate?

Each estate you place should be defined as either a Castle estate or a Village estate:

• Castle Estate - these estates allow castles to be built by either the player or an AI Lord.
• Village Estate - these estates don't have a castle but instead are small communities of workers who will produce certain resources that can be transported to a castle estate.

To define an estate as a castle estate, click o­n the "Keep" button and then click o­n the estate:

To define an estate as a village estate, click o­n the "Village Flag" button and then click o­n the estate:

Oddly enough, both buttons place the same green flag o­n an estate but they are different!

If you do not place either flag in an estate then during gameplay it will always be an 'empty' area, belonging to nobody.  This "empty" area is useful if you want a bandit estate - you wouldn't want them to have a village or castle so place the bandit camp in an empty estate.

Most maps, such as Kingmaker and Custom War/Peace scenarios, will require at least two castle estates - o­ne for the player and o­ne for an enemy Lord.

Even if you plan to have o­nly the o­ne estate o­n your map, such as a Freebuild scenario, you'll still need to place a Castle flag somewhere o­n the map to get the game to play properly otherwise you will get an instant win or instant defeat as soon as the map is played.

Moving, Changing and Removing Estate Flags

To move a flag, simply place a new flag of the same type in a different locaiton:

To remove the flag alltogether (to leave the estate empty), right-click while you have the flag selected and you will see a little red square under the mouse cursor - postition this over the flag as best you can and then left-click:

To change a castle estate to a village estate, or vice versa, you should first erase the existing flag as shown above and then place a new flag of the desired type.

Estate Ownership

When you return to the main screen of the map editor, in the minimap you'll now see the divided estates with either a Castle or Village icon within them depending o­n where you placed flags.

By default, they are all white (neutral), so the next step is to say who owns them...

There are ten shield icons next to the mini-map, the red shield is obviously the player and the other nine represent the characters you come across in the campaigns such as Olaph and Sir William, etc.

Click a shield to attach it to the mouse cursor and then click o­n an estate to award ownership, in this picture the player has been given the top right castle estate.

Next we need to allocate some enemy players.  In our example, the bottom left castle estate is awarded to the Bull by clicking his shield icon and clicking the estate.

This map is now set up to have the player fighting against o­ne enemy (The Bull) and two neutral village estates. During gameplay these neutral estates would be the type you could purchase with 100 honour and then later captured by killing enemy troops protecting them and leaving your own troops near the village flag to capture it.

Alternatively, you can award ownership of the village estates to either the player or an enemy Lord.  In our example, we've given both the player and The Bull ownership of o­ne village estate each:

Village Size, Type, Ownership Removal, Building Plan

You will notice that each estate, be it castle or village, has a little icon next to it showing various resources.  These icons define the size of the estate and the type of resources it will try to produce.

To change the settings for an estate (or if you want to clear the owner of an estate, eg. make a village "buyable" again after accidentally assigning it an owner), click o­n the estate to bring up the following window:

As you can see, there are lots of different options o­n this window.  We'll be writing a more in-depth tutorial o­n these settings at a later date, but for now here's a quick overview...

Each of the buttons o­n the first two rows are split in to two parts, number of hovels and production requirements.

Hovels

Each o­ne of these represents housing for an additional 8 peasants in the estate.  If it is a castle estate, remember that the Keep will also provide housing for 8 peasants.

The resource requirements dictate what the estate will attempt to produce.  Obviously, the natural resources required to produce various goods need to be available in the estate.  For example, if you tell a village estate to produce pitch, you must ensure that there is some swamp/marsh terrain in that estate o­n to which pitch ditches can be placed.

In addition, castle estates owned by AI lords will often override these settings to some extent - if you tell a caslte estate to make cheese, it will may do so but o­nly after it's placed all it's weapons buildings, etc.

There are three buttons at the bottom of the window as follows:

• Clear Owner - If you've assigned an owner to an estate, clicking this button will revoke their owership and make the estate neutral.
• AI Places Buildings / Use Map Buildings - This button toggles whether AI lords will place their own buildings (based o­n the village type settings) or whether the buildings placed in the map editor should be used.
• OK - o­nce you have finished changing settings, click this button to save your choices.

With regard to buildings placed in the map editor, we reccommend that you do not place any buildings o­n enemy estates and leave them set to AI Places Buildings.  This is particularly important in Kingmaker maps - for example, if you place a Keep in an enemy estate then that enemy will be far less agressive thus deminishing gameplay.

Estate Names

When you play your map, you will notice that all villages have estate names:

Clicking o­n the village flag will display details of the village name, who it is owned by and the popularity in that village.

In castle estates, you will o­nly be able to see the name of the Lord in charge of that estate rather than the estate name.  In order to see the estate name you must either convert the estate in to a village estate (temporarily) or, in kingmaker games, capture the enemy castle so that it turs in to a village.

At present, map makers have no control over the names of their estates - the map editor seems to randomly pick an estate name from the following list:

• Alfreton
• Ashbury
• Avon
• Bilston
• Birdsgreen
• Bolsterstone
• Borrowash
• Bramshott
• Chiddingstone
• Chilton Poldon
• Chipping
• Cople
• Deaf Hill
• Ewerby
• Foxfield
• Froyle
• Great Gransden
• Grimston
• Hambledon
• Haslingfield
• Hartford
• Hawkshead
• High Beech
• Kettlebaston
• Kirk Bramwith
• Long Melford
• Lower Swineshead
• North Elmham
• Nettlefoot
• Ockbrook
• Petworth
• Quorndon
• Ratby
• St Columb Minor
• Scarcliffe
• Shapwick
• Sible Hedingham
• Slaughterford
• Stainforth
• Thaxted
• Ticehurst
• Turleygreen
• Upper Swineshead
• Upper Muckton
• Upwey
• West Chester
• Westbury
• Wirksworth
• Wissett
• Zennor
• Lower Kingsbottom
• Muckling Vernon
• Tripeswillington
• Harbury
• Pesingham
• Whitle
• Charvon Wingly
• Churly
• Thistle Bagton
• Crumbleton
• Greater Tinswitle
• Tinswitle
• Boorswell
• Witchhollow
• Charnel Blackberry
• Sternly o­n Toad
• Wassle
• Frimswit
• Upper Fullbury
• Meadowsweet
• Tinhill
• Thymesby
• Rotherton
• Spoondun
• Little Munchhampton
• Quincetown
• Dachet Foolbury
• Tingle Uncton
• Lower Wallow
• Barns End
• Fothering Haycock
• Much Hemlock
• Spittle Erly
• Hissleslit
• Hoggle Bray
• Darley Dale
• Wintertop
• Yowley Gobtop
• Parnley
• Henslaywell
• Byfoot Armly
• Hole Binstoon
• Aleston
• Harnly Cowsfoot
• Implestow
• Badgerly
• Egghampton
• North Hiccup
• Jowertop
• Burnside

It should be noted that you cannot see the names of estates in the map editor - you must save your map and play the game in order to find out how estates have been named.

You can gain some limited control over estate names by repeatedly repainting estates in the map editor.  The same estate name will never be used twice and each time an estate is repainted (in a different colour) it's name will be randomly chosen.  Obviously, this would be a very time consuming procedure but it's the o­nly way to do it at the moment.

You can also "transfer" estate names - after playing your map you might see that the blue estate has the name that you wanted to use for your pink estate.  Simply paint over the pink estate with blue and afterwards paint over the original blue estate with pink.  The estate names will remain with the colours so you effectively swap the estates.

Remember however, that seperate estates with the same colour are treated as the same estate and an estate can o­nly have o­ne flag.  After paintin the pink estate blue, it will loose it's flag.  You will have to replace the flag after you paint the original blue estate pink!

Well, we hope this has given you enough information to get your estates working o­n your own maps.  Good luck, and feel free to ask questions in our forums if there is something you do not understand.

Happy map-making!