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Hi there, my name's Nick. I work in Firefly Studios in London as PR Manager.
I'm here today to tell you that over the past couple of weeks we've been collecting community questions about Stronghold Crusader 2 in the forums, Twitter and Facebook...
Basically anything you guys want to know about the game that we can already tell you...
This is our opportunity to get to know the fans and we want to be as transparent as possible and keep you guys updated so I hope you enjoy the video.
One question asked by absolutely everyone is "Will Stronghold Crusader 2 have a skirmish mode?"
If we listed all of the people that have asked us this question we would be here until tomorrow so I'm just going to go ahead and tell you the answer; the game will indeed feature a full skirmish mode. So that's that.
Denio has asked "Will there be new units?"
We can confirm that Crusader 2 will feature new units such as the Slave Driver, Dervish and Sergeant at Arms, who is probably my favourite so far. The most interesting thing about the new units is that they will have their own unique abilities, some passive and others will be active. These active abilities will have a cool down.
An example of a passive ability would be the Sergeant-At-Arms who can give a HP (Health Points) boost to the troops surrounding him, and has an area of effect ability.
Then there's the Dervish, who has a charge attack, a kind of whirlwind attack, so you can send him into battle with that.
I can tell you that there are over ten new units both with the Crusader and Arabic factions. We have the classics such as the Crusader Swordsman and also brand new units, like the Slave Driver. We’re hoping to give them all a distinct flavor, place you in the era and really differentiate between the two factions.
Saif.AbuSaif has asked "Will the Arabic units speak in Arabic?"
This is an interesting question. We actually recorded some Arabic lines the other day so the answer is "Yes". We hope it gives the game a really authentic feel and keeps players immersed in the Crusader setting and generally ticks all the boxes.
Mkbewe has asked "Will the game be in 2D or 3D?"
A pretty easy question to answer. Crusader 2 will be in 3D, it will feature a 3D world with 3D characters, units and buildings. It will have a fixed overhead camera and the engine itself will have several optimisations to it but it definitely will be a 3D game.
SkullHeroLord asked "Why did you decide to make the game in 3D rather than 2D?"
We definitely think the love for the 2D Stronghold's comes from the fact that they were so playable and we want to do everything we can to bring across that simplicity and core Gameplay into Crusader 2. So there's things like the tile based wall construction and there other parts of the game that we're bringing across into the 3rd dimension. Simon Bradbury put it quite well recently when he said "We don’t want to mess with a successful formula, we just want to make it better than before." We did it once with Crusader 1 so there's no reason why we can't do it again with Crusader 2.
David Spy & fikkedichable asked "How many players and AIs will be allowed in skirmish mode?"
The game will allow for up to 8 simultaneous players with a combination of human and AI players. Humans and AI can be divided into customs teams as well, so you can have; 2 humans and an AI against 3 AI characters or 7 AIs against 1 human etc. You can mix up and customise the teams however you want.
This question's from Insurance Salesman. He asks "How big a priority is optimisation and bug-fixing among the team?"
Bug-fixing is a huge priority for us and one reason why we are glad to be self-publishing the game with an extended development process means this will include a lengthy beta period to allow us plenty of time for polishing, tweaking and balancing.
LionheartRichard1157 has asked "How will the new Slave Driver unit work?"
It's a pretty good question. The Slave Driver will be quite tactical in how he's used. We're really looking forward to him. Essentially he'll be defended by his group of slaves who he'll be able to command through his bidding. He'll give them all a passive buff when they're around him; they'll cheer him on and animate quite differently as well. One thing to point out is each slave will be an individual unit, they won't move as a single group but the slaves will be his protectors and you will need to move them as a single unit to get the biggest benefit from the slave driver.
This is a question from JulianHerb asking "When can we expect to see screenshots of Stronghold Crusader 2?"
You will get your first in-game look at Stronghold Crusader 2 at E3 in the form of both screenshots and our first trailer as well. We hope you're looking forward to it and everyone will get a better insight then and get a first look at the real game.
City Builder has asked "Will you be using Kickstarter to fund SC2?"
So when the suggestion of crowdfunding came up, one of the first things we did was look for a European crowdfunding platform. So when a few friends suggested Gambitious to us, it seemed like a perfect fit. Stronghold games have always been popular in Europe, especially in Germany. You can take the campaign beyond one month which is great. It's also pretty easy to get seen on it compared to Kickstarter and Indiegogo. You can expect to hear more about that after E3.
I'd like to say "Thank You" to everyone for sending in their questions, we hope you enjoyed the videos. This series of videos is just a very small step toward us being open and transparent with the fans. You've got questions and we want to answer them so thanks for sending them in, we hope you enjoyed the video and we look forward to more Crusader 2 stuff coming out soon.