New Castle of the Month feature

[Lord Friendly]

Castle of the Month

We're well aware that Stronghold players love their history and their castles, which is why we have started a new feature called Castle of the Month! At the end of every month we will post a new castle, with facts and figures about its size, history, claim to fame and the Stronghold game in which it features.

This month our pick is Dunnottar Castle in Scotland. Follow the link below for more information and as always feel free to suggest future castles in the comments below.

http://bit.ly/Castle1

[Ad Rock]

You should have players submit their castles and do a castle of the month from those. Just an idea.

[SMthegamer]

That would be a massive security risk.

[DavidSpy]

That would be a massive security risk.

How so?

• Players take a Screen-grab of a castle they designed in-game
• You submit it to the castle of the month
• If your castle is selected you will get rewards similar to the rewards given out for the Coat of Arms winner.

How is anyone put at risk?

[SMthegamer]

Sorry, I should have used context,
If you were in a house that was still in the glory race and you had enemies nearby that saw your castle on the news feed they could make strategies and make an estate of your forces, the player would need to improve it straight away.
I'm not saying you don't change it anyway but if you didn't you could have trouble, do you get my point now?

[Lord Benevolent]

You should have players submit their castles and do a castle of the month from those. Just an idea.

This is actually something I've been planning to do for a while, similar to the Shield of the Week competition. Unfortunately, there are some issues involved that need to be solved.

The main issue: What criteria should it be judged on? Aesthetics? The problems here are: 1) That's a very subjective way of judging the castle2) SHK castles aren't very beautiful to begin with. And they don't need to be, after all they are supposed to be practical. Which leaves the criteria of efficiency. A big issue here is that most active players (at least on the German worlds, as far as I've been told) all use the same few castle designs. After all, designs automatically go through a process of evolution through artificial selection. The other issue here is: Someone would need to test the castles. Unlike looking at shields, loading a castle structure on the development servers, completing the construction, sending attacks over and over and then counting which castle survived the longest would take up way too much time, time that is needed elsewhere.

So yes, I like the idea of having such a competition and I've been trying to figure out a way to make it happen, but at the moment it simply doesn't look feasible.

[DavidSpy]

Sorry, I should have used context,
If you were in a house that was still in the glory race and you had enemies nearby that saw your castle on the news feed they could make strategies and make an estate of your forces, the player would need to improve it straight away.
I'm not saying you don't change it anyway but if you didn't you could have trouble, do you get my point now?

Maybe you have a basic responsibility to your faction/house not to submit your castles if you are involved in a war. Players would not be forced to submit castles, it's entirely consensual.

I do not see a "massive security risk" here.

The main issue: What criteria should it be judged on? Aesthetics?

Yes, aesthetics, and to be honest the coat of arms contest is pretty subjective as well.

[SMthegamer]

Ok I admit I overstated the risk but there would always be the potential danger, just like sometimes I try to track down the shield of the week.

[Lord Benevolent]

and to be honest the coat of arms contest is pretty subjective as well.

That is true, but you can achieve much more variety with the shields, they differ a lot more than any two castles ever could.

[Guardian001]

how about a castle that gives the most amount of points?