November 7, 2014 — Firefly Studios has released a new update (1.0.19574) for Stronghold Crusader 2, the recently released ‘castle sim’ sequel. The update, which is now live on Steam, introduces a new skirmish map, unit stats, map balancing and bug fixes:

New Features

• New skirmish map: ‘The Breath of Life’.
• Anti-cheat protection.
• Unit and building stats – http://www.strongholdcrusader2.com/stats.html
• Tooltips for all troop command buttons.
• Well sprite for mini-map.

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 – http://strongholdrts.tumblr.com/

In a new blog post on the official Stronghold Crusader 2 website, Firefly revealed that the majority of post-release content for the game will be made available for free. “We really 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 through Steam.”

Stronghold Crusader 2 is out now on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/232890/