STRONGHOLD CRUSADER 2020

[[>D-F<]~Dingo~]

Ninja Shinobi was an entertaining guy. I'd talk with him and then block him mid conversation just to annoy him.

Question HL, what is the mill trick, and when did Bart join DHK? I saw DHK's old website from 2004 or 2005 and it didn't mention him at all.

Also, how long did you train with Geralt and when did you do that?

[{{DHK}}HolyLord]

I started typing an answer and then got much more detailed than you asked for, but here's a bit of a story to answer your Q's.  I never actually typed out the story, but I would like to, for myself (before I forget it) and for anyone who wants to read it:

There was a DHK before me, in 2003, made by a guy named Theoden.  It only existed for a few months with a few noob members.  In early 2004, when I was still a new player, I met him and we made DHK (I guess you could say we refounded it).   At the time, Bartholo was in G$F (after a short stint in X2X), and was already an expert, while I was still learning the game.  During 2004, I recruited and trained some of the old experts that later became some of the greatest of all time (much later).   Satdive, Killa, FrozenSlayer (under another name), were amongst those that were in this 2004 DHK.  Around mid 2004, Theoden randomly introduced me to a guy named TheWizardCharles, and told me that Charles was going to be one of the leaders of the clan.  I didn't like it, but didn't want to start a fight at the time.  Not too long afterwards (within a month or so),  Theoden went inactive, and I was left leading the clan with this Charles guy.  I had the loyalty of almost all of the top members and high-ranking members (we had a ranking system at the time, and I was the "M.Gen"), as I had recruited and dedicated my time to training them, and I also had control of the website.  I used that influence to kick WizardCharles from the clan, told him to fuck off, and took sole control myself, with the backing of the majority.

To continue the story:

In late 2004, the "Great War" as we called it, was at its height, between G$F and literally everyone else in SHC.   In 2004 G$F were starting to dominate the game, after their split with X2X, but they were not considered very nice or respectful by much of the community, and many people started to dislike them.  They were also accused of hacking people, although I don't know enough to verify that.  NDR-DRGN_DarkRealms was a recognized leader for many in GSA (not because of his skill, but because of his age, maturity, and the fact that he led the largest clan of both SH1 and SHC at the time, which was NDR).  NDR was also a bit of a "family clan", and they hated the G$F behavior.  Because of this, DarkRealms created the "NWA" (New World Alliance), and invited all major clans to join the 'alliance', with the purpose of dissuading G$F from their behavior or from even playing the game.  To do that, the NWA rules were basically things like "No talking to G$F members", "No playing games with G$F members", "No participating in tournaments with G$F members", etc etc.   This had its advantages and disadvantages.  One downside was that G$F started winning all the tournaments because so many top experts were boycotting them.  This was part of the reason Standard has so many VIPs (but not to detract from his accomplishments, he was an amazing player and was a huge contributor to the community and growth of the game in many ways).  Anyways, NDR, X2X, GoC were the top 3 clans at the time, and they all joined the NWA, along with many smaller clans (including the old noobie DHK, which was now led by me).  This was my first exposure to the 'top experts'.  When G$F saw many of the new little clans joining, they started approaching them trying to convince them to jump ship ("join us, we'll train you and make you great!"   "don't listen to NDR and X2X, they're lying to you about us, we're good and they're jealous!", etc).   This basically started a big proxy war, between the big NWA alliance clans and G$F, where each side was trying to convince the new and rising clans and players to join them, a bit like a "Cold War" where there is no direct fighting, just proxy fighting that rips up all the small nations as victims.  lol.  The hatred, vitriol, and enmity between G$F and the rest of the community became pretty extreme.

Around this time, late 2004, {X2X}FireDragon approached me and Satdive (my right hand general in DHK), and asked us to join X2X.  I was interested, mainly because I always noticed him and FANATICA in the lobby, with their cool {X2X} and {{X2X}} tags (FD used one "{" and Fan used 2 {{'s, lol, remember, i was only 13 years old at the time), and they were kind of like these "silent legends".  FD was the only one that the top G$F players feared.  He was basically the one king of the game that 'protected us all' (literally all of the NWA) from complete G$F conquest.  He also had the privilege (if you can call it that) of claiming himself as the godfather of G$F (because many of them were trained by him in X2X before breaking apart to make G$F after a big disagreement between FD, XX, Fub, MD, etc).  As mentioned on his bio on the Greatest of All Times page, "his banner flew high over our keep, in the face of our enemies".  Nobody could fuck with him, and =G$F=Standard was the only potential rival/competitor.  Because of this, and the fact that he kept X2X (10-15 elite members, and very few trainees), his offer was pretty intriguing to me.  By this time I had been playing for maybe 9-10 months, and I was not a bad player, but I didn't like the "mill trick", as non-experts called it at the time (basically, using mills to store pop for big population, like literally every expert does and has done since 2003, lol).  It seemed unnatural and an unintended aspect of the game, which was to me, a castle builder game.  Because of that, I was a very defensive player, not a noob (I was quite good with army and eco production, etc), but I didn't make huge populations in mills, pots, woodcutters, etc).  Anyways, when FD offered, I asked him to 1v1 me before I decided.  He allowed me to choose everything (map, rules, settings, etc).  I choose my favorite map at the time ("Arrows Point bthal-2" high res version by Standard), 30pt (lol...), 7k, no fire only.  I knew he was good, but I hadn't seen any real experts play before this point, so I didn't know what to expect.  I spent 30 minutes trying to make the strongest possible castle, and then after pt I got fucked.  I accepted his offer to join X2X in late 2004.  I brought many old DHKs with me into X2X.

I spent the next 6 months playing with the best of the best.  FireDragon, Hunter, Warlord, Fanatica, CrescentStar, RedSword.  Satdive trained with me as well, and we became top experts.  Worth noting, around early 2005, Satdive recruited Shazzabog to X2X, and Shazz became his trainee.  Moving on with the story... The Great War was still going on at this point.  Of course, this meant X2X players 'hated' G$F players and avoided them.   In April 2005, I had become one of the top 20 players in the world at the time, and I was next in line to be co-leader of X2X.  Me and X2X Warlord were planning on joining the upcoming 2v2 tournament.  When the tournament day came Warlord didn't show up.   There is a whole story behind why he didn't show up, which is quite an interesting story, but I won't go into that.   So, the tournament was starting and I didn't have a partner.   Coincidentally, =G$F=Bartholo's partner (=G$F=PimpJuice) never showed up either, and Bartholo needed a 2v2 partner as well.   The guy hosting the tournament, [WIZ]Sword (he was an official staff member of GameSpy Arcade / IGN), jokingly said to us "why don't the two of you be partners?"  He was being sarcastic, as he was aware that G$F and X2X were complete enemies, but he didn't know we would take it seriously.  Bartholo, like me, was also just becoming a top 20 player, recognized as a rising star, and we both wanted to win more than we cared about G$F vs X2X.   So, we joined the tournament together as a team.  This was one of the worst things we could have done in the eyes of our clans.  FD was not happy with me, but withheld most of his words.  G$F players wouldn't stop giving bartholo shit for it.  Anyways, even worse was the fact that this 2v2 tournament had both top G$F & X2X teams (the two best teams in the world) in it, =G$F=Standard & =G$F=F_U_B_A_R-NOYC, and {X2X}FireDragon & {{X2X}}FANATICA.  These two teams were recognized as the gods of the game, both for the 1v1 and 2v2 skills of the players.  So, it was assumed one of them would win anyways, and it wouldn't matter that me and Bartholo joined the tournament together.  We went through round 1 & 2 easily, and in round 3 or so we killed {GoC}M.Gen.7WINNER7 & {GoC}WL-Sidehero, the leader and top player of GoC.  Also in round 3, FD and Fan beat Standard and Fubar, which was a huge accomplishment for X2X and the rest of the community.  In the finals, it ended up with me and Bartholo vs FD and Fan.  Not only were we expected to lose, but I knew FD wanted me to lose intentionally because of the symbolism of the match.  A G$F player beating the top X2X team, leader of X2X, and best player of the community NWA alliance, would be terrible for the war effort and the public face of X2X and NWA.  I knew this, but I didn't give a shit.  I wanted to win, and we did.  FD was not happy at all about this, and our relationship was never the same again.  I quickly stopped being next-in-line for co-leader of X2X, and instead was no longer considered a 'close confidant' to him.  Bartholo, on the other hand, won the tournament, but was still completely hated by many G$F members for joining the tournament with an X2X.  I used this to try to 'repair' my relationship with FD a bit, and I convinced bartholo to join X2X, so that by the time we had our VIP status displayed in the lobby, we were both X2X.  This didn't help much with my relationship with FD, and it slowly deteriorated.  It became the worst when I made an alternate account to have some fun with noobs, called {{HELL}}Lucifer{666}, which I used to create the (HELL) clan with DevilSpawn, who FD (and almost everyone else in the community) hated.  Under my real name (X2X HL), I continued my normal course of things, by now recognized as perhaps a top 10 player in the world.  But under my HELL account, I acted like a real baboon with DS, played with noobs only, and said all sorts of crazy shit to people just for fun.  I think that was the end of my relationship with FD, until many years later when time had healed those wounds.

In mid 2005, I left X2X, along with Bartholo, and we made {{DHK}}.

That's the story.


For a little bit of follow-up on what happened afterwards:

When me and Bar left X2X and made {{DHK}}, I brought with me from X2X: Killa, FS, and Sonic (all of whom had followed me from the 2004 DHK, into X2X, and now into the new DHK).  Satdive decided to leave X2X as well, but decided to make his own clan with PJ, called =Pl@yaz=.  X2X Warlord left, and made -]G$W[-, with Razi.  With X2X losing so many of its core members, (Crescent and Rep had gone inactive too), (remember, it was a small clan to begin with, but with elite players), FD was having trouble upkeeping the clan.  He had to find replacements, so he got Meelman (who was a rising star at the time, with his own clan, "JEDI") to come to X2X by offering him leadership of the clan.  Meelman came, and brought Assassina with him.  Making Meelman the leader was good for the clan I think, as it brought new blood and rising stars with passion to the clan.  But it made some of the existing X2X members upset.  That's when {{X2X}}FANATICA left and joined DHK, and Shazzabog made an alternate account, {{DHK}}Slayer, to join DHK with.  Also right at the beginning, K@W Hampton joined DHK, and brought with him Lutel and Falke.  Arma came from X-Con, and brought couple of polish players with him, and =G$F=DeXTeR (Hackett) soon came along.  This basically made DHK one of the top clans immediately after its creation.  We later grew some of our own experts, like LastWish, WarriorWithin, Hellsing, Sanitarium, SpecialOps, Matiking, Likiwink, Tiger, HolyKing, BigDawg, Garnett, SkyDragon, Luis, etc... By early 2006, DHK had become the undisputed kings, and Bartholo and I were recognized as the undisputed best.  So the story goes...




To answer your other question,
Arma and I trained Geralt for a couple of months, he was under the name {{DHK}}Stempel.  He noticeably went from mid-expert to top expert during this time, although I'm sure he may dispute how much we really contributed to his learning, as he had a falling out with us due to the poor relationship with X-CON.

[The Notorious One]

I enjoyed reading this :)

You really should start to write some books.

This shinobi isint here (gr),so it mean he really quit.

It will be the last one and the final question (for now):

Where did you get the idea for your nickname,you can tell me that story too.

Best wishes!

[[>D-F<]~Dingo~]

too fucking long, nerd.

[{{DHK}}HolyLord]

Sorry, but that's a much less interesting story.  I stole the idea for the name from Theoden, after we met and decided to make DHK in 2004.  He wanted to use HolyKnight (DHK means Desert Holy Knights, which was his idea too), and I decided to use HolyLord (Lord > Knight).  I think he didn't like that and if I recall, he changed his name afterward to HolyKing, then HolyDragon, then eventually back to Theoden.  lol


Maybe I will write a book about it all one day, for the maybe ~5 people that will ever read it, haha..  There are really so many stories, I could go on for 1,000 pages+.

[The Notorious One]

All stories are ok,its part of your memories so.

Maybe in the future i make another questions,so be ready :D

BTW your favoritue troops?

See you soon.

[{{DHK}}HolyLord]

Desert Holy Knights

[DH]

As a man who loves short stories (both, writting and reading) i can say i enjoyed reading this, but damn it's like a novel lol. Did all of this happened when you were looking at the monitor and sitting on the chair? Did you met some SHC people in real life? And super question if you want to answer it, which job you do to survive in America?

[MAX GALINGUMAS]

HL professional career is well described in this video from 56seconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQkI9VF63Ns

[Someone from the crowd]

Hello all,

I took some time to read all what have you all wrote. And real question is - How do Mr. Holylord knows about tops and ratings if he is "not active" as he present himself?

Notorious - HL didnt started playing back in 2002. He started later.
Some of replies:
"When I did the 3 gold records (I told Lancelot I would stop at 3, but now I'm thinking I should do another! lol)" - Update for HL: not even one is legit anymore. Still, you cant say you made a record without video, someone to prove it. That is record in stupidity.
"sometimes they hated it, but they would have to play it anyways because I was HolyLord (lol), and that kept things moving." - You mean you had to play from yours akas vs you?

1. Which player was the fastest opponent to you?
    If I don't count myself or Bartholo, then I think FireDragon, Hunter, Meelman, Masosz, Dracula, and maybe even Blacky & Geralt, were probably the fastest players I remember, at their peaks. - Ha, Good one!

3.Who was the best eco maker in your period.
    Bartholo and I were the best eco makers in my period.  Nobody (except bartholo) ever even tried to break our eco records, so we never had any eco competition.  This is why I was so happy to see Lancelot finally do it in 2019, and why I reinstalled SHC to try again. - Good one again! There were too many gold records beside yours or Lancelot's. Keep rolling with your akas and shits.

4.Who was the best rusher and the best camper?
    Again, I think bartholo and I were the best rushers and also the best campers (sorry if this sounds like a bad answer again and again).  Pretty much every top player in my day were good rushers - you had to be a good rusher to be a good player.  Some other good campers were X-CON Str0ng, Peabody, T-Bag. -Again? God.

5.Do you remember any great talent that never show his full potential?
    Interesting question.  I think Gx_S0ck3tz` could have been a much better player than he was.  To give some explanation, socketz was the best SH1 player for many years, and started playing SHC in 2006/07.  He spent a good bit of time playing SHC, and started becoming good, but never really committed to it enough to become a top expert, although I think he could have if he continued with it.  I think X-CON Geralt could have become one of the best players ever, but he didn't get enough training from me and Arma while he was in DHK  :P.    DHK Killa was another one.  He had a major health emergency and disappeared and never came back to SHC; very sad.  We thought he died, but found out 10 years later he was alive, thankfully.  There were also many players that were very good but never really showed off their skills much or didn't get very recognized in the community (like LTU min2kas & LTU vytass, NDR-DRGN_VampSlayer, G$W Warlord & G$W Razi, and many more). - This is very funny also.
6.Who was most crazy/annoying player that time?
    DevilSpawn was probably the craziest mother fucker in the history of Stronghold: Crusader.  I can tell you more about him if you'd like, and some other stories, but every old player will remember this guy for being a true crazy.  Some other crazy/annoying people were {GoC}M.GEN-7WINNER7 (some stories about him if you want to know), and from GR, yugod Gilman (this guy spent his life making up fake histories about me, and I never even knew him).  X2X Shazzabog was also a bit annoying (always saying some shit about me), but I think I annoyed him more because I always called him my little 'baby boy' (because I recruited Satdive to X2X in 2005 and trained him, and Satdive recruited and trained Shazzabog).  There were many other players that could fit the description "crazy", but in different ways (like Bartholo, FD, Fubar, DarkRealms, Hampton, Blaze, Nassassin, and many more...) - Holylord, I am going to show your akas and how gilman especially, then winner and all other were "so annoying and made-up fake stories". Remember who hacked and took your entire aka company from your computer?

Fireboy: lol  he exposed you greatly and even now ur still faking, but this kids will follow this as well as a hundred people go to church - All the time mate.

Hl: 2.How much time you need to learn begginer/weak medium play on very good level and who was your greatest student.
    Completely depends on the player.  I picked my students very selectively.  I think one of my strongest abilities was to notice a person's potential.  There were a few times when I found a complete noob but could see their potential, and I invested time to turn them into monsters.  Killa (complete noob to top in 6 months), WW, Arma ('average' to top in 6 months), LastWish, Satdive, Blacky (already very good when I first found him, but became top in 1-2 months during which I made him play many many 1v1s with me, nonstop), Geralt (similar to Blacky situation, but I had less time with him), and many others that I had less time with.  The ones that would be successful were quickly separated from the ones that could not be; the way I would train them was to make them 1v1 me nonstop on all different maps, rules, settings, etc.  Of course they would never have a chance, but the ones that had the passion would try and try and try, and this struggle made them so much stronger; each time surviving maybe 30 seconds longer or preparing better for whatever I had to throw at them.  It's a weird lesson for life, too, I guess?  To answer your question, a person with very high potential I can make an expert in 3-4 months.  A person with medium potential, maybe 6-8 months.  But nothing can replace the experience of years, so they would still be missing some of that 'intuition' from that lack of experience.
My greatest student, other than myself, was Arm@.  People forget the magnitude of this guy; he was one of the oldest experts of X-CON (which was founded in 2004, not 2003 as I've seen some claim); he joined DHK and became one of the best in ~6 months; he also at the same time ran his own polish clan where he trained and nurtured the SHC polish community; he was responsible for training some other top experts (Lider & Geralt included); and he was the leader of DHK during GR times (09-12), and technically still is the leader.
-Well that is a loot of "I" and fake things, again.

HL:There was a DHK before me, in 2003, made by a guy named Theoden.  It only existed for a few months with a few noob members.  In early 2004, when I was still a new player, I met him and we made DHK (I guess you could say we refounded it).   At the time, Bartholo was in G$F (after a short stint in X2X), and was already an expert, while I was still learning the game.  During 2004, I recruited and trained some of the old experts that later became some of the greatest of all time (much later).   Satdive, Killa, FrozenSlayer (under another name), were amongst those that were in this 2004 DHK.  Around mid 2004, Theoden randomly introduced me to a guy named TheWizardCharles, and told me that Charles was going to be one of the leaders of the clan.  I didn't like it, but didn't want to start a fight at the time.  Not too long afterwards (within a month or so),  Theoden went inactive, and I was left leading the clan with this Charles guy.  I had the loyalty of almost all of the top members and high-ranking members (we had a ranking system at the time, and I was the "M.Gen"), as I had recruited and dedicated my time to training them, and I also had control of the website.  I used that influence to kick WizardCharles from the clan, told him to fuck off, and took sole control myself, with the backing of the majority. - Years and years he was put decline after decline on this, finally he realized he was just a liar, I suppose he is currently on some drugs to admit it.
This was part of the reason Standard has so many VIPs (but not to detract from his accomplishments, he was an amazing player and was a huge contributor to the community and growth of the game in many ways) -Pure lie.

Wouldn't go further.

[Dr.Peabody]

Someone from the crowd wrote

-Well that is a loot of "I" and fake things, again.

Seems pretty normal for him to say "I" a lot in a story about himself.

[{>FuRY<} Viktor]

Yup he is fine.

[feanor]