v0.7.0

Stronghold 2 Unofficial Patch v0.7.0

Unlock camera freedom, fine-tune controls with an in-game overlay, and enjoy a cleaner, more reliable multiplayer experience.

🎥 Watch the v0.7.0 Showcase Video Here

⚙️ In-Game Settings Overlay

Press Ctrl+Shift+O at any time during gameplay to open the new configuration panel.

• Real-time adjustments: Tweak sliders and toggles with instant feedback—no more quitting to edit config files by trial and error.
• Seamless interaction: The mouse continues to interact with the game while the menu is open, letting you test camera angles and scroll speeds live.

🎥 Enhanced Camera Controls

• Extended Zoom: Pull back significantly further to get a tactical overview of the map. Zoom limits adapt automatically based on map size and camera angle.
• Customizable Panning: Eliminate camera lag. Set both the maximum scroll speed and acceleration to your exact preference.
• Safe & Client-Side: Camera tweaks only affect your view and are fully compatible with unpatched multiplayer opponents.

🌐 Multiplayer Quality of Life

• Accurate Lobby List: Games currently in progress are automatically filtered out, eliminating non-functional lobbies. (Client-side fix: only you need the patch applied).
• Lag Detection: Type !ping in chat to display round-trip latency for all players in the lobby. Works for everyone, patched or not.

🐛 Bug Fixes & Security

• UI Sticking Fix: Resolved an issue where the end-of-game statistics overlay persisted into subsequent campaign missions.
• Improved File Reputation: Updated build flags and added proper executable metadata to minimize false-positive antivirus warnings.

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📦 Installation

1. Download and extract sh2-unofficial-patch-v0.7.0.zip from the downloads below.
2. Copy d3d9.dll into your Stronghold 2 installation directory:
   C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Stronghold 2\
3. Launch the game normally via Steam.

Notes:

• Uninstall: Simply delete d3d9.dll. No original game files are modified.
• Compatibility: Tested on Steam version v1.5.0. Save files remain unaffected.

🛡️ Antivirus False Positives

Because the patch injects code into game memory at runtime, some security software may flag d3d9.dll.

• All release assets are open-source and automatically built via GitHub Actions.
• You can verify file integrity using the provided SHA256SUMS.txt.
• If your antivirus flags the file, please open an issue with the specific detection name so we can submit it for whitelisting.

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📥 Downloads

File	Description
sh2-unofficial-patch-v0.7.0.zip	Main patch release files and configuration
SHA256SUMS.txt	Cryptographic hashes for download verification

v0.6.1

Stronghold 2 Unofficial Patch — v0.6.1

Note

100% Save & Multiplayer Safe: This is a UI-focused fix release. Gameplay, hotkeys, save files, and stock multiplayer compatibility are completely unchanged.

This update addresses a widespread layout bug where patch panels (Auto-Market, Settings, and End-of-Game Statistics) became broken or unreadable on certain displays.

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🔍 What Was Happening?

If you experienced text spilling out of input boxes, labels running into buttons, or entire rows cutoff at the bottom of your screen, you weren't alone.

The culprit was Windows Display Scaling (the 125% or 150% DPI scaling default on many laptops and high-resolution screens). The patch was enlarging UI text to match Windows settings without expanding the surrounding boxes, causing words to outgrow their containers.

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✨ What's Changed

• Dynamic Text Measurement: Panels now measure themselves based on the text they actually contain, preventing text clipping regardless of font scaling.
• Game-Resolution Scaling: UI elements now scale relative to your in-game resolution rather than Windows DPI settings, ensuring consistent rendering across all systems.
• Screen Auto-Fitting: Panels automatically shrink to fit smaller screens (most noticeable at 1280x720 and 1024x768), preventing bottom rows from clipping off the screen.
• High-Res Readability: UI panels on large screens are no longer uncomfortably small.

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⚙️ Manual UI Scaling Override

While the automatic layout sizing should work out-of-the-box for most setups, you can manually force a custom scale if preferred.

Open sh2-unofficial-patch.ini and set Scale under the [ui] section to any percentage between 50 and 300:

[ui]
Scale=125

v0.6.0

Stronghold 2 Unofficial Patch — v0.6.0

Note

100% Safe for Vanilla Multiplayer: Everything in this release is fully safe to use against stock/unpatched players. You can host or join any multiplayer game as usual, regardless of whether the other host or players have the patch installed.

This release is all about cutting down the clicking! Introducing automated market trading, batch unit recruitment, and a live in-game hotkey remapper.

🎬 Watch the Release Preview Video: https://youtu.be/MHC7HEeVJjY

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✨ Release Highlights

📦 Auto-Market — Stop Babysitting Your Stockpile

• Open Panel: Press ` (the key next to 1).
• Threshold Trading: Set a Min and Max target for every resource in the game. The patch automatically buys stock when you drop below your minimum and sells excess stock when you exceed your maximum at standard market prices (only whenever you can afford it).
• Preset Profiles: Save named trading strategies (e.g., Start Game, War) in your config file and load them mid-match directly from the panel.

⚔️ Batch Recruitment — Recruit Whole Batches with One Click

• How to use: Hold Shift while clicking a unit icon in the Barracks, Mercenary Post, Monastery, Engineers Guild, or Siege Camp.
• Fully Configurable: Queues a batch of troops instantly (defaults to 20 units at a time, but you can change this limit in your settings).
• Smart Validation: Gold, weapons, and peasants are checked individually per unit in the batch. The queue stops the instant you run out of resources.

⚙️ Live In-Game Settings Panel

• Open Panel: Press Ctrl + Shift + O.
• Remap any patch shortcut live from inside the game! Click a hotkey, press your desired key, and changes are applied and saved immediately—no text editor required.

⌨️ Advanced Hotkey Combination Support

• Hotkeys now support Ctrl, Shift, and Alt combinations (e.g., Ctrl + Shift + H), as well as arrow keys, numpad keys, and punctuation symbols.
• Smart Modifier Filtering: A shortcut bound to a single key (e.g., H) will no longer trigger if you are holding down modifier keys like Ctrl, keeping keybindings out of the way of standard gameplay commands.

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⌨️ Default Patch Hotkeys

Hotkey	Action
`	Open / Close Auto-Market Panel
Ctrl + Shift + O	Open / Close Patch Settings Panel
Shift + Click	Recruit Batch (20 units by default)
H	Select / Focus Keep
Mouse4	Quick Action

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🛠️ Installation & Upgrading

1. Download sh2-unofficial-patch-v0.6.0.zip from the assets below.
2. Extract the ZIP archive into your main Stronghold 2 installation directory (where Stronghold2.exe is located).
3. Ensure d3d9.dll (and optionally sh2-unofficial-patch.ini) sit directly alongside Stronghold2.exe.

• Upgrading from v0.5.0? Simply replace d3d9.dll. Your existing sh2-unofficial-patch.ini file and saved presets will remain intact.
• Uninstalling? Delete d3d9.dll from your game folder.

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🔗 Quick Links

• 🎥 Release Preview Video: https://youtu.be/MHC7HEeVJjY
• 🔍 Full Code Changes: Compare v0.5.0...v0.6.0
• 🐞 Report Bugs / Requests: GitHub Issues Page

v0.5.0

Stronghold 2 Unofficial Patch v0.5.0

This release adds an optional configuration file, a new attack-move shortcut,
an opt-in faster camera zoom, a crash fix, and a big round of improvements to
the end-of-game statistics screen.

✨ New

• Optional configuration file — Place the included sh2-unofficial-patch.ini
  next to d3d9.dll to rebind or disable the patch's hotkeys and to speed up
  the camera zoom. Every setting is explained inside the file. Without the
  file, everything behaves exactly as before.
• Attack-move shortcut (Mouse4) — Pressing the fourth mouse button
  toggles the Attack stance on your selected troops, so a move order makes
  them engage enemies along the way. Rebindable via the config file.
• Faster camera zoom (opt-in) — Set a zoom speed multiplier in the config
  file (e.g. 2.5) to make the mouse-wheel zoom faster. Zoom limits are
  unchanged, and nothing changes unless you set it.

🛠 Fixed

• Crash when troops are moved off the map edge — Dragging a formation into
  a corner or off any edge of the map could crash the game to desktop. Troops
  and formations are now handled safely at and beyond the map edges.
• Short player names shown as Chinese characters — Names of 7 characters
  or fewer could appear as garbled characters on the end-of-game statistics.
  Every player's real name now shows correctly.
• Statistics panel wouldn't go away — The stats panel stayed on screen
  after leaving the victory/defeat screen. It now disappears automatically
  when you return to the main menu.

📊 End-of-Game Statistics Improvements

• Statistics are now only gathered while a match is actually being played and
  are fully reset between matches, so leftovers from a previous game can no
  longer bleed into the next one.
• Alt-tabbing away no longer makes the stats vanish for good — they hide while
  you're in another window and return with the game.
• Numbers are right-aligned for easy comparison, a popularity row was added,
  the text uses a cleaner font, and the panel sizes itself to fit its contents
  and your game window.

📥 Installation

1. Download sh2-unofficial-patch-v0.5.0.zip from the assets below and
   extract it.
2. Copy d3d9.dll into your Stronghold 2 game directory, e.g.
   C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Stronghold 2\
3. (Optional) Copy sh2-unofficial-patch.ini next to it to customize
   hotkeys and zoom speed — every setting is explained inside the file.
4. Launch the game through Steam as usual — the patch loads automatically.

An INSTALL.txt with these steps is included in the zip.

Upgrading? Just replace the old d3d9.dll with the new one.
Uninstalling? Delete d3d9.dll from the game directory.

Verify your download (optional): compare against SHA256SUMS.txt from the
assets below. On Windows: certutil -hashfile d3d9.dll SHA256

Compatible with vanilla Stronghold 2 (Steam v1.5.0) installs and saves. No
game files are modified.

Full changelog: CHANGELOG.md
YouTube video of various fixes and features

v0.4.0

🛠 How to Install

📢 Technical Note on d3d9.dll: We have switched the patch hook from version.dll to d3d9.dll. Some players reported that version.dll was not loading, causing the patch to fail to apply. The reason is because Stronghold 2 doesn't actually load version.dll, it only worked because other .dll's were luckily pulling it in. Switching to d3d9.dll , which is explicitly pulled in by Stronghold and ensures the patch loads reliably for everyone.

⚠️ Migrating from an older version?

If you have an older version of this patch installed, delete version.dll from your game directory before proceeding.

Standard Installation:

1. Download the new d3d9.dll from the assets below.
2. Place d3d9.dll into your main Stronghold 2 installation folder:
   • Open Steam, right-click Stronghold 2, and select Properties.
   • Go to Installed Files and click Browse...
   • Move the downloaded d3d9.dll into this folder (the same directory containing Stronghold2.exe).

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🔄 Changes in this Release

🎯 [Feature] Keyboard Shortcut to Stop Selected Troops

• The Issue: Stopping a selected group of troops could only be done by clicking the "Stop" button on the UI command panel; there was no keyboard shortcut.
• The Fix: Pressing the H key now instantly stops your currently selected troops.

🐛 [Fix] Crash When Lord Dies via Barracks Menu

• The Issue: If you had a barracks or recruitment screen open and attempted to recruit units at the exact moment your Lord died, the game would crash straight to desktop.
• The Fix: The game now gracefully handles the Lord's death while the recruitment menu is open, correctly triggering the defeat screen (or allowing the game to continue if you have surviving teammates).

🐛 [Fix] End-of-Game Stats Missing Players in Multiplayer

• The Issue: The end-of-game statistics screen frequently failed to display most players from a multiplayer match.
• The Fix: All active players will now properly appear in the final post-game stats summary.

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Full Changelog

https://github.com/B1naryVision/sh2-unofficial-patch/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

v0.3.0

Installation

Download version.dll
Place it in your Stronghold 2 game directory (Steam\steamapps\common\Stronghold 2)
Launch the game — the patch loads automatically

To uninstall: delete version.dll from the game directory.

What's Changed

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Multiplayer Connection Crash: Fixed a crash to desktop that occurred during multiplayer sessions if a stray connection message arrived without a matching player entry. The game now safely ignores these edge-case messages so your session continues uninterrupted.

🚀 Improvements

• End-of-Game Statistics Screen: Added a comprehensive stats overlay to the victory and defeat screens. You can now view and compare performance metrics for every player in the match, including:
  • Gold & Honour
  • Army size & Unit recruitment counts
  • Income sources

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Full Changelog

https://github.com/B1naryVision/sh2-unofficial-patch/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

v0.2.0

Installation

Download version.dll
Place it in your Stronghold 2 game directory (Steam\steamapps\common\Stronghold 2)
Launch the game — the patch loads automatically

To uninstall: delete version.dll from the game directory.

What's Changed

🚀 Improvements

• Fast Startup (Skip Intro Video): The Firefly Studios logo video on launch has been removed. The game now loads directly to the main menu on startup so you can get into the action faster.
• AI Opponents in Multiplayer: Fixed and enabled the AI opponent toggle in multiplayer lobbies. AI opponents can now be configured and added to matches normally (behavior mirrors single-player).
  • Offset credit: Daniel Jenssen (gitlab.com/Daerandin/sh2_mp_ai_enabler).

  ⚠️ Note: The multiplayer host must have this version installed for AI opponents to function.

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Full Changelog

https://github.com/B1naryVision/sh2-unofficial-patch/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

v0.1.0

Installation

1. Download version.dll
2. Place it in your Stronghold 2 game directory (Steam\steamapps\common\Stronghold 2\)
3. Launch the game — the patch loads automatically

To uninstall: delete version.dll from the game directory.

What's Changed

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Knight Mounting Crash: Fixed a critical crash to desktop that triggered if a catapult projectile hit a Knight at the exact frame they were mounting a horse. The Knight now correctly takes damage normally instead of breaking the game. Does cause a minor animation bug but better than crashing.

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Full Changelog

This is the initial release log for the patch system.