The original idea of Stronghold was the pearl of the old Melee Battlegrounds before the Kickstarter failed and they tried to do the Epic instead and epically failed doing it.

However, the idea was fun and I'm sure it would attract many people far more than any of the purely combat centered modes we currently have or that are currently being worked on.

You have a little bit of everything:

Building your village, conquering resources, sieging.

Relying on other player to have fun sucks…… So here is a solution. 

War mode:  War mode would be Large conquest and/or skirmish battles with 15+ npc’s on each team duking it out. A game all players could join to get a quick action.  Players would be able to join and jump into a battle between two opposing npc forces.     I think it would be rad if each team represented a medieval army in composition, (3 knights, 7 spearmen, 5 archer/crossbow, and the rest peasant levies.  Composition could vary to make different dynamics between the 2 teams.   Maybe npc stats could also vary by class (Knights get the best stats)   Also army armour schemes should definitely differ from opposite team.  So basically we have two npc armies battling then players can jump in to the battle and bam!  You can choose the side and kill npc’s or other players who join.   Population problem solved!   If you make it offline then single player problem……. solved! You’re welcome Devs.  This mode could be similar to custom battle in M&B Warband.   It would basically be a way to have full battles without the requirement of many human players.   To add, when you (developers) get NPC commands programmed, the multiplayer options could be huge (Teams could elect a NPC commander for the team) to direct the NPC, while other player just fight it out.  Anyone who esteems this idea, feel free to leave comments on what you think would be fun with NPC in multiplayer or single player.        If you support this idea feel free to add to the idea!

I want to ride with my friends, give us horses with saddles to do that please, also, mounted combat would be nice too.

You don't see any 3rd or 2nd place "winners" get a gold medal in the Olympics, do you? 

I think that doing interlocking formations would be a great idea. A member of TN mentioned this and he asked me to post something here about it. (Name, st. petertherock) where if you hit a button next to someone with a shield, it snaps you to a position right next to them (Whichever side you're closer to, or which ever side is open) this could allow for proper interlocking formations and doing things like pseudo formations and of that sort. It also would make things easier when walking in a formation as well! 

My secondary thoughts where not only implementing this idea to shielders, but to formations in general! So lets say you have 7 guys in a battle and you need to get into a formation quickly. Someone initiates a Wedge formation and it highlights areas on the ground around the player (Where if you walk close enough to it and press a button it will snap you to the position via walking or something like that, where you're still attackable when doing that to make sure it's not exploitable) and they all are able to see that there's places on the ground they can walk up to and (pressing a button) be placed into. The other idea I had was being able to MAKE formations using different type weapons as the tile placing type. (Explained everything later)

My idea in a little more organised of an area.

Creation of Formations:

A GUI in the Main Menu that allows you to place "Tiles" that players can snap to in a formation, that also allows you to save them to use later in battle as a selection slot (Similar to how shouts and emotes work now, you'd press a button and come up with 9 slots that you can save and rename with the name you choose for the formation).

Iterating more on the tile placement of things, You'll be given infinite placeable tiles for each given weapon type, so you'll have "Shield" tiles (which allows anyone with a shield to be moved to that position) "Polearm", "2 Handed", "1 Handed" (without shield, or make it so 1h can be used with or without shields), etc. for each DEFINED weapon type in game. You will also be given 1 special tile type, which is the "Commander" tile. This tile is where the formation starts/is anchored to when you initiate the formation.

For game limitations only allow a 7 x 7 grid to build a formation on. Each tile represents 50-60 CM. 

Usage of Formations:

After creating (or using premade formations) You are able to use the formations in battle using the N key (Or any unused key) and will have the option of 1-9 number keys to select which formation you want to initiate. (Set it like the emotes so you can only have a few formations per side) Once the selected formation is initiated and the formation is created with visuals on the ground around the player. For instance a "Shield Wall" that has 1h in front will appear blue for the 1h to go to, and have archers behind them appearing as yellow to signal this placement is for archers.

Once a player has been initiated to the formation they will auto walk to a certain point (probably fairly easy to do this actually, rotate the players character to the location in the world and have the character auto walk until it reaches it's destination). The character must be within 5-7 meters of the location to get into the formation though, for purposes of trolls breaking the game and all. As the "Commander" moves, the formation will move. If the commander wants the formation to rotate they must hit < or > to rotate the formation.

The formation should only be valid if the size of the formation fits inside of the location it's trying to be activated/moved into. If the formation is a 7x3 shield wall with polearms/archers then it obviously can't be activated in a corridor that's only the size of 3 tiles wide. (Or be moved into it, might bring up some problems)

How the people move if the formations move:

So this one is a little Iffy. My idea would be that the player will automatically walk to the location they're "Assigned" to, however I don't know how well that would work. Meaning they can jump and such, but that means they can't go forward or backward and travel at the same speed as everyone if they're in the formation, if they're not in the formation they attempt to sprint to the location. The player must jump if required unless there's a way to auto jump when needed too.

If the commander dies?

multiple "Commander" tiles should be placed, however if no "Commanders" are present, then a player has the ability to leave the formation (By pressing the same key as entering, or by pressing a differing one, depending on feedback) and going to the commander position (Possibly until the original commander comes back) 

Can any player create/use a formation?

Hopefully, yes. If a random player wants to initiate a formation then they can, if there is another attempt at a formation and it's full/nearly full then the player with 1-3 people in their formation is disbanded to follow the "Main Formation". 

How many formations should be allowed in a battle at once?

I think that a maximum of 3 formations per side is a reasonable number, maybe have it scale with the number of players as well. 

What kind of modes should this be allowed in?

I think that any mode should have it, but just Field Battles/raids would be great on it's own.

I know this is a litteral wall of text, but I really like this idea and I hope many of you do too. If you have a question about it please mention me in OKAM discord @Ross the Great#8525 

Backcapping makes worse battles generally, as they create paranoia for defenders with no good defense against them. Attackers are massively buffed by allowing backcapping, as they can easily disperse and capture almost all the flags. Large parts of the maps are unused as any kind of real defense is simply run past. Fighting viciously for points is discouraged whereas running is encouraged. 

Remove backcapping but allow multiple flags to be captureable (2 or 3). That should make the defense of every point relevant and fun while still allowing for tactical variation. 

Since this would effectively buff defenders, increasing the time limit by a few minutes might be a good idea. 

change "signed Up" count to "player count" (as in live server pop) in Battle scheduler UI.. or have both why not

Not sure if planned or not, but id like to see armies walking across the map where you can then intercept and fight on a open plain(field battle) rather than simply fighting over feifs, also makes army movement important too. 

Let clan leaders assign officers who can accept and decline applicants for battles and other things necessary to run a clan.

Fix the issue of desync which stops this game becoming truly competitive for both melee and ranged players.

Long intro:

Battles for neutral fiefs are wierd. First of all they tend to lack defenders, but when they have them the fief is harder to cap than clan fiefs because the time allotted for the battle is halved (from 1 hour to 30 minutes), the good reason for this still escapes me. Furthermore, if the attackers lose (which they might because of the low time), attackers lose ALL remaining troops (in case of the TK attack some time ago, only 200-300 troops were actually killed but the remaining 600-700 simply disappeared) while defender’s troops instantly get back to their old numbers. This makes battles for neutral fiefs very “sudden death” - the rewards for winning them good but lose one and you lose a lot and gain nothing at all. 

Proposed solution:

Change the way troops work for neutral fiefs. Have them generate troops over time (maybe 10 a day for the smallest fiefs) with a minimum amount in the beginning of a season (to avoid rushing). When the troops die in battle, it actually reduces the number of tickets in the fief on the map. 

Effects:  

This will result in: 

1) No more neutral fiefs magically getting all their troops back instantly, which means you can grind them down over several battles. 

2) No more “winner takes all” attitude with neutral fiefs, even if you lose you gain something (fewer tickets next time) 

3) Neutral fiefs scale in strength during a season. Neutral fiefs will be weak in the beginning but harder as time passes. This would quicken the “neutral phase” while making them less of a target later. 

Btw, this is how it worked in strategus and it worked well. 

Idea is simple, we should be able to pay some gold to reset our stats, otherwise we can't really try out different builds to see which we like best. There also isn't really anything to sink your gold into at the minute.

Rain, snow, fog, etc..

Give us the ability to crouch. Preferably a immobile crouch like in Persistent World Mod. As soon as you move again your character will stand up again.

You should be able to play conquest/skirmish whenever you want like it used to be, you shouldn't need to arrange a battle and wait two years for it to possibly begin