The Second Age

The Second Age (Age II) is an advanced gameplay world within Stronghold Kingdoms™. Beginning after the Glory Race for a game world reaches its end, this evolution of the world features a faster style of play, new opportunities and fresh challenges. The Second Age is designed to shake up the established order and generate fresh political conflict.

Overview
Once a world completes its Glory race, which occurs when there is only one House remaining, the remaining House will be declared winners and a start date for The Second Age will be announced.

World Reset
Once The Second Age begins, a number of features throughout the game world will be reset to those of a new world. These are:


 * Glory - The Glory Race will be reset and all Houses will be re-introduced to the Glory Race with 0 points.
 * Factions & Houses - All players will be removed from their factions and all factions removed from their Houses, as well as any alliances.
 * Stock Exchanges - All stock exchanges will be cleared of their resources and prices reset.
 * Capital Buildings - All capitals buildings will be deleted and their levels reset. Bonuses from deleted buildings will not remain.
 * Forums - All capital forums will be cleared of all threads and messages.
 * Flags - All capitals will lose their current flags and reset to the default starting number.
 * Leadership - Leaders of all capitals will be cleared and their current votes reset.
 * Gold - All capitals will lose their gold.

NB: Please note that all features of the game world other than those mentioned above will remain as is at the time of the start of the second age. Players will retain all their villages, research, cards, points etc.

Gameplay Changes
A number of core gameplay features to Stronghold Kingdoms™ will be changed to present new opportunities and challenges for both new and veteran players. These are:


 * Increased number of Factions per House - The maximum number of Factions per House is increased from 12 to 20.
 * Increased Troops & Units speed - The speed of all armies and scouts are doubled.
 * Increased costs when using Monks - Interdictions and Excommunications now cost double the amount of Faith Points.
 * Glory tripled - The amount of Glory rewarded to a House for holding Leadership positions is tripled.
 * County Capital influencing - Monks can now be used to influence votes at County Capitals
 * Vote caps - The number of votes for leaders of Counties, Provinces and Countries is now capped at a maximum.
 * Capital Building Bonuses - In the Second Age, once a building is deleted from a capital, the capital does NOT retain the bonus from the upgraded building.

Hall of Heroes
All members of the winning House at the end of the Glory race will have their names recorded in the Hall of Heroes, which can be viewed at strongholdkingdoms.com. This new hall of fame is our way of recording the daring victories of the players, factions and houses who battle against the odds to become the only remaining house in their Glory Race.

The names, coat of arms and factions of faction leaders and officers are highlighted at the very top of the page, with the House Marshal given special treatment. All other players are listed below and sorted by faction.

All members of the winning House at the end of the Glory race will automatically receive 1 ticket for a Wheel spin upon completion of the Glory race. They also receive 5 more tickets for Wheel spins at the beginning of The Second Age.

Please note that winning players with potentially offensive names will be censored or renamed.