Pros:

Interesting castle management system

Exciting siege warfare

Diverse selection of medieval technology and units

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gameplay

 

 

 

 

There are two basic types of campaigns: economic and military. The economic system consists of both primary and secondary producers. The former are your hunters, farmers (wheat, apples, hops, etc.) , ranchers and miners (stone and iron). These units collect or harvest raw resources and deliver them to the storehouse (some are delivered straight to the granary when no processing is required). If some of these resources need to be  processed, then you need to build secondary producers too (Windmills, bakeries, weaponsmiths, armourers,etc.). For example, I still remember is the scene where a wheat farmer delivers his crop, upon which it is collected by the miller and tuned into flour, and finally this is used by the baker to produce bread. 

 

Needless to say, in my personal opinion, this was a mindblowing experience and I was thoroughly impressed. Honestly, I don’t think anything has come even close to that sort of micromanagement.  

 

It is also important to note that the game requires players to constantly balance different gameplay elements to ensure stability in the kingdom. Importantly, players have to keep peasants happy or else they begin to leave the kingdom. This in turn means more buildings become idle and a recruitment base for soldiers dries up, which in turn starts a dangerous vicious cycle of low economic output and lower military turnout.

 

There are plenty of ways to keep peasants happy including reducing tax rates, increasing rations, building churches, ale houses, etc. However, in most times, the challenge is to keep them only marginally happy enough to stay. The happier the peasants the more will arrive in the kingdom (capped based on the  number of hovels a player builds). 

 

Even in purely economic campaigns, there is the occasional group of bandits ravaging the kingdom, a plague that must be suppressed with the help of apothecaries, and random fires that can destroy valuable buildings if there aren’t enough wells around the city. These extra features make the game very interesting.

 

Castle building was also an important element of the game. Players had numerous design options based on the available materials. The design interface wasn’t very smooth, which in turn led to a lot of frustration when building defences. However, it was still quite a bit of fun when building from scratch. Throughout the campaign and standalone players, there are numerous instances where players are called on to repair and maintain castle defences before another wave of hostiles try to storm the castle. 

 

 

Single-player campaign 

 

 

 

 

The single player campaign isn’t exactly amazing. Players assume the role of a prince who sets out to reclaim his father’s kingdom from the men who betrayed him and split the kingdom amongst themselves: the Snake, the Pig, the Rat and the Wolf. Each opponent is colourful in his own way but the AI remains pretty much the same and combat requirements hardly change. 

 

Unfortunately, while the campaign itself was quite interesting, it wasn’t properly distributed in terms of technology and unit creation options. So you start of the game with a few archers but somewhere in the middle suddenly you are overwhelmed with technology and military options. Hence, the first few missions of the campaign feel more like a tutorial. Another glaring flaw in the whole combat system was the unit management interface, it was difficult to intelligently group and manage large number of troops in battle.

 

As a result players most often found themselves managing small groups individually. This is something that would seem ridiculous for anyone who has played Rome Total War or other RTS games. The campaign itself was quite a lot of fun, with opponents taunting the player and every now and then random events either weakening or bolstering your position during the campaign. Either way, the narration itself was quite entertaining.

 

 

Single missions - Castle siege or defence

 

 

 

Apart from the main campaign, there were number of solo missions that involve either attacking or defending a particular castle. Players could select the composition of troops (the total number was limited) and launch devastating attacks on the AI. At first it almost seems impossible with all the traps, moats, oil pits, and other castle defences. However, once you learn to bait the AI and intelligently match the attacking troops to the defending troops (e.g., using archers and crossbowmen to take out defending archers)  winning becomes easy. 

 

Watching hundreds of units storm a castle while one layer of defence fell after the other, was thrilling to watch. In fact, if you were defending the castle there was not much to do after arranging your defences and beginning the battle. So it was like watching mini castle-seige movie. Apart from this there were other stand alone missions, where players could build to their heart’s content. 

 

 

Audio & Visuals

 

 

 

 

The audio and visuals of the game really complement the gameplay and stand alone mission and the general theme of the game. The music almost sounds folky and reminiscent of music from the Tudors (tv series) or other medieval movies.  The visual design wasn’t stunning and mostly resembled something like AOE. However, the animations, voice acting and other minor elements were extremely well done and really gave the game some sort of character.

 

 

Conclusion

 

At the time of its release, Stronghold was probably one of the best castle siege simulators available. Moreover, the amazing micromanagement of economic and military resources was both interesting to watch and fun to manage. The only real drawbacks were in terms of the user interface, combat systems and the miserable AI.

 

However, this still ranks amongst my favourites because it managed to really open my eyes into RTS style micromanagement and really pushed my general appreciation towards gaming in the direction of TBS and RTS style games. If any of you get a sudden urge to try out a few vintage RTS hits, then Stronghold might be the best place to start.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Navam Niles