tronghold, an absolute classic, has made me realise there is a new niche in exploring my backlog. That being a game or something I have a strong memory and attraction to, but experienced very little of it; only for that feeling to carry through to adulthood and experience the game entirely fresh for the first time while still having a sampling of nostalgia permeate through it. An experience that is somehow both nostalgic and new at the same time. I think the best way to start describing Stronghold is through the charm which is carried by its masterful sprite work – to this day the best I have seen in any game. It all starts in the granary. You have a Stronghold with 10 peasents and a lord standing around a firepit. Place a hunting post and one peasent will pick up a bow, hunt a deer, sling the deer over its shoulder, take it to the hut, skin it, carry the meat and place it in the granary where you can see your stock hanging. Whether it be grain, wood, stone, swords or crossbows – you can see every single item that you would otherwise need a HUD for on the map. The brilliance of the game is seeing these production lines unfold, and every aspect of it being visible to you. The interior of every building is visible to you, as is the blacksmith, fletcher, baker or farmer working inside. The farmer plants, grows and cuts the wheat, carrying it back to the stockpile; the miller takes this and grinds the grains into flour; then the baker will grab a bag, take it to its bakery, flatten the bread, place it in the oven and bake away; finally carrying the stacks of bread back to the granary. Eventually it culminates in a bustling medieval stronghold with dozens of workers going about their day to feed everyone with arches along the battlements of the stone walls that guard your people. No other game I can think of; Banished, Factorio, Frostpunk, Anno, Tropico; as brilliant as those city build sims are; cannot brag that level of detail. Roller Coast Tycoon, Age of Empires or Mythology – they can all be tossed in the bin as far as sprite work goes; because Stronghold deserves that crown.
The charm doesn’t end there. This is an old game and it shows in the difficulty. The campaign is hard and even normal gets intense in the mid-late stages. I lost multiple times and a few stages I’m not ashamed to admit I save scummed. I love that its so challenging. Seeing your Stronghold built up; archers garrisoned, oil pots on the battlements and swordsman/knights ready to counter attack gives a truly satisfying medieval feel. Like you’re on the walls of Gondor, waiting impending doom. Finally a battle tests the strength of your Stronghold, its walls and the production lines in and around it. Anti-siege ballista in the round towers and calvary ready to sortie the enemy siege equipment. Of course being on the other end of the siege is just as awesome. Can’t say I’m quite fond of ladders, diggers or catapaults. But battering rams and siege towers are cool. However it’s the Trebuchte that truly outshines the rest. They outrange arches and if you defend them from sorties then all walls will crumble to dust before you armoured gauntlet. Then once you’re out of stone switch to cows, and spread disease amongst the peasantry.
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| Ah good old counter-sieges... |
Last but not least you have the original story, You are the
son of a Lord, allied to the King but recently killed in battle by The Wolf.
Unproven you must gather your strength, and take back the Kingdom of Britain
from the Rat, Snake, Pig and Wolf; avenging your father and restoring power to
the King. I actually quite enjoyed the story; the cartoony medieval characters
have charisma in their animalistic taunting of you and when you finally corner
them they cower in fear. Lord Woolsack (RIP) and Sir Longarm along with the
bandit lords have well voiced blurbs between missions and the occasional FMV
cutscene always holds up so well for those who are lucky enough to have the nostalgia
for them. As satisfying as it was to finally plunge your sword into The Wolf’s
heart; it would have been even more satisfying if there was a FMV cutscene when
you defeat each of the villains – truly accentuating their character.
Crusader
The first expansion lacks the medieval charm of the first
game; but it is undoubtably the better skirmish game. As far as I’m aware the
first game had no AI skirmish, so that’s a welcome change here. Mercenaries are
a nice addition but it would have been nicer to play without for a classic
experience. Maybe you can turn them off in multiplayer? Also it was jarring at
first, but the sandy tropic scenery, Arabic warriors and holy crusaders do have
their own charm.
After a while the game lost its replayability. They try to
mix it up with different scenarios, but they’re not as good as the Stronghold
campaign, mostly degenerating to 1v3, 2v2; limiting resources between your
enemy via valley floors, etc. Also the meta (at least for AI) of turtle economy >
crossbow on towers and arabian horse archer for mobile defence > knights for
sorties, siege defence and shock troops > spam trebuchet and swordsman gets stale after a while. It
would have been nice if sequels evolved this formula in a significant way;
instead of leaning on 3D. Perhaps more stuff around managing happiness; or
introduce ways to target the enemies (missionaries etc). Add random events,
crime and punishment, spies, and secret police. Expand the economy and
politics, take some inspiration from Civilisation to give it more
replayability. Also anything like this that let you flex your creative sprite skills
would have been better than the atrocious 3D art of Stronghold 2/Legends that
holds up in no way shape or form.
I would love to give this a shot with friends and see what
sieging is like against a human. I really do fear for the granary vs. trebuchet though. It seems an oversight that one stone could wipe out your
entire food source (which I always target against the AI). Letting you
distribute food seems like it would have been a better design choice.
Extreme
Not much to say here. It’s basically a tower defence game,
not Stronghold. Everything is sped up and 10x. Consistent lines of enemies
while your archers in your Stronghold mow them down. As you work to gain more
resources, troops and better defence/offence.
Legends
I actually owned this game before I decided to go and buy the whole original saga. This game is to Stronghold 2 as Age of Mythology is to AOE2 (make a god damn AoM remake AND sequel already please). I tried campaign and skirmish and the first thing that hits you in the face is just how ugly the 3D visuals are. Sprites hold up infinitely better. Beyond that there are no longer any gardens or evil items for happiness. You would think switching to 3D would allow you to ramp up visual entities; quantity over quality and all that. But nope, not in this instance. Maybe they’re in SH2 and they neglected them to focus on mythological creatures but even so that’s a hugely missed opportunity. The factions essentially boil into saxon/viking, Britannia and forces of darkness/vampires. Where are the gallows and public torture for vampires or the ritual sacrifice for Vikings? Also food sources are all the same – missed opportunity for human farms, etc. Maybe they were going for a PG rating but playing Dungeon Keeper and other dark action RPGs growing up it just doesn’t compare.
Speaking of, the myth units aren’t on par with Age of Mythology. Most are pretty generic but some are cool like the kamikaze demon bats, giants or shock troop blood hound dogs and werewolf combo – go Wolf Pack! I would have liked this as a kid if I hadn’t played Stronghold 1, but I also liked Warlords Battlecry III and that game does not hold up. I’d put Stronghold next to AoE, while this is comparative to Warlords Battlecry III. That being said I do like that the myth units goes in a different direction. Knight of the Round Table for King Arthur is cool; getting Lancelot and Belvedere when others get dragons and giants is an interesting asymmetry. On the other hand Dragons are pretty disappointing. Sure they’re powerful but they die pretty easily and when they do its just an anticlimactic poof – that’s not satisfying for you or the dragon slayer. I want blood, guts and raining down in a firey mess so Lancelot can stand over his prize. It’s a shame you can only have one at a time considering they die so easily; meanwhile giants can be spammed to shit.
Beyond that game is just plagued with jank and feels budget AF. There is always a square
map with nothing much to it; it reminds me of a modded map or unity game – not
an official hand crafted one by a skilled developer. Everything feels poorly
implemented, its difficult to target anything especially when using siege
weapons; the hitboxes to select are garbage and so its impossible to target buildings.
Pathfinding is garbage so you if you’re not in range you just can’t target it.
So keep guessing until you’re in range! How was this such a huge step back from
Stronghold which was just easy? Only AI can build siege camps so have fun
watching a catapult roll across the map and when you take enemy estate you
can’t build on them. What is that, just why? I’ll stick to my Stronghold HD and Crusader thanks,
this one is a BIG dissapointing skip.
Warlords (Demo)
Wasn’t sure what to expect about this one considering all the negative reviews. Also as much as I love the oriental setting (Shogun 2 is my favourite non-Warhammer Total War game) it feels off-brand. Medieval is as much a part of the Stronghold brand as it is with Age of Empires. I have to say though I’m not sure what all the negative reviews are about as I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can see how being constricted to your stronghold for building would upset purists; but I can see both sides – some will see it as restrictive where I felt it added an extra layer of strategy when it comes to managing your Stronghold. Maybe they could have had both as modes? Units are cool. Militiaman, gunpowder and cannons make up the bulk of a force. But having a limited selection of elite units such as Samurai, Naginata, Lance Calvary, Monks and Naginata with special abilities are cool. Throw in some Ninja to stealth, scale walls and assassinate like the Syrian assassins from Crusader and you have an awesome roster of units. Generals now have a buff mechanic which is cool; especially for lancers who can charge infantry and horse archers for devastating mobile effect. Although I do miss my sprites, I did feel like the art style has a good compromise between the sprites and 3D with its water colour style. Especially considering the setting which is reminiscent of Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. I can say now with some distance from the game, it doesn’t have the same draw as Stronghold. I consistently want a match of Crusader every few weeks, the draw is there. Maybe it’s the fact that the setting doesn’t feel Stronghold; or it’s the absent pixels or something else I’m not considering but it’s missing that X factor that makes me want to pull the trigger and buy this one.
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