Stronghold Crusader HD

One of the greatest realtime strategy games I've ever played. The game plays in one of two ways: a peaceful building sim and a warring strategy campaign. It has an easy interface that doesn't get too cumbersome. You can alter taxes and society to make your soldiers either stronger or weaker. The game doesn't have a large learning curve, and the battles are almost limitless as you can play large maps with several A.I. players. Even enemies and allies have their own personalities. On top of all the pros, this game has an absolutely amazing atmosphere and soundtrack.

I first played the original Stronghold when it was released in 2001 and I absolutely loved it. The beautifully blended Sim/RTS style gameplay, the wonderfully immersive and the tongue-in-cheek English humor gave it instant charm. I played it religiously until it's successor (Crusader) came along and was blown away by the hours of fun to be had in the new "Crusader Mode", let alone the Crusader Trails, Historical/Economic Campaigns and Free Build mode. Here we are 11 years later and I still play the game, it's graphics have aged surprisingly well in not being an eyesore despite their dated appearance. The gameplay is a lot of fun and ESPECIALLY so when you LAN it. I can't recommend any game higher than this one, it's just remarkable.

I have had problem after problem with this download. I have checked all the support sites, but have had no success. I had to re-download the game four times before it was successfully installed and after that the game worked for one day then stopped starting up and after going around in circles looking for the problem, I was forced to re-download it for a fifth time. I am waiting for it to finish now to see if it will even work. I enjoyed the game while it was working.

Stronghold Crusader is alike the original in all respects bar the pace, which for me entirely ruins the game for me. I enjoy the pressure of having to build up your economy and military and balance the two, but to be doing so when the enemy is so close is just dumb. Strike that, it was only fun for the first 3 missions, and even then there was no true challenge, only a rush at the start and a need to use brute force to win out against the never-ending fire-pits

wine-5.18 (Staging) The original one (non HD) I secretly installed on school IT class computers, and there were some very delighted nerds about it. It is really good RTS especially in LAN parties. works fine with fullHD resolution.