Stronghold Crusader 2

I have no idea how Firefly can ask $30 for this. It's basicaly a demo with very short campaings that just feel like scenarios. MInimum acting, minimal story. I suggest buying this only in discount. Stronghold 2 was hard, but quite decent. Had story driven campaing and very good relaxing econominc campaing. This game has none of these, you have to buy DLCs to actually play something. This is EA style ripoff. About the game, they simplified some Castle management stuff to the point of things being boring. Everything costs lot of wood. Combat has some new units but the removed ladderman, making sieges and campaign boring as you have to always break down the walls with soldiers or siege machines. They have picka-axes and even the basic soldiers do solid wall damage. You'll have more fun with the old Stronghold Crusader HD.

I liked it. Really short summary would be: Stronghold Crusader with better UI. Found it having the same general vibe as the first game. Fix your economy, build walls and charge the enemies. The game have a more "easy to learn, hard to master" design going on, and the AI is quite good at extending games. Pros: UI - It's really easy to find the current status of your city, keep track of resources, auto sell / buy etc. Rally Points - Really missed this one in the first game. Combat - It feels easier somehow. Still a lot of macro / micro manage of troops, but now more do-able. Cons: Really miss the voice acting for the peasants and ladies. Haven't found a way to re-bind keys. Could've completely missed this one out in the menu, honestly didn't take a full day to go through it all properly. Went for instant game play. Haven't had any crashes or other software related issues yet, but I'll update if that happens.

I cannot begin to reckon the hours I poured into this game during my early teens. Everything is balanced exceptionally well, from maintaining your castle, defending your walls, to laying siege to that bast**** Wolf's castle. The campaign is fun to play through, but as usual with old school RTS games, the longevity lies in the scenarios and skirmishes. During the skirmish or free-play missions, you can completely turn combat off and focus on the castle management aspect, or go the opposite. The Siege missions are one of my favourite, you can tweak the settings to make them a real challenge. Don't think you can bum rush a castle with a load of mounted knights, they will be cut short by the archers and crossbowmen in no time. This is not a modern RTS (i.e. tower defence game with some makeup on), this is a proper RTS, an old-school style RTS where strategy and planning is key. This is a great game! Some prefer the original Stronghold games, or even Stronghold Crusader over the 2nd instalment, myself, I love them all. RTS's were my bag back in the day, and Crusaders II was the only RTS to get more of my time than C&C Generals: Zero Hour.

Some older reviews state that the scenarios in the Crusader Trail were too hard. I think the devs have adressed that because nowadays there are two difficulty levels; normal and easy. I do easy first and then try my luck on normal. I am in the last set of scenarios and indeed two or three of the scenarios were too hard for me at normal so I only finished them on easy. Not such a problem imho. Also some say that the campaign is kinda short @ 11 missions and you have to buy dlc’s; not true because you have to include all the content in the Crusader Trail which adds 24 missions. I clocked more than 100 hours already without any dlcs. Note; always choose “special edition” on GOG because it includes Stronghold Crusader 1 in HD (!!) and the price is the same as the standard edition.

You have to have grew up playing empire earth or American Conquest to enjoy this game. alot of the reviews are from ppl who dont know how to play a RTS game. The only complain i have is they coould have more units variations and adding ships would be cool. {Raise the troop limit and buliding limit aswell}