Stronghold HD

I really enjoyed this game, it's combines features of city building games (think Caeser III or Pharaoah) with RTS elements, and has some really fun defensive fortress building features that few other games have. Unlike traditional RTSes, there is no skirmish gameplay in single player (There is skirmishes in the follow-up Stronghold Crusader, which I highly recommend, and is actually a refined and vastly improved version of the this game). A little aspect that makes this game really enjoubale to play is how "alive" the towns feel with the animations of your peasants as they go about their work. The main military campaign is really like an extended tutorial. You are basically either defending a position against several waves of timed enemy attacks, OR a few attack missions where you have to siege the enemy fortress and kill their lord. The majority of campaign missions are defensive, and you will be building up your resources, growing your population and recruiting troops. You can build towers, walls, moats, and place your archers along these defensive posts. Your melee troops are more for a last line of defense if your walls get breached. The real fun begins when you get access to pitch, and can set fields of pitch on fire, burning entire squadrons of enemies as they rush towards your walls. The attack missions are some of the toughest in the main campaign,but you only get a fixed number of starting troops and no resources to manage. In additions to the military campaign, there is also a short economic campaign, which is basically timed objectives that have you racing to get resources. there are a few attackers so you can't completely neglect defenses, but the real struggle will be random events, like plagues, crop failures, and fires. This aspect makes the game feel more like a city builder/management. If you like medieval themed games, and a relaxing base building game this is for you. If you want a more RTS style game, get Stronghold Crusader.

Stronghold is an excellent 2D strategy, pure an easy to learn, though very deep and exciting. I like playing economy and defense campaign because I am not good at siege at all. Visually the game is simple the colours and effect very middle ageish. The interface plain and simple too, but there is a tutorial too. My favourite is the soundtrack, and voices in game. There are perfect! Now that I played through the game several times, I think the first 2-3 military mission, should be more challenging, since there is not many campaign. But after that you can prove your skills. I like this game because the fact is 2D and you can play only with a mouse and have a drink or something. I dont like messing with camera angles in 3D! After many blabla just play it! :)

Stronghold is a mixture of the simulation and tower defense genres. This actually really helps both, as simulations don't tend to have a very strong demand for immediate response, making many of them a bit slow paced. Tower defense games are always a bit repetitive and tend to boil down to only a couple core strategies. Stronghold combines the concepts into one game where each covers the other's weaknesses quite well. Just when you feel the monotony of the sim style castle building set in, here comes an approaching army to keep you on your toes. And while the sieges would get tiresome and annoying as the best responses are usually pretty obvious, the way the simulation part restricts your resources creates an interesting challenge for supporting your plan forcing you to make compromises. It's not the best game on this site, but if you like building clever defenses, and enjoy interesting challenges, Sronghold is for you.

To be clear, I really like the game, but I got to a point where the lack of shortcut keys made the game a chore, if not impossible to play. The inability to group units or quickly switch focus to a particular building makes the game just unenjoyable. I have tried with both the GOG Mac version and the GOG Windows version through Porting Kit, and no dice.

I cannot believe how much enjoyment I have gotten out of this game. I am halfway through the campaign and things are still being unlocked. The game has found a good middle ground between frustratingly difficult and childishly simple. It is addicting and permits a lot of creative control. It seems like it will have great replayability.