Stronghold HD

Playing Stronghold is like watching sieges in movies : attacking soldiers charging towards the ramparts and getting shot ful of holes, catapults blasting gaps in the walls, towers crashing down and furious troops storming breaches in the walls or scaling ladders to cut down the archers on the battlements. Unfortunately, it's usually your castle being besieged :) Gamers expecting a more combat-focused game might be slightly disappointed to find that withstanding sieges successfully in Stronghold involves more than simply building strong fortifications and raising an army of archers and crossbowmen to make pincushions out of anyone reckless enough to appear within range of the walls. As most missions usually devolve into battles of attrition where the invader throws waves of troops at your castle (or what's left of it) during each successive siege to attempt to overwhelm your ability and resources to both repair the walls and replace the troops killed, Stronghold can be thought as more as a economic simulation with a military veneer add some excitement and urgency to the town management :) Higher level troops like the heavily-armoured swordsmen are prohibitively expensive in resources and gold to replace and a well-oiled economy makes recovery after repulsing each assault much, much easier. And frankly speaking, there isn't many tactics available to the besieged apart from building towers in mutually supporting positions and stationing enough ranged troops on the battlements and towers. Boiling oil, flaming pitch, spike traps and other nasty surprises for attackers available in the later missions will add some novelty to your defensive arsenal but massed archers and crossbowmen will usually form the mainstay of your defence throughout the game. Nonetheless, The peculiar challenges presented by the terrain and other constraints in each mission of the campaign keeps everything fresh and interesting. On the other hand, missions where you actually besiege an enemy castle are few and far between in the single-player campaign. It isn't exactly a bad thing for me since they can be frsutratingly difficult and puzzle-like. Filling in the moat and breaching walls and other obstacles while under heavy fire from above will kill many of your men - lose too many men and you'll find that taking the keep and killing the enemy lord in the heart of the castle becomes nigh impossible - prompting another restart of the mission. Players who relish such challenges will definitely find the Siege scenarios attacking or defending a historical castle very interesting :) Despite its age, Stronghold is still an immensely engrossing and addictive game. Units are wonderfully animated, voice acting is excellent and the in-mission music and overall atmosphere draw you in and make you feel like you're there in the Middle Ages. The sounds of arrows whistling through the air and then impacting on flesh with dull thuds or the winding of crossbows being reloaded after scoring hits on those damn swordsmen never get old either :)

Stronghold was possibly my first city-building game, and the level of strategy within was enough to be both casual and still appeal to someone who isn't into RTS. So imagine my surprise when I found myself playing this game for months, never getting bored of it, always entertained with a smile on my face. Stronghold holds a lot of great gaming memories for me, and I look forward to getting back into it, thanks to GOG.

Medieval Castle life at its best. A king captured, a land divided and you along with your trusted advisors are the realm's only hope. Place your keep, gather your food, build your walls and train your troops because beyond your borders an alliance of cunning lords are rallying their forces against you. Whilst thou prevail or whilst thine walls crumble to the glutinous duc truffe? Stronghold offers a flawless mesh of castle industry and military battles. Keep your peasants happy with ale, food, religion and dancing bears or pump the gold out of them with high taxes and strike fear in them with the hangman's noose. It's all up to you. Train archers and crossbowmen to fend off the advancing hordes and sally forth from the keep with knights and maceman to bring hurt upon your foes. Make use of traps like killing pits and the river of fire to weaken ennemies before they arrive at the gate. Graphics: 9/10 Nothing special by today's standards but it still looks great. Leaves shake, fire roars, arrows fly and massive armies advance with ease. Sound: 9/10 Great Character voices especially during the mission briefing. Peasants speak in charming old english accents. Medieval Ambience music is primarily what you'll be hearing until the enemy arrives which changes to more dramatic and fast paced music. Gameplay: 10/10 Fabulous campaign which introduces everything at a brilliant pace allowing players to perfect the use of certain buildings anf troops before being shown something new. Campaign has over 20 missions with varying difficulty. Lots of defense/attack missions involving historical castles and a whole campaign devoted to economics. Replayability: 9/10 With difficulty ranging from easy to very hard, missions can be played over and over again without seeming repetitive. Challenges can always be tackled in different ways allowing for a different style each time. Overall Score: 9.5/10 This was my very first RTS and by far my favorite PC game of all time. I've since played stronghold crusader, stronghold 2 and stronghold legends but none of them can compare to the original. I hope you enjoy this game as much as I do. "Ah sire, the barbarians are approaching!"

Stronghold the First is my definitive version for castle building ^-^ /, I mean, just check out the cute bunnies you find on the map! alrite TBH the original stronghold is just very very cheerful. Rolling hills, trees which sway gently in the breeze, the rivers which lazily flows across a valley and streams which cuts its way through a gulley,... I mean its the stuff fairy tales (and imagiontation) are made of. first time i discovered that the COWS have names was awesome. And u find that everyone is named. And then sometimes you'll catch your peasants doing funny things for no reason, like the woodcutter who went on a bunny rampage. ( I think he confused 'em with the actually Dangerous animals in the game like wolves/bear). Oh and have I mentioned the soundtrack? It is most soothing and make the game That much better. Anyways long story short Stronghold is one cool castle simulation. I give it 5. Why? Because it is fun. Isn't that why you play games? (Buy it! Play it! and Enjoy the trip!)

Very simply, this game doesn't have a great deal of longevity. I got bored with it quite quickly. The quests seem to be all based around 1 of 2 scenarios. Take your time, build up a city, but make sure you have super strong defences, or survive as best you can, without much infrastructure. The latter in particular are annoying in that you either nail the scenario very easily, or it's bordering on impossible (some of them you can get stuck on for quite a long time only to feel like you've fluked it when you finally win).