Stronghold Demo!

[mactbone]

I downloaded the Stronghold demo and I gotta say, Lords of the Realm has some competition! Only problem I see is that it's definitely more of an Ago of X game. You don't have multiple counties or anything and the scope is small, but the warfare is AWESOME! Not every unit was available in the demo, butt he enemy macemen, archers, catapaults, and ladder guys (which were unbelievably cool) along with spearmen who could fill in the moat. On defense you could set archers next to braziers (flaming torch thingies on your castle) and they would shoot fire arrows. You also started with a mangonel on one of your towers. They also spearmen who would run around on the wall pushing ladders of the wall. IT WAS COOL! They had pitch, but I could never light it on fire, so it sucked. They're also supposed to have siege towers which will be even cooler.

[tishco]

i agree with the pitch, the archer fired arrows at it half of the time!

[Rex Little]

There was a game called Stronghold from (IIRC) SSI several years ago; sort of a D&D-based city-building exercise, with some combat. Is this an update of that game, or something completely unrelated?

[November Adam]

Thanks for the heads up about the demo. Just dowloaded and took a quick look. Very nice.

I tried to find the system requirements for the game as my computer at home isn't as good as my one at the office. Any one have any ideas? I checked out the home site but can't seem to find anything.

Thanks

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by Rex Little
There was a game called Stronghold from (IIRC) SSI several years ago; sort of a D&D-based city-building exercise, with some combat. Is this an update of that game, or something completely unrelated?

Unrelated. This is more an updated "Castles" game with economics thrown in.

Any reviews out there of the full released game? I'm very interested in the game as I loved Castles, but don't want to buy a lemon

[mactbone]

My post is just a little incoherent. Nonetheless, has ANYONE set their pitch on fire yet? I just make a big pile of it near where the enemy always pops up, then when they stand there for a while, the archers faint. It's pretty funny.

[November Adam]

I've played the demo a couple of times and I'm a little disgusted that the enemies soldiers can march around walls that are filling a canyon mouth. They just scrample up the cliff face and walk around.

Otherwise this is a really fun game, and one I think I'll have to buy.

[Grumbold]

I have played the full game and found it entertaining but not one to long hold my attention. I'm a fan of strategy and accuracy over real time arcade stuff. This is very much a castle-based RTS, not a real attempt at historical siege warfare. The enemy can be battering your western gates while you are instantly building castle towers and walls in the east outside the 'no build allowed near a fight' zone. Random events like fires are instant holocausts. One fire arrow can set a whole area alight like a napalm bomb, including several people who will run around igniting anything else they touch. Bucket brigades are far too slow to combat fire spread (and half the time the peasants get burned instead because they walk into fires rather than around them!

The AI is very stupid at times. Build a castle so that it has an open gap in one corner and they will march through hailstorms of arrows to get to it rather than scale the nearest wall to reach the archers on the battlements. The difficulty level comes from the limited building time you get between enemy waves, not their skill. After 12 episodes of the military campaign I can say each map is developed with one particular strategy in mind and there has as yet been no opportunity to use the more imaginative types of troops or castle parts. Just walls, towers, archers and pikes. Shoot the enemy until they run away then rebuild any farms they torched. Repeat. The economic campaign is largely the same except the enemy waves are smaller and the victory comes from producing goods, not surviving an end of level attack.

The PvP attacks may turn out to be fun for RTS fans. The napalm arrows killed that for me instantly since they are deadlier than siege machines and utterly ahistorical.