Stronghold is both a real-time combat game that focuses entirely on castle sieges and a village-management simulation in the vein of Zeus or The Settlers. The subject matter alone gives Stronghold a leg up. It’s been years since a game let you pour boiling oil on invading hordes, and Stronghold simulates castle sieges well enough to recommend it to those who are interested in the premise. But it’s a hesitant recommendation, due to a poor interface and mediocre campaigns.There are two campaigns, one military and one economic. The economic campaign is made up of a handful of timed missions in which you must acquire a certain target amount of goods or gold. Occasional threats in the form of bandits and animals will require you to maintain a basic militia, but the mission goals are always economic. This campaign only serves to highlight the fact that as a management simulation, the game is pretty shallow. You build woodcutters, farmers, and miners, and the goods are brought to your storehouse. You build secondary producers, who use these goods to produce weapons and food.
You must also ensure you have enough food to keep your people happy and enough gold to hire soldiers. Since taxing your people makes them unhappy, and unhappy people will leave your kingdom, you must also find ways to keep your popularity high. This can be done by providing them with extra food, churches, or alehouses. Keeping your people happy is relatively unchallenging, although it seems complicated in theory. Most of the time, providing more food will be all you need to do, and the rest is unnecessary.
System requirements:
Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000 -
CPU 200 MHz (550+ preferred) -
RAM 64 Mb – HDD 750Mb -
Video 4Mb DirectX 7.0
Compatible SOUND:
DirectX 7.0 Compatible -
CD-ROM 8x Speed -
Modem 56k (For Internet Play)
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