inja gharar nemigirad . inja...inja...gharar nemigirad sarvaram

Stronghold has been a staple part of my gaming library ever since I was a kid. I have played hundreds if not thousands of hours on stronghold 2 back in the day. I don't have a lot of time to play games due to my responsibilities, but I thoroughly enjoy my time with this game.

I like the setting, campaigns and factions. I really enjoy the 3D versions of the stronghold games. I like the economy systems and the influence mechanic for interacting with different warlords in different sections of the maps. It creates some interesting interactions and allows your focus to grow across the map once your settlements are established and running. Stronghold to this day keeps me as a loyal player as no other game strikes the balance of city manager, base builder, and RTS game that keeps me coming back for more. This game play experience is the biggest factor in what keeps me coming back to playing Stronghold.

There are some things I think could be improved thematically. It is confusing how each faction is very similar. While this isn't unique as specifically in stronghold 2 all of the units were the same and you could recruit various faction warriors from the mercenary tent, it feels like it would have made the game much more polished. It sort of ruins my immersion when I have mongol horse archers fighting with Samurai, while I have pike men from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam regions. The same with all economic buildings. For a game that came out in 2021, I would expect a wider verity as we often see in similar games.

Graphically, from a distance it looks fantastic, but when you zoom in on specifically the human models, it certainly seems dated. I don't zoom in too much so it isn't a big deal but it is worth noting.

Game play wise, my biggest issue is the vast difference in the character moving speeds. Again, this isn't new for veterans of the Stronghold franchise, but to me it seems the most different with this game. The values may be identical, but maybe the size of the maps and units combined just makes the movement differences much more noticeable.

While this game isn't perfect, it is nostalgic enough that I get that same feeling when I was young, but has enough unique style and gameplay where it doesn't feel like I am just replaying the same game. With its faults, for me it is an enjoyable experience. I am hoping in any future projects stronghold can improve upon what they do best and fix the small things to really make it a major player in the RTS genre like it was before.

A mixed rating/verdict. It could be so much more... it got only nice visuals going for it... the rest is sadly mediocre and unpolished, no matter how much you sugarcoat it...