Recent reviews by DeviousMevius

My soldiers became giant walking meatballs and all my archers are blind 10/10

Stronghold Kingdoms is a RTS game that takes place in several medieval areas you can choose to play on, these include The British Isles, Poland, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, Turkey and even 2 areas based on North and Sourth American maps, all these maps support the language in which the map takes place in. The game derived from the original game called Stronghold Crusaders and its supposed to be its online version basically but are almost completely different from each other so don't expect to see aspects of Stronghold Crusaders implemented in this game.

At the start of the game ( it's a very slow paced game at the start ) you're given a single village which you have to build up to become stronger and eventually take more villages, research is also very vital to the game and so is making friends and a healthy community within a parish. A parish is an area in which a specific number of players have spawned and from them one player will take command of parish as the steward and build the parish up too to give all the villages within the parish a boost to the things the steward of the parish builds such as production of raw materials. The larger versions of the parish are the county ( in which many many parishes will be located in ) province ( in which several county will be in ) and finally the country ( again in which several provinces will take place in ), each of them have a "owner" so to say and work the same as the smaller parishes but on a huger scale.

Castles are also a very important part of the game, the castle is basically the thing keeping your enemies at bay from destroying your village and is the only line of defense you have against enemy armies. Like villages, castles also have to be built up with walls and towers and moat. You can own up to 40 villages and so 40 castles but this is very well into the game and you've would have to give it your everything.

As important as Castles and defense are, attacking might as well play a great role in your survival, you are given 6 different units, Peasants, Archers, Pikemen, Swordsmen, Catapaults and Captains. You can use them all to attack and achieve fame as a fearesome attacker by everyone around you.

The game really does give off a medieval vibe because firsty you're given a meager messaging system and these messages really don't get around very well resulting in confusion, fighting, and WAR sometimes as medieval worlds would've been. Archers, Swordsmen, Catapaults, Casltes are all very medieval-like too. Some of the players you meet might even use old speak of the sort and it does turn the game into a little more role-playing in the community sense even.

The most fantistic thing I found about this game is its political system, be it between players or whole alliances, this game excels in the political system in a very special way. This is because there is NO system AT ALL apart from the several color-coded you can join to represent your claim or authority. The system is made by the players of the game where they craft mighty alliances and stage bloody wars against their enemies, or maybe even betrayals that sometimes lead to civil wars. The politics in the game are optional of course to everyone and everyone can just choose to ignore it and be on their way of getting tons of villages and points without having to give a single c*** about it really. I found the fun in the politics of the game rather than the actual building of empires, the level of political backstabs and betrayals ( between alliances and even within alliances ) are just soo high. I see Kings ( and Queens, if its a female owner ) wage war simply because they wanted more land or because they didn't like each other at all. The politics is something I recommend getting into for a little more fun but its always optional.

This game is not for the people who are afraid to lose or be dispossessed of their power, authority, and well... possessions in-game. This is game where about 99.9% of you will definitely "lose" something and feel the sadness of losing a village you have invested hundreds of hours into, lose a position high above everyone else when the lower ranked players decide they've had enough of your s*** and overthrow you like the scum you are, and sometimes a friend. Your empire can crumble in a single night as you sleep soundly. That is not the end for you though, you can always rebuild everything and rise again but though it might take some serious will to rebuild what you've lost.

I've almost reached a total of 2000 hours of gameplay on this game alone, and these 2000 hours will not be forgotten so easily. The 2000 hours i've invested into this game was well worth it and i'm striving for the top of the charts on some of its worlds already with my friends either coming with me or going down with the others. Through my time on the game, I've been to times of frustration, anger, and misery but its payed off because im at a very high level in the game now. Right now, we're in the middle of a very harsh civil war where I actually have to see some of my best friends just disappear from the map and armies just marching across the borders like crazy and the number of players being slaughtered is already at a staggering amount. Not to mention, A THIRD joined in and now 3 houses fight for control of provinces and countries alike. It's bloody, it's FUN and addictive!