A few months ago, GQman sent me a link to a game development house I'd never heard of before.. Firefly Studios.... He was all cranked up and excited about a new game they had in development, Stronghold. "It's just like the old Castles game!" he cried, with nostalgic tears in his eyes. So natually I had to go take a look..... And it's not bad.. Not bad atall!

Backstory/Plot

As the the game starts, the King has been captured and is being held for ransom. Your father has been treacherously slain by upstart lords, who have split up the Kingdom and taken it for their own. Driven into hiding you hook up with two of the lords still loyal to the King and stage a rebellion. You must topple the upstart Lords one by one, build an army and supporting castles and win back the Kingdom. (Standard medeival fare really.)

Gameplay

Stronghold is basically a traditional Real Time Strategy game, played from an isometric "Diablo" type view. Build your base, amass resources, build troops, kick the crap out of the enemy. (Well, that's the PLAN anyhows. Whether or not it works out that way is up to your meager skills.)

As you take over counties and defeat the enemy's troops in that area you gain influance, supporters, technology and gear and move onto the next level. You start with the ability to make only humble archers and villages, but move onto crossbowmen, knights and soaring castles.

As you move through the levels, you collect a wide variety of resources. Unlike most RTSs where you have two or three this time around you've got many, broken down into subcategories. Foods include things like bread, meat and cheese. Building materials include wood, stone and iron. (Also used for various units and their weapons.) There are a variety of steps to go through when collecting your supplies and materials as well. For instance you can build a wheat farm, the most efficiant food production facilitaty known to man before the invention of the 7-11. The only problem is that the farmer takes the weat to your town square where... it sits... Unill you create a mill. The mill converts the raw wheat into flour... Which sits.. Until you build a baker.... Who makes the flour into bread and drops it into your granary. The game tends to have quite a bit of micromanagment of this sort, which normally annoys the hell out of me. In Stronghold however, I really don't mind it.... Another than the fact that it does give the game a slightly higher learning curve, which may scare more casual gamers off or discourage them early on.

In order to build up your base and fend off the enemy hordes, you're going to have to gain skills at not only collecting and using various supplies, but also keeping your people happy. As your popularity rises, people come to your castle and become your minions, doing your bidding. They also pay taxes, although the little ingrates always seem to whine about it. Peasents will farm, hunt, build things for you, and become members of your army. As long as you keep your popularity up you'll do great. Regretably sometimes even if you're not torturing the rabble, or putting up bad things. (Heh. Gibbets, heads on spikes, and racks can decorate your realm if you happen to be the sort of ruler who likes fear more than gold in his coffers.) the little bastards you rule can decide to not like you very much (An attack that you don't fight off quickly is VERY bad for morale for instance.) and will start to leave. Regretably this means that your buildings start to be unmanned, which puts you even deeper in the hole... *sigh* You can always start handing out more food, or reducing taxes... Or hell, even giving the peasants money to come to your castle. As Mel Brooks put it "The peasants are revolting.... Yes.. Yes they are."

Not all of the levels are the straight build and fight scenarios we're used to in RTS games. You'll also be scouting, attaempting to capture an enemy castle or acomplishing other goals. Inevitably however, the vast majority of the levels come down to building up a fortification, keeping your people happy (or in fear of you!) and fighting off progressively harder waves of enemy troops untill the final big battle with the evil bastards. Fail, and it's time to load, or play the level again from scratch. Absolutely no branching in the story with this one folks. (Is anyone else getting sick of linear games? I am!)

There are different types of game play in both single and multiplayer. You can play in two different modes: military (Yay!) and economic one. The combat style of play allows you to play a 21 mission campaign, launch a multiplayer game, an invasion (skirmish basically.) or a siege mission, where you must defend a historical castle against attackers. (No managment here, just pure combat.)

In the economic mode you have the options to play the economic campaign (Set immediately after the combat campaign.) where you must rebuild your kingdom, a single mission, or a free build mode. Free build rocks! No enemies, no goals. Just build and build and build some more.