Strong Hold

 

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Gameplay

In Stronghold, the player takes the role of a lord in a kingdom. The goal is to create a stable economy and a strong military to defend against invaders, destroy enemy castles and accomplish the mission objectives.

Stronghold contains several modes of gameplay, with both combat based and economic missions. The main game mode is the military campaign, which is based upon a map of England. The backstory to the campaign begins when the King invades a barbarian enemy, where the King is captured and held for ransom. Four Lords take control of the Kingdom, dividing it into their personal territories. The player is represented by a young, inexperienced commander, whose father is killed in an ambush by one of the villains, helped by two lords remaining loyal to the king. The player then has to regain control of the Kingdom, re-gaining control of one county each mission. The player has to defeat each of the four Lords in the campaign, receiving help from the King once he has been successfully ransomed mid-game. An economic campaign is set after the main campaign, where the player re-constructs parts of the Kingdom. The player is set goals to complete against a variety of obstacles, such as bandits and fire.

Other game modes are one-mission combat and economic scenarios, where the player has to complete either military or economic goals. A Siege mode is included in the game, where the player may attack or defend several historical castles. Free build mode is another game mode; here the player has the option of building a castle without any objectives. More scenarios can be created for the game using the built-in map editor.

Features

In order to survive, the player is required to construct a castle, build the individual buildings, and build castle walls and towers. The player is also left to determine which buildings are vital and which can be left outside the castle (worst case scenario) to be destroyed in the event of an attack. There are also options to create soldiers to defend the castle, and to eventually attack and defeat an enemy.

In order to create a stable economy and gather resources, the player is required to maintain a positive popularity level with his peasants; failure to do so will result in peasants leaving the castle and subsequent economic collapse. Housing is required to attract new people and house the current population. Having too many houses can result in too many peasants to feed, which ultimately leads to the collapse of the stronghold.

There is a limited amount of peasants the player can have at one time, directly proportional to the amount of housing. The player continue to produce peasants at a rate proportional to popularity - a negative popularity results in people leaving, while a positive popularity results in new people coming. By association, the actual rate of incoming people is directly affected by how popular the player is: a high popularity results in new peasants pouring in, while a lower (but still liked) popularity results in new peasants at a slower speed.

Popularity can be maintained by keeping adequate housing, keeping low taxes, setting high food rations, having a supply of ale and encouraging religion. Popularity can also be affected by the creation of structures to inspire fear or love: facilities of torture and execution will increase worker efficiency but reduce popularity and military units' effectiveness, presumably due to bad morale, with the inverse being happy facilities: parks, statues, and shrines will increase popularity and combat effectiveness, but reduce worker efficiency.

The game differs from many other similar games as the player is required to process and refine raw resources through a number of facilities before they can be used for a certain purpose. To create an army, a player must not only have free peasants, but must process the resources required for their weapons through appropriate workshops, rather than simply spend the resources required at a barracks. For example, some resources, like wood, require only a peasant to chop down a tree and turn the logs into lumber. The lumber can subsequently be used for buildings, or can be taken to a military workshop to be refined into a bow.

Combat

Stronghold does not use a conventional RPS, instead opting for a "soft-counter" system.

Combat in Stronghold is based on a strength and hit point system. There are a variety of unit types in the game, with each successive unit being stronger, and hence more expensive, than the preceding unit. Even though the expensive units are stronger in combat, all units have abilities that are necessary to defend the castle, both melee units (such as the basic spearman and the stronger swordsman), and ranged units such as archers. The game also contains support troops such as engineers, who provide additional combat options like constructing siege engines. Unlike other strategy games there are no counters for units, and units do not take up space, allowing them to overlap each other. Several non-combat characters can fight against enemy units, although most have no ability to fight. Injured soldiers remain injured for the rest of the game, there is no healing system.

Fire

Fire plays a main role in the Stronghold storyline, as in certain missions, igniting pitch is almost necessary for survival. Also, there are certain trigger events that start fires. Fires spread very quickly, and a flaming building can ignite people or other buildings. Fires will only go out if all sources of fuel are consumed, or if the fire itself is extinguished by fire watches. Fires can spread over small boundaries of water.

In most RTS games, fire appears on buildings as an indicator of damage; for example, if a building is damaged enough it would catch fire, but sustain no damage from that fire. One example of a game that does this is Age of Empires II. In Stronghold, buildings that are damaged by siege weapons or are torn down would not catch fire; instead, they lose hit points until they collapse, with the indication of damage being visible signs of cracks and damage throughout the building. However, boiling oil pots, if destroyed, would start a small fire where they were built.

Contrary to many modern RTS titles, where fire plays a secondary, "eye candy" role, fire in Stronghold is an actual gameplay element. For instance, the player is subtly encouraged to build wells against enemies that like to use fire based attacks.

Map Editor

An in-game map editor was released with the game. Rather than incorporating a proprietary scripting language, the editor has a WYSIWYG interface designed for use by all users.

Video Card: Rage 128 or better
RAM: 128MB
Hard Drive Space: 750MB free
Mouse
Internet Connection: Internet or LAN connection required for multiplayer games 

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