Stronghold HD (2012)

PERFECT

great game

TL;DR: Everyone's favourite classic castle builder & siege sim, with slightly polished graphics, slightly updated modern system compatibility and an annoying but brief ad for their latest game stuffed into the bootup slides. Stronghold is a very solid medieval city builder with a heavy focus on building castles, defending them, and occasionally besieging other castles. You need to work to afford said castles, which is where the city building comes in. It has a lot of old-time charm from the soundtrack to the VA to the visuals, and everything within more or less coheres into a very tightly focused game. One of the things not much talked about in Stronghold is that there are two main campaigns, with each focusing on one of the two core gameplay elements over the other. I'd say the Military campaign is kind of the default one, and does incorporate a lot of the elements from the Economic one (gotta pay for all those castles somehow) but its nice to have the option of only playing the economic side if you want. one of the elements that never really coheres into much is the "likability/morality" system. I think what the dev's were aiming for is the dichotomy between a ruler who is loved and followed and one who is feared and dominates -somewhat like the dread/chivalry dynamic in Medieval 2- but in the end it just comes down to how much you tax/feed the peasants and what themed décor you build. You can build gardens to be loved and torture devices to be feared, and the more of one side of the dynamic you lean to the more "control" you'll have over your citizens, with there being not much difference between either extreme other than flavour, aside from a slight combat buff for your troops for being feared. Mixing them together is a waste of resources as they cancel each other out. also, a direct note to the dev's: If players like this game, and they want more, they will look for it. Players understand that sequels exist as a concept and I personally wouldn't risk the loss of goodwill by cramming an unavoidable ad in the bootup slides of a classic game to advertise the latest one. At worst, it reeks of desperation and lack of faith in your modern attempts at the games, at best it feels like an opportunistic shot at players old and new taking advantage of their attention in an old game you know has fans.