Some of the challenges presented can seem impossible until you beat them, which is the desired effect of similar RTS games. Stronghold requires fast learning, especially for higher difficulties. Although the sandbox mode can be fun for a person looking for Cities XL – lite with knights, the campaign steps up the challenge putting you in an already developed situation and throwing in curve balls. Evidently, soldiers just feast on their own wounded.Ĭampaign challenges are where the game excels without question. The city upkeep elements also become hard to reconcile with the combat, given that a significant portion of the population can be soldiers, but the food and bedspace only matters for peasants. Although Starcraft II was a better analogy, the pathing and combat of the units plays a lot more like the pre-Broodwar days of Starcraft, which is to say they’re laughable at best. Because of this juxtaposition, neither gameplay element gets displayed with any gusto in Crusader II. In Starcraft II, this is like having to keep your SCV’s happy on top of defeating your enemy. The actual gameplay, though, presents a challenge exactly as promised: balance the RTS micromanagement with the upkeeping a bustling economy and population. For a game with a zoom-in feature, there is certainly not much to zoom in on, with flat-textured characters and embarrassing animations. Starting up the game is like a trip to the medieval era of gaming, however, where 3D games were just finding their footing though a large step up from the 2D world, the graphics are objectively bad.
This new addition to the series supposedly adds a new 3D engine with up-to-date physics to make it closer to a re-skin of the old titles. Stronghold Crusader II, like its predecessors, is a little bit Total War and a little bit Sim City, certainly a combination with lots of potential. Battle lions, heathens and the challenges of maintaining a population on the way to ultimate castle domination, but more interesting is developer FireFly Studios’ battle to build on a series long past its prime. Stronghold Crusader II seeks to provide excitement with the harsh realities of the situation: a lord at the behest of a king, trying to maintain and build up a castle in the face of many obstacles. You could be a knight, and slay a dragon or a king imbued with magic powers. The medieval times used to be the coolest era to thrust one’s imagination on.