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In fact, all of the weaponry here is top-notch, capturing the brutal reality of siege warfare with a wink.Īnother nod to history is a game mode that recreates real castle sieges and lets you play as an attacker or defender. And as every preview of Stronghold 3 noted, you have the option of throwing diseased badger carcasses into enemy strongholds during a siege-which is not only (darkly) hilarious and fun, but also based on real history. There's a day/night cycle, which uses literal darkness as a fog of war if you don't want your castle to suffer a surprise attack, you have to illuminate the area and scout for enemy invaders. That's when you can start seriously building castles, and that's also when the military campaign starts to shine.
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Gradually, as you regain a foothold in the world and your focus shifts from defense to offense, the game's features open up.
#STRONGHOLD 3 FIREFLY STUDIOS SERIES#
In your early missions, you will escape your burning castle, try to find the surviving members of your army, and set up a series of temporary encampments to hold off the Wolf's forces, which have been sent to hunt you down. The story is that the Wolf has returned to seek vengeance, which is a stupid idea that tries too hard to recreate the original Stronghold-the last time we saw the Wolf, he fell off a tower with a sword in his chest-but, well, whatever. If a campaign with no combat seems silly to you (as it does to me), don't fret the standard military campaign is still the main offering here, and it features 17 missions.
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And like the sandbox features, the city-simulator elements of Stronghold 3 get their very own game mode: an economic campaign with virtually no combat. Also, you can choose between being a popular ruler who draws peasants with low taxes, high rations, and entertainment options, and being an evil SOB who may not attract many subjects but wrings every last ounce of work out of the people he does rule by threatening them with torture. It's always a struggle to come up with just the right balance of food, wood, stone, and other commodities, but there aren't so many different resources and petty tasks that it becomes overwhelming.
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When it comes to managing your castle's town, the overly complex setup of Stronghold 2 has been rolled back, and once again you use simple tools to deal with complex situations. In fact, if that's all you want to do, you can focus on building in the game's sandbox mode, with no hungry mouths to feed, no need to raise money to buy materials, and no barbarians at the gates. You can customize and decorate your castle like never before. Thanks in part to a third-party engine (Trinity, which was also used for the most recent Settlers game), castle-building is no longer locked to a grid-you can rotate your buildings any way you please, and you can place your walls in any design imaginable. And with each of these features, Stronghold 3 not only brings back the magic of the series' roots, but makes substantial improvements. When all of these elements work in perfect harmony, you really do feel like a king. It's a terrific blend of several different gameplay types: There's the sandbox thrill of being a castle architect, the city-simulator angle of making sure your peasants don't starve, and the military strategy of beating back enemy forces. So, at $50, this is a decent buy for hardcore Stronghold fans, but other gamers can skip it, or at least wait for a price cut.Īs you might already know, the point of Stronghold is to build a castle, organize your local economy, and take on rivals both offensively (through sieges) and defensively (by fighting off invasions). However, the game does a poor job of easing in newcomers, and it's lacking some key features. If you loved Stronghold and its unnumbered successor, Stronghold Crusaders, you'll be delighted to find that the old formula is back and there's plenty of content. To save the franchise, developer Firefly has tried to eliminate the overly complicated elements that made Stronghold 2 so fiddly, rekindle the magic of the original games in the series, and add a modern touch with some new features.ĭoes it work? Well, mostly. Many gamers are wary about Stronghold 3-which isn't surprising, considering that Stronghold 2 was widely considered a disappointment.