Just finished Stronghold and I want more. Is Stronghold 2 any good?

Just finished Stronghold and I want more. Is Stronghold 2 any good?

No, it's a shithouse. Same as 3.

So aside from Crusader, which stronghold is good?

No stronghold game apart from the original and Crusader are worth a single penny. You couldn't pay me to play them to be quite honest.

No. Get Crusader instead

None.

Series went downhill.
Just like silent hunter after 3. Or was it 4?

Only 1st and crusader.
And I made a mistake of buying almost all of them Even legends.

Shame, I like medieval more than desert.

every idiot saying that S2 is bad has most likely never played it.

Get Crusader although I did have fun with 2.

And you didn't play the firdt one and crusader if you think stronghold 2 is above mediocre.

I actually really like Stronghold 2. The graphics are a little dated but I actually prefer sieging in this one as opposed to the first ones. The campaign was pretty good, the final mission was fun (although i pretty much cheesed it) the only thing i hate is the damn disease and crime systems.

Why Stronghold 1 doesn't have Skirmish anyway? Crusader is good but I like 1 setting and aesthetic more.

The constant bombardment of things to worry about with your kingdom makes it shitty. Literally with all the piles of shit your kingdom keeps pooping.

To be fair the skirmish AI in Crusader is pretty damn retarded. Build+defense scenarios give a lot more mileage and you don't have to watch clusters of 20 round towers that the AI doesn't even bother to garrison

Trust me, they're all dogshit except for Crusader and the original.

Eh, the original wouldn't work if you could just park farms behind walls on every map. The gameplay is much more dynamic when your economy is situated outside of your castle.

I like Stronghold 2, but it's more of the same BUT NOW IN 3D when you compare it to the first game.

What the fuck is this? I don't recall Stronghold looking like that.

Stronghold 2

No, it's fucking dogshit.

No fuck you. I bought it on launch for 40€ and it was a huge pile of shit. Shut the fuck up.

Rate from easiest to hardest.

Rat
Sultan
Phillip
Marshall
Abbot
Snake
Caliph
Sheriff
Nizar
Lionheart
Emir
Wazir
Sultan
Fredrick
Wolf

you forgot pig

Did they ever balance this fucking mission? Was it supposed to be that hard or was there something I was missing? I don't remember if I finished it or skipped it somehow.

Fuck me, I knew I forget someone.
He's somewhere in the middle of Caliph-Nizar.
Easy if he doesn't get his industry rolling, but sieging becomes annoying if he manages, same with Caliph

Modded 5 is the best game in the series, even if it's janky and unstable as fuck.

>still can't win that fucking pig siege mission
Fuck

Is Stronghold: Crusader as terribly hard as I remember?
I played it as a stupid kid and I remember building actual siege weapons but those used up so much of the unit limit that I didn't have anything left to exploit the gap I made
Also, all my soldiers burned to death all the time

It's got challenge but you were pretty bad as a kid. Try it again, it'll bring back good memories.

>but you were pretty bad as a kid
Yeah no shit, I did the first few sieges in the campaign by just spamming all of one unit type and having them hack at the walls (I think I used crusaders once and otherwise mace guys)

I found myself spending more time fiddling around with the mapmaker than playing the games

Get crusader and download some player-made maps you fucking cuck and enjoy your extra 2000 hours of stronghold/crusader

Stronghold 2 is the cheesy-but-bad-in-a-good-way sequel

What are some cheap tricks aside from ox at the enemy gate and multiple apple farmers?

...

Can't place that there m'lord.

>lying on the internet

WOOD NEEDED

Crusaders is the only choice and the best one as well

It's pretty funny that with enough popularity bonus you can keep your kingdom without any food forever.

Oh fuck don't even start with this shit. ANY mission, inc. last one is easier.

they can just eat out of the town garden

You can even manage no food and some taxes. Or no food and CRUELITY BOONUS YES. -8 for food, -5 for cruelity, +beer (8? maximum?) +faith (5?).

No fuck you.
Ok, I bought it for 38€, not 40. But I did buy it at launch after looking forward to it for months.

>Why Stronghold 1 doesn't have Skirmish anyway? Crusader is good but I like 1 setting and aesthetic more.
Try stronghold Europe

>HARD

Wolf, Saladin, Frederick, Lionheart, Emir

>MEDIUM

Pig, Snake, Caliph, Abbot, Wazir, Nazir, Marshall, Sheriff

>EASY

Rat, Sultan, Phillip

I liked Stronghold 2 and Stronghold Legends.
Overall:
1. Stronghold Crusader
2. Stronghold Legends
3. Stronghold 2
4. Stronghold
5. Stronghold Crusader Extreme
haven't played Crusader 2 and Stronghold 3 yet

>buying into the Lionheart meme
you got worked by the game's cover, m8

How do I build a small but self sufficient castle? Every time I try it just end up making a large town with a long wall.

I want to make it small like AI's castle.

Stronghold 2 may not be as good as the original games but it's still worth playing

The size of passageways in the castle don't matter, you basically just make big clusters of production buildings, but make it so it doesn't interfere with the industry buildings, bakeries near granary etc.

But a cramp castle wouldn't look beautiful.

Just learn efficient placements and whatever, use negative fear factor

Thanks.

[SPOILER]WE ARE THE MACEMEN

What the fuck are you building, Rat?

Levels for the original Doom

Rat castles a best.

Just downloaded the game, what I'm in for?

fantastic RTS right up until the pig siege mission

just move archers bit by bit just before enemy starts firing back and order them to attack an area near enemy

Stronghold? A pretty fun campaign that ends too quickly. Crusader is the same engine and gameplay with a few additions thrown in to an extremely flexible skirmish setting and has a much longer lifespan than vanilla.

Original Stronghold have economy missions though

>tfw only have HD

>rat castle design looks like maze
pottery

It shouldn't take too long to find a download for the original

"The End of the Pig" wasthe most difficult mission in Stonghold. As far as I remember, I have never beaten it as a child. Only recently with the help of a walkthrough. Fuck this mission.
The rest was rather easy in comparison

>pig in crusader trail
>build market and merc camp
>sell everything, hire sixty assassins
>walk them in to his keep before he can even build walls
>kill him in .5 seconds

And he used to be so scary.

Stronghold is one of the only game serieses I know where player's ability to do things in maps/skirmish trails gets nerfed because of one autist in fanbase. So thanks fucking alot SergioHellDragoon

>SergioHellDragoon
what happened?

He made those "level walkthrough" videos on youtube when the games were fresh and new, if you play, say, Crusader 2 skirmish trail, you see that your castle area, resources etc. are smaller than they were when you compare them to Sergio's videos

custom AI castles are the greatest thing ever

the devs gave them far too lazy designs and it feels so good to try out the ridiculous shit other people do for them instead

...

The end of the Pig was much more easier than the first encounter with his castle
>playing Crusader 2
Lmoa
I downloaded it on a Free Weekend and I was already feeling buyer's remorse without even paying for it

the attacking army must be massive, altitude fucking kills in SH

>stronghold Europe

Holy shit I fucking love you.

Crusader 2 is alright, but it has one edge over Crusader 1: Templar Knights.
But yes, Crusader 1 allows you to do outlandish shit on crusader trails, no such luxury in C2

>That Pot
>That mission
is this a custom map or what?

>tfw I had a game go up to 1939 in Crusader Trail
The trail basicaly pushes you to exploit the game to the max, no way they were made with a normal playstyle in mind
But one thing I liked in C2 over C1 is the traps on the sides of the castles, quite comfy they are

Crusader Europe.

>The trail basicaly pushes you to exploit the game to the max
That is correct, but you can exploit it in variety of ways instead of being forced to adapt extremely autistic "I must place everything pixel perfectly to maximize the effectiveness" playstyle and SC1 allowed some room for error

why do old rts games have this certain look to them? how was that look created?

isometric 3d and sprites I guess

Sprites instead of actual models.

Sprites rendered out from 3D models for the most part allows you to pack in a lot more visual information for very little overhead.

Commandos 2 did a similar thing, albeit it was a combination of 3D models rendered out as Sprites and Hand Painted stuff....which was then overlayed on top of an actual 3D environment in 4 different perspectives.

Fucking nutty amount of work, but the fact that they still hold up today is testament to the approach.

Impressive, Wolf.

Does Crusader work on win10?

First stronghold was so beautiful. Loved the detail they poured into the game. How you could see for example the bakers baking bread and then bringing it to the stockpile, just awesome.

I think so. Though after about Windows 7 you start to get some issues like you can click through the game onto your desktop/steam/whatever
Odd things happen, but it does work

You know what I'd love?

A game like Stronghold, except set in the American Old West. You could have bears and wolves and coyotes, and also bandit attacks and you also have to deal with the natives (either diplomatic or kill them or something)
You could be in either California and focus on banking, or Cascadia and focus on trapping and furs. Also maybe a more desert-y biome.

Obviously you'd keep the art style that 1 and c crusader have. And also the production lines should be a bit more in depth and varied.
And you could have it advance through the ages slightly, so better guns get unlocked and you might have to partake in the civil war in a way, and eventually you build oil wells.

The caliph is the hardest, his castle is ALWAYS rigged with oil.

Set it on fire then.

I set every castle I besiege on fire.

...

The Wolf has some genuinely amazing castle designs but the restriction on map size means he can *literally* never build them correctly. Something will always get blocked, either making a giant hole in a wall or causing him to lose some vital economic buildings. They're just too fucking huge.

Is the Wolf actually fucking doable? I remember beating the campaign, and then Richard the Lionheart comes home and goes, "Hey, nice of you to sort that thing out for me, m8. By the way, I've heard you're some kind of tactical genius and I'd loved to watch you take care of the last of the ursurpers, here, use my army." and then... death. You get a modest army to go against a castle the size of the map and I just don't understand what's supposed to be done at all.
But of course, I played this like a decade ago.

That mission is actually easier than the Pig's castle.

You're kidding me, right? All I remember is suffering and barely being able to breach the first wall.