Probably the worst in the series
There are a lot of things added compare to the first game namely the rolling logs, stone tippers and other siege equipment. Though a lot of these are fun to use against the enemy, you rarely enjoy using them as your opponent rarely bothers to attack you or too much time as gone by and your already sick of playing this game.
Another aspect I really hate about this game is that not only do you have to worry about producing raw materials for food and weaponry, but now you also have to worry about 3 other things. Rats,Criminals and Big piles of Dung (Gong). Yep, early in the game you'll find yourself spending a lot of wood and stone just to control these factors, the worse part of it is it doesn't affect your popularity positively if you do something about these three. But if you leave the problem alone it will affect your popularity negatively and you soon notice the scribe spouting crap like "The people are leaving the castle mi-lord".
The whole thing about the Rats, Criminals and Gong wouldn't be much of a problem if they only enabled these things in the castle builder mode. Since you don't really have anything to worry about in that mode then it would have been okay. And personally I find it enjoyable to these criminals being tortured or executed after being caught.
They did improve the combat a little bit though, the physics are better. If troops are on the walls and the wall is hit by a stone projectile the troops go flying, and that's the only aspect of the game's combat I found enjoyable. The only thing is some troops that are often sent flying get back up and shrug it off like nothing, talk about unrealistic. Also when archers on top of your walls encounter enemies, they often ignore what you order them to shoot at and attack random enemy target for some bizarre reason.Melee combat in okay to watch i guess but considering that 30 guys can get up the stairs and fight your lord all at the same time well that's another issue.
Your Lord plays a more vital role in Stronghold 2 as he participates in Feasts, Masses, Jousts, Etc. But what really sucks is that although is good to see him going about doing all these, the problem is that if you build more than one these buildings he'd just stick to one. So if you build a church but have already built a kitchen, well lets just say that the Lord prefers to attend a Feast more than going to mass XD.
It could have been a Great game but i guess you can't expect every game to be as good as its predecessors.