A must buy for strategy fans

User Rating: 8.5 | Stronghold: Crusader PC
I own all the Stronghold games and Stronghold: Crusader is by far the best one.


Stronghold: Crusader

Pros-

#1.Many enemies with completely different styles of castle building and units used.Some are really easy and others can be quite hard

#2.Building your own custom castle with many options to choose from.You can have a moat and a draw bridge

#3.You can throw boiling oil on enemies

#4.Some levels are quite hard and are a definite challenge but others are quite easy so there is good variety

#5.The game will say your name when you start it

#6.A large variety of units to choose from to fight for you

#7.Using siege weapons is cool and one of them will light the buildings inside of the enemies castle on fire

#8.Creating or buying food,weapons and beer are just as important as your combat strategy in the harder levels

#9.Multiplayer games against friends are really fun

#10.Making your people fear you will increase production and you do this by building gibbets, gallows, stockades, chopping blocks, stretching racks, dungeons, cesspits, and dunking stools

#11.Making your people love you will increase happiness and you do this by building gardens, statues, dancing bears, and maypoles

#12.I think the sound effects and music are good

#13.There is several voice taunts in the game and they are funny to use in multiplayer



Cons

#1.Each lord looks the same and fights the same in the game.Each Arabian lord/sultan looks the same and fights the same in the game.I think the creators should of given every enemy lord their own character design and given the player more options then just the two we have

#2.There is no story.The original Stronghold was much better when it comes to the story

#3.Real time strategy should not of been the only option.In some situations I have to wait ten minutes or more before I get enough goods to sell and build my army.I already have my defense set up and I don't need to watch it.If I could increase the speed of the game then it would of been an improvement and saved me time where I can't do anything but wait

#4.The graphics look old but they don't bother me but they are a con of the game

#5.The game is unrealistic in the sense of being able to slowly destroy a stone wall with just a sword or the other melee weapons your soldiers carry.I could just see myself with just a sword try to destroy a real castle wall.lol



The Bottom Line -

Stronghold: Crusader is a must buy.Building your own custom castle and defending it is really fun

The Stronghold Collection on steam is $29.99 as of today and is easily worth that.I also suggest you try Stronghold 1 for the story and Stronghold Legends.I don't think either are as good as crusader though but all 3 games come together so it's still a great deal

I think Stronghold Crusader Extreme and Stronghold 2 both suck so avoid them.You do have to install Stronghold Crusader and Stronghold Crusader Extreme together on steam but just avoid playing extreme

Do yourself a favor and buy Stronghold: Crusader and you will thank me later

My 2 cents

Dan