Which Stronghold game is the best to get into?

[Mr. Pain™]

Never played this series before and I hear great things about it. I bought it all on sale. Which is generally considered the best to get into? Moreso, how does 1 compare to 2? Ive heard its usually best to skip 3.

[Tacticat]

In my opinion The good parts are Stronghold, Stronghold Crusader and Stronghold Crusader 2 Also Stronghold Ledgends...the rest i didnt liked soo

[DavesBarbaricCookie]

honestly i would go with stronghold crusader 1 first, its more or less an upgraded version of stronghold, pretty well paced and controlled ai, but isn't as mindboggeling as the second part, where the ai feels way less paced and more rushy and makes it seem like a tower defense game instead.

[Lebhleb]

Go with original Stronghold, then, once you finish hell that is its campaing, you can safely move over to the rest... exept 3...

[Tacticat]

Yes...3 is trash...

[Lebhleb]

Funny thing its my favorite in whole series.

[Laura]

Stronghold crusader forever...

Feels like it's too easy now that I'm not 12 anymore... Meh.

[MaGicBush]

Yep this game is probably my favorite one. I bought a few copies and play with my son often. He loves it also and hes 12 lol, and I started playing it when I was about 15.

[tomasoltis]

str.3 ? ... well, in many ways it is superior to crusader 2. Fear factor was pretty awesome, walls were more interesting, but much harder to build, it was much more buggy though.

Crusader II has an AI that alwasy cheats even on easy, so it spawns armies based on timer because AI didnt get proper working castles like in Crusader I.

AI battle control is best in C2. If you can look past the obnoxious cheating of AI in C2, and it being pretty dumbed down in many areas, it is much more action-heavy. AI difficulties are pretty much about how much AI cheats.

Also, archers are much worse in newer installments, in First Crusader, more more you had the better. Archer AI in general suffers from overkilling the closest target too much.

Str.3 has no skirmish AI. Only freebuild, multiplayer that didnt work (maybe it does now ? 2015 had some patches)

[Lebhleb]

Originally posted by tomasoltis:

str.3 ? ... well, in many ways it is superior to crusader 2. Fear factor was pretty awesome, walls were more interesting, but much harder to build, it was much more buggy though.

Crusader II has an AI that alwasy cheats even on easy, so it spawns armies based on timer because AI didnt get proper working castles like in Crusader I.

AI battle control is best in C2. If you can look past the obnoxious cheating of AI in C2, and it being pretty dumbed down in many areas, it is much more action-heavy. AI difficulties are pretty much about how much AI cheats.

Also, archers are much worse in newer installments, in First Crusader, more more you had the better. Archer AI in general suffers from overkilling the closest target too much.

Str.3 has no skirmish AI. Only freebuild, multiplayer that didnt work (maybe it does now ? 2015 had some patches)

Tough in SC2 ai has much better chances of, not suiciding than in SC 1.
SH 3 MP i don't know about, i watched some videos but never played it myself,=
Tough at least Crossbow men arent ♥♥♥♥ anymore, jesus christ how unusable they are in ST 2...