Free to play, pay to win?

[Coledash]

I used to play this in alpha or beta, back then game was clearly a pay to win game with the resource cards or whatever. Is this still the case?

[Pear]

Not at all, it still helps to pay obviosuly, its how they make money. But no, Im pretty high rank and Im in the 13th (Around) strongest faction in world 4, Ive never bought anything and I run a sizable portion of yorkshire XD

[Coledash]

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it. I know that in almost any pay to win game its possible to win without paying, but usually its becouse others are just playing very, very bad. I know devs need to make money somehow, but selling solid game advantage is just horrible and drives away so many good players.

[TairikuOkami[old]]

Well, that is the case with the most free MMO games, is not it? But it helps to being able to play the game for free, more or less. Anyway, for just 2x5$ payments, to support developers, you will get 14 free cards a week, which you can trade for usefull cards forever.0

[Duke]

I disagree with Coledash, it still is very much pay to win and the card system has not changed much if any since your time.

[Coledash]

tairikuokami, popularity does not automatically make something good or work as somekind of excuse to do it. Im all for supporting devs if they make a good game (I loved old Stronghold games), but pay to win just makes me and bunch of my friends a big bunch of sad pandas who are not going to support this dev :(

Duke, I dont understand in what way you disagree with me? Your last part just confirmed on what I was asking.

[Parakeet]

No, it's not pay to win. I know some people in my faction who don't use cards and are doing quite well. As for myself, I did make 2x$5 payments for the 14 free cards per week. If the cards are bad, then I can just trade them in. The only reason I would buy anything for Stronghold Kingdoms is for a premium token, only to move buildings around without destroying them.

[Duke]

doing well =/= winning, someone who pays money does *substantially* better than those who do not, it's not even marginally better, it's a huge difference.

Do you not have any experience fighting people who spam Politics and Instant Build cards like there's no tomorrow? Insta-build castles, flip whole counties with ease thanks to Politics cards...

[Parakeet]

No, I generally do not attack people, at least not yet, so I haven't seen people spamming instant build cards.

Wouldn't these people have to buy a substantial amount of card packs though? Since the cards you get are random, it would be a bit tough to get the cards you want.

[Duke]

@ Nightmare64 If you haven't attacked peoeple or been attacked (and I mean like a REAL campaign against you, not a random newb attack) then you haven't really played the game yet.

As for cards, you can swap any 5 cards for 'card points' which can then be used to get just about whatever card you *do* want. Also there's some really good cards that can only be obtained by buying card packs.

[Duke]

regarding my FIRST response, I should have said 'I disagree with Viscount Baldwin', who said it's not pay to win. Not sure how I confused Baldwin with the op Coledash.

[Parakeet]

Hm, it seems like it's debatable whether or not this game is pay to win. The members of my faction don't really use cards and they're one of the top factions in World 1.

I can see your point of view with someone spending money on getting cards, and then trading in whichever ones they don't want for others.

[OmnipresentTaco]

I get what all of you are saying, any game that you can pay money fo to get special advantages IS a pay to win game... i mean like mass effect 3, you can pay real money to get care packages and completley dominate evryone else in your, party score wise. but that doesnt mean you cant have fun, and be a total BAMF if you dont pay! If you dont pay and you still win, that makes you twice the player!

[DrSecretStache]

Honestly, paying doesn't get you all that much. It let's you que tech, which if you have the game windowed you can do yourself; it lets you que buildings, to which you can also do yourself; it lets you move buildings, which can be important, but not extremely, and you get some free premium tokens anyway, if you save them then you're fine. Of course, there's the cards, but the difference in fun isn't really that great.

Really though, if you join a faction, you'll be in just a good position as anyone else, since your faction will defend you. So I guess you could call it "pay2win," since it does follow that format, but unlike many other games I've seen, you can have just as much fun if you don't.

[Strategy Player]

New player here, I started on world 1, played 2 days and got wiped out by wolfs castle ai, respawned and less than 3 days later got wiped out by ai siege camp. Everyone has been playing for 300 or 500 or 700 days. Unless you buy cards or get really lucky and find another
kind player to be your liege lord and loan you troops you might as well forget playing. I too played all the old stronghold games. You can beat the original stronghold game in less time than you can build a decent castle in this game. So I agree, its a big pay to play game. Only going to get worse and worlds get longer.

[[o.0]LonelyWolf]

That's because you started in world1 where the enemy AI scales with the average rank of players in the parish. Get started in a new world.