Stronghold: Warlords (FireFly Studios)

[Tragic]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/907650/Stronghold_Warlords/

eXplorminate Review: https://explorminate.co/stronghold-warlords-review/

[Tragic]

So the new stronghold is out, this is a 4x-CROSS-citybuilder. I am hearing nothing but good things from people I know that are playing it, despite the steam reviews.. but we all know how steam reviews are less the n worthless.

[Anguille]

I have bought it and like it so far (tutorial and 2 missions). It's a typical stronghold game (apart from the setting) and the number of campaigns (5 instead of 2 but with only six scenarios each).

[Marfig]

Originally posted by Tragic:

but we all know how steam reviews are less the n worthless.

Do we? I don't. I'm more inclined to believe that's just another thing people say...

Steam reviews are usually spot on. They reflect players experiences and agendas, and I will always take that over some game journalist. Of course, you shouldn't take them individually but instead benefit from the mass amount of reviews and make your decision on the whole. Steam player reviews are the best thing after sliced bread.

As for the latest incarnation of Stronghold:

It's RTS over-simplification of a game that was great one day but kept on distancing itself of the niche it once created. Fun to play to a small extent. But I will challenge anyone to spend as much time on it as they did on the first three games.

I think Stronghold for the past 8(?) years has clearly been walking the path of a generic and bland RTS that won't hook anyone beyond a certain number of hours. But this new title does show an effort to answer fans criticism. Let's hope the curve has inverted and the next one is it too an improvement over this one.

[Nasarog]

I'm not particularly moved by the live-streams I've seen on Steam.

Meh for me.

[Tragic]

it really depends on what the sand box systems are. The game will make or break depending on the city building aspects. I'm not really interested in campaigns and stuff... just sandbox modes and building awesome castles.

[Marfig]

Well, I'm sad to say the game doesn't offer you much in the way of castle building.

[I'm Spartacus]

I think stream reviews generally are like loaded dice or marked cards the first 2 or 3 days - but after that the hype dies down and I tend to trust them - especially from players who put in many hours playing whatever it is and have valid points for their opinions - like most E4X members do.

[Nasarog]

Originally posted by I'm Spartacus:

I think stream reviews generally are like loaded dice or marked cards the first 2 or 3 days - but after that the hype dies down and I tend to trust them - especially from players who put in many hours playing whatever it is and have valid points for their opinions - like most E4X members do.

I read the Steam reviews from my Steam friends (200 of them).

[omzh]

We have a review on the site written by LightJolly, he enjoyed the game to a certain extent but said it was poorly optimized and laggy. He liked the new warlords feature adding a a layer of diplomacy. I edited the post to include a link to it.

[easytarget]

I've got the QT3 forums for input on games, so I read steam reviews out of an occasional idle curiosity.

And of course I hang out here with you'll because the thread discussions are both a great source of info on potential games that might interest me and also discussions on strategies as to how best to play them.

[Mr.Kill]

It's pretty bad guys the unit balance is probably worse than the previous entry.

Siege weapon are cheap and eat their weight in enemy butts (edit never mind, they are useless against armored units and pretty bad at taking down walls and towers). And anything that's not a swordsman, blowpipe, archer or crossbow man is garbage. 100 gold for a catapult that can fire and kill 5 or so people per shot. Combine this blowpipes or archers for defense and no one is getting through alive.

Even worse is that key game concepts are abandoned with no real attempt to compensate.
Ranged units can murder the lord while he is in the keep (basically he's the keystone of the fortress, he dies and its game over) so literally you have no reason to send high quality melee units other than to protect your ranged units. Just park your ranged units by the walls and by the keep and they will kill every unit thats on the wall or keep including the lord who was supposed to be immune to projectiles and is immune to projectiles + regen health to prevent nonsense rush strategies in every entry in the franchise EXCEPT this one. Walls and towers give very minor bonuses to unit survivability so once you outnumber your opponent with ranged units (i.e blow pipes) you're basically good to go.

I can write a more detailed review but I'm busy. Above is the biggest problems with the game.

Since I know Tragic has very exotic tastes, I don't know if he'd enjoy the game or hate it.

[Tragic]

Originally posted by Anguille:

I have bought it and like it so far (tutorial and 2 missions). It's a typical stronghold game (apart from the setting) and the number of campaigns (5 instead of 2 but with only six scenarios each).

I have yet to try it, but all I hear is good things so far. A mate sent me a awesome castle he built on top a a mountain. Apparently the supply chain system is not as deep as it could have been, and that is worrying but the tower defence stuff is beefed up and a lot of fun.

Still your comment seems to echo everyone I know. The game is fun and they are enjoying it.

I do not have time to give it a go myself just yet, but it is defiantly in my list for must have games at this stage.

Originally posted by I'm Spartacus:

I think stream reviews generally are like loaded dice or marked cards the first 2 or 3 days

Yeah.. reviews get a lot better once people that actually play the game give it a go. I think it takes a lot longer than a few days though. You have to wait for the drop off in players, so at leats a month or more.

[Mr.Kill]

Here's a review from worth a buy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmwT0bEXmsA

He thinks its okay, its bare bones though in terms of content. For me the issue is still unit balance. Units that you can buy with gold are way better than the units you can't buy with gold (with the exception of crossbow and archers, which you can still buy with gold if you are willing to pay for the bows or crossbow + armor to clarify you can technically buy all units for gold with this method but only crossbows and archers are worth the expenses). For cheap money you can really powerful units, samurais, fire lancers and other ridiculously powerful units that basically eat units that try to get close.

This is bad balance for obvious reasons because the original stronghold games had merc units being very inferior to properly built units (with the exception of the arabian archer who was way better than his imperial counterpart but was much much more expensive to compensate). In addition, walls and towers provided a much larger bonus in the previous games and it wasn't possible to just throw more archers than the enemy has and win the battle by simply shooting everyone off the walls (the point of walls is to not have this happen historically). You can build wood siege defence platforms but guess what, they're not resistant to archer fire so they get blown up almost instantly.

If you really want to build a real castle economy, I'd suggest stronghold HD. That said if you want 3D graphics then fine Stronghold crusader 2. If you absolutely must have weeb soldiers than fine get this game. But like seriously this badly designed.

[Lightjolly]

I think the game is decent, it's in no way a bad game, but just so painfully average, in a market filled with amazing RTS games and the performance just doesn't make it better.

[Mr.Kill]

Originally posted by Lightjolly:

I think the game is decent, it's in no way a bad game, but just so painfully average, in a market filled with amazing RTS games and the performance just doesn't make it better.

Have you played the original stronghold crusader or its HD variant. The problem with the stronghold series kinda revolves around the fact that stronghold crusader has already set the standard and every game seems to have less features than it or balance issues.