Stronghold was one of those titles that snuck into the Russ and Dave multiplayer collection. Each scenario started with a empty town to grow under your design, complete with dairy farms, bakeries, leather works, apple orchards — the works. Citizens would go on chores to collect resources to refine. Farmers harvested hay which was delivered by hand to the town warehouse. The Miller boys fetched the unrefined bundles and to return with sacks of flour, and Bakers would lug the flour back to their shop to bake loafs of bread. Rinse, wash, and repeat for orchard picking, smithing, quarrying.. you get the idea. From the birds eye view your town seemed alive — you could even peer through a roof to see your citizens hard at work. The layout of the town effected its overall efficiency, so part of the game was trying to squeeze neighborhoods within your walls.

The original Stronghold - 2001

Oh right, the walls. See the game was actually about designing a walled town to withstand any attacks by your neighbor — hence the game’s name. Within the soft center was the afore mentioned civic bee’s nest that drove your economy. The outer layer was also very much under your design. Wooden and stone walls, square towers, round towers.. siege towers, gate houses, walls for archers and crossbowmen, boiling oil, pitch fields, moats — they were all there and their custom layout made each battle a unique experience. Igniting a field of hidden pitch underneath droves of charging ladder men and siege towers is as fufilling as it sounds. MMM.. good stuff.

From the press release:

“We decided to steer away from the typical RTS mold when we developed the original Stronghold,” said Simon Bradbury, Director at Firefly Studios. “Now, with a 3D engine that can render tens of thousands of animated characters on-screen simultaneously, we can explore the intricacies of castle-life and the machinations of siege-warfare like never before in Stronghold 2. Once again we will take the Stronghold franchise into new and exciting territory.”

And so Russ and I are both very glad to not only hear that Stronghold has a sequel coming, but it looks that good and is due out in early 2005. Given the tons of stellar PC games coming out this fall, 2005 is not that far away.