Stronghold: Definitive Edition

[spectre]

A review that looks comprehensive enough for me.
I agree with the guy, that no coop is the biggest missed opportunity here.
Nostalgia bait aside, not sure how relevant the game is these days. It's basically a glorified tower defense, which was novel at the time,
but the genre has long been milked to death. Sure, the castle building is still satisfying (if not among the best), but it's marred by obsolete interface
and choices (like the fact that shit just appears out of thin air, as someone had mentioned earlier)
TBH, Manor Lords isn't there, but looks much more interesting for me.

Biggest decline and, frankly, the dealbreaker are the mission intros. No more animations, no banter. Like, what the fuck, Firefly?
Slightly upped graphics (I recently replayed the original, I think it still holds up and arguably remains superior in a bunch of details)
and finally being able to move with right click isn't worth this shit.

Yeah, seems like I misheard that info. the "dry" description is for added content.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Biggest decline and, frankly, the dealbreaker are the mission intros. No more animations, no banter. Like, what the fuck, Firefly?

What do mean by this? I played the first two missions of the original campaign yesterday and there are mission intros with banter just like before. I think you got it confused with the new campaign that doesn't have that (05:21 in the video you linked).

e: I very much agree with the reviewer that the lack of skirmish is the main flaw of Stronghold 1 and it's DE.

 

[spectre]

Biggest decline and, frankly, the dealbreaker are the mission intros. No more animations, no banter. Like, what the fuck, Firefly?

What do mean by this? I played the first two missions of the original campaign yesterday and there are mission intros with banter just like before.

Weird, thought that's what the youtuber said, seems he was referring to the added missions?

EDIT: Yeah, so disregard that one, I suck cocks. Rest of the post still applies.

 

[Catacombs]

no coop is the biggest missed opportunity here.

Do people really have friends to play cooperatively? Always expected this game to be best enjoyed in single player.

 

[spectre]

no coop is the biggest missed opportunity here.

Do people really have friends to play cooperatively? Always expected this game to be best enjoyed in single player.

When it comes to single player, once I figured out the optimal order of things to do in each mission, there wasn't much point in replaying it.
(And it seems my muscle memory still holds, judging from my last replay, went halfway through the campaign without thinking about shit twice).
At least with coop, you'd get some longevity, and people could really take it places with steam and workshop integration.

Can only speak for myself, I have two guys I used to play Beyond all Reason and Coh2 with. Been struggling in the last few months to find anything something else to bring them together.

 

[Harthwain]

Nostalgia bait aside, not sure how relevant the game is these days. It's basically a glorified tower defense, which was novel at the time,
but the genre has long been milked to death. Sure, the castle building is still satisfying (if not among the best), but it's marred by obsolete interface
and choices (like the fact that shit just appears out of thin air, as someone had mentioned earlier)

It's a bit different from a tower defense game in style, because you're constructing a castle. If anything, I'd say they didn't lean hard enough into "try to create a castle that will survive a long siege" aspect of it in later games. Or "start a small castle and keep expanding it as time goes on", similar to They Are Billions (but with medieval twist and traps).

 

[spectre]

I'd say base game has a lot of TD, but they shook the formula a bit in Crusader.

Yeah, it's different enough that while I loathe the genre, I'm enjoying it for what it's worth. I think it's in the economy. Simple enough, but meaningful. And the fact that you get to play the attacker every now and then.
But on the whole, building a castle (in missions which let you go wild) feels quite organic and satisfying. I'm struggling to find other games that fill this niche successfully.

 

[JarlFrank]

They should've added the Crusader skirmish mode to this tbh.

 

[Lacrymas]

I'll probably buy it once in lands on GOG, especially since they announced long term support I happen to enjoy (namely more campaigns).

 

[deama]

How's the new campaign? Any good?

 

[Feyd Rautha]

100k units sold in less than 72 hours.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

This DE doesn't look half bad. I have to say though, t's amazing how this company has been doing basically nothing but repacking and re-releasing the same game over and over again for the last 20 years. They really struck gold with that game. But hey, Stronghold is awesome (the original and crusader that is), so keep 'em coming. Hope they also bring it to GOG at some point.

 

[Harthwain]

They really struck gold with that game.

Good remasters of good games are good, I guess. Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is great example of a remaster done well (save for changed voices of narrators in some campaigns, but that's personal preference).

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Personally, the Starcraft: Brood War remaster is my favourite. It's the closest to an actual "remaster". The unit and environment art looks exactly like you remembered the original game, everything has been recreated with great care and adherence to the original. There are some design aspects that suck, namely some of the new portraits and the way the Protoss loading screen arts have been changed to fit SC2's anime style, but apart from that it's great. And you can change back to the original graphics with the push of a button at any time, which should have been included in the AoEII DE.

The C&C remaster is another good example of updated graphics done well and very close to the original. However, it sucks that you still get the new UI even when changing back to the old graphics.

 

[Multidirectional]

They should've added the Crusader skirmish mode to this tbh.

That's what I expected to happen and now am disappointed. I would've loved skirmish in original Stronghold as I like Crusader less. I don't like the inclusion of mercenaries there. Don't see a reason to buy this now, Stronghold HD looks fine to me still.

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

but then told there would be no skirmish.

 

[deama]

They might add it in now?

 

[Feyd Rautha]

First DLC releases on February 13:


They wont say anything about a possible Crusader DE yet.

 

[deama]

It's too bad they're not trying to push the genre isntead of just adding mission packs.
What about upgrading the AI and adding in diplomacy? What about increasing map size? Eventually they could build up to a 4x stronghold, that'd be cool.

 

[UndeadHalfOrc]

I still prefer the original Stronghold from 1993, thank you very much.

Firefly studios can eat shit. This game is the REAL Stronghold, fuck the imitators.

 

[JarlFrank]

It's too bad they're not trying to push the genre isntead of just adding mission packs.
What about upgrading the AI and adding in diplomacy? What about increasing map size? Eventually they could build up to a 4x stronghold, that'd be cool.

I just want them to add skirmish mode that fucking Crusader had, is it so hard to add?

 

[thesecret1]

It's too bad they're not trying to push the genre isntead of just adding mission packs.
What about upgrading the AI and adding in diplomacy? What about increasing map size? Eventually they could build up to a 4x stronghold, that'd be cool.

To build bigger, they'd first need to be able to at least recreate the original, which they haven't been since Crusaders. Comparisons with Piranha are apt – studios that created a hit and then forgot how they did it, despite decades of trying.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Nothing sadder than watching these guys remake the same game for 20 years. In 20 years, not a single good new idea. Imagine doing this kind of work outside of game dev... Just fucking sad.

And don't compare to Piranha Bytes please. They might never have recaptured the glory of Gothic and Gothic 2, but they made some good games over the years, Risen, ELEX, etc. Even the bad ones, like Gothic 3 had some new shit they tried. I cannot imagine sitting there for 20 years and re-releasing the same shit over and over to worse reviews, until you just give up and literally copy the original game.

 

[SkyFlyer97]

I think they have admitted to themselves at this point that whenever they venture further from the originals, they fail. So why not just sell more content for the games people love. It is sad, but it is a fair enough solution to the situation.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

The new DLC (Swine's Bay) and the new patch are now available!

New "Swine's Bay" DLC Campaign + Free New Economic Campaign

• A New Story
  - Rescue the Jewel from the scurvy-ridden clutches of the wretched Slaver Captain Hogsfoot in a new campaign.
• 7 Epic Missions
  - Prove yourself as a Stronghold veteran and strategist, with some of our most challenging military scenarios yet.
• Fresh Gameplay
  - Tackle each mission with 20 years of Stronghold experience and unique spins on traditional series gameplay.

UPDATES

• Added the ‘Home Fires’ Economic Campaign
  - A brand new economic campaign featuring 7 challenging missions created by the designer of the original Stronghold campaigns, Simon Bradbury.
• Added 2 new Multiplayer maps
  - Snake Island - 2 players, 400x400 - “Island warfare as two castles battle it out across narrow crossings to a neutral peninsula.”
  - Vile Gulch - 4 players, 400x400 - “War for your quarter, as 4 Lords battle against each other while trying to avoid getting stuck in the mud.”
• Added a new Freebuild map
  - Forest - 400x400 - “An overgrown area that can be expanded into a vast open plain, rich with resources and the chance for a peaceful castle life.”
• Added Increasing Attack Sizes option to Freebuild advanced options
  - To use this, click on the “Invasion Difficulty” to cycle through until it changes to “Increasing Difficulty”
  - There are three speeds (Slow, Medium and Fast) which determine after how many attacks the difficulty will increase
  - The invasions still use the “Repeating Invasions” timer option and respect the ‘Peace Time’ option
• Added Steam Trading Cards
• Added Private Multiplayer lobbies, with invite codes
  - These can be used to invite players that are not necessarily on your Steam friend’s list
• Added Max Players setting to Multiplayer lobbies
• Added ability to hover over campaign mission names and show if the mission has been completed, and on which difficulty.
• Added scroll button to scroll through units in the UI when more than 8 unit types are selected
• Added Keep enclosed icon to the minimap
• Added ability to reload multiple Catapults/Trebuchets with rocks
• Mission 18 - End of the Pig - Updated player’s troops starting positions so they’re not instantly dying at the start of the mission
• Added pulse effect to Multiplayer ‘Ready’ shield
• Added ‘Balanced’ to Steam Workshop map tags
• Added right-click to move back in Market panels
• Moat delete is now draggable
• Opening Multiplayer chat will now show the last 5 messages
• Added Waypoint and Patrol information to ‘Controlling Military Units’ in the Help file
• Added videos for The Sergeant to all missions in The Jewel Campaign
  
  
  

BUG FIXES

• Removed Pike production from ‘Two Hovels & a Bucket of Fish’
• AI Character videos now stop playing instead of freezing on the final frame.
• Various text fixes in all languages
• Fixed Knight rally points
• Fixed wall pieces remaining after being deleted if placed in certain positions
• Added help icon to Good and Bad Lord buildings
• Fixed floating wheat farmers
• Fixed an issue where disbanding troops while they were patrolling would cause free peasants to start patrolling
• Fixed an issue that caused looping sfx on briefing screen
• Fixed an issue where, rarely, Hunter’s would not return to their posts after catching deer
• Fixed an issue where sometimes AI would attack their own gatehouse in custom missions
• Fixed gatehouse repair button not always showing active state correctly
• Fixed minimap team colours
• Improved unit sprite clipping when standing on a gatehouse
• Remove drawbridges from mission 14 ‘The Mountain Pass’
• Fixed an issue where control groups would not select units entering towers or walking through gatehouses
• Fixed an issue where the Lord would not always return to the keep during a Wolf event
• Fixed missing ignite pitch icon when archers are lighting pitch
• Fixed an issue where a player disbanding troops would break other players’ cursors briefly
• Fixed incorrect building availability in Multiplayer Tech Levels
• Fixed bears and rabbits despawning if they encounter a closed gatehouse in their path
• ‘Peace Time’ overlay now disappears after Peace Time has ended in Freebuild
• Fixed an issue where sometimes placing a wooden gatehouse would remove the wooden stairs on either side of it
• Fixed an issue where speech volume would break and reduce to inaudible levels
• Fixed an formatting issue in the French help text that caused some words to be joined together (thanks Hugo)