Firefly is still alive? Stronghold Crusader 2: Bro-fist or No-fist?

Unfortunately, Firefly has done nothing but make shitty iterations of the much-loved Stronghold since it captivated so many back in 2001. With the exception of the big mod which is Stronghold Crusader, they were flat out embarassing games. I dont have high hopes for this.

Personally, I love the original Stronghold to this day, but I realize it was a flawed gem from the beginning. The AI in Stronghold is anything but "intelligent", attacking/defending a castle does leave a bit to be desired, and there is no real Skirmish mode to speak of. Still, I love the personality of the game, the campaign, the units, the classic medieval fantasy kingdom-feel. I dont know the German word, but the "heisen-watching-everyday-folk-doing-their-thing-waken" word that Settlers series supposedly does, Stronghold has it in spades. It has a very strong cast of civilians playing out their medieval roles in your kingdom as you build your castle around them. I love just building peacefully, watching the various cogs of my little fantasy kingdom turning all around me. Everything just flows, the ambient animations, the wind blowing thru the trees, and music is perfect. It's pretty zen at times, man

The rts side could have been better, but it was serviceable. It was playable, and could be good fun.

But building castles are what we came to the show for, and build a castle I did, obsessively, for years playing Stronghold. Like NWN, i actually logged more time with the editor and building stuff than I ever did playing the actual game. Stronghold was the first real castle builder, and everyone that ever wanted to build, attack, or defend a castle played it to death.

Then they released Stronghold II, Stronghold Legends, and Stronghold III, and the series grew progressively shittier as time went on. The AI got even worse, the bugs were unstoppable, the RTS side became bogged down in overly complex supply chains and demands: to say the games just werent very good at all is putting it midly. By the time Stronghold III flopped onto the scene and floundered around a while doing all it could to completely destroy fanboy hearts, the goodwill towards the series and Firefly had all but died.

Okay, i dont know where all this is going. I just had to get that out, i suppose.

NOw, lets focus on the present. There's this: Stronghold Crusader II @ E3

I'm reluctantly excited, but ultimately i take the negative route. I hope I'm wrong!

They patched and patched and patched the last game - and never patched it completely.

Not buying another.

You share my sentiments almost exactly. In fact, I just gave a speech to a friend, which was strikingly similar, just last night.

The difference is my memories of the original Stronghold are so faded I'm honestly not even sure they're from Stronghold at all. I think it might be getting all muddled up with Lords of the Realm.

What is fresh in my mind is how bad Stronghold III was and also how decent Stronghold Kingdoms was. Don't get me wrong, I hate browser games, especially those which try to make money with offline automation. They incorporate horrible practices like forcing you to log in and rebuild or water your crops so they don't die. I don't even have a facebook account! But there was a pretty enjoyable building/tower defense feel about it which I wanted to further experience in a real game but couldn't think of one which offered it.

I really want Stronghold Crusader 2 to be good and for the moment I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. It's definitely not a sure thing, but the potential is there and I'm going to give it a look and find out.

I wish they made Castles 3 instead. I preferred Castles' gameplay as I've never been good in the RTS battles in any game. In Castles you pretty much put the armies there and watched what happened.

SirJames - While Lords of the Realm is a pretty different game altogether, the heartbreak over the sequel is definitely is comparable. Lords of the Realm II was a fantastic game from that same era, then Lords of the Realm III hit the scene like a wet blanket and dashed all hopes for a decent continuation. It was one of those games that's so bad, it's actually funny to watch video reviews of it.

I never played Castles but it looks like something I'd have enjoyed. Perhaps a bit dated for 2014. I can already imagine how bad the mouse feels. Like with populous snapping to the isometric grid.

I just caught a preview of Stronghold Crusader 2 and came away feeling a little more optimistic so I thought you might like to check it out too.

He mentions Caesar 3 which is another game I remember I really enjoyed for a while but now all I can really recall is it saying "plebs are needed!" over and over.

SirJames said:

I never played Castles but it looks like something I'd have enjoyed. Perhaps a bit dated for 2014. I can already imagine how bad the mouse feels. Like with populous snapping to the isometric grid.

I just caught a preview of Stronghold Crusader 2 and came away feeling a little more optimistic so I thought you might like to check it out too.

He mentions Caesar 3 which is another game I remember I really enjoyed for a while but now all I can really recall is it saying "plebs are needed!" over and over.

Click to expand...

I watched the video... didn't help. Looking at the battles I can already imagine myself miserably failing to coordinate any attacks in real time, as it's always the case with me and RTS. I don't think I've been able to finish any RTS campaign I've played (Age of Empires 1, Warcraft 3, any of the Total Wars, any of those space RTS, etc).