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121 of 126 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A very mixed bag, to say the least, April 28, 2005
Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars
I would really love to give this game a better rating, because there are some aspects to the new version that I rather enjoy. Some people have complained about the new details of castle life, such as the piles of human waste & criminals running amok. I suspect that these are players who take more pleasure in warfare than in the management of infrastructure, and find anything that detracts from the waging of war to be an unneccessary intrustion. However, I have always enjoyed the micromanagement aspect of Stronghold, which set it apart from other games, and that the additional details by themselves are not a problem. Yet I would agree that there is now one detail too many, to the point that you are frantically trying to keep all of the balls in the air. It ceases to be enjoyable when you are simply racing from one problem to another.
This is compounded by the fact that, even after the downloading of the new patch (after only ONE WEEK from the game's release), the new features do not always work as they are supposed to work. In particular, I would point to the criminals, the Courthouse, and the punishments. Ideally, the guards catch the crooks, take them to the judge, and then the judge or a torturer will mete out a punishment to rehabilitate the crook. However, the game has a bug that results in no crooks receiving punishment --- instead, they pile up in the dungeon, never going to trial. The consequences are a tremendous negative number from all of the unpunished criminals, plus industries that languish indefinitely while the peasant assigned to that building rots in prison. Meanwhile, the player is forced to double rations or bribe the remaining peasants in order to stave off disaster. This alters a fundamental aspect of the game, and detracts from the overall enjoyment.
As many other reviewers have noted, this game runs very slowly, regardless of your systems specifications. The patch has not helped this problem, and I very much doubt that any future patches will improve this aspect of the game. I am not someone who has to have top of the line graphics in a game, but when one has the game set at top speed and the peasants are slogging across the screen looking heavily medicated, I tend to get frustrated after awhile.
The 3-D graphics? Novel but unnecessary. When it comes to warfare, it actually interferes with gameplay at times, particularly when I am trying to select military units and target enemy troops. Another reviewer mentioned Medieval TW and I regret that I have to agree that Stronghold 2's graphics and gameplay fall short of a game that is several generations older in terms of development. It is disheartening that the developers could take the great franchise that the Stronghold games represent and turn out this tepid, uninspiring effort. I can only hope that there are many more patches to come, which may help improve the game's many problems.
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Patch 1.2 update (6-7-05): it seems only fair to note, after commenting on the game's many deficiencies, that the developers seem to be doing their level best to address the problems. The latest patch seems to have corrected a great number of the problems. I don't play multiplayer, so I am in no position to comment on any problems on that end, but solo play seems to be much less buggy.
However, speed issues continue to bedevil the game, and I do not believe that it is simply because everyone is working on elderly obsolete machines. I am left with the impression that the developers simply piled too much detail into the game --- again, it leaves the player micromanaging to a frantic degree while causing the game speed to become sluggish.
Having said that, it appears that the developers are trying to make this game as playable as is possible. This gives me encouragement. I would now give this game a four-star rating with some qualifications.
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56 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great gameplay, May 28, 2005
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
I'm a huge fan of strategy games and of empire-building games. Stronghold 2 does a really good job of balancing the aspects of gameplay and warfare.
First off, I really love the graphics and atmosphere. I love medieval research and recreation, so I was quite impressed with the attention to detail here. The game is in fact educational, helping you learn how the complex interplay of economy, land usage, mineral resources and even social balance all helped to keep a village or castle area going.
I love the fact that there are management issues to deal with - that you're not just cranking out troops and blasting away at enemies. Those troops had to come from somewhere. The money to pay the peasants who mined the ore had to come from somewhere. If all you're out for is build-and-blast, there are plenty of games out there to do that for you. Stronghold lets you delve more deeply into the actual world that these struggles took place in.
There are in fact different modes of gameplay that focus either on world-building on or conflict. Depending on your aims, you can choose one path or the other, and focus on whichever pleases you more.
I've read some reviews where people complain about game speed. I haven't had ANY issues at all with the speed of the system. When I watch the little people on the screen, they appear to be moving at "actual normal" speed compared to the buildings and objects around them. What, do you want super-human little peasants that can zoom faster than Speedy Gonzales?
That being said, this is of course a new game. That means it runs best on newer systems. If you try to run a new, graphic-rich game on an ancient P-100, then of course it's not going to work. That's always true with any game. PCs are not meant to last forever. You need to keep them upgraded and RAM-filled to handle what the new games offer. I find that a quite reasonable thing. After all, I want new games to be as great as they can be. I don't want them to have bad graphics and tiny maps in order to still work with ancient systems.
I do have a complaint with the marketing which incessantly promotes that you can "see maidens bathing" as a selling point. Good God Almighty, isn't it enough to say it's a good game, without trying to push porn points? You don't actually SEE anything, for those who care :)
Well recommended!
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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This game is under-rated !!, July 23, 2006
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Let me preface this review with two data points. First I have played every RTS and civilization type game that has come out - its my favorite type of game. For me resource management and city building are cool and the fighting is just a test of what you've built. The second data point is that I do have a modestly fast machine - its a 3Ghz Dell with appropriate Ram and video card.
I didn't buy this game for a long time because the reviews were so mixed - many compelling reviews complained that the resource management was over the top and the castle details, particularly the "Gong" or dung piles, and the crime were just too much. The game seemed too complicated somehow - also there were many complaints about bugs and slowness.
However, I have found this to be the most fun games in my collection of the moment and in fact my kids also think its the greatest. Why? Well it takes a little practice to learn how to play it but once you do its really rewarding.
Of course the graphics are great: Most games seem to have that these days. But the game play is really good. There are some neat concepts here like estates which are independent lands that can be owned by you: you can receive important resources from them as well as income, and they need to be protected. There are intestesting aspects of village life that must be ballanced such as crime - the bigger you get the more there is. Rehabilitation is time based - It takes longer to rehab a criminal in the stocks than it does on the rack! The sooner he is through rehab the sooner he is back to work. You have to earn money of course, but you also have to earn honor in order to get access to more and more Castle items. To earn honor you have to make the items neccesary to hold dances, feasts, jousts, etc. If you don't keep up with building your honor your castle will fall as the enemies will come on with progressively stronger attacks which only the more up to date technology can stop.
The AI is also very good. You can set up all sorts of enemies of different calibers and they will attack in good order and with reasonable effectiveness. Your castle will get a good test. Basically they will keep after you until you knock their castles down.
Regarding the complaints about crime and "piles of human waste" this is very easy to manage - build a few extra "gong" pits and there won't be any waste problems, build a few inspiring "rehab devices" and the population won't want to commit crime anymore. Its part of the challange of running a castle. It takes a little practice to get it all done in time before the attacks come, but thats why its fun and enjoyable to play many times.
Regarding the complaints about bugs: it simply hasn't been an issue for me -the game automatically updated itself when I loaded it and there haven't been any bugs in many hours of play. Regarding the complaints about speed - well what can I say here? - its no problem at all on my 3Gig. Since play is effortless on this machine with all the settings maxed, I have to assume that you can still get good game play on lesser machines - up to a point. I think this game woudn't work too well at 1Ghz and below - just my estimate.
We use the very powerfull map editor to create our own maps - it took about 30 minutes to master but once mastered you can do a lot. You can use all the features of the games including estates, mountains, cliffs, rivers, fog, bird flocks, dear heards, terain sounds, bridges, etc. You can pre-set boundries between different estates and castles. Once the game gets going, the AI will automatically start building up communities in those areas.
Here's a few ideas for the game creators for the next version from me and my kids. First, the voices need improvement - its a fine ballance between realism and comedy that's required- We think you had a better ballance in Stronhold 1. We love the regional British voices for different classes of population - keep this up and extend it without too much comedic reading. Second, We were in a village in France recently that defended itself by throwing behives over the walls at attackers - As you have behives already why not add that to the defence? We would love to see attackers coming up the ladders only to receive a behive on the head. Third, the burning logs and rock boxes are great but we wish that they could be set to automatic. One of our favorite things to do is set up a castle and watch it defend itself - you need the defences to work automatically for this.
Overall I strongly recommend this game for anyone interested in RTS and civilization type games -the price is great, the playability is great.
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