Stronghold

Stronghold (SH) is a historical real-time strategy (RTS) game developed by Firefly Studios, released on October 2001.
== Overview ==
Stronghold is an isometric sim game that involves building a castle and managing a castle economy, while keeping it safe from attacks of adversaries and other random events. The objective of the player is usually to best other enemies by killing their main unit, the Lord, while preserving their own one.
Players can build various structures for different purposes, such as extracting/processing resources, crafting weapons or acting as a means of defense. Buildings build immediately and their costs are immediately deducted upon placement, however most buildings also require manpower and sometimes resources to be fully operational. Special types of buildings are the various weapon workshops that produce weapons for recruiting various units at the barracks.
Unique to Stronghold, peasants are constantly spawned at the keep to fuel the player's industry and war machine. An eye must always be kept on popularity in order to ensure ample peasant influx, or else people will leave the castle, hampering recruitment and production.
On the battlefield, units can engage each other in melee or from range. Foot units usually take equipment and gold to recruit, while siege engines and some utility units require gold only. Units can also attack structures, however this task is best left to siege engines that must be constructed and manned by engineers first. Walls and towers can also be scaled by units in order to gain bonus range and damage reduction to projectiles coming from below.
== Features and plot ==
The game takes place in a fictive Medieval Britain, in the eleventh century, where the rebellious Duc Volpe sends the English regime into disarray and takes over the crown, exerting control through his loyal landlords. The remnants of the Royal Court are forced into hiding, until at one point they decide to fight back by leading an uprising with the lead of Lord Woolsack and Sir Longarm.
Stronghold offers two campaigns: 
* Military campaign: this long series of missions accompanies the story of the Boy, who fights for the reunification of the country with the mentoring Longarm and Woolsack.
* Economic campaign: a loose series of missions, where the player needs to fulfill certain objectives by careful management.
Moreover, the game enables online play (Skirmish) for up to eight human players, where alliances can be set up between players. The last player/team standing wins.
== Legacy ==
=== Availability ===
Over time, Stronghold's physical distribution was discontinued, remaining a digital exclusive. Since 2016, the game is currently available on the platforms GOG and Steam, as Stronghold HD.
==== Definitive Edition ====
Stronghold: Definitive Edition, a remaster of the original game, is scheduled to release on November 7, 2023. The game is supposed to get additional campaigns on top of revamped graphics and sound effects, as well as a peer-to-peer multiplayer system through Steam. 
=== Fanbase ===
As well as earning many favorable reviews from reviewers such as PCGamer and GameSpy, the game continues to boast a large community, who edit and create various material through the in-game Map Editor/Scenario Creator.
=== Sequels and Longevity ===
Stronghold also spawned its own series and spin-off sequels, continuing well into the present day. These are:
* Stronghold Crusader - a historical sequel set during the Crusader campaigns, notable for the introduction of AI skirmish modes
* Stronghold 2 - a sequel set in an alternate plot, with a heavier focus on castle management, in a newfound 3D engine
* Stronghold Legends - a spin-off game that intertwines fantasy and reality, by mixing the worlds of German, English and Transylvanian folklore
* Stronghold 3 - an 'ambitious' direct sequel that continues the story of Stronghold and expands on castle sim elements
* Stronghold Crusader 2 - the continuation of Crusader, with a heavier focus on redesigning skirmish gameplay
* Stronghold Kingdoms - a real-time MMO that plays out on a world map, with village and castle management elements
* Stronghold Warlords - a historical sequel played in Eastern Asia, with diverse campaigns and classic gameplay elements
==Topics==
==Trailer==
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==External Links==
*Stronghold Nation
*Stronghold Wikipedia
*Patch v1.2 from Take2
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Category:Games