Stronghold Legends

Stronghold Legends (SHL) is the successor of Stronghold 2, released October 2006. 
==Setting and gameplay==
Stronghold Legends brings the player to a world of medieval folklore and epics, featuring a variety of mythical units and characters from three factions: 
* the Good faction: knights of the Round Table and nobles from the Arthurian Old English mythology 
* the Ice faction: wolves, dwarves and heroes from around the Rhine, the Old German songs
* the Evil faction: werewolves, bats and other hellish creatures built around Vlad Tepes and the opposition of Arthur
Each faction features its own single-player campaign, as well as four Legends Trails can be completed in various skirmish scenarios. Multiplayer is available for classic Skirmish, as well as the King of the Hill modes, where players compete for controlling dedicated parts of a map. There are 8 opponents total available for play (of which 2 are available only in custom scenarios).
Stronghold Legends is built to provide a dynamic combat and economy system, greatly simplifying and streamlining those found in Stronghold 2. The most important data, such as popularity, gold and food stocks are conveniently displayed in a top bar, while the building panels also include trade shortcuts to specific resources, such as the poleturner having access to wood trade buttons.
== Features ==
=== Factions ===
For the first and only time ever in the Stronghold series, Legends features a semi-asymmetric combat and economy system by introducing factions. While each faction can use mostly the same buildings and units from the barracks, they can also hire 'mercenaries' from a dedicated special building providing a special set of fantasy units, of which some can also use abilities that recharge over time. 
Moreover, factions have certain limitations on economy, siege unit roster and castle defenses, making them further differ from each other. The Arthurian faction is designed to be an economic one, having full access to goods and castle services, while fielding only unique units from the Round Table in return. The Ice and Evil factions both are able to recruit special units en masse, with somewhat limited economic possibilities. Each faction can also call down a dragon, a massive epic unit, which can fly over terrain and breathe damaging fire at an area, albeit with a large preparation time and limited lifespan.
Each faction also has visually themed buildings, as well as randomly scattered decoration features on their estates, such as Evil estates featuring scattered heads on a stake and cemetery crosses. The player can choose its alignment before the start of a skirmish or a king-of-the-hill match.
=== Estates ===
Estates return from Stronghold 2 with a greater utility than before. Rather than preset by the map-maker, goods types in an estate can be chosen by the player who captures them, allowing for a higher degree of customization. Upon switching to a new production type, the village is immediately reset and starts ferrying via its carter's posts. Moreover, estates ignore economic requirements, meaning they do not care about popularity and goods stocks when building.
Carters on the way can still be attacked like in Stronghold 2 and they are made to be rewarding: when fallen with loaded cargo, the delivery is immediately awarded to the killing player.
=== Streamlined gameplay ===
The gameplay revolves around the classic formula: build an industry and a castle from resources gathered, provide the populace food and recruit units. Stronghold Legends draws from Stronghold 2's sim mechanics, however simplifies them for the sake of faster and less complicated gameplay.
==== Economy ====
Popularity mechanics, such as taxation, religion and royal food are now regularly ticked, denoted by a constantly refilling bar on their respective panel. When the bar overflows, a consumption effect takes place, removing stocks while also granting a beneficial effect (such as consuming candles). In addition, the player is awarded bonus popularity when their population is low, mostly to facilitate faster incoming peasants in the beginning of the game. Honourly events like the masses and jousting tournaments are removed from the game.
The economy of Legends features fewer buildings than Stronghold 2, but their prices are greatly increased, therefore spamming them is less possible. Wood camps in particular have been redesigned, requiring much more area to place and featuring three woodsmen, as well as they can be given a point to focus gathering operations. Stone and most other materials are notably cheaper, as well as the market is an expensive building that introduces automatic buy and sell rates for the player. As a convenience feature, ox tethers are functional without a worker and can be set a rally point to prioritize loading from certain mines.
Honor makes its return, which is used to recruit advanced barracks and fantasy units, as well as to promote in rank. Honor is accumulated over time from religion, varied food portions and generous royal food supplies. Glory points are an additional resource that is gathered from finishing off units in melee combat, which can then be used to erect statues for additional honor generation.
==== Military ====
Recruitment is also much faster in Stronghold Legends than in most other games. Units appear instantly at the recruitment building instead of the campfire, and it is possible to batch recruit units by setting a slider. The slider can be locked in place, allowing for spawning small groups efficiently. Some units are also given more responsiveness: 
* Some units can fly over terrain with great mobility. As a compensation, ranged units can shoot at them from higher ranges.
* Knights and the Lord can be given horses for Honor and they can also scale walls while mounted, with their horse removed as long as they remain on an elevated position.
* Siege towers can house units while not docked, making them a mobile tower with reduced movement speed. 
* Trebuchets can be packed, making them reusable and redeployable during a siege.
Perhaps most importantly, the Keep is much more essential in terms of gameplay, as it has become an additional win condition for enemy players. Keeps are capturable like estates, meaning if the enemy can station troops on top of it without any defender units present for 2000 ticks, the defender is automatically eliminated from the game. The Lord also regenerates health when out of combat.
=== Special powers ===
Legends is the first game where units with special abilities appear. The Lord, a dedicated special faction unit and Knights of the Round Table all have abilities that can be used in an area with great effect, being put on a cooldown period after use. Lords can summon a small group of bodyguards around them, special faction units can use a damaging area ability, while the Round Table knights have various utility spells, ranging from large area blasts to a protective shield. Powers appear on the right-hand side of the game interface.
While not powers themselves, dragons also appear as an indicator while they are being prepared and are alive. When the dragon egg is fully prepared, the dragon can be hatched by clicking on the egg button.
==Content==
==Trailer==
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== Requirements== 
*Operating System: Windows 2000/XP/Vista
*Processor: 1.6 Ghz processor
*RAM: 512 MB RAM
*Hard Drive: 2.5 Gb uncompressed space
*Video Card: 64 MB (w/ Hardware T&L GeForce3/Radeon 8500 or better)
*Processor: Soundcard DirectX 7 compatible
Recommended
*Processor: 2.0 Ghz processor
*Video Card: 128 MB w/ DirectX 8 support (pixel and vertex shaders)
==Files==
*Download Patch 1.2 (the latest patch)
==External Links==
*StrongholdNation - Stronghold Legends Forum
*Stronghold Legends :: StrongholdNation
*Youtube Trailer
*Stronghold Legends Wikipedia
==Sources==
*Jason Ocampo, GameSpot
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