All the bugs have been fixed, the one problem I have is that they made the wall building more like age of empires (the best part of stronghold was making a customizable castle) the maps are kind of tiny, but in most cases that does not matter because you dont need a huge map to do the mission. They tried somthing new with the drawn art work cinematics, respsect them for that. Stronghold has always been a non noob friendly economic castle builder, most the people downrating this game are a console generation that want fast action in everything they play, stronghold will not be a direct hit instant love for most players, but for a small amount of us you will be reminded of the old stronghold (all the bugs got fixed, if they just had better walls this would be at least an 8) But sadly, it is no measure to stronghold 1, but you COULD say that if you just want to play stronghold 1, then play stronghold 1 right? wrong, it took on an age of empires resemblance which is not what its supposed to be, kingdoms took on a starcraft like stance (which is not what it is) stronghold has always been unique and should not try to blend itself with other genre's… Expand

There is absolutally nothing wrong with this game. Shame on all the people giving it a horrible rating. Multiplayer worked perfectly right after I finished downloading off steam, the graphics are great, some people most not understand the slightly complicated gameplay. The campaign is interesting and placing your castle in the real life world map is definatly a unique aspect. And by the way, the multiplayer is also very fun. As soon as I opened a 2v2 lobby it was full within 30 seconds. This game is great, beleive me.… Expand

After playing this for a good few hours I can point out that most of the other reviewers are trolls, the game is fine and I have yet to run into either a bug or a bad gameplay decision, the graphics are nice but the character models could be better, the music is excellent and the gameplay is fine, for those wanting Stronghold 1 go and play Stronghold 1.

ran the program took one look at the 1996 graphics and said what a absolute waste of 50 dollars......
please dont waste the time or effort to even install this game what an absolute mess

Just three words: NO SKIRMISH MODE.......................................................................................................................................

This wouldn't have been a brilliant game if it had come out five years ago, let alone now. Looks dated and dodgy, plays very poorly with slow, unresponsive units and a primitive interface. Even though it's a niche game and offers the reasonably rare selling point of letting you build and run a castle it does it so badly that even if I was jonesing for a castle building game I'd still give it a miss. Really disappointed.… Expand

The game is currently unplayable and obviously incomplete. There is almost no documentation for any of the mechanics,mechanics that exist generally do not work as they should. Game is a disaster and a last moment cash grab. Stick a fork in this franchise it is done...

Such a disappointment, so much potential wasted :( Weak graphics, full of bugs, boring campaign, tiny maps and a generally very unfinished feel to it. Basic mechanics are of course very similar to stronghold 1 and 2 and that's about the only thing done right.

Stronghold 3 can be described as full of bugs, stupid developer decisions, and it AI (if it can be called like that at all) robs you blind. There are problems everywhere, archers who can't shoot from towers, when attacking you will need lot of patience to find a place around enemy where cursor changed to attack icon, sometimes you have to click on enemy and most of times you have to hunt pixel around enemy where it will let you to attack. As for robbing AI, if you have 8 spearmen and you attack 1 enemy spearman, he will kill 5 of yours before falls. Also wolves, at campaign start you can't build walls, wolfs enter settlement they will kill all peasants, farmers, woodcutters, as they cant defend for themselves. You will need to run around with lord hunting wolves around town to keep as much people alive as you can, also one wolf can kill 3-4 spearmen. Game can be unstable, so you will need to save a lot, as there is no auto-save. List of problems goes on and on. And all of this is just about campaign, as there is no skirmish, no kingmaker mode. There is no AI, game just spawns units that are same as yours but AI archers do more damage than players, same goes for men at arms, spearmen, etc. Total garbage.… Expand

In my humble opinion, Firefly should sell the Stronghold license to a developer that knows what to do with it, and shut down. This game is a disaster.

I loved Stronghold 1 and Crusader - not so big on 2 and Legends, but this... this is by far the worst RTS I have ever played in my life. NOTHING works as it should, nothing is thought through. It's like they've taken all the worst parts from previous Stronghold games and none of the good, and then added a million bugs.

Graphics are broken and ugly. 1920x1080 isn't an option, but if I pick 1600x900 it stretches the image for some reason, so I have to play in a 16:10 resolution on my 16:9 monitor with black borders, just to be able to see an unstretched image. Game speed is ridiculously slow. Walls don't protect units behind them, animals can climb ladders, no audio cues when your men are being attacked. No explanation of what anything does and no tooltips for most buttons. Economic system is atrocious and resource management is hell with no HUD indication of resources. Fighting is atrocious and no fun at all. Etc.

This game is horrible in every way, completely unfinished and certain areas, like the cutscenes, clearly showcase how little this game has cost to make, in terms of both money and labour. Releasing a game in this state at full price (or at any price, really) is no different from picking someone's pocket, and Firefly are nothing more than petty thieves.… Expand

could have spent more time being developed. come on firefly. u did some fine graphics work but the bugs and glitches are really bad. the patches are nice but i honestly think u shot yourself in foot with the release in such bad shape. next time wait made do a close beta to find more bugs possible re-think your Q&A team and find some better tester would help you out more. i hope to see a stronghold 4 but take your time and show us what u can really do, give us a stronghold with a great release. gives a stronghold it can give us score of 90. i know you can do better then this.… Expand

Enjoying it so far. Just finished the second mission in the economy campaign and it was challenging and really enjoyable. By the end of it I was enjoying the layout of my town and got the hang of how to build it up. Have had no big issues with performance, a couple of crashes while loading but really no problem. Graphics are simple but effective. When your stronghold gets going it does look like there is a lot going on, which I like. The graphics look better the larger your cities get. it all could go pear shaped I guess... but so far so good.… Expand

First this game alots of bugs, problems 2 play, this is terrible, was a fan of this game....real pitty.
The game is very slow, b4 u build something, it take hours. It looks like this game have be made with trainees. The only PLUS in this game, is how they present the game at the beginning, good sounds and music. For the price this is 2 expensive. Money back please.

Needs a few patches, & Firefly had the first one out before the game was out 2 days in US. Overall Id say they've done a good job in listening to their fans feedback during the games production. Most of us were asking for a revival of the original Stronhold/Crusader formula, & this was indeed done but perhaps even to a fault. The game is damn-near a 3 dimentional current gen version of sh1, personally I am loving it! I've always wanted to play the 1st game again but for the 1st time again well... this is that. The difficulty is hard with no alt settings & I think this is a problem for some, for me though it seems like playing the first all over again. Hearing even some of the original music in game put a smile on my face. The start to this series was one I approched with little expectations & after Stronghold 2 etc I wasnt gonna hold my breath, thankfully I was pleasantly surprized. As with every other release now the game launched with some people experiencing bugs & then of course, out come the knives & pitchforks. Everyone rushes to the forums & meta to vent their rage for being "duped" into buying an incomplete game, cry foul, boycott, warn everyone else not to buy, then do it all over again next time.… Expand

I've come online to get this review in early in the hope that I can save other Stronghold fans from making the same mistake I did. This game is an unfinished, buggy mess and I wish I could get my money back. Pre-ordering games just doesn't pay nowadays as developers seem determined to release their unfinished, unpolished, half-implemented rubbish on the paying public. They've had to make this game on a shoestring budget, and it shows from the beginning with the bugs and the use of black and white drawings in place of cinematics. Mission design is poor, the maps are tiny, the animations are rudimentary and the graphics engine is glitchy.

The game simply isn't worth playing in it's current state, and it's merely a throwback to Stronghold 2 and not the original and best Stronghold 1. You have to be worried when a castle building game doesn't give your troops any defensive bonus at all for being behind walls - none whatsoever. Many aspects of the gameplay are quite simply broken, and there is no skirmish mode, just a horrible lackluster campaign. The dreadful reviews will start pouring in soon - hold off on that purchase, wait till you find it in the bargain bin, which won't be very long. A sad waste of time and money.… Expand

this game is definitely a zero. From the first underdeveloped slew of garbage that entered my computer, it was a nightmare. My primary reason for being so annoyed was that there was no skirmish mode. You could "re-enact historical sieges", but you couldn't generate a skirmish mode? With that aside, I created an account here to complain about the dlc, and how you couldn't just buy it- you had to purchase the game again. So, at 31.99 with 20% off they are trying to re-sell their underdeveloped game, with one addition campaign that nobody will ever play. I have nothing against dlc, but to charge for a whole game that still doesn't contain the basic components of a castle building sim is just ridiculous.… Expand

Castle building? Again and again? You've gone too far this time! You don't need to to cause more pain again and again and again until we're all dead. No one's gonna buy it, so go make another game at least a handful of people will find interesting.

All the hype built around this game was of no use as the developers of this game have delivered nothing but an unfinished,rushed and an uninteresting game. I advise you not to waste your money on this game.

There is really no need for another negative review, except to help offset the few false positive reviews in which the negative reviewers are called trolls. The game is awful, after patches. It is unstable, buggy, units defy any form of logic, walls mysteriously have invisible gaps, terrain textures vanish, and even the map editor itself is unstable and buggy. This game is a truly a big, steaming pile.… Expand

This game is awful. The tutorial is far too brief. The gameplay is sluggish and antiquated. The controls feel unfinished. The graphics are very poor and glitchy. After 20 minutes of play I feel totally robbed of the premium price that I pre-paid for this game. Shameful.

$50 for this garbage? Black and White 2 was a mediocre game, yet it is far, far better than this game in every respect even though it is 7 years old. Even though city/wall building is not core to B&W2, those aspects of that game are so much better than this game that it is shocking. Why is this game bad? 1. Bad graphics [REALLY outdated] 2. Terrible interface and controls. 3. The patrol and attack-move buttons do not work, and no attack-move is a horrible handicap in combat. 4. Peasants block building placement, including elderly and children. This means that once you have a somewhat populated area, it becomes virtually impossible to place buildings, because peasant traffic will constantly block open areas. 5. The sound and art is terrible, it seriously feels like an indie game that you could play on newgrounds. 6. BUGS, I ran in to numerous problems, including crash to desktops and hangs.… Expand

this game is just a big bug...... no words!!
never played a unfished game like this **** -.-
......................................................................................................

This game is not even worth pirating. It is so poorly designed and full of bugs. This game is not even worth pirating. It is so poorly designed and full of bugs. This game is not even worth pirating. It is so poorly designed and full of bugs. This game is not even worth pirating. It is so poorly designed and full of bugs.

They could do better. As the concept of play is not bad, but failed to create a beautiful game. It is boring, lacks consistency and incomplete, because even in the building free once built the main structures, the game stops. We find ourselves saying: "ok I built everything, now I turn off". A real shame, because the concept is really nice. Fail!

Such a shame......... Game was talked about such potential an its now Day 2 of release an I have returned the game for my money back. Bug ridden launch of yet another PC title. It feels they release these games for the pure need of sales to get their budget up since they peeked it an had run out of funds, so they sell a unfinished unpolished game to gain revenue so they can fix the issues an implement the rest of the games ideas with the new found source of money they receive from sales. Very poor business ethics from the PC industry the past 2-4 years. It is getting really annoying....It is like they want me to just buy a Console an never look back with the type of lack of respect they show us consumer PC gamers. Game tries to show you the light at the end of the tunnel but merely fails horribly. No skirmish in a RTS game is a complete ruin of the style of game it is, where is the replay ability without skirmish???? No Kingmaker makes even LESS replay ability..... What do they expect us to do buy a game for 50 dollars to play a 10 hour campaign if that an then just notch the game off on are list of what to do next? This title is a slap in the face to PC gamers of the genre this title supports, They talk in their Dev videos how they did so much not to fail like supposedly Stronghold 2 did, Well it had its issues at launch I will be honest, but after some patches an time I rather play that game then this supposed "new" an "better" version. They were so negative towards SH2 that they even made the story take off from the original SH1, that right there tells you they do no have confidence in their ability to make games. I warn anyone who buys this game within its first month of launch, for it will take some time fixing the mass of Bugs this game is experiencing at the moment. Wait a few if months for it to hit the bargain bin or hit the sales rack on steam or at Retailers such as Gamestop store or their Online download system "aka" Impulse that for some reason they now changed it to the name of their stores, which on a side note I thought was stupid... I liked Impulse as the name more then the Current. An stay Clear from Origin unless you just HAVE to have a EA game or you will die. (rumors say it has a spyware in the software to take your information an sell it to other companies for marketing purposes, be careful)
Well I hope this post helps people save some money. I give this game a 3 out of 10 because they attempted to do something at least, even if it was a massive launch PC title failure again. Maybe a few months down the road it will be playable an enjoyable like SH2 became when its issues were fixed an corrected. The only Thing good going for this game is the introduction of a Physics engine making the the destruction of Castle walls an Town buildings look more realistic an the peoples "AI" bodies having a "rag" doll effect to their lifeless corpses. I sure hope some other big titles coming out that I am waiting for do not do this as well, Such as Skyrim from Besthesda.... Especially after how horrible RAGE was an still is after multiply patches to try an fix it, yet still have not. Wish the PC industry would get their **** together... I am really considering going back to Xbox or Playstation, I know they go through their issues now an then but at least with a console I did not spend $2,000.00 plus dollars to make a top end gaming machine just to get crappy game after crappy game released… Expand

FireFly = RIPOFF ARTISTS !! FF must run by criminally incompetent marketing hacks. They are ACTIVELY SELLING a product that THEY KNOW IS NOT FINISHED. Buy it only if you like blue screen of death.

Immense disappointment. As a long-time fan of the series I am nothing but let down by this unfinished, unpolished, incomplete travesty. Seriously, how hard is it to code Stronghold 1 in 3D with graphics from this decade? Too hard apparently. It's rough, crude and lacks any sophistication or substance. There isn't even a skirmish mode to justify playing it after the pathetically threadbare campaign. Do not give your money to these losers. Not even worth picking up from a bargain bin. WOLVES CLIMBING LADDERS.… Expand

Outdated 3d graphics, numerous bugs and no skirmish mode. The first Stronghold is now 10 years old and it's still far more enjoyable than any other game of the franchise (with Crusader being the exception).

I'm going to receive a lot of hate for this but i liked the game. sure it had its fare share of bugs and it was a bit slow i enjoyed it and the game is being patched every week and its getting better all the time.now the reason i didn't give it higher marks is it is not excusable to send out a buggy and unfinished game to the consumers sure its getting better every patch but firefly should have checked the game for bugs i wouldn't of minded this game being delayed to finish it. Collapse… Expand

The most anticipated flop of our generation. Crashes left right and centre, poor AI and poorly designed non-immersive maps are only a few things that cast out Stronghold 3 from it's predecessors.

Remember when stronghold 2 came out? It's more buggy then that ever was.. Graphic errors, no skirmish mode, terrible campaign and lots more to list.. Don't buy this until it's on a 5$ sale or 3 years from now when they fix all the glitches.. Why can't they just remake stronghold 1 or crusader to how we all want it to be..

The only reason for me creating an account here: To warn you all not to buy this ... "game". Its pathetic lol, no skirmish, **** graphics and overall an unfinished feeling. This is far from playable, and even further away from being a good game. Sad to see the money go down the drain.. again.. Don't make the mistake of buying this game. This is not worth the 5 bucks when it ends up in the discount bin even!… Expand

No skirmish mode. No kingmaker.
No AI (i.e. computer opponents to play against in any mode, save for what's scripted in the campaign).
Multiplayer is broken. You literally cannot play multiplayer. Even if you could, there are four very small maps from which to choose.
Limited free build mode comprising two maps, both of which are very tiny. To give you some reference, if you took thirty wheat farms and lined them up, the first and last would be at the edges of the map.

I won't comment as to how I like the graphics, because to an extent it is personal preference, but I will tell you there are numerous graphical errors, and castle walls use low resolution, blotchy textures.

I do enjoy the audio. Music is nice. It's not enough to overcome the game's other faults by a longshot, however.

The game is very buggy. Some people cannot start the game. Others it crashes for, and still others for some odd reason can only play the game in a foreign language (really). For those of us lucky not to experience these major issues, there still is a whole slew of pesky annoyances and gameplay imbalances with which to contend, to the extent that we're wondering if 7sixty and Firefly Studios accidentally released an early beta version instead of the completed game.

There are some remedies to Stronghold 2's mechanics that are positive, such as not having to deal with sanitation or criminals, and a better camera UI.
Your building choices are also more refined, which does mean less indeed, but I think it's for the better. For instance, there's only a church, and no chapel or cathedral. The church has a support structure, the chandler, a producer of candles, which the church requires to perform services.
The honour system is interesting, I think, but there's no sense in going into it here.
Housing is nifty in that it changes size and capacity based on distance from the keep.
Weather and day and night cycles are kind of glitched, but in theory they are pretty cool.

The game is in major need of some serious patches.
Even with patches, you'd very likely never see a skirmish mode, as AI is something that takes a very long time to develop, and typically requires coding in the early stages of development.
There may be a technical reason the maps are as small as they are. If this is true, it's extremely disappointing.

The short answer is stay away from Stronghold 3.
Maybe reconsider if it goes on sale for ten bucks, but only after extensive patching.… Expand

I first came to the stronghold series with stronghold 2. I thought, despite the shoddy graphics that it was a great idea and alot of fun. I even enjoyed stronghold legends. I played though the campaign once on each then moved to offline skirmishes or kingmaker which is the mode I always play with RTS's. So think of my surprise when loading up stronghold 3 for the first time and couldnt find the skirmish/kingmaker option! I hav essentially bought a game full price of which I cannot play. I paid £30.00 for a shoddy little campaign on tiny maps, with poor framerate. What was firefly doing for all these years? Has anyone even tested this game before release? and where the hell is skirmish?! Rule number 1 about making a RTS game. INCLUDE SKIRMISH!!!

Whats wrong with this game? - No Skirmish/Kingmaker
- No AI
- Tiny Maps
- Crappy Framerate even on high end pc's
- Camera is restricted in free build? whats the point in doing that?
- Tiny selection of maps (2!)
- No cinematic cutscenes just black and white drawings with a crappy voice over.
- Unresponsive units (hard to select and when they are selected they dont always do as you say)
- Cant see the sky (no different views like sh2)

Stronghold was my second favourite series of games (behind total war). I can-not express my disapointment enough. Please save yourself the horror and dont buy it.… Expand

I guess the glorious days of the Stronghold Franchise are over. Stronghold 3 has HUGE bugs, currently no speed regulation, graphics looks like came out of 2002 - to shortcut this - for my taste... a Nr1 lame game. Stronghold 3 earned a place in my personal FAIL BUY's list.

A nasty surprise for Stronghold fans. This game is very buggy and has an unfinished feel to it. Let me rephrase that: This game has been released in a state it shouldn't be. It's like a fetus gets pulled out of a womb months before its time. This should have never been released in this state.
Furthermore, there is a lack of skirmish mode, which means you have to deal with the current campaigns as they are. They are impossibly difficult, not as much to say the game is challenging, but you have the feeling you're not fighting the virtual enemies, rather the bugs you come across. There is no bonus for standing on walls, and your men at arms get stuck when they can't hit their enemies. What is that all about?
A lot of people say they don't like the graphics, but I think they're the only pro to this game as far as I'm concerned. I think this game is salvageable with a lot of patching, but for now I'd suggest you all wait till it's in the bargain bin.… Expand

This game is nowhere near finished, graphics are atrocious and the game doesn't even support 1080p, almost no info throughout the game as to what each building does or how much or whatever it is producing, no display info telling you how much stock you have in a given item other than having to constantly re-check the stockpile. It is a complete mess and such a shame as the gaming landscape could have done with a new game of this type.… Expand

I was really looking forward to this game. Preordered it. SO disappointed. Laggy (even on my very high spec nearly new laptop), still lags when graphics set lower and lights turned off. Crashes out.... oh I can't even begin to list all the problems.

I wish I'd never wasted my money :(

Beyond unpolished, unfinished. Not only the combat system is buggy and full of oversights, it is faulted by design. No care has been put at all in this game. The economics mechanics are not the best of the series, but at least are better than Stronghold 2's.

Only the music and the sound effects are acceptable. Voice acting is OK. Graphics are all right if you don't care too much, but unit animations are sub-par.

Some reviews say it needs "a few patches". But it needs to be redone.… Expand

Every Troll here cannot wait to tell you how bad this game is, having spent all of 10 minutes playing it on their out-dated computers. It seems everyone would like to be the first to post a poorly written diatribe about how "buggy" or "disappointing" Stronghold 3 is. Don't believe the anti-hype! The game probably needs a patch or two to be perfect, but I can only marvel at the beauty and complexity of the gameplay. I'm running a machine with Win 7 and 12 GB of RAM with an ATI Radeon HD 5700 card and the game runs beautifully. Unlike some games on the market today which are little more than click-through-movies, Stronghold 3 is VERY challenging! It has taken me several tries to complete each mission and I cannot wait to start playing with the map editor and making my own multiplayer maps and missions! If you're the type who is prone to uncontrollable fits of "nerd-rage", you may want to spare your poor abused keyboard some banging and just wait a week or two until the patches to fix a few lingering issues come out.… Expand

Incredibly disappointed! The game is not finished, should not have been release in my opinion. Multi player does not work at all at the moment! Huge bugs in game! This game needs a patch to even be playable. Anyone rating the game 10 works for production coz game don't work!!!

I can't even describe how disappointed I am in this game. My two biggest gripes are the popularity system change and no skirmish mode. WHY on earth they changed the popularity system that was simple and WORKED to something that needs to be continually micromanaged I'll never know. Heaven forbid you don't devote a third or more of your population to food, lest you run out of it, people leave from the negative happiness hit for no food, and you have no farmers to fix the problem. It's a constant juggling act of negative and positive happiness with a score of peasants coming and going at a time because as SOON as you get into negative happiness at all, peasants start leaving immediately, unlike the old popularity system where you could support a negative rating for awhile if your popularity was beefed up to 100. Oh yeah, did I mention no skirmishes? In THAT regard, they have gone back to stronghold 1. If you are a stronghold fan like I am, unless this game gets a heavy overhaul, AVOID it.… Expand

My biggest gripe with this game is that it bears a full price tag and there is no demo. That is really a problem, because you can't get refunds on Steam and the game is utter crap. It runs well, but looks bad on GTX470 and is missing a lot of features. Feels like a beta version. They just wanted to cash in on the Stronghold name.

Is it a new game ? Is it a beta test? I am really confused brothers.. Don´t buy this game! ............................................................

Despite what others are saying, this game runs pretty smoothly on my system. Despite that, it's pretty boring. I'm a newcomer to the stronghold series, and I was rather looking forward to this game. Sadly, I was left disappointed. No skirmish is kind of silly, and the campaign is rather droll. The game over-all is VERY simple -- to the point that strategy is really not needed. I don't typically play multi-player, so I can't vouch for any of that, but single player is snooze city.… Expand

To those who may be reading this: You may be inclined to think that this game can't possibly be as bad as the user reviews say. But this is quite possibly the worst game from the past 7 years, stay away from this title even if you find it in the budget bin. That the developers had the audacity to charge full price is so bizarre it simply HAS to be a joke.

Buggy, over-simplistic and but a shadow of it's former incarnates. There is so much to hate in this game, and forums everywhere are overflowing with it all. All in all, avoid.

Oops, I gave this a 10 accidentally.

My bad, please forgive me.

I probably wouldn't have been disappointed had I paid $10 for it.

Still not at 150 characters.

Are we there yet?

Nope not quite.

Check out my review below.

I have to be pretty close now.

Is this really worth adding a new score?

Any day now...

Don't buy this unfinished, buggy game actual...
There is no skirmish mode, no ai support for MP - not even a working MP.
Your peasants eat 3x food as normal - and your maps are tiny - so you will build food buildins only - no space for a castle.
You cannot build wall on wall and your walls become broken by food units...
This is just a part of negative things on the current Stronghold 3 release. But the badest things are response like this:

"Stronghold 3 was designed as a throwback to the original Stronghold. Itâ… Expand

I was incredibly disappointed with this game. Even without the multiplayer and AI issues, simple game play is awkward. Resolution is surprisingly bad. Wooden walls won't connect, and leave gaps that can't be closed. There is no good way to see why or what's wrong. When you delete walls, little visual slivers are left which can't be deleted, but can be selected and keep other functions from working correctly. Placing any sort of property gives little indication of why it can't be placed, it would be nice to see a highlight or flash of the offending piece of ground/property. Installation took me two hours, due to numerous download/delay/crash/uninstall/reinstall errors. They were all solvable on Steam support site, but seriously? Two hours. There is not as much notice in popularity, granary, etc. changes. I got caught a few times. When you play some of the economics campaigns you don't have limited time but if you take longer than 100 days you get no points. Seriously? This is only with 5 hours of play on Economics. I haven't even started the combat stuff yet. And seriously, who wants to play in the rain? If you ask me, the new 'look' is hard to see, way too granular and really takes away from the game. I liked a lot of the complexity of the SH2, and am sad to see it gone, at least in economics mode. The small map screen is way too big for the overall screen, it would be nice to be able to minimize/resize it to smaller for those of us without 46" monitors. Overall, I'm just really disappointed that I waited this long, paid this up front, lived through the ridiculous delays and then got this. I guess if you want to make cool looking physics trailers and blow dudes off a wall, this is awesome, but if you want a castle-building good time, go back and play SH1.… Expand

My only saving grace was that i purchased this (with a trade in ) at greenmangaming for only $18.96, had I purchased at full $50.00 price I'd be right ticked off at the quality that the game was released in, giving it a score of 1 is being generous, it is lack luster at best, is missing many features that were in the SH games before it (i.e. skirmish, kingmaker, etc) and is just not worth the money.

It honestly feels with the lack of content (i.e. maps) that Firefly is depending on their customers to put out the content for it, with the editor, even as such they will not be able to add skirmishes to the game.

I'd have to say at this point that you hold off on your purchase until FF (if they do so) puts out an amazing patch as in it's current state it's barely worth $18.96 let alone $49.99 that steam sells it for currently.

Also take a look at the screenshots and videos of it on places like youtube to see if these 'old school' graphics are something you want to play with in the year our Lord 2011. It might as well be the year that StrongHold 2 came out with regards to these 'retro' graphics. Personally, I find it attrocious that FireFly would put out a game in 2011 with these graphics, they are just terrible. It makes it quite difficult to get into playing the game with graphics this outdated and poor.

Stronghold 3 feels to me to be a very unpolished and incomplete game, especially for the price they are asking for it. Stay away from it for now until a huge patch comes out, or it's in the $5.00 economy bin.… Expand

Don't like this at all. I'm sorry I pre-ordered through Steam. Now I can't get my money back. Just uninstalled and I'm pretty bummed out about this.

It was advertised as having coop. There is no coop. Therefore, they are dirty, dirty, liars. It's full of bugs and quality of life issues. Avoid this game!

And to the apologists claiming we should take it easy on them because all new games are buggy...no thanks. The gaming industry consistently rakes consumers over the coals on everything from release dates, missing features and buggy/broken gameplay. I say this is unacceptable. Name one other product you would pay full price for that was missing parts or broke down 30 seconds after you used it. Why should developers get a free pass? Their mistreatment of us will continue so long as we (the consumer) allow it. Stand up for yourselves. Speak with your wallets. And stop giving money to designers who are half-assing it.

Demand quality.… Expand

Don't do it.
I am a rare partial-blind gamer, Unfamiliar with this series. bought this on steam pre-order, and I concur with the rest of the abysmal reviews. Played this for about an hour before turning it off in frustration. The most striking elements are near non-existent KB controls (important to some folks), lackluster storyline (the opening anyway), small / poorly designed maps, and its just TOO similar to SH 1. All the typical ailments of a low-budget game. No skirmish mode. The Settlers series is similar to this and those beat this with a stick. These type of games fail to keep my interest. I was expecting something like Sim-Medieval Kingdom, but its like Castle-Craft gone bad.… Expand

Worst Game Ever. 10 years since the original and this is the best they can manage? Buggy, crappy graphics and disappointing game play. PS, A sketch for a cut scene is as lazy as it gets. I demand a refund. SAVE YOUR MONEY DO NOT BUY.

Lord Solor is a tool. This game does not deserve a Ten. This game is clearly a unfinished product. If you check out firefly official forum, you can see the various gameplay issues that Firefly ignored. Wolf can climb ladders! Wolf can kill your armored lord! Any units can attack walls.
There is no strong walls option. What is the point of building walls if they don't block enemy units?
Building walls and staircases are like pulling your wisdom tooth by yourself.

If you want to save money, don't buy this game. Buy Stronghold 1 or 2. Stronghold 3 is a epic fail game.… Collapse

I literally created this metacritic account to warn people away from Stronghold 3. This game is full of bugs and I want my money back! I reloaded a saved game, it wouldn't recognize I had stuff in my stockpile. I reloaded again. My wall was glitched up so that it wasn't connected. The multiplayer is not working and no skirmish mode... which leaves this game devoid of life. What the heck are they thinking to release a game in such a shoddy state, it should be illegal. If I had any member of firefly studios in the room with me right now I swear I would throttle them with no remorse.… Expand

great game need sum patches only. the only ting i mis is multilayer .love the way you can look in a house and the sounds in dis game make me relax . many troll dis game. i dowt get it its pretty good

What the hell is with the negetive reviews? Have they only seen the crappy trailer and not played the actaul game? I have not experianced 1 bug yet! on Win 7 64 bit! The graphics are good, and multiplayer is great! Easy to find a game! And there was a patch released a few ours ago. There is plenty of game modes, including economic and military campaign. This game is actually very good, its just the trailer is crappy and this seems to be full of trolls that havent played the game.

And btw it supports 1920x1080 these people must just have bad computers.… Expand

this is the worst piece of **** game that i've ever seen in my entire life! i just don't understand why firefly does this to its fans

and @ all the firefly-members here: would you PLEASE stop creating accounts here just to give this game a (undeserved) 10 and to tell people how great it is? you know very well that this game is CRAP! it's just ridiculous what you're doing, nobody will buy this game just because you're writing fake reviews here -_-… Expand

What honest company would release THIS to their costumers for 50£ on steam? None would. All the bugs and lack of content are obvious to say the least. This is not even at beta stage, this game is in an alpha stage. I am dead serious, this is no mindless rant. First Stronghold 2 and now 3, even much worse? You would think they learn... You would think I learn... Also let's get really serious here. My brother and i bought Stronghold 3 to play together in multiplayer coop mode. Since it clearly said it would be included. IT IS NOT. The game only has one mode, death match. And no ai player options. This is clearly FRAUD.

I want a refund for boath my brother and i. And mabye after two years when the game is actully done i can pick it up from a bargain bin for 2£.… Expand

It's going to take a lot of work to get this game into a state that it is playable. Wolves can climb ladders, troops don't respond to mouse clicks, walls don't offer any protection to your troops, it's a complete mess.

All this said I don't think that its terminal, it can be fixed, with extensive patching, I think. What is particularly worrying however is the response from Firefly which appears to be, keep mouth shut and lock the forum posts of people who complain, in anyway. Doesn't sound like a dev team who are likely to fix the game with a patch?

Second time I've been caught out pre-ordering a game in the space of a month, note to self...... "no reviews = bad game"… Expand

The skirmish for me isnt a huge problem, however things like selecting troops to attack, weighting of various building types, the terrible mini map, small map sizes, poor widescreen/multi screen support (the list goes on) are just unacceptable for a full price release.

A very dissapointing release and Firefly should be ashamed of themselves.

OMG so many bugs needs lots of patching, dang and I just got crushed by how bad RAGE was then I start this unfinished "steamer" thinking to myself I was in for a long and wonderful night of building my castle and crushing my enemies not worth $50. UGH I'm just going to wait for the patches and hope they finish the game and maybe i'll come back and raise the score but a 2 is the best I can give for now.… Expand

Downloaded the game through steam a few hours after it was released. Didn't have a problem at all. The graphics look pretty nice, and the game runs smoothly and I dont have an extreme gaming PC. The game mechanics are awesome, I havent played the previous strongholds but I think I will pick them up because this style of gameplay is great. Maybe its to hard for some people, but it isnt to complicated. The campaign is pretty good, I have reached the 7th mission and the first level isnt great but right after that from level 2 onwards the game really picks up. I tried multiplayer and it works fine contrary to what other people have said. There are plenty of matches in the browser and the games run fine. I really cant find many flaws, this is actaully a pretty damn good strategy castle game.… Expand

It is very similar to older titles with some neat new and exciting features. They haven't improved on the path finding but that is ok. I highly recommend this for Stronghold fans. But my God!! This one is HARD! I have experienced no graphical errors (run on high settings).

wow why does this have so many negative reviews??? this game is sweet! for example some guy gave it "0" for "no skirmish mode". wtf? this game doesnt need skirmish mode, you can easily find an online game which is just the same. graphics are really good, dont know what everyone is crapping on about. i havent got any glitches so far. this is a huge step up from stronghold 2 and stronghold 1 fans will enjoy this one. stronghold 3 is sweet, and really really fun.… Expand

Sadly imho all the negative review here are true! missing coop / skirmish mode..pathfinding is horrible! wall building is horrible! and the game is definetly unfinished...

This game looks and feel like a student project. A nice feeling of retro seeing as they are still using the same uninspired HUDelements as the first RTS games did, nothing in this release feels fresh, maybe some people likes this retro feeling, felt a bit like starting up Heroes 2 again. But its nothing for a new game that demands a full price for purchase. Im deeply disappointed

Worst of all the Stronghold games out there. Ive played since Stronghold 1 and did all the campaigns and spend a lot of time on its games. But after the first impressions and first militairy campaign mission I quit already. The camera is always on top, everything feels so..small. I did not really look at the graphics at this point, but I think they are a bit worse than SH: 2 graphics. Many small annoying things from SH: 2 have gone, but I think Firefly studios made a bit to much gone; Skirmish mode. The once so marvelous mode were you could pick your own enemies and place to start, on a certain difficult mode just for you. Its a shame that that mode has gone, leaving you to Free build without any enemies, militairy campaign with no freedom; its always following the objectives. And also Economic campaign. I only think Firefly left the units, the buildings, the silly but funny fighting scenes were units collapse into each other, and the name into the Stronghold franchise. This is not Stronghold 3, it feels more like Farmholdville 3. A waste of time and money if you are well known to the Stronghold series.
Also, I think it might be time to change unit voices. It might be not such a bad game for the non-hardcore Stronghold/strategy fans(after all the bug fixes). But for the real fans out there: Stay Away from this game.… Expand

I am a hardcore Stronghold Fan. I have played every one of them, one, two and crusader.

My recommendation? If you want to know what Stronghold 3 is, take all of the objects from Stronghold 2, and put them in an exact copy of Stronghold 1, then make the game terribly buggy, unresponsive and just all around sh*tty. First, the game does a have a few things going for it. Castle construction certainly has a few more options (a few) and you do get 72 directions in which you can place buildings, which allows you to pretty much make your city look the way you want and fit buildings into tight spaces. Secondly I really like the story telling method of black and white scenes with the Wolf's voice over it.

Lastly, the fact that the Jackal is in this game, from the Crusader games, is a highlight.

Now for the bad... Oh the bad...

Perhaps the most important thing for any game to have is good control. Control, control control. This game has terrible unit control. Playing the first military mission, where I had a mere 7 units I could barely command all of them. Clicking on enemies is downright stupid because half the time your men will sit and have a tea before realizing the enemy has a sword through his chest. Also on the first mission I experienced the Firefly version of Fog of War. It is basically an invisible cloud that makes a path look totally clear until you walk towards it. Not like normal FoW, where it is darker so you can TELL that something might be hidden, but literally just hiding units from view. Stronghold has never done this before, why now?? I managed to pass the first mission though, and thought, well now I am on to building so I am sure that was just me flubbing around in the beginning. Second mission starts up and I need to gather goods and locate missing soldiers. Once again I assume the game has the invisible fog of war because I can't see any soldiers on the map. I place my stockpile and my granary and start building farms. Then I realize I need wood. I go to the industry panel and...

"Wth is that?"

The logging camp is easily the biggest building in the game. I actually played free-play and tried to find a bigger building. No dice. It also seems to produce less than the 1 person huts from before and cost 6.6 times as much. Well it looked kind of cool so I placed it and tried to keep working. Then I was attacked by wolves.

Many Stronghold fans are familiar with wolves. Many are also familiar with the popularity meter, a unique feature of Stronghold. With the arrival of wolves my popularity dropped to negative 15. This made no sense to me since I was used to the 100 point popularity system that the other games had and now this new system has screwed me over. The wolves killed my loggers, which lowered my population, which made my farmers leave, which drained my food to 0 which gave me less popularity. I immediately rage quit.


I did try out creative mode too. Castle building is total crap, trust me, I don't need to go into the finer details. Let me just say housing now costs somewhere between 20-60 wood but you don't get to choose, it is decided by how close you are to your keep. Why? Because the game says so.

This game is a severe disappointment. DO NOT BUY. DO NOT RENT.… Expand

Yet another game based on the success of a previous incarnation ruined. The game looks and feels dated, provides limited playability for a strategy game (no skirmish?!). If your feeling bored enough you could spend a few hours building a castle in the free build mode, only to do nothing with it.

This game could have been good... but they must not have done any real testing. The graphics arn't bad and the music is good. But the gameplay is just trrrible (as Charles Barkley would say) Managing your troops is a nightmare, the cursors don't properly target, units get stuck in all kinds of weird places, and they always move about half an inch north of where you click. There is not nearly enough content for a $50 game. No skirmish mode hurts it big time too. I remember there being a co-op feature promised as well.. what happened to that? What bothers me most though, is the bugs. I've bought expensive games with little content before, makes me unhappy but not mad. It makes me mad that they sold me a game they didn't test. I develop software as a contractor for a living, and if the software I wrote was this buggy, nobody would hire me... I don't want to pay $50 to be FireFlys beta tester.… Expand

Horrible game. First off: No skirmish mode means this game was born dead. Second, there are huge problems with selection. Third, even if you manage to select something fighting with it is even harder.
This game is in pain from the moment you install it. Put it out of it's misery and uninstall it.

This game makes SH2 look good, gameplay wise. Worst trainwreck of the year.

This game is garbage. The developers knew what they were doing when they released this trash. Shame on them. False COOP gameplay advertising on Steam during preorder was criminal. I'm disgusted at Firefly and what they did to this franchise. Whenever I see high marks from user reviews for this game, it's clear they work for the company...gross.

oh man i feel like a cheated girlâ

I was lucky enough to return my copy and used the money to pre-order Arkam City instead a much better choice. Even if they do fix the problems won't matter. "you can polish a turd but its still a POS" is just the perfect saying to go along with Stronghold 3. I might buy the game again when its 75-80% off on a steam sale but other than that I am probably done with Firefly. For those people giving this game a 10 your insane since that's a score reserved for the best games which SH3 is so far from its crazy. Every RTS needs a skirmish for replay-ability and those that don't have one apparently don't realize its important to a RTS. I remember having so much fun playing 8 player skirmish games in Stronghold Crusader, me against a bunch of Wolves, good times, not anymore though. I was really looking forward to this game especially after that abysmal SH2 ugh, but somehow they made something equally as terrible with SH3. I feel bad for the people that are stuck with this garbage after paying $50.… Expand

The game is unfinished and having to pay 50$ for it is a joke.
The problems are so many that are impossibile to list in a single review: missing features (skirmish, AI, ...), unbalanced gameplay (walls that offer no protection, broken food consumption, ...) and many bugs that every QA should notice them and stop the release (wolves that climb ladders!, bad graphics and so on).
If you really want it and you ignore all the negative reviews wait at least for 4-5 patches and a price drop to 20$...… Expand

As the first time I've played a game in this series, I was very much looking forward to trying a game that was heavily hyped.

I can see why people love the premise and style of the game however it severely lacks polish and, if I were to guess, I'd suggest it shipped a couple of months before it was ready.

The tutorial, something very important to a new player, was superficial at best. It gives no indication on how to play except on how to place a couple of the basic buildings. Very poor.

The game has several inconvenient bugs, has a very claustrophobic map size which I expect will inhibit grand building later in the game, only ships with a few multiplayer maps and is missing some fairly obvious gameplay modes.

If you have any doubt it was rushed, ask anyone who pre-ordered and found out that the game did not even have English-language (both spoken and menus) complete and needed to wait 24 hours for this to be patched in.

Perhaps much of this will be resolved by patches after release however this does not excuse shipping a half-complete product. I don't expect to pay to beta test a product.

It's left a bad taste in my mouth and I'm somewhat frustrated that I cannot return the game via Steam.… Expand

stronghold 3 is very good. I havent had any problems and I think the game is very very fun. the grapics look very good, the gameplay is fun and immersive and the sound / music is great. all these negative reviews are probably call of duty kids.

After playing stronghold 2 before buying stronghold 3, I genuially like stronghold 3. I enjoyed stronghold 2 and stronghold 3 has teh core gameplay but better graphics, sound and multiplayer. The only thing stopping me from giving this a 10 is that there needs to be more maps for multiplayers.

Stronghold is a GOOD game! they have been releasing updates and already the game is fixed. People shouldnt review the game the day its released, no.1 because they cant experience it all in that time, no.2 because the game hasnt been patched yet! 2 large patches have been released and the game works perfectly and I love it

STAY AWAY !!! Thx to the piracy I saved myself money This game is totally unplayable I wanted to have fun not to be irritated. first of all where the heck is difficulty level ??? second: in the advertisement i heard about realism. so please go to the shop buy bread and find out the very next day /read mission/ that there is no bread available to buy or produce ??? can i forget how to build a farm or bakery just like that ??? new construction should be added not removed and if You guys try to make the game difficult that way - so its bad way !!! third i should be able to buy everything in market building and first of all the items that i cant produce in the first place. 4. i gave that game 4 mission time to convince me that its a good game. and stuck on fourth mission its to difficult for normal player and to annoying. camera control is bad. and the space bar view is useless. Bugs everywhere. Time control would be nice. I,am into strategic games and i hoped to have good game instead i have seen lots of potential wasted. Shame on You Firefly Studios and again thanks to the pirates. It's not like i would say its good to use pirated version but now days i think there is new mission for them to show the crap to the people !!! and they did as to stronghold 3. I would like to buy quality good designed games. I like playing games and i support the companies which are producing games i like. Once again I dont want to be misunderstood piracy is not good for the companies and players too but its good source of knowing what to buy and what to forget Uninstalled deleted forged. Waste of hdd space and money if You intend to buy.… Expand

I have been a fan of the stronghold series for a while now, and have played all of them. Stronghold 3 is the 2nd best one next to Stronghold 1. The gfx are great, look at the screenshots they have on facebook stronghold 3 page. The music is nice and campaign is pretty good once you reach latter levels. Cant say much negetive about it, the core gameplay is here and i havent had any bugs or crashes. multiplayer works well as well. good game, great if you like a next gen RTS.… Expand

Stronghold 3 is one of the coolest most innovative games of its time! That is, if its time was 10 years ago. This game seems to be an exercise in frustration. For example, I was playing the second mission on the military campaign. I was taking my Lord around, and looking for the lost troops as the mission objectives said I should do. In the meantime, I was supposed to be saving up 100 cheese, wood, and apples. However, when I was away looking around the map, I noticed that I suddenly had only 1 peasant left. I thought, "What's going on here? Have I set my taxes too high?" I checked, and everything seemed fine in the "mood" department. I had a big green 35. I turned out that all of my peasants had been killed by wolves that were camping directly in front of my keep. The wolves continued to instantly kill everyone that stepped out. This was fine with me, wolves killing peasants seemed like a natural problem to occur in the time period. The real problem was that I had no idea that it was happening. There was no sound effects to indicate my poor peasants were dying, no voice over from my servant telling me my peasants were dying. This kind of problem should not exist in a modern day RTS. On a side note, the only thing this game has going for it is that the storyline the developers have crafted seemed somewhat intriguing. However, the gameplay is so terrible that I cannot punish myself past the third mission to continue the story.… Expand

This is a big disappointment. BIG disappointment. I seriously wish I could get a refund to be honest. No skirmish mode against the AI? No editor? The game is glitchy, the units often wont do as told and get stuck. Building is way more limited than before, peasants block placement. In a busy town, when is there not a peasant underfoot?
AI is sad, often men just stand next to eachother and ignore everything.

This game is nothing like past versions, and not in a good way...
DONT buy this, I seriously wish I hadnt.… Expand

the game is just plain bad. they make you pay 50 bucks for a game that feels like it was made 10 years ago. I used to like stronghold now i just want to forget it

Personally, I think this is a great game. the music and gameplay is awesome. It is very enjoyable the way this game work. I love the cartoon cutscene over the one in the first stronghold. Also Multiplayer is very enjoyable. To those who actually know how to play computer games will love this game. To those 12 years old who know nothing but cod and wasd keys dont bother buy this game. If you cant simply handle the wolf, and manage to let them though and kill all your peasant, you are just bad at game. Stop complain that the game is bad because you cant beat the animals on economic mission 2. Go back to your call of duty games Mike.… Expand

After being a huge fan of the original Stronghold and Stronghold Crusader, I am sad to say that this release is absurdly bad. I am not sure that I have seen a major commercial PC release this bad in my 20+ years of gaming.

The Good
The sword progress bar is a nice idea.
The Bad
No skirmish mode. Sub par graphics and poor animations. A multitude of bugs that make doing simple things like placing stairs painful. Small maps that feel cramped, this isn't helped by the huge space each building takes up. Awful UI that gives almost no info on what's going on, even the little mini map shows nothing but some coloured blocks that indicate exactly nothing. Dumb stuff such as virtually indestructible wolves that climb ladders while still animated like their running on the ground, and why is this a central element in the economic campaign anyway? The overwhelming feeling is of a lack of care, a lack of attention to detail and a total lack of testing. Seriously, who approved the crude b&w sketches for the cut scenes? Awful.
The Ugly
The game was advertised on Steam as having CO-OP play, post release this was pulled from the Steam page. This is really a bad alpha build game that is frankly unlawfully advertised and promoted.… Expand

This game's graphics are uninspiring. The interface is clunky. The economics are difficult to balance (how many apple farms do I need for 10 workers?). This game was a waste of cash. Overall it feels like a 5-8 year old game. I got into this to build kick-arse castles - so why am I running an economic sim I have to micromanage while, oh yeah, the CASTLE BITS aren't available for construction. This game is a disgrace, the worst "finished product" I've purchased in recent memory.

DON'T BUY IT, IF SOMEONE GIVES YOU A COPY DON'T PLAY IT… Expand

Like others, I've created a metacritic account for the first time to warn others. This game is utter dogsh!t. I waited so long for it through lengthy delays, and still didn't get a copy at EB games after the game was delayed again on 27 October. Sadly I rushed in and downloaded it from Steam. I wish I had of waited to get it from EB, so I could have heeded these warnings, or at least returned it. Yawn. Zzzzzzz.… Expand

Many (perhaps all) of the enjoyable elements associated with the Stronghold series have been butchered. Even the basic requirements of decent RTS do not function correctly. For example, the simple method of selecting units and giving orders is broken.

Pretty good game. No bugs. Graphics are nice. Multiplayer is enjoyable. Music is very good. Physics engine is awesome. I think most people havent even played the game fully before reviewing.

Stronghold 3 is good... I dont know why all these kids have marked it down. Theres been patches and there is no bugs or crashes. 1920x1080 RESOLUTION IS AVAILIBLE. Don't beleive those liars. Multiplayer is fun and there is plenty of people playing. The leaderboards after earch level is a fun addition. This is Stronghold 2 but with much better graphics, better story and better multiplayer.

I wish all of the other reviews were incorrect. I love the stronghold series and I ALWAYS give a game a good opportunity to impress me before I make a decision. This game just couldn't wait though. As one who loved stronghold 2, I felt empty playing SH3. Gone is my beloved skirmish mode. Even sandbox mode was lacking the ability to build an awesome castle. Maps are microscopic in comparison to SH2 maps. I haven't tried the war campaign but so far the economic campaign has failed to excite. Sure the first two missions were fine but number 3 is a case study in why strategy titles like this need a speed up mode. I'm sorry, I am in fact one of those people who likes to sit back and watch my people go about their business. I love Settlers; Heritage of Kings for that very reason. But it is ridiculous expecting players not to lose patience waiting for wood cutters to level a forest, just to continue. Every facet of this game that I have experienced so far has left me wanting. Imagine, if you can that feeling of getting the Sims 3 after playing Sims 2 with all of the expansion packs and gigs of downloaded custom content. Then add bugs and remove a number of options and things to do from Sims 2 original, multiply it by ten... and the feeling left by SH 3 is still worse. Especially because in the back of my mind is that it is not as if much of what I want will come out in an expansion pack. Large maps, skirmish mode, building variety. I doubt any of this will be added.
I truly wish that I could tell people to try it and see for themselves but accept this warning from someone whom is sorely disappointed with the amount of money spent and the result I got. I am very sorry for all of those anticipating something great, but this game is just not worth it. I really wish I had something better to say but this metacritic account was made just to add to the many reviews all saying the same thing: Don't waste your money. It is an empty game that will leave you feeling empty. The tragedy is two fold. It is a poor game, and we are still left wanting stronghold 3… Expand

Tired theme, limited game play, unimaginative and outdated graphics and storyline, limited free play and no skirmish mode. All in all very poor value for money. Difficult to see what developers have been doing this past four years. Should consider withdrawing the product and going back to the drawing board. Total flop.