Stronghold 3 is one of the last, big, exclusives of PC gaming but it lacks originality and has an amount of bugs able to destroy even the strongest fortified walls. The first patch has made big improvements but there is still a long way to go.
"People are coming to your castle," the scribe would say now that Firefly has released patch v1.10. There have been alot of positive reviews with this patch. Its been a successful comeback and it is quite relieving for those who couldn't play the game in the beginning due to those ghastly bugs. Though there are some superflous reviews of the same comments stating that the game is too pallid without a kingmaker, this won't bother the true Stronghold fan because with this latest patch, the game won't feel like a beta version. It is now stable and playable with it's full performance.
ECONOMIC
The economic campaign might prove very difficult to those who are new to the series. Collect 600 bread, 6000 Honor with very limited space, you can hear the wolves howling nearby and your armory is empty. What to do now??!
Some aspects of the Economic can appear simple and dull when in fact it is very difficult. Building placement can be daft since the borders take ample space for a small building. Especially since House size is still dependant on the distance to your keep. The Economic region of the game has an incredible plot but...repetitive gameplay. If you enjoy collecting the same resources every mission this might be for you. There is minimal combat with a few wolves and bandits in every other mission but it is still fun to play. There are new useful features in this particular patch that includes Auto-sell. Lets not forget to mention that you don't need to spend wood in the beginning just to place a market at the start to save yourself from any economic troubles. Market is no longer needed so place a wood shop or two and some farms and start your game!
There have been alot of praises in the forums that things in the game run smoother now that peasants walk faster and produce more food! One of the things you'll notice among your first mission with this patch is as soon as you place a wood shop, the peasants are not walking like turtles anymore. They're so much faster that you no longer have to put those extra 10 farms just to speed things up when you only need about 5. Noticable and helpful tweaks from the patch are how fast bread production is. I nearly had to place 10 bakeries just to speed up the process. Well FEAR NOT!! This problem has been resolved along with Honor meter out of sync.
COMBAT:
I was just simply fascinated when I completed the story 10 years later. Firefly managed to keep the story true and even the release date of the game similar to the original. If you havn't played Stronghold 1 I advise you to stop reading and play Stronghold 1 first before you step into Stronghold 3. You'll just be blank and thoughtless not knowing what happened when the past is mentioned.
The combat missions are fresh each one after another. There will always be new tasks and stronger foes in every mission. Night time seiges are rare. There will only be about 3 of them. If you enjoy night time seiges as much as I do you can try out the freebuild! Stronghold 3 players might notice that there will be alot left in their stockpile since the peasants are faster. Every mission I play I always have weapons left that I never got to use and more resources than what I need. Sell it all with Auto-trade!
I would always have to put about 6-8 weapon production buildings when now all you need is 2-4 (depending how far weapon production buildings are to your stockpile and how far the armory is.) It is good to see some extra materials every now and **** a little extra gold. Unlike stronghold 2 that you can pretty much build an army without a church or entertainment, its partially mandatory in Stronghold 3. There won't be one building you havn't used after you finish the game. You need almost everything at your disposal to survive 30-60 minute waves of armies.
Knights are coming to your walls and you don't have pitch. You need peasants but there's 10 more seconds for another to spawn. Its time to lower your taxes and boost church services in order to balance out your peasant spawn time. Spawn time might not be a problem in the economic campaign since you have church, entertainment and decorations. Its a differen't story in military campaign. There will be buildings to help but it might be more demanding if you place military buildings since you see platoons of men-at-arms on the mountains marching to your walls.
If the offputting reviews are deterring you from purchasing another Stronghold game well you can pretty much ignore them. Those reviews are outdated. The same people who bashed the game are the same people now praising the game with this new patch. They're now playing the campaigns and whispering to one another what happens in the story. I conclude this review with a recommendation of the game and to say its worth a try.
Stronghold 3 has had quite a lot of negative reviews because of the poor game. I completely agreed but after hearing they brought out new patches I decided to give the game ago once again. The game is a lot smoother now and you will encounter much less bugs and it's worthy of the Stronghold game title. I adore this franchise, and I'm glad I can speak good of it again - and I am hoping people will try the game with the patches. Firefly games wanted the game to be good, but they HAD to release it, hence why an unfinished one was released at launch - and you know what, at least it's being fixed. Only complaint: Fix the multiplayer.
Passion alone isn't enough to make a game great. Stronghold 3 assumes too much of the user initially, and doesn't do enough to keep the village-building fresh and interesting.
I thought I would've been more engaged in both campaigns, but I felt that both modes were pretty bland. Yes, it had its fun moments but they were few and far between.
Some people - die-hard fans of the sub-genre spring to mind - might be able to get some entertainment from it, but for me and (probably) most gamers it simply gets bogged down in its hundred and five minor flaws and doesn't have enough 'fun' to make it worthwhile... it dies the death of a thousand tiny paper-cuts.
This is a very good game. They got it right after the failure of stronghold 2. Its pretty much like the first stronghold. The voice acting is awesome, the new features really nice (while still keeping the old ones from the first game). They also kept the interface more similar to 1 (2 was very bad), and the music is also good.
The bad side is that there is no hard/easy mode, and the game is far too easy. There are also some minor things which could have been improved such as have scenes instead of just images on story, but overrall, the game is very nice. People rating it low have no idea what they are talking about or never played the first stronghold/don't really like this kind of game (which, along with 3, are the best ones).
I don't know why this game has netted such bad ratings. Yeah, they scrapped skirmish mode (which consequently scraps kingmaker). No one would argue that that was a good decision. However, if you take this game for what it does well, i.e. it's single player campaigns, then for Stronghold vets like myself, this game has many improvements over its predecessors. Ignore Firefly's attempt at a multiplayer, and just stick to the single player campaign. Don't pay the $40 asking price though - wait til it goes on sale on Steam.
I've been playing stronghold for over ten years now, and Stronghold 3 is still not as good as the first. That said, it improves a lot on stronghold 2 and as the game continues to get patched and updated it improves. For anyone who, upon reading older reviews, decided not to get this game perhaps you may consider it again. They've improved it a lot, I actually enjoy playing the game now. Sure there's no skirmish mode, but they have random events in free build (controllable random events at that) and they have a good campaign to play. If you let yourself get into the game it's really quite nice, the sound and graphics pull you into the castle mood. I played this game for the first time in months this past weekend and it **** me in for hours. I was quite pleased with the work Firefly has done to improve it.
Stronghold 3 is buggier than a big bug full of little bugs. Even disregarding the many graphical glitches, sound cut outs and AI that is stupid beyond belief there is still very little to recommend it.
It looks extraordinarily dated more like a student project than a professional release. The story is forgettable and the campaign is slow. It advances at the same speed as your troops moving across the map; which is to say like molasses on slight grade.
I have not played a previous Stonghold game so I don't know how this compares but the strategy and economics are pretty thoughtful and entertaining (between crashes back to the desktop). Get the combination and order of troops wrong when you assault another castle and you're going to suffer for it. Similarly if you don't tailor your economy to support your chosen troops you're going to lose.
All in all this is a game that should have been a lot better than it is.