Stronghold Kingdoms PC
User Score
5.9 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 30 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 30
  3. Negative: 10 out of 30

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. LordStrongpant
    Apr 5, 2012
    4
    TL;DR summary: Mediocre MMO exploit-resources-destroy-your-enemies strategy game with a significant social component and an unashamed pay-to-win business model. You need to get into clans and cooperate with other players if you want to climb the rankings, and make no mistake: if you don't spend money in this game you are just meat to the grinder for the paying players.

    The longer version:

    I've never played the Stronghold series so I can't compare it to that. But if you played an old browser-based game called "Tribal Wars", this is the same basic gameplay with some improvements and a .NET-based client.

    You are a feudal lord who rules villages and castles with peasants and resource production facilities. You can use the resources to build armies for making attacks against other player's villages and castles, defending against attacks on your villages and castles, or re-invest the resources to get more resource production facilities. Also there's a leveling up system that opens a technology tree to get better armies and production.

    Your villages and castles sit in a global map with many thousands of other players. There are bonuses for cooperating with other players in your immediate geographical vicinity. And as you gain power and level up you can try to gain control over geographical districts, which gives bonuses, but you need to compete with other players and try to gain the support of the lower ranking players in your district to do this.

    On top of this is another social layer of a faction and house system - factions are formed by players and factions join houses to attempt to gain global power. Games play out over months, and there are a number of game worlds that you can play in simultaneously, with new game worlds being opened up from time to time.

    So winning in this game requires producing lots of resources in your villages, leveling up, building armies, going out to plunder and conquer the villages of other players, and not having your villages conquered by others. On the surface your success in this game seems to depend on social and economic strategy - getting on the winning side of faction wars in your neighborhood and balancing the use of resources to attack, defend, and re-invest in capital to increase the rate of resource production.

    However there are additional ways of gaining resources and honor, and the extent to which you can exploit these ways depends on how much time you spend logged on. But when you are logged on, it's actually pretty boring. There's really not much to do but watch your armies to travel around on the global map or watch the timers count down for new buildings or resources to complete in your village.
    So there's a bonus for being online a lot, but being online a lot makes the game a boring (it's worse than grinding in an action RPG, because there's not even any action!)

    And this is where the one of the developers way of making money from this game - sell "premium account tokens". These are a limited time bonus - effectively a subscription - that automates your account so you can leave orders to attack, resource gather, and build while you are logged out. Basically you get a bonus that a non-paying player could only get by being logged in 24 hours a day.

    But there's more. You can buy "card packs" that give you cards you can play for bonuses like one-off resource gains and temporary resource production bonuses. So the more you spend, the stronger you are. In the long term there is no limit to the bonus you can gain this way. So if you just keep paying for more card packs you can gain close to a guarantee of victory.

    Add to all that the game hasn't been implemented very well. The client crashes or glitches from time to time, the UI is not all that well designed, and the server infrastructure sometimes gets bogged down. These issues aren't frequent, and to their credit the developers make frequent updates and usually manage to get rid of major bugs pretty quickly, but still there's a background annoyance factor from all this.

    Another annoyance - the documentation consists of a poor quality wiki. But at least there's an in-game chat system so you can always ask random strangers for advice.

    So to sum that all up once more: the core gameplay is a decent strategy game, but the gameplay model combined with the business model means the game is overwhelmingly pay-to-win. This game is ruled by paying players, and if you don't pay you will eventually be plundered and conquered by paying players who will be much stronger than you by the endgame.    … Expand
  2. KroipyBill
    May 26, 2012
    10
    This is a very "patient oriented" MMO strategy game. Being placed in a group of other villages, being a complete noob, they help you with how you need to start out so you don't waste resources on things you may not quite need early game. It is very VERY slow paced, and as a result, it is a game you "manage" not play for hours on end. Despite this, I find it to be a nice change to my usual gameplay. Not only that, it gives me something to do at work while I wait for processes to finish or other things. I can play it for maybe ten minutes, minimize it, come back an hour later and manage it a bit more as it manages in real time. When it comes to the content, there is SO much that can be done with the game. People who rate this game as destroy-your-enemy kind of game have never played this game in detail, and shouldn't even have bothered to breathe their presence into a text box affiliated with a review towards this game. I have played nearly 100 hours of this game, and I haven't destroyed one village. I have been trying to build up my state, which is involved with other players, and I've tried to defend my state from other factions that like to prey on lesser villages who may be new to the game. If that's something you like, then I suggest you give it a try. Besides....it's free to play.… Expand
  3. refdxf
    Apr 26, 2012
    5
    This game is a good deal of fun when a server just starts. After that it gradually becomes stagnant and something akin to farmville with "diplomacy" if you can call dealing with (at a loss for words to describe) these types of personalities through chat. Me and my friends have had fun, but then again we're all stopping once Diablo 3 comes out and we simply wanted a game for the interim. Information on strategy is sparse and you will find yourself often regretting technology decisions you have made. Battle AI is god awful. I have sent my troops at the right side wall and they wrap around to the front. A small gap in a wall rendered my troop ai impotent. They all just stood there waiting for the troops in front to slowly trickle through the gap, while the enemy archers picked off the troops as they trickled through.… Expand
  4. LowIQsPrevail
    Jun 4, 2012
    7
    Every single person who claims this to be a p2w game is lacking a few grey matter cells - honestly. The game was exactly what I expected and it wasn't a disappointment because I'm playing with several friends. Many of the observations here are fairly spot-on as far as the mechanics but let me say again - it is NOT pay to win...the only benefits to someone paying is very miniscule and not game breaking in the slightest. Not very time consuming - check in from time to time and do a little here and there. It's what you make of it.… Expand
  5. LordSolor
    Oct 17, 2012
    9
    You can tell it's a great game by the sheer number of guys crying on here about how bad it is after they have gotten their butts kicked! :) This is a nearly pure PvP game and it is by no means pay to win. To compare it to anything that Zynga makes would be foolish. Overall the game is very complex, but balanced. I have never seen anyone pay to win, but I have seen a lot of guys who thought they could wind up disappointed! Some of the interfaces are clunky and there's minor issues here and there but overall an awesome game.… Expand
  6. Highlanderonly1
    May 10, 2012
    9
    Stronghold Kingdoms is an over all great free-to-play Strategy MMO. The game is a hybrid of a traditional tower defense games and a modern RTS. While the graphics might be a bit behind the times, the gameplay is engaging and full of the right amount of challenge. This title does a great job of appealing to both the casual and hardcore gamer market by mixing the elements of economics, politics, and war. I would highly suggest giving this game a try. It's free so what do you have to lose?… Expand
  7. Dvoraak
    Mar 5, 2012
    6
    On the surface this is the stronghold you're used to, with MMO elements added. If my Steam friend's list is to be believed, this game has many players... but no reviews. I think that may be because it starts so slowly and doesn't speed up much as you go along. I mean, this moves at the pace of those mobile RPGs where you wait for hours before you can make another move. The reviewers are still waiting to see how things flesh out after you manage to get a city / castle built. I only started yesterday and, at this pace, it will be a month or two before it gets exciting.… Expand
  8. Raspiz
    Apr 21, 2012
    8
    Not a whole lot of informative reviews on here so here's my take:

    Stronghold Kingdoms is a free to play strategy MMO. The game is played on a map of the United Kingdom with each country divided into provinces, counties, and parishes. The player starts with a single tiny village and harvests resources, grows food, constructs buildings and keeps a satisfied populace in order to grow. Each v    illage also contains a keep which must be fortified and defended with troops, walls, and other obstacles such as moats or spiked pits. To advance the player must earn "honour" by accomplishing various deeds such as defeating enemy player and AI fortifications, collecting resources on the map, pleasing the peasants, and holding banquets. Honour is essentially the experience point system in the game, and with each new level comes the ability to research new technology to improve defenses, industry, farming, or education.

    Being an MMO, the world map is full of other players. Players send troops in to enemy villages to try and raze them, or strike alliances and work out trade partnerships. Player factions exist to let players join forces under a single banner and smite their enemies. Factions can join larger houses for an even bigger single force. Political ramifications take hold as players who may be located near each other in a parish may be part of opposing factions or houses, which can lead to interesting results. Each parish, county, province, and country has leaders elected from within their governing body. These leaders can build and reinforce each governing body to protect from invaders as well as give bonuses that affect all players within each area. Just like real life politics, leaders can be swept away with every election if they are doing a poor job. I personally approach the game from more of an economic standpoint, and have worked out alliances with other players to assist in defense, and have not put as much research and resources into defense. So there are plenty of options for how a player wants to advance in the game.

    This game follows the "pay to win" model to generate money for the game company, Firefly. I'm usually not a fan of this type of revenue model, but after playing for a few days I didn't mind plunking down a few bucks to get a little boost in the game and to help keep the game going financially. Pricing is reasonably priced if a person plans on spending a lot of time in the game, and are discounted when purchased in larger quantities. The player purchases "Firefly Crowns" with real money which can then be traded for premium tokens or packs of cards. The premium tokens last for a week or month at a time depending on which one is purchased, and give players various extra abilities not available to free players such as moving buildings around, auto trading when logged out, and being able to queue building and research. The cards come in packs of 5 and can be bought from several specialized "sets" such as industry, defense, etc., or can come randomly from the entire set of cards. Each card is one time use and give bonuses such as increased productivity within the village, strengthened walls for the keep, and speeding up research. Some cards are instant rewards such as a large amount of a resource added to the player's stockpile, or time based such as increased wood harvesting for 12 hours. The cards add an extra layer of strategy and must be played wisely to get the most out of them. Although this is a form of play to win, I find the cards fun to use and make things interesting. Free players also receive free cards periodically to try to entice them to buy.

    One complaint many will have is the game is slow. Like many free games, there are restrictions on how fast players can advance which can get frustrating when it takes several hours to build a building or do research. Various technologies can be researched to decrease the time to do certain actions, but this is definitely a game that has to be played over time.

    Overall I've enjoyed this game quite a bit and as there aren't many games out there that offer a 4X (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) game experience in the company of other players, I found it to be a unique experience seeing battles between players as they fight for control of regions. As the player progresses the ability to purchase additional villages opens up which adds even more to the game as the player expands their territory, meets new players, and faces new challenges on the different village map types which have different resources available to each. Fans of the Stronghold series, or 4X games like Civilization, Age of Empires, or other strategy/manager games will find quite a bit to enjoy here for free, and more if they choose to pay. I would also say the quality is fairly high and deep for a free to play game. There is easily months of enjoyment to be had here.    … Expand
  9. David75
    Aug 21, 2012
    1
    AS many of the reviewer here said. Dont get mistaken, this is a pure PvP game .. nowhere safe to hide. Because of many trolls in the game, it's very likely you'll loose everything (don't bother spending money in the game). The game isn't balanced enough between new and older players.
  10. Xextreem
    Feb 15, 2013
    7
    Great game, however since the pay to win deal this game is going to be bad. There are cards that give you 60 archers this cost you 220 points to buy in game. That will cost like 10 euro to buy archers. There are people spending 1000 euro since the new world 7 on that server. Explain matt32 on server 7 or world 7. Is king in House 1 since day 3 he got 3 village on 3 content of the map only possible with money level up take allot of time even for people with tactics. That is only possible when you spend so many money in a game. The need to stop people to buy cads or remove those cards in like the first year of the server start old world ok seems balance to spend some 10 euro on it but come on not in a new fresh world. Like i say great game i love it however those idiots that spend so many money just to be king that is just insane. Rune my game play. To bad.… Expand
  11. Lionhearted
    May 20, 2012
    0
    Let's just call this what it is. a slightly more polished version of Travian a browser game (which has better gameplay sadly).

    It's a cow clicker for people too bored at work, stay at home moms andpre teens learning about the net.
    this really isn't a game however except in the barest of forms, it's a competition. and frankly a time leech.
    Where enjoyment is supposed to be here you find mi    ndless work. It's intangible, like a record of history without bounds or identity, or antyhing relatable except icons and arrows.
    This is a lengthy way to say it's addiction based, Pavlog dog base crappola that is seeping into our netspace like a ninja wearing a outfit with the title "game" as a nametag. But it is a lie, there is no cake.    … Expand
  12. jacksparr0
    May 2, 2012
    1
    You will be playing this game for hours. It's a very time intensive game and so if you want a game that will last you a long time, this is great. Most of the time that goes into the game is waiting time. For everything you build, everything you research, every place you go (in the most limited sense possible) you must wait. There'll be a counter which counts down to when something is complete. The more things you do the longer the counter lasts. The game to me felt like it wasn't genuinely fun. I felt like I was having false fun, like I wanted to stop but I couldn't because there was more I had to do. The game is quite endless. There are always more things to do. The game feels like it was made as more of a business rather than to be a fun experience. It draws you in, addicts you, and forces you to use cards to modify your gameplay. Cards can do a lot, from increasing your resource output to... well, speeding the game up. The game was made sufficiently slow enough to cause you to become impatient and in turn speed up the game up. The only way to do this is through cards, and most cards must be bought. I must admit, this is a great business idea. The only way to get anywhere on this game is to be on it at all times. If you're offline for a single day you fall behind everyone else. The point of the game (I think) is to become powerful enough to rule the country, but, someone who spent a couple days more than you probably has a hundred more troops than you, completed a whole lot more research, etc. The fact that your account is DELETED after only a few days of inactivity also sucks. I mean, what the hell, what sort of MMO is this? 1/10.… Expand
  13. ImmoralAtheist
    Apr 7, 2012
    5
    Cards don't fit gameplaywise, but they're tolerable if there's a low cap on how much you can buy (which is unfortunately not true). The game relies to much on grinding, like scouting resources, and attacking npc's, and manually do every trade transaction. It's in dire need of an automatic trade system where you can set up trade routes with complex conditions. Research in a specific thing is badly balanced. the first upgrades are okay, the middle are crap, and the last ones gives an exponential bonus increase. A less extreme version is suitable for resources (gives incentives to specialize), but it's not suitable for troop movement speed.… Expand
  14. TheGrindeR
    Jul 5, 2012
    2
    Looks like than the Stronghold and the Stronghold: Crusader, this is also have 2D graphics, but it worse than the older episodes. This is a Stronghold MMO, but i think its not a good game. If u want playing a good game, play with the Stronghold: Crusader with your friends, that much better.
  15. beqerel
    Sep 2, 2012
    1
    this is a pure PvP game .. nowhere safe to hide. Because of many trolls in the game, it's very likely you'll loose everything (don't bother spending money in the game). The game isn't balanced enough between new and older players. agree completely plus admins cooperates with money payers
  16. Vistance
    Mar 11, 2013
    2
    Tried the game out because I saw it on Steam and I liked the original Stronghold game. I expected a full fledged game, but this feels more like a game that would be on Facebook. The game runs windowed (cannot fullscreen) which says a lot about their design choices. Help links take you to their wikipedia pages. But all that aside, the gameplay is tedious and boring. It's full of "Wait 10 minutes for your scout to go to this stash then wait 10 minutes for him to return" and "Wait 9 minutes for this building to be built". If you don't pay for the premium part, you aren't even allowed to queue up items, so you can only have one thing going at a time. My first day in I had some random thing attack me despite it telling me I was safe for a few days. Ha! The game doesn't hold your hand the group ransacked my village with no effort. As I tried to repair my castle the game constantly kept throwing exceptions (very long ones too) and then required me to re-join the world. After the 4th exception trying to rebuild the castle walls, I just deleted the game. Don't waste your time, while Stronghold was a cool game and had some fun castle building this is just that with a bunch of social Facebook-esque garbage on top of it with arbitrary time limits. The worst lazy kind of F2P games that are made if you ask me.… Expand
  17. Dagot
    Oct 26, 2012
    0
    The game is only worth playing if you are prepared to pay, otherwise its a very slow game. Its also not ideal if you or members of your family play on the same server. If you share a computer, you might find each family member's account being blocked.
  18. Ltghawk
    Nov 10, 2012
    10
    I love this game, since Alpha4 I have been watching this game progress into a fantastic medieval strategy game. I've watched it come into its own becoming well balanced for the experienced players while leaving lots of room for beginners to start out and learn the game. I would reccomend that beginners team up with an experiened player as well as to read the wiki page for info on how to do things. But in general this game is awesome and addicting, i find myself going into the game 2 and 3 and sometimes 4 times a day just to chat and watch how things are going. It's growth has been phenomial since it joined the steam universe, now having 6 english speaking worlds and several other worlds for french, german, and russian speakers. now all they need to do is add one fr spanish speakers to make it perfect.… Expand
  19. Warfororks
    Mar 2, 2013
    10
    Stronghold Kingdoms puts a great emphasis on strategy and diplomacy. As a multiplayer game, you meet many types of players. You can join up with a faction, conquer the world with your friends and actually have fun doing it. If you are not a good player, you can start a rebellion against the ruling classes, spy for another lord, farm and play as a merchant character, or change stewardships with your monks. Stronghold Kingdoms has hit the bullseye on Medieval times. Each year brings more updates and the future is bright. Lastly, the game has multiple worlds and multiple languages. There is also a rumor of a map of Europe to be released in 2013.… Expand
  20. havas01
    Mar 22, 2013
    8
    Great strategy and on line game... big map and deep detail. If you love mmo you must try this game.
  21. mogwairn
    Mar 23, 2013
    4
    Someone trying to do something interesting with the MMORTS genre. Very buggy and full of micro-transaction begging, but at least they are trying. Considering it looks like there was a team of people behind the game; very poor effort, single person dev teams can crank out far higher quality games.
  22. jonosarah
    Mar 26, 2013
    9
    I can't explain why, but this seems to be my most played game. The game is all about patience, being smart with resources and technology and focusing on what's important first. After you've built the first couple of buildings you have to be extremely patient. I play a few times a day, doing different things to make sure my castle is the best it can be for the parish I'm in. I hardly know anyone but I could do, I got into a faction by asking around. They help you and you can help them. The good things about this game is that it's pretty much a free version of stronghold. While you can't do as much as the games, it is an amazing version of it. While it may seem daunting at first, it takes some time to learn how to be the most efficient, but it pays off.

    The only thing I don't like is that the peasants are very afraid of the AI castles and they can be really hard to stop as they are a lot more advanced for the newer players. I can't comment on the pay to win because I personally haven't used it and neither have my friends (but we seem to be doing okay on it)    … Expand

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
75 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 4 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 4
  3. Negative: 0 out of 4
  1. Hooked Gamers
    Feb 5, 2013
    77
    Stronghold Kingdoms does deserve the honour of being the world’s first castle building MMO and it does -despite its presentation- do it well. The game’s depth and scope go beyond that of the regular Stronghold games and is guaranteed to keep your mind firmly lodged into medieval times for a long, long time.
    Read full review
  2. Strategy Informer
    Jul 18, 2012
    85
    There are a whole lot of things I want to try over the next few months playing Stronghold Kingdoms, and it's gotten its teeth into me such that I'm ploughing a little time into it at least three times a day and not feeling cheated for any of the money I've spent. For a free-to-play title at the very least, that has to be mission accomplished.
    Read full review
  3. Multiplayer.it
    Jun 29, 2012
    68
    Stronghold Kingdoms is a deep medieval management game that offers a huge tech tree and an interesting online formula. Oddly the engine is old and the game starts very slowly, especially for those who are not going to open their wallet. But it deserves a try if you got patience and prefer management over real time strategy.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »