It's more like "Tropico Meets Lords Of The Realm" rather than MTW or whatever.

I have never played Stronghold 2 before, but I absolutely enjoy Stronghold: Crusaders (a stand-alone Stronghold game based in Arabia)

Unfortunately, the newer Stronghold (2001, Firefly Studios) is nothing like the older Stronghold (1993, SSI), which is vastly superior to the 2001 version. Plus it's D&D, so that's a thumbs up for me.