stronghold 2

[Caeser The III]

hello all! does and anyone play this awsome game???? when I get my new computer, this is first game im installing. anyone who plays this game, when i install this game, i want to take you on in multiplayer anyone who doesnt have this game, i highly recommend you get it.

[Veho Nex]

MEE!!! I MUST PLAY AGAINST SOME ONE!!

[Caeser The III]

man! i need to get that new computer soon, or im going to explode....btw, are you good?

[Veho Nex]

Kind of, I don't condone of exploits though.

[Caeser The III]

got a few money tips i remember for yah....heres one i remember:in multiplayer, get a much ground as possible, i recommoned that you play on the map that has 8-9 land spaces.anyway, plant as much apple farms on them as possible, and then when you have alot, sell them(apples), buy more resorces for yourself. good luck defeating those other people. and, hopefully when i get on youll be of some toughness to me

[Ice]

I thought it sucked to be quite honest.

[Vladimir]

Never got past the tutorials.

[Caeser The III]

really?

[TB666]

Stronghold 2 was one of the biggest disappointments that year.
Horrible, just horrible.
Thankfully, you can play Stronghold 1 and Stronghold Crusader and forget Stronghold 2 was ever made.

[Caeser The III]

just wondering, why do you think its a dissapointment?

[Veho Nex]

I like it, the graphics might not be the best but i love the whole clearing up gong rats and prison guys all the time. It just add's.... realisim to it

[Raz]

I'll try not to turn this post into a wall-o-text, so I'll be brief.

I, personally, found Stronghold 2 to be a big disappointment, mainly the glitches and exploits. Especially when you pause the game and keep deleting something. But also when you stop a unit from moving when in a tower and they're then stuck there for the rest of the game. Which is very, very bad in sieges. I had to pass one siege with nothing but archers because my spears and swords were stuck.

Of course, most of the glitches were fixed in version 1.1 and the following patches there-after. However, Firefly never got around to implementing the large siege-tower feature of archers on the top level. Which I was very peeved about.

In terms of multiplayer, I have never gone online with the Stronghold Series (in fact, the only game I've ever been online with is Ground Control 2 and Age of Empires I - Yes, I love my strategy. ). But I have heard that many people have been dropped from the server. I now only create and download maps (esp. siege ones) and play those. I left the war and peace campaign after the first few chapters. (I think chapter 6 in the war campaign and the one after you rescue the monks and defeat the Bull in the peace campaign).

I also despised how much micro-management there was when managing a kingdom... carter's posts, gong farmers (farmers, did I get that right?), anti-rat thingys, crime, etc. Sure, it is a castle simulation, but I didn't really like those "features".

As an alternative, I've gone back to Stronghold Crusader and sometimes play Stronghold I. I now have a massive archive of maps (again, mainly siege maps, which I love) for Crusader which I play regularly unless I'm caught in a campaign on Total War. Sure, they may only be sprites, sure there mightn't be a single triangle or a single .dds file in the entire game, but I still love seeing my crossbowmen magically going from a high wall down to a low wall through the floating doorway on my tower - If that makes sense at all to you.

I hope that shows my opinion on Stronghold 2 - Oh, right... brief. <_<

[TB666]

just wondering, why do you think its a dissapointment?

Well for 1. I remember the game being not quite optimised hence performance issues.
2. Alot of bugs, alot.
3. Micro-management was just way too much in this game(some people like that but personally I don't like having that much on my hands).
4. Stupid AI

Overall it seemed like Stronghold 2 was a quick cash-grab by the devs and publishers.
It had some nice idea like having to throw a big feast at the keep which was fun.
But this game simply wasn't finished when it shipped.

[Marius Dynamite]

Its been out for quite some tiem now hasn't it? I remember I bought it years ago and the Knights were textureless for months! The servers are also really bad and there is no tactic int he game whatsoever, just exploit after exploit. Fill your territory up with dairy farms, but more land and fill it up with apples, buy more land and fill it up with meat collectors, you get the idea. Then you sell the food and make 1 unit, Knight, as they make all other units totally obsolete, including swordsmen.. 1 Knight > 30 swordsmen IIRC. Well not every unit, a common tactic was to spam Ballistas which can 1 shot a Knights horse meaning he has to run, and he runs very slowly.

Essentially the Knight cannot ever catch the 30 ballistas as whenever they hit him the send him flying back. It takes roughly 10 minutes to kill the Knight but he does eventually die.

So it becomes an artillery war, ballista vs ballista and if you do manage to kill the enemy ballista, you get to advance slowly as he builds more. The game ends when the server crashes.


Thats how I remember it. It was really below par, I think you should invest in something else.

[CrossLOPER]

The glitches did not bother me too much, but the limitations of the "estates" system, the comically bad story telling, annoying voice-acting, and poor story really got to me.

I liked the micro managing. I wish there was trade. I wish there were arms, armor, and building upgrades and I wish they got rid of the "building borders" which force you to pack an absurd amount of troops on estates, although the A.I. is pretty poor anyway so no need to worry about that.

The first Stronghold was good. Stronghold Crusader was extremely well done, but they trashed the siege option, and that made me sad. LOVED the skirmish trails.

Also this:

there are no tactics in the game

Somehow, I don't think even a swordsman has a chance against >300 spear men. This happens to remind of the "overlapping" that people tend to do in the game, but this creates balance for the bad A.I..

[Hellenic_Hoplite]

I play SH2 on occasion but I mainly play SH1, if SHC had the same look to it as SH1 does that I would probably play that more often too.

[Raz]

Yes, Crusader is a little more polished-off than SH1 - though, I still have to find a balance of: do I want desert today? or do I want grass?