I agree with everything you have said, and also I want to mention how immersive the single player campaign was. You play Matthew Steele a page and slowly you increase in ranks, and at one point you even had an option to choose a path. Of course I am not saying it was the most immersive game but it still gave the player the feeling of progress going up in hierarchy in a medieval setting.
One cool thing you can do (if you dont cheese them by building walls around them) is build a bunch of happiness buildings like jousting, inns, and fairs and make up for the lost weapon production or any other production by delegating them to the estates. You can then have your castle build tons of honor with the happiness buildings and still have good production by having the majority of your weapons and food shipped from your estates. Then you can make as many high honor units as you like without worrying about running out of honor as fast. It really makes for a large spanning immersive economy. I love the stronghold 2 estates :)
An interesting interaction between the happiness mechanics and the crime/dung/rats in this game exists too I think. In some stronghold titles happiness builds slowly from 0 to 100 and in others you can instantly adjust happiness and the effect is immediate. If that was the case in Stronghold 2, happiness would fluctuate way too quickly from the various sources that affect it, so it makes sense they went with the slowly adjusting approach. It could also be considered more immersive. Though personally I like the quick system because it allows for fun things like cranking up happiness all the way briefly and spawning a tooon of armed peasants, so for my own RTS game that I am making I went with that approach. The sound effects in Stronghold are also kinda underrated sometimes, they even add things like windy mountain sounds if you pan over a mountain in some entries, its easy to miss but adds immersion. The behind the scenes of how they recorded some of their audio is also pretty interesting, one can see why they keep reusing their sounds
I get the impression that the thief system and how you deal with them has been greatly simplified. I suspect that different torture devices could have influenced people's reactions in various ways. For example, stocks and other non-lethal punishments could have increased your popularity at the cost of a long rehabilitation time, making you known as a merciful lord. On the other hand, using lethal torture devices would cause a drop in popularity but would quickly free up space in the castle for new inhabitants. Of course, this is just speculation, because as everyone knows, *Stronghold 2* was horribly rushed, which affected the campaign, characters, and mechanics. The AI, in my opinion, is also one of the dumbest in the series. There are also many missing options. For example, in multiplayer, I **wish** there was an option to disable advanced economy elements like waste, rats, and criminals. I’m not saying these mechanics are bad-they were actually great, and I wish they were in newer entries. But there should also be an option to disable them, as some players didn’t like those mechanics. Keeping it flexible would be ideal-those who want them can turn them on, and those who don’t can turn them off. Another issue is the very low population limit in the main estate. If I remember correctly, it's capped at 180 inhabitants per estate. On one hand, it's nice because it encourages players to use multiple estates. On the other hand, it's not ideal because it makes it harder to build a well-functioning economy with such restrictions.
I also think it would be cool if Stronghold Unreal had two types of estates: Economic estates, which would function exactly like in Stronghold 2. Military estates, which would work like in Stronghold: Warlords.
I think stronghold is best when its a city builder rts hybrid. Its things like these that set it apart from pure rts games like age of empires and makes stronghold games stronghold games, and i prefer it that way.
I agree with everything you have said, and also I want to mention how immersive the single player campaign was. You play Matthew Steele a page and slowly you increase in ranks, and at one point you even had an option to choose a path. Of course I am not saying it was the most immersive game but it still gave the player the feeling of progress going up in hierarchy in a medieval setting.
I like the sim aspect of game and castle management
One cool thing you can do (if you dont cheese them by building walls around them) is build a bunch of happiness buildings like jousting, inns, and fairs and make up for the lost weapon production or any other production by delegating them to the estates. You can then have your castle build tons of honor with the happiness buildings and still have good production by having the majority of your weapons and food shipped from your estates. Then you can make as many high honor units as you like without worrying about running out of honor as fast. It really makes for a large spanning immersive economy. I love the stronghold 2 estates :)
An interesting interaction between the happiness mechanics and the crime/dung/rats in this game exists too I think. In some stronghold titles happiness builds slowly from 0 to 100 and in others you can instantly adjust happiness and the effect is immediate. If that was the case in Stronghold 2, happiness would fluctuate way too quickly from the various sources that affect it, so it makes sense they went with the slowly adjusting approach. It could also be considered more immersive. Though personally I like the quick system because it allows for fun things like cranking up happiness all the way briefly and spawning a tooon of armed peasants, so for my own RTS game that I am making I went with that approach.
The sound effects in Stronghold are also kinda underrated sometimes, they even add things like windy mountain sounds if you pan over a mountain in some entries, its easy to miss but adds immersion. The behind the scenes of how they recorded some of their audio is also pretty interesting, one can see why they keep reusing their sounds
ah man these mechanics did age well
You forgot about the healer which is actually useful and can heal the lord
I get the impression that the thief system and how you deal with them has been greatly simplified.
I suspect that different torture devices could have influenced people's reactions in various ways. For example, stocks and other non-lethal punishments could have increased your popularity at the cost of a long rehabilitation time, making you known as a merciful lord. On the other hand, using lethal torture devices would cause a drop in popularity but would quickly free up space in the castle for new inhabitants.
Of course, this is just speculation, because as everyone knows, *Stronghold 2* was horribly rushed, which affected the campaign, characters, and mechanics. The AI, in my opinion, is also one of the dumbest in the series.
There are also many missing options. For example, in multiplayer, I **wish** there was an option to disable advanced economy elements like waste, rats, and criminals. I’m not saying these mechanics are bad-they were actually great, and I wish they were in newer entries. But there should also be an option to disable them, as some players didn’t like those mechanics. Keeping it flexible would be ideal-those who want them can turn them on, and those who don’t can turn them off.
Another issue is the very low population limit in the main estate. If I remember correctly, it's capped at 180 inhabitants per estate.
On one hand, it's nice because it encourages players to use multiple estates. On the other hand, it's not ideal because it makes it harder to build a well-functioning economy with such restrictions.
I also think it would be cool if Stronghold Unreal had two types of estates:
Economic estates, which would function exactly like in Stronghold 2.
Military estates, which would work like in Stronghold: Warlords.
@@mejker3186 Why not both? I never liked to separate one settlement from another. Keep the economy protected m`lord.
Perhaps micro managing on everything will give player a difficulty to adapt throughout the game and make battle less a concern
While true, I honestly don't know if immersion is what people look for in a strategy game.
I think stronghold is best when its a city builder rts hybrid. Its things like these that set it apart from pure rts games like age of empires and makes stronghold games stronghold games, and i prefer it that way.
Eh I love the beautifully animated pre rendered cutscenes.
It's extremely expensive id rather not having it since it can hold back the quality of the game design itself
Too bad other aspects of the game are shit