Stronghold 2

[Jumjalum]

Has anyone played Stronghold 2 yet? For those who have never heard of it its a castle building strategy game which allows you to build whatever kind of castle you like with all kinds of little buildings which have their own peasant type to work in it. Its the kind of game that appeals to the side of me that likes building stuff and watching little people making their way around the game world (although theres a lot more to the game than that, fighting armies being one of the biggest other features). At least, the first one was and early word on Stronghold 2 is pretty good but not fantastic, I should have it tomorrow so I'll try and write a mini-review then.

[Baley]

(w00t) They launched it...I haven't seen any reviews yet :">

[Rhomal]

Got it, playing it now... only on mission 4 but so far heres my thoughts:

 

sound:

 

no better or worse then the last game, which means a acceptable job on this level. tho some of the VO is hammy/over the top.

 

score: 6

 

graphics:

 

The 3D engine is excellent! Its amazing details and the camera is easy to navigate around with. I have heard reports (pre-patch granted) that with a mass battle even hunky boxes slow to a crawl. Since I have both the patch and only on mission 4 I cant really comment one way or the other thus far. But thus far very impressed with the new engine.

 

score: 8

 

gameplay:

 

Its MUCH more difficult this time around. I can recall the first game I really wasnt seriouslly challenged until mission 8 or 9. Here I am fighting for my life on mission 4.

 

Also you come back at times to a previous keep/castle/stronghold. Thus when building your castle its not a one mission deal. You have to plan it out for future missions and expansion as you will from time to time return to a previous stronghold for a new mission. It certainly adds a extra element of difficulty/tactics.

 

The story/plot of the 2 campaigns is interesting and keeps you entertained but wont win any awards.

 

Other then that the gameplay is very similar to SH1 just more buildings, units and such added.

 

score: 7.5

 

So far its a very good game overall and I suggest getting it *IF* you like a challenge. If you are not one for a tactical, thinking RTS then this game will prob turn you off.

 

My 2 coppers

[Oerwinde]

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Wow, harder than the first one? I could never get passed that mission where you're in the mountains and have to stockpile food, and the wolves and bandits keep attacking you.

[Deraldin]

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Wow, harder than the first one? I could never get passed that mission where you're in the mountains and have to stockpile food, and the wolves and bandits keep attacking you.

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You mean mission 4 in the economic campaign? The one where a fire breaks out in your caslte every 5 seconds. That one was damn annoying but definatly beatable. The one mission that I could never beat was the final mission against the Pig where you come back to his fully beefed up castle. That one was tough, even on easy.

 

Rhomal: What difficulty did you play the original on? Some of those early missions can be damn tough on Very Hard. What do you mean some of the VO is hammy/over the top? From what I've heard on the music is that a number of the tracks have been reused from Stronghold and Crusader.

 

I plan on picking up Stronghold 2 at some point but I'm not sure if I can afford to spend the money on it right now. Need to get a part time job so that I have some disposable income.

[Rhomal]

> Rhomal: What difficulty did you play the original on?

 

Normal

 

> Some of those early missions can be damn tough on Very Hard.

 

I am sure. I am refering tho playing it on the default difficulty for both.

 

> What do you mean some of the VO is hammy/over the top?

 

The voice overs/voice acting. A few of the actors over exagerated the accents or say silly things.

 

> From what I've heard on the music is that a number of the tracks have been reused from Stronghold and Crusader.

 

It sounds that way to me as well.

[Jumjalum]

Well Gamespot hated SH2, they awarded a hefty 5.9 saying the AI, graphics, sound, gameplay and robustness were all severely lacking. Personally I haven't made up my mind, I'm only someway into the peace campaign so I havent reached the real meat of the game. Keeping tabs on all the different buildings is quite a headfull though, mostly in a good way. never have I seen a game with so many buildings!

[Oerwinde]

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Wow, harder than the first one? I could never get passed that mission where you're in the mountains and have to stockpile food, and the wolves and bandits keep attacking you.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You mean mission 4 in the economic campaign? The one where a fire breaks out in your caslte every 5 seconds. That one was damn annoying but definatly beatable. The one mission that I could never beat was the final mission against the Pig where you come back to his fully beefed up castle. That one was tough, even on easy.

 

Rhomal: What difficulty did you play the original on? Some of those early missions can be damn tough on Very Hard. What do you mean some of the VO is hammy/over the top? From what I've heard on the music is that a number of the tracks have been reused from Stronghold and Crusader.

 

I plan on picking up Stronghold 2 at some point but I'm not sure if I can afford to spend the money on it right now. Need to get a part time job so that I have some disposable income.

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Actually it turns out it was mission 2. Mission 4 is the one I'm on now... How the hell am I sposed to get 160+ units of bread when fires wipe out all my farms and I can't collect enough wood to rebuild them all right away. And even when I do have enough wood, as soon as I build them all, they catch fire again and are all wiped out. I had like 4 wells around it but it seems like you need 2 wells for each building to make sure they don't burn to the ground.

[Jumjalum]

I dont remember that mission, but fire usually isnt a huge problem. You only really need one well for a whole section of buildings, maybe 2, unless they ramped up the fire frequency on this mission. A good tip to remember is to buy emergency wood from the market if you have the dough for it (pun intended). Markets dont cost anything so you can always have one. Also, try to space out your farms so they dont set each other alight when one goes up in flames, most of the time there just isn't the room for this though.

[Oerwinde]

Yeah, there wasn't enough room and the mission wouldn't let me build a market. That would have made it so much easier if I could.

[Deraldin]

Yeah the really tought thing about that mission was the fire. One breaks out almost every month in the game and in order to keep it from spreading you need to have maybe 3 or 4 wells per group of buildings. I think I had all my buildings clustered together in groups of about 9 buildings. If one went up they would all go up however I had enough wells that usually the fire was out fast enough that only one or two other buildings caught fire.

[Oerwinde]

Oh man, half my farms were on fire, the other half destroyed before I even realized I had a fire.

[Deraldin]

Oh man, half my farms were on fire, the other half destroyed before I even realized I had a fire.

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Make sure you have wells everywhere. Including in the middle of your farms and by the quarry.