Stronghold 3 Gold

Dark ages of Stronghold series...

I am a huge fan of Stronghold and played all titles, esspecially Crusader I which to me still stands out to be the best of them all. With the new Definitiv Edition of the first titles and having played the Demo Version of Crusader I Definitiv Edition recently (cant wait to get it in Summer) i want to bring light back to this title which in my opinion has gotten an unfair share of negative reviews and critics. I am aware of all the shortcomings (like the lack of Skirmish mode) and other things but i want to point out all the Positives about this game and the potential it has and i hope work will continue even after 14 years.


So, whats the Positives:

1. It took the best Part of Stronghold I and II and put it together:
- It kept the Honor System of Stronghold II but in a much simpler way. Stronghold II was simply overloaded compared to the space avaialble on maps. A massive Keep just to hold Bankets in a Giant Room was stupid. Stronghold III does it much better by having the Lords Kitchen, the Bedchamber as well as the treasury within the Keep like you would expect it from such a massive Keep. And to be honest i dont have to watch the Banket taking place to watch my Lord sitting on a Table in full armor.

- The Treasury is also again within the Keep which is good.

- It got rid of the Crime System of Stronghold II and reintroduced the the pleasure and fear system again which is much better. The Crime rate and the ammount of buildings and Personal necessary to keep crime rate in check and economy going was too much in Stronghold II. Having Watchmen, a Judge (really?) and a Tortures Guild to speed the punishment was too much. On Top of that even in with a relatively small Population the Crime rate was insane, like it is modern day Chicago or Frankfurt or worse.

- It got rid of the Gong Pits and Falkners Posts. Not that i am against such an idea in general but Stronghold II was too crazy in it. A good junk of the Population was busy with gongs and rats and half of those were often in jail or being punished. And the Gongs were often placed next to the Grainery or Supply Depot anyways because thats where peasunts shit the most.

2. By Removing a lot of Castle Buildings, which made Building a functioning castle in stronghold II rather difficult due to the available land being too small, building a castle in Stronghold III makes fun again.

3. The Walls look more natural than ever and the new way of building walls makes building a castle also a lot more easy and joyfull. For the first time you can draw a wall in whatever direction you want and Towers etc automatically adjust to it. Its just great.

4. Buildings can also be turned in any direction you want.

5. The Popularity system is the same as the one used in the later Crusader II which is way better than those of previous titles.

6. Good user interface (in the same or similiar way as crusader II)

TLDR: I like the easy way of building castles in Stronghold III and the reduction massive and unnecessary castle Buildings of Stronghold II which more or less dictated the setup of your castle with many massive buildings.


The Negatives:
1. Crossbowman having less range the spear throwing units (?). At least it seems that they dont always shoot when enemies are in range.
2. Light troops like Spearman moving way too slow and having an awkward looking spear.
3. Lack of a Skirmish mode.
4. In Stronghold II versions previous to the 1.5 Steam version even armored units were jogging. Would like to see them doing it again instead of walking so insanely slow and stupid looking.



But i think the negatives are actually quick to overcome with a few patches. So i hope that this title will get some love again as the first titles did.

This is my first review of a game on Steam and this is long over due. I got this for less then $5 on sale just to see how bad it was and it was terrible. I'm shocked this game was allowed to be sold in the state it was in. This is a game that is missing everything Stronghold has had in the past and is so bugged you can't even play just for fun.

I would say this is game is a scam of a product if i had not paid so little also knowing it was so messed up. But, the face its still on stem for $29.99 today is shocking. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME! Take your $30 and burn it for better results.

game have many bogs

Don't waste your money, it's worse than Stronghold 2 in every way except the graphics are slightly better i guess. I should have listened to the other reviews.

GG

- a lot of reused assets from previous games (stronghold 1 and 2, crusader), reused voicelines, reused music, etc.
- no skirmish mode, the game mirrors the list of campaigns of the og stronghold and stronghold 2, there's military and economic campaign, some sieges, 1 additional campaign, some free builds, that's it.
- no speed selector, the game feels too slow at times, a lot of units move way too slowly. it takes forever to hire units, because the peasants will restock based on your popularity, more pop = less cooldown time on peasants gathering at the fire
- controlling units can get messy, especially ranged units like archers, because sometimes when commanded to attack they start closing distance instead of shooting, while the enemy is in fact in range of their attack
- a lot of bugs: some are minor and funny, while other are softlocking you from completing a mission. for instance, the game seems to have no idea what's going on with units that go and stay under trees, they can get stuck there and you will never see them again.
- the whole honor thing is so cumbersome, just not a welcome addition to the game in my taste, it's been here since stronghold 2 tho, so i guess the devs really like it
- overall the game feels like stronghold 2 a lot, but without rats and poo on the streets. still, other issues that made that game a mess are still present here,. There are some fresh ideas tho (for example, night time as fog of war concept is pretty cool i guess), but you don't get to enjoy them too much, cuz most of the time you're either bored by sluggish gameplay or annoyed by bugs.

it is a really sad game, cuz it feels that not much was learned from stronghold 2. the game also tries to reconnect aesthetically with the first stronghold, introducing some old characters, but does not really change the core of stronghold 2.

sloppy. sad. sour. stronghold

This is not the Stronghold title you are looking for.

great game

Woof an incomplete game that you'd find as a web browser game in 2009. No improvements just a huge leap back in basic expectations.

If you like Stronghold than complete your collection with this. While i did have fun playing, there are a few things that set it apart from the rest of the genre. The story is really good! The voice acting is superb. The game play was good but i encounter a few issues, buildings are not easy to lay down is certain areas-most areas. There are a few glitches with laying walls and gate houses also a bit of glitching with troops in battle. It is missing skirmish and everyone loves a skirmish. Still I'm not sure why the mostly negative reviews. I would recommend to catch this on sell.

Pick up this game on a dirt cheap offer you'll maybe get a few hours of game-play out of it before you lose interest.

Seriously, what the hell Firefly? How do you produce magnificent gems like Stronghold 1 & 2 and royally botch the third so badly? Was your budget cut, are you merging with Ubisoft or EA? How do you strip so many features from the existing games and call it a squeal!?

You had perfect results from Stronghold 2. Your castle felt alive. You could watch feasts & dances, Had a functioning crime and punishment system giving a reason to use stocks, gallows ect, you had sanitation, unique dialogue, and a over all feeling of a quality. You stripped all that for what? To reuse old dialogue, strip out the interaction of your daily castle life and wave goodbye to any form of quality story telling.

Since this game hardly any Firefly's games have had any sort of positive overall score. Save for the Stronghold remakes. You had gold! Now you produce dirt. It's embarrassing! You can see what people are asking for why do you keep ignoring them?

There is no point in playing this game units get stuck randomly the path finding is a absolute joke why did they even bother to make this game you could have made Stronghold 2 Remastered slap on a price of 100$ and people would rather buy that,the graphics are a downgrade from Stronghold 2 and also the voice lines, you cant see inside buildings like Stronghold 2 and also why even bother with the story as its not nearly as good as the previous one

its good

Will NOT load on new PCs

:]

Worst Stronghold make in the franchise, dead game, no skirmish, building limit too low, no bots in multiplayer or singleplayer that i could find, supposedly there is a map maker but i didnt see it in the menu maybe its in the game files but either way

Better than original in some aspects and bad in some othe6 although it lacks polish but still good for 90% off

The Stronghold you play out of obligation because of how good the others were.

But you probably won't like it...

No Skirmish? F#$% that

:

Worst Stronghold make in the franchise, dead game, no skirmish, building limit too low, no bots in multiplayer or singleplayer that i could find, supposedly there is a map maker but i didnt see it in the menu maybe its in the game files but either way

The bugs in this game are so terrible, it's almost like they were intentional. I play with one save file, overwriting it as I progress, but at some point the overwriting just stopped, leaving the file stuck on an old version of itself. Eventually when I deleted this file, I made a new one with the same name and it still loaded the old version of the deleted file. The game is, of course, addicted to crashing and even opens a window giving me the "runtime error" message. Intentional "bugs" aside, the visuals are just bad with arrows acting more like homing missiles, but travelling very slowly. In this game you pay to be a beta tester.

This game is perfect

just play any of the other Stronghold games. In my opinion Stronghold Crusader II is the best, but they really are all great besides this one. This game is just a little more broken the rest making it frustrating to play. The rest of the games also very in challenge, with the first being almost impossible to beat, and the rest getting easier, with legends being the easiest to beat. this game is horrible, it's just the worst in a long line of amazing games. If you're only going to buy one in the series, buy Stronghold Crusader I or II.

Good Game

abysmal!

A the time it came out, this was easily the best castle-builder available!

It has some strong points, for sure - the focus on space was pretty new, and it was one of the first such games that felt really open, not constrained to a grid or hex system.

Unfortunately, in the post-Valheim world, the game doesn't hold up very well any longer, so I would look into other build/craft games to scratch this itch.

It's 'mostly negative' for a reason

The game is unfinished. It is playable but overall quality is just not there.