These pyromaniacs shriek maniacally when you select them, making you question whether the least mentally stable soldiers should be wielding the only weapons also capable of damaging your own troops. Fire lancers meanwhile, can burn entire regiments with their medieval flamethrowers. Regular melee, cavalry and ranged troops are joined by far eastern classics like samurai, warrior monks, horse archers and ninjas-who can scale walls without ladders. Seeing a city burn and crumble before funnelling troops into it is still a joy, and I had a few highlight reel moments with the gunpowder-loaded oxen that I’d send on kamikaze death-runs into poorly guarded siege equipment.
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Siege equipment is varied, ranging from trebuchets that can fire not only rocks, but fire and diseased animals into enemy forts, to laddermen and mantlets that protect your incoming troops from the inevitable arrow barrages. The combat itself feels good for the most part. The diplomacy is both simplistic and fiddly, and the last thing I want to be doing while defending on one front and besieging on another is clicking a big button on a menu to make a number go up. I found that once I was deep into a game, with each remaining team having piled up these points, I’d get embroiled in an endless tug of war on the diplomacy screen with the warlords endlessly flip-flopping between my team and an enemy’s.
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You can use diplomacy points to sweet-talk warlords to your side instead of fighting them. The climactic sieges do happen eventually, but they’re not at the heart of the game like they used to be. Most of your time in a skirmish will be spent scuffling over these warlord forts that you don’t have any hand in building or designing except for preset upgrades that you buy with diplomacy points. Firstly, it means that your main keep which you so meticulously bolster with walls, ballistas, towers, hidden gunpowder traps and fire arrow launchers doesn’t see a ton of action. It’s a decent idea in principle but falters on a couple of levels. Defeat these warlords, and they’ll join your side, sending you resources, letting your troops shelter in their mini-forts, and even launching attacks on your enemies. Between your base and the enemy’s, there are several smaller estates on the map held by neutral warlords. The titular Warlords system is the twist here. It’s also set in the far east, where you pick from four historical real-life leaders of China, Japan, Vietnam and Mongolia. In other words, it’s more Age of Empires than Stronghold, but without the technological progression, or scouting, or distinct factions, or scuffles over resources.
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In fact, it’s the most sprawling entry in the series yet-largely abandoning the principle of building a feudal gauntlet for waves of enemies in favour of a more traditional RTS setup featuring larger maps and symmetrically placed enemy bases. I tend to think that the series’ decades-long endurance despite often lukewarm player and critical reception speaks to an enduring hope that it one day goes back to that simple principle of building and protecting your castle against relentless waves of attackers-that maybe the next Stronghold will finally be the one to both take us back and move us forward. It had real character too, with a lovely soundtrack, snappy unit soundbites and memorable villains. You build a medieval barony, surround it with a labyrinth of impassable walls, and stave off waves of attackers while keeping the serfs living within happy, well fed and well taxed. The original Stronghold holds a special place in my heart. Due to further issues regarding multiplayer, the release date was moved back again 6 weeks to a final release date of March 9, 2021
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It was originally planned to release on September 29, 2020, but was delayed to Janudue to the COVID-19 pandemic. Stronghold: Warlords is an upcoming real-time strategy game in development, and published by Firefly Studios which was revealed during the E3 2019.