Summary
Stronghold Warlords brings in a brand new setting and new factions, but various issues keep it from becoming a new benchmark for the series.
Developer – Firefly Studios
Publisher – Firefly Studios
Platforms – PC
Stronghold Warlords is Firefly Studios latest entry in the long running Strongholds franchise. It takes the games setting to Asia, with Mongols, Chinese and Japanese forces all vying for control.
For the uninitiated, Stronghold is an RTS that takes the turtle style and essentially turns that into a full fledged game.
Stronghold is all about building massive bases, tons of walls, static defenses and getting ready to defend and attack against like minded forces.
The series has seen quite a few incarnations over the years, always jumping around various eras but usually focused on medieval combat. Those time periods lend themselves well to huge fortresses and siege weaponry that fit the game and it’s premise.
Right off the bat, the change to the Mongol era clashes at times with the structure of Stronghold. When I think of Mongol forces, I think horse archers and mobility. Hit and run tactics they they famously used to great effect during the height of their power.
Ultimately this clash of styles effects the entire game. Shoehorning these factions into a strict Stronghold style severely limits the scope of what makes those factions unique.
It exposes the games weaknesses, such as small maps, average path finding and some odd balance around defensive structures an siege units.
It’s a frustrating problem, the game isn’t built to truly support these unique factions but forcing them into a slow, siege based style makes this new entry feel like a skin pack of sorts, rather than a full fledged new and exciting variant.
It’s not all bad though, with the new Warlords A.I mechanic providing some new wrinkles, and the loss of some building diversity aside, constructing a huge fort and holding out against large numbers still provides some fun sessions.
The game also looks nice enough, with some battles getting pretty large in size, especially if you do an 8 player free for all.
Campaign mode were never the series strongsuit, but it’s very limited in Warlords. It serves as a very protracted tutorial, but by the time they take the training wheels off, its just about over.
Multiplayer is by far the most fun, especially as human players force you to use a much larger set of tools than the AI at times. This game also brings a very fun coop mode with two players controlling a single faction together.
This form of co-op is extremely fun and hopefully gets expanded on in the future.
If you’re a long time fan of the series, there is fun to be had despite the games shortcomings.
However, various balance issues, technical problems and the new factions clashing with the basic premise keep Warlords from excelling in any one area.
