stronghold is a medieval themed RTS that came out in 2001. i’m fairly sure my friend howard had bought a copy of it when it came out. i played it back then and enjoyed it, but never in depth. recently, i’m playing the whole game through.

despite just the cool idea of being able to siege castles, this game has really deep strategy. there are so many different ways of defending a castle, using offense, and even gathering food. stronghold is definitely one of the best RTS games i’ve ever played. in starcraft the strategy revolves around using units effectively…using units in combination with one another and knowing what’s best vs what. in stronghold there are further elements that involve strategy such as castle design (defense), resource gathering, morale, etc.

my strategies for some of the more difficult missions (i played everything on normal difficulty).

mission 11:
i had to put difficulty on easy to beat this one. i’ll revisit it again sometime.
my mistakes…putting archers all in one spot. i need to spread them out at angles. also i need to speedup crossbowmen production in this one or i’m doomeddd.

so…wood walls, crossbowmen quickly.

mission 15:
took me 5 complete attempts to finish this one on normal difficulty. here’s what i did…
i took half the large group of spearmen and the entire smaller group of spearmen to go fill in the moat, near the castle gate (these units all die of course).
it’s hit or miss whether they fill enough of the moat for a tunnel to be made..so when i got a good run i just saved at that point.
then i used 4 tunnelers to drop a portion of the front wall/gate.

next i set all my units on aggressive. i combined my entire macemen squad with the remainder of the spearmen and have them storm the castle. then i send the battering ram to take down the 2nd gate. after the macemen clear out most of the enemy troops in the first section of the castle i send the ladder guys to the 2nd wall. meanwhile, i try to use my remaining tunnelers to help take down the 2nd wall (whether this helps or not i don’t know). about the same time i start sending groups of archers to take tower positions in the castle that i’ve cleared the enemy out of.

the macemen pretty much take care of everything.

mission 17:
use the crossbowmen in select areas outside of the castle to very very slowly pick away enemy soldiers in the towers. if the towers aren’t cleared first you’ll never get into the castle.