Difficult to enjoy, hard to play, will not run well on most computers, almost zero replay value.

To give you reference, I played through the campaign and the side campaign looking desperately for a reason to enjoy this entry into what was my favourite series.

This is not a game I would recommend at all. Buy the Stronghold Collection and enjoy the first few.

I bought it on sale because some people were saying it was fixed. It's not fixed.

I'm in the middle of a relaxing free mode. Building my dream castle. Got my walls, houses, some flowers for people to frolick amongst, and I'm trying to increase my farms then BAM. I get hit with a cap on how many buildings I can build. Come on, man. I just want to build a cool ♥♥♥ castle. There's so much space to build in but I can only use some of it. Really bummed me out. Loved the classic Stronghold as well as Crusader. This one just breaks my makes my heart ache a bit.
Final words: It's a'ight at best.

Irredeemable garbage.

During the Pre-release stage of this game, skirmishes were promised against AI or Human players; Steam even had the feature on the store page as well. After watching the DEV-team videos and listening to what they were "promising" I decided to pre-order it (pre-ordered it the day before it came out).

Fast Forward a day and stronghold 3 was released. The features that I had purchased this game for were missing from the in-game menu and when I got out to check the store page they had removed at least half of the bullet points for what this game was promising. Fraud?

The game itself is riddled with issues; path-finding, graphical mishaps, and the beloved soldiers mixed with wall syndrome. The skirmish is no longer a skirmish of any sort but a rather boring and pointless sandbox free-build mode where you build a glitched-out castle on one of 7 tiny maps.

The campaign itself is TERRIBLE. The cutscenes are storyboards, which they try to play off as art (something only BL2 was able to pull off without it seeming like the game was rushed and released without polish).

Dont buy this game. Dont buy any games from the criminals at Firefly, i wouldnt purchase this game for $0.50 and it was the last game I have or will ever pre-order. It's worth noting that after reading reviews of their newest "game" it appears that much of the same happened yet again. They simply cash in on a halfway decent game that was made 20 years ago without putting forth much effort to change or enhance anything. Terrible company, terrible games, and terrible ethics.

I'm sure there are already enough negative comments to ward off even the stupidest buyer but I'm going to add mine anyway because leaving a negative comment is the only enjoyment I get from this game.

The initial release of Stronghold 3 may be the most shameful act in gaming history. If this were Japan, the staff of Firefly would be honor bound to commit Hari-Kari.

Like so many others I have been with the Stronghold Series from the start; absolutely one of my favorites until...Stronghold 3. It was more than a slap in the face to fans of the series. It was an insult to the entire gaming community.

It was months late from its expected arrival. Each delay accompanied by an assurance they were refining the game. What they were doing was hurriedly hacking together a cheap revised version of SH2. Even though the "frankenstein" they had created still lacked life, they released it upon the world, in time for the Christmas market.

Thanks to trusting fans and unwary buyers the game went gold immediately. The scheme had worked perfectly. They dangled it front of us with a lot of hype [lies], made a fortune in initial sales, delivered a bonified POC, figuring to patch the monster together in the following months. And then failed to deliver on that as well.

Here's an example of the refinements they were making. I call it, Mission: Impossible
One of the first missions is to defend the town from wolf attacks. I built 2 wooden towers with ladder access, put archers in them to intercept the wolves and reduce their numbers as they approached the town. The wolves came, climbed the ladders into the towers and killed my archers. Any playtesting at all could not miss this.

If releasing this abomination upon a trusting fan base wasn't despicable enough; consider how they treated the foreign markets. The Chinese were sold a retail copy that could not be converted to a Steam account. That meant they had no access to any patches except if a kind soul posted a cracked version somewhere. Let me say it again. They sold the Chinese unplayable versions of the game with no support. Anything for a buck.

I don't care what excuse they give for their actions. They cheated me. They cheated the world. And there's been no retribution for the crime. Firefly is dead to me. I don't look at anything that has their logo on it. There's plenty of new, respectable talent and castle building games are coming on all the time.
Firefly should stick to games about organized crime anyway. That's where their true talent lies.

I've had a few attempts playing this game, let me summarise:

At launch: a buggy mess, a festival of bugs and crashes and AI/UI issues. You could not place certain (crucial) structures like steps .. which would allow you to mount archers on the walls. Archers did not return fire as mace-men approached your walls. It was a ridiculous and frustrating mess. Only positive I can say is I liked some of the gritty art style.

A few months later: it seemed like the developer was as disappointed as most consumers .. there was apparently some advices saying they blamed the publisher who pushed for an early release, and that they would endeavour to give consumers the game that they deserve through patching and constant and consistent after-sale improvements. (Apparently the game we deserve is 'poo poo' because even with them working through the list of problems, the game, although playable in some ways, was still deeply flawed. Archers still wouldnt retaliate, still had issues placing simple things like stairs up to walls).

About a year after launch: I decide to give the game one last try. (Loved earlier Stronghold titles and the concept in general). They made some improvements to the game .. archers could fire back .. structures could be placed .. overall the game became somewhat playable .. BUT .. even after all that work they really barely achieve 'passable' .. archers may retaliate, but there's no mechanic for wall cover, and they get no elevation bonus to range or accuracy .. so basically 20 archers attacking a wall v 20 archers on a wall .. probably the attackers would win because they are clustered into one big kill-group, firing all their arrows together accurately, while the wall guys are scattered about and some would be out of range to attack... but yeah, basically the ones on the wall get no benefit). Also you'll place units on a wall and they will become un-movable. Just plain stuck.

So basically, despite a good legacy and concept, the game sucks.

2/10
Overall, don't buy the game. Its terrible... It doesn't live up to the Stronghold series. Don't even buy it on a sale even if its $7.49. Go buy a small game with 8 dollars, you can probably find something with more playability. Go ahead and buy those cheap DLCs or cosmetics you've been wanting for your other games. Go ahead... its much better to buy cosmetic DLCs or small packs then it is to buy this game.

Category	Rating
Graphics	8/10 The games graphics are probably the best in the Stronghold series, but there are problems stated about this below
Modes	2/10 The lack of modes is terrible, there is no more skirmishes, there is a great lack of siege battles (and those siege battles are pathetic). There is no built in editor either.
Campaign	1/10 The campaign is terrible! I haven't even got through the first mission it was SO poor!
Building placement	3/10 This is a true horror. They added a nice new way to rotate buildings, but the downside is, it takes longer to place buildings now! But whats worse is the spaceing! You can't place buildings closer than 6 feet now! Buildings are so spaced, but the maps (which I won't do a category on) are also terrible! You can only place buildings on 1/4 of the map, because of the elevation, and the strict limits! You have to be careful of where you place, and you can only place so few buildings because of the stupid placement system.
Bugs and crashes	4/10 I myself haven't saw much bugs (but I have heard of a lot) But crashes, theres a lot of that too. Not even 2 hours, and I already had a crash. The first Stronghold is more stable with crashes, even though I have Windows 8 and no compability mode on!
How it runs	2/10 LAG LAG LAG and low FPS. I really don't know if its my computer or the game, but it has a low FPS. Other people have stated there was lag though. But it is bad... I can run 800 people with a small castle on the map in Stronghold 2 on high graphics, here I can't run 100 people on the map with even medium graphics. Avoid.
Extra	Once, a Youtuber named DiplexHeated said,"The buildings are terrible. It all just feels like a village, unlike a castle you'd see in Stronghold 2."

dear developers
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Sorry,you are viewing the wrong site.
Go search "Stronghold Crusader Collection" or "Stronghold Crusader HD" instead m'lord.