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 loved stronghold 2, but this game is buggy and downright horrible. Troops can hack at walls with swords and knock them down, and there is no skirmish mode. I bought this game for $5, and I wouldn't get it again if you paid me. The AI for your troops is downright awful, as well. 0/5 would not recommend. I'm off to play SH2 and get the taste of this steaming turd out of my mouth.

-If you are a Stronghold fan, do NOT buy this game. The frustration is painful and not worth it.-

I have always been a Stronghold fan and wouldn't hesitate to recommend Stronghold, Stronghold 2, Stronghold Crusader or even Stronghold Legends to any of my friends. So of course I was biding my time until the game finally released and squandered $60 on it. I'd equate the anticipation level of buying it and actual gameplay akin to Duke Nukem Forever.

While there certainly are positives: the game is gorgeous when rendered and boasts a lot of new content. The basics that make the game flow and playable are the worst in the series. As much as I would like to rant as to how Firefly could botch a release so badly after having released a prior version, Stronghold Crusader Extreme, wherein the player could field an army of up to 10,000 troops and limitless buildings, I have no idea.

The number 1 issue that ruined the game for me was the slow replenishment of the player's campfire (distributable population) mixed with the prioritzation of industry over military. For instance if an opposing army kills the workers of any industry buildings beyond your walls, or even wolves for that matter, you will not be able to build any troops until the workers are replenished in the order that they were killed. Unfortunately that is just one glitch of many that should have been cleaned up during simple game testing.

Whoever was in charge of cleaning up this game ought to have used Lemon Pledge.

About as fun as masterbating with sandpaper

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	3/10 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	4/10 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."

I preordered this game for $50 and to date that is the most I have ever been robbed by a game purchase.

I remember watching and interview with the lead developer before the game came out where he expressed they'd learnt from all the fan feedback from stronghold 2... Apparently all they learnt from it was how to make a crappier game then their previous titles.

Stonghold 2 is not generally considered the favourite in the series, but comparing 3 to 2... 2 wins. 3 has absolutely no redeeming gameplay features. Visually it looks better (excepting personal taste) but even the lauded features like wall destruction physics which are nice to look at in actual fact make the gameplay much worse. I have never before played a game where the walls are hands down the worst place to position your archers... They will recieve no extended range, no cover, and are more vulnurable as they will fall to their death when the enemies weakest units chips down your stone walls in seconds with their daggers. Pretty much the opposite of a castle "sim".

The ecconomic sim is also suffered. Smaller maps and bigger building footprints means you can't construct a small castle town let alone a complex one. Clunkier interface, less building options, dumber AI (how do you even achieve that?) and all around less content makes this a step backwards from the series previous installments in pretty much ever single way except graphics rendering.

If I could get my money back I would because I don't think I have ever been more disapointed in a studio... This is the game that was the straw that broke the camels back as far as my personal policy on preordering games goes. As it stands I wont even consider getting stronghold 4 until it's been out for a year, has 8 out of 10 reviews and I've had the opertunity to try a demo.

I really don't know what Firefly was thinking releasing this....
If you have played Stronghold 2, then you already own/played a better game than this.
This is Stronghold 2, but missing all the good stuff.
Falcon Post: gone
Skirmish: Gone
Torture's Guild: Gone
Magistrates Office: Gone
Guard Post(for catching criminals): Gone
Sewer Pits: Gone
This list goes on...
If anything this is "Stronghold 1.1" NOT 3
Find a copy of Stronghold 2, before even giving 4.50$ for this. Not only will you enjoy the game, but its finished, with a ton more detail.
I hate having to give this game a bad review, I really love the Stronghold series. But, this is very close to a "facebook" game, it is lacking so much!

Bad pathfinding and bugs, glitches, and hell knows what else beyond comprehension plague this game. I have gotten hours of enjoyment out of it, but that was only because I am a die-hard stronghold fan. Anything less will find no enjoyment in this game, only the frustration of trying to get not everything, but ANYthing at all to work the way you want it to. There are only 2 solid points to this game - the graphics and the gridless building system, both of which are the best in the series as of the time of this review. The military units don't behave properly and have minimal AI on their own...there IS no AI for enemy opponents whatsoever, meaning more often than not they sit there doing ♥♥♥♥all until you go to them instead, there are massive game-breaking glitches with the physics and pathfinding, and the multiplayer servers are so god awful that they had to slap a 150 troop limit and 125 building limit (INCLUDING TOWERS AND GATEHOUSES) into the multiplayer to make it barebones functional and you can still expect massive lag left and right - not computer lag, but network lag where the whole game will slow to a crawl.

Want the bonuses of a 3D stronghold game that doesn't suck and has functional multiplayer? Go get crusader 2.

Otherwise just get ANY game in the series besides this one. This is the ONLY game in the entire series that I would not recommend, as it is the only one that provides more frustration than it does fun - the next worst in the series falls to Stronghold Legends, which is not nearly as bad as this and is easily playable and enjoyable.

Buggy, missing key features, never fully fixed. Buy the older games or perhaps Crusader 2 instead.

Shame on firefly. Money grabbing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s to ruin a great series with a broken mess that is SH3t. They never fixed the game because its unfixable and are still trying to sell this pos on steam. Shame on Steam too. Firefly will never see another dollar from me.

This games problems are many and varied.The balance and AI are near nonexistent. The graphics are clunky and uncharming, the pathfinding is painful and sticky. This game lacks the charm and humor of the first game. Hopefully one day the king will return and a developer will create a proper sequel to the beloved first Stronghold

I still can't see why they couldn't at least update this game so you can build walls and gates in practical spots and all these pictures showing horizions and skies yet I've never been able to change my camera angle it makes the game (graphically anyway) look alot better than it is, it's very dissapointing I'm loving Crusader 2 but I still want to finish this campaign, they really need a major overhaul of this game. I wish I could recommend this game but I would be lying if I did. :(

Just no. NEVER BUY THIS GAME EVER.

Would have been more acceptable with the issues it has and the graphics if it was Early Access, since its a release the developers should feel ashamed at ruining a franchise like Stronghold. Add to that the fact that this is a 3 year old game and its still 29.99? Its nice that its ported to linux but would have been better if Stronghold: Crusader HD would be ported to linux, an all around better game.

While I love the original stronghold and stronghold crusader, the series has gone downhill.

You would expect the series to improve as game technology has improved since 2001 when Stronghold first came out, however this latest edition is worse in almost every way (except it has some prettier models) than both verson 1 and 2.

Not worth the money. Would not recommend to anyone.

Buy it only for less than 5 bucks. It's a nice game, but the most important part is missing: no skirmish mode. There are no "free battles" vs AI, only historical stuff, what most users don't look for. Online Multiplay is also not, what most ppl look for in a game like this, so the most interesting part of Stronghold 1 and 2 is missing!

Not as good as the others. Felt rushed and got me to lose intrest within 30 minutes of playing. Not worth buying.

I got this game because it was on sale and I enjoyed Stronghold 2. I decided that I would try out the peacefull mode first. After building a wooden wall that reached far out into the sea and ran through a whale, I learned all that I needed to know about this game. The graphics are pretty, but the soldiers and overall AI do not act intellgiently at all.

No skirmish mode no thank you.

They took everything they did right in Stronghold 2 and threw it out the window. Sure, the graphics are "better," but the UI is absolutely terrible, displays are much less informative, and their character animations are a lot less interesting.