What We're Playing: Zack brings a Knight to a Bowfight
The sun shines brightly on the walls of a mighty stronghold,
each of it's towers bristling with bowmen.
The farmers and woodcutters go about their business, spending their days
working in honest labor under the watchful eyes of their liege lord. The peace is broken by the ringing of a bell,
a warning of imminent attack. The castle
gate is closed, villagers huddle together within the walls of the castle, and
Men-At-Arms begin prepare to face the invaders.
Movement is seen in the distance. To the increasing horror of the
soldiers on the walls an army of hundreds of half-naked men bearing torches go
about putting the surrounding farms to the torch. This will be a long siege.
Lately I've been replaying a classic game from Firefly
Studios Stronghold Series, Stronghold Crusader.
The game is equal parts RTS and City Builder where managing how many
peasants you have working farms becomes just as important as the number of
units you have manning the walls. I'm
personally a fan of their system of unit recruitment where individual peasants
can be converted into soldiers for war or turned into the farmers and laborers
that keep your Stronghold's economy running, making prospective Crusaders
question whether their burgeoning kingdom can support another ten bowmen with
only a few farms to support the growing population.
Stronghold Crusader also gives your newly minted kingdom
with a few new units and an interesting way of getting them. While Crusader kept it's predecessor's system
of having certain production buildings convert resources into weapons before
you could turn you peasants into bow wielding, sword swinging defenders of the
realm, you know also have the option of hiring Arabian-themed mercenaries from
your population by paying the cost in gold.
While some of the Arabian units aren't as strong as their European
counterparts (I'm looking at you Arabian Swordsmen) they can make an effective
early-game harassing force or help your kingdom survive when your enemies come
knocking on the gates with a couple battering rams. I never get tired of sending a handful of
horse archers to harass an opponents pastures, lazily shooting off arrows at
farmers and picking away at an enemy lord's defenses. Another addition to the mercenary roster, the
Slave, is a cheap cannon fodder unit that's a great deal like a Moth in regards
to it's life cycle. It's born, runs for
a bit, and then lights itself on fire while hopefully lighting your opponents
buildings with it (DISCLAIMER: moths may not do that last thing,
hopefully).
While Crusader doesn’t offer as cohesive a story when it
comes to it's Single Player campaign, I can appreciate the amount of content
they have available. Four historical
campaigns give you some historical background on the Crusades themselves,
putting you in the role of various leaders from both the Crusader States and
the Arabian forces in challenging scenarios.
Alongside that you have the option to play the "Crusader's
Trail" (a Fifty map campaign with a variety of enemies, allies, and
resources available to you), "Warchest Trail" (another Thirty map
campaign similar to the aforementioned trail), custom skirmishes, Multiplayer,
and the Castle Builder mode for your inner pacifist to create a burgeoning
kingdom free from war and strife (but not safe from the occasional mountain
lion attack)
I'm a fan of Stronghold Crusader, and for all of
it's faults ("I just want to put archers in this tower IT SHOULD NOT BE
THIS HARD TO CONNECT WALLS TO TOWERS") it's still a pretty great
game. There's an element of realism to
it, and the mechanics are balanced in such a way that the combat and economic
gameplay both seem to balance out instead of having one overpower the other
(which a lot of RTS titles do). You can
still pick it up for 9.99 on Steam (if your castle's treasury seems a bit full,
the Stronghold collection goes for 19.99 and it gets you the original Stronghold,
Stronghold 2, Stronghold: Crusader, Stronghold: Crusader EXTREME (really), and
Stronghold: Legends) and it retains its status as a fantastic Castle simulator
for when you want to get out and enjoy the Knight-life
