Stronghold Kingdoms (By Skull)

[Skull]

OK,here we go...

Stronghold Kingdoms

Game Type: Free Downloadable
Genre: MMO Strategy

Links:
The official site (the place were you can register and download the game):
http://www.strongholdkingdoms.com/
The official wiki:
http://help.strongholdkingdoms.com/index.php/Main_Page
The Advanced Guide Site:
http://strongholdkingdomsadvguide.com/
The Official Site of Firefly Studios:
http://www.fireflyworlds.com/

Graphics rating:
Gameplay rating:
Immersion rating:
Overall rating:

Stronghold Kingdoms is a online spin off of the great Stronghold series made by Firefly Studios,a British gaming company originaly founded by 3 makers of the Lords of the Relams Series and the Caesar series. Their first game was the highly successful Stronghold 1,released in 2001,and their second game was Stronghold Crusader (2002) ,probably one of the best strategy games ever made. As the company expanded,they released the god awful Stronghold 2 in 2004,and the mediacore Stronghold Legends(2006).In 2008,they released Stronghold Crusader Extreme,a expansion that added 6 "new" AI caracters (that were already in the Warchest pack),a new skirmish trail and the tactical powers like sending a rain of arrows anywere on the map,summoning a band of knights to your aid,adding a hoard of gold to your treasury,or storming a enemy castle with a rain of stones from the heavens (and no,you are not playing as God in this expansion,you are suppose to be a standard medieval lord). In 2011,they released Stronghold 3,a game noteworthy for it's very,very buggy release,and it's very bad score on the most important gaming websites.They also made CivCity: Rome and Space Colony.

Stronghold Kingdoms is the first MMO made by Firefly studios. The game has been in development since 2009,and it went into open beta in November 2010,and went gold in 2012. The game itself is free to play,but thankfuly isn't played from your Internet browser. Instead,it is downloaded onto your computer and played that way.

When you start the game and log in for the first time,you will have to chose which world are you going to play in. Each World acts like a server and there are English,French,German and Russian worlds,and there are multipliable worlds for each language (there are 6 English worlds,3 Russian worlds,4 German worlds,and 2 French worlds). The main diffidence between these language worlds is that each has a different map (in the English worlds,you get a map of England,Scotland and Ireland,in the French worlds,you get a map of France etc.).Once you chose the world you want to be in,you will have to choose were do you want to start your village,it can be done automatically,or you can chose were to place it by yourself.

Once you do that,you will appear in your own little village in your new home parish. Parishes are ruled by Stewards that are elected by the members of the parish. Each parish is a part of a county,and each county is ruled by a sheriff. Each County is a part of a province,and each province is ruled by a governor. Finally,each province is a part of a kingdom,and each kingdom is ruled by a King.
Sadly,this whole system is never fully used - yes,when you take over a parish/county/province,you get control of the army of the whole place,and that army can be used against your enemies,but I really think there should be much more interaction between these circles - for example,the king of a country could greatly influance what governor is going to be set in a province,and so he could support his friends and dispose his foes,just like kings would do in real life. And it is just sad that there is no interaction between Kingdoms,like wars.And that could be dealt with pretty easily - just have some sort of a royal council were the greatest player in the county would vote for important matters like war with another country etc,but still have the king have the final word. And when war finally happens,just have all the better players send their forces to join into a few mega armies and go on and invade the enemy country.

There are 2 main village panels - the village itself and the castle. In the village you build your economy,manage your rationing etc. ,and in the castle part you build your defenses around your keep.There are also panels for trading,recruiting scouts/monks/merchants,training solders for your army,banqueting etc.Building anything in your village time,and after each building you build,the time needed to build the next building is increased. Building anything in your castle takes a fixed amount of time,and only changes depending what are you building (for example,a small wooden tower will take less time to construct than a large stone one).The game's graphics are mostly taken from Stronghold 1 and Stronghold Crusader,but there is a lot of new artwork too - and it is great.I still have no clue why they couldn't just release a few more 2D strongholds when their artwork is so good,instead of going with the mushy 3D graphics.

I think I should really talk more about ranking up and the combat system. Players gain honor each day by increasing their popularity,holding banquets or researching the "arts" technology. Honor is used to rank up (thank God,it isn't used to build units like in Stronghold 2) and perform certain actions,like attacking villages owned by other players (the higher the rank of the attacker,and the lower the rank of the defender,the more the attacker has to pay to raid/capture/raze the defender's village),etc. If you lose too much honor and go into a minus,you will lose your rank. Ranking up has a lot advantages - you get a lot of new buildings and units to research,and some new game features open up for you. The Combat is dealt with by the reports system - after you (get) attack(ed),you will get a report,saying how many units there were on the defender's side,how many units there were on the attackers side and then you can watch the battle commence or just see the results. It doesn't really matter,since if you watch the battle you will have no control of your forces at all - your involvement in combat is just preparing what units are you going to send were,and how will you deploy them,and maybe just playing a strategy card or giving orders to your captain(s)...

The map screen shows your parish and all the villages around it. It also shows if there are any AI castles,bandit camps or wolf lairs around,or if your parish is getting revadged by the plague. When some of these locations are around,the whole parish will take a certain popularity hit - for every wolf lair and bandit camp,each village loses 2 popularity. For every AI castle owned by the Wolf,however,each village will lose 32 popularity. The map also shows if there are any recourse stashes around that can be scouted.
Plague,however,will cause a certain amount of unhappines in all of the parish villages until it is cured. If it is left to spread,the amount of unhappines generated will increased,until the Plague is cured.This is done by monks.

The world map,showing my home parish and my small village

OK,now that I have describes the basics of the game,let me tell you about the good things about it:

~ There are many people who are playing the game
~ The game's graphics are all in the style of Stronghold 1 and Stronghold Crusader
~ The game has been very well tested,there are little to no bugs at all
~ The music is simply fantastic

Well,now let me tell you about the not-so good parts of this game:

~ As I said,the voting system isn't really used well
~ Much left potential
~ There are no spearmen,knights (trainable) ,crossbowmen or macemen (my favorite unit in the whole stronghold series )
~ No Trebuchets,portable shields or battering rams
~ The Premium Tokens

Ah,yes,I forgot about the premium tokens... Basically,as in any MMO,there is a way to increase your performance in the game by using real money. Here,you use your money to buy Firefly Crowns,and you use those to buy packs of Strategy Cards and Premium Tokens.
Let's see what the Stronghold Kingdoms Wiki says about Strategy Cards:
"Strategy Cards are modifiers which can affect almost all areas of the game; for example, a card may affect a building's production rate, the strength of its walls etc. The period for which a card's effect lasts differs on a card-by-card basis."
OK,so,strategy cards are a powerful weapon,but a player who uses strategy cards still can be defeated by a player who doesn't.
Now,let's see what the Stronghold Kingdoms Wiki says about Premium Tokens:
"Premium Tokens are a great way to improve your abilities in Stronghold Kingdoms™, giving extra in-game options and automatic offline features."

And what are these extra in-game options and offline features?
Well,first of all,let's talk about the features they give you while you are playing.
Premium Tokens enable you to cue up buildings for construction and to cue up research.
That is probably what ruins the game for me. See,the research time in this game increases by the number of techs you researched. In the beginning,each tech will take less that a minute to research. Later on,it will take you around 20 minutes,and even later it will take you + 50 minutes for each tech. The problem with is is that the higher your rank,you will need to research a lot to get new units,make your old units stronger,increase your wood/stone/iron/weapon production etc.
But now,your research takes a long time to finish,so you can't just sit there and wait for it to be done to select a new tech to research,you have to either log off,wait until the research is finished,log on,and chose a new technology to research or just buy some firefly crowns and buy a premium token,and then you can cue up 5 researches to be done while you are offline. The same thing goes for building buildings in any of your villages.
The problem is that this is a really,really cheap way to get money out of the players.

The research panel

But also,there is a feature that stops the players from over using the research cue - research points. Basically,the player gets a fixed amount of these every time they rank up (and the player gets 8 free points when he starts the game), and uses them for researching techs,and if he wants some more,well,he has to spend some gold and buy some. Here is the question: why don't give all the players the ability to cue up research,but increase the cost for each research points?

Final Verdict : 3.5/5
Basically,I liked Stronghold Kingdoms,even tho it isnt perfect.
Does it have some flaws? Well,yes,but,let's face it,it could be way,waaayyy worse.

For example,it could have been on Facebook...

Well,that was my review for Stronghold Kingdoms.I hope you enjoyed it.



Also,did you know that firefly is making Stronghold Crusader 2? Yeah! Well,as far as I have read,it looks good,maybe it will be a really good gam...Wait...

Q: What game engine will you be using?
A: "We will be using a newly enhanced 3D engine...

...

[Skull]

Just a note,most of these pictures are outdated,and the research point system has been slightly improved.

[Silver Wolf]

I've played this game a few years ago.
It's interesting and it's a bit more aesthetically pleasing than other similar games I've seen (it's Stronghold after all).
Premium tokens are a real pain in the asymmetry if you ask me.

The main problem with this kind of games is that you need to spend a lot of time on it and after some time it just gets boring.