Stronghold

My little brother found this game called Stronghold the other day. I only heard little about it and started playing it without expecting much, but I was proven wrong.

In this RTS, you have fewer individual units that cancel each other out in a rock-paper-scissors like gameplay. Archers shoot pikemen down before they get too close, while macemen are a little tougher and should be attacked by crossbowmen. Furthermore, you have a number of specialty units like engineers, who are able to build catapults, and diggers, who dig tunnels to make destroy fortifications.

As the lord of you stronghold, you are expected by your people to bless them with low taxes, a lot of food and religion. Doing so will increase the number of people who move in your stronghold which you can use to staff farms, quarries, mines, etc. with. You also need manpower to build units to defend your castle with.

The campaign starts of rather easy, explaining what to do and what to build. The game becomes more and more difficult later on which could make the player try different strategies if he isn't too successful with his current one. A change from a macemen-heavy army to an army that consisted solely of archers helped me in several missions.

I hope I was able to give you a rough idea about the game.