This game is great once you have patched it,but if you don't it is hardly worth trying to play.Crashes and other anoying bugs plague this game not to mention aparent memory leak. Running this on a 2.4 gig amd with a 256 graphics card and 512 ram on low will be horribly jerky until you you patch it.

I was getting about 2 crashes per half an hour if I was lucky.Once it was patched it runs 80% better I think. The game play is that of ‘Stronghold’ but in 3D with a new honour system you gain from holding feasts and dances not to mention jousting tourneys!

It contains two campains ‘The Path of Peace’ and ‘The Path of War’,obviously one focus on gain money and propity and the other destroying other peoples castles.Their is also ‘Free build’ I spend most of my time building huge castles on my own maps made through the ‘Map Editor’ that is supplied with the game.

The unit aknowledgement voices are a bit repetitve,it seems they only had two or three actors to use thus all the voices are very similar.

But after all the gripes its builder element can't be beaten in my mind, for when you see your mighty fortress and town you feel proud of your creation much more than the simplistic type fortress structures of ‘Age of Empires’ type games.

Just don't expect good combat as the AI is pretty bad.Buy it for the Castle builder/town sim that it is and patch it.Just remember it isin't ‘Rome:Total War’ or ‘War Craft III’.

I bought this game used from mighty ape and had no problems with the purchase. I think the listing of used games is a great idea mighty ape!

The game itself is great fun. I had previously stronghold crusader and found this to be just as fun. The world is 3-D unlike crusader, giving some really interesting views that change your perspective on the game.

The castle building itself is an upgraded experience with shortcuts to building thicker walls and more defensive structures like rolling logs and stone tippers. Also there are a lot of new towers ( you can fight within the tower itself).

The combat has been slightly improved with formations added, however im not sure they do a lot! the use of siege camps is another interesting feature allowing you to get your siege on quickly. There is the standard troop type along with the mercenary post which brings some from crusader and some new ones like the axe throwers and beserkers, who work well as shock troops to storm in with.

I liked the honour system idea, but found some of the ways of getting it a bit gimmicky (e.g. Having all the necessary resources for a feast/dance but it doesnt happen!). I found the crime aspect fun at first, but got really annoyed when vital industries ( the pub) shut off due to publican turning to crime.

Thats a breif summary of what I liked about the new features of the game. The graphics aren't amazing but you will get over it as the game itself is a blast, espicially for 10 bucks.