PC User Reviews

Graphics are nice but I must tell you that this is a trash in whole franchise - 4/10

Another Real-Time game that isn't in real time at all, and as a result is more arcade than strategy. Game makers still haven't connected enough of their gray cells to add a pause key. 5 minutes of coding that would triple their player base. I loved the 1st Stronghold, but I don't have the reflexes I had 20 years ago, and while players devolve, games should evolve. At least they kept the ability to save, which makes the arcade gameplay more forgiving. Real disappointment though, is that 4 or 5 scenarios into the military campaign, I'm still unable to build fortifications. If you want to know why I chose to play a game called Stronghold, the clue is in the name. Also, I believe that the interface was better in the earlier titles. In particular, I can't find my own troops on the map, and sometimes can't see the enemies either.

This game has been sitting in my Steam Library for 6 months or more. So, on this lazy Sunday, I decided to fire the game up. Ugh, what a joke. I loved the other Stronghold games, but this one is horrid. First off is the story. The Wolf? Are you serious? I mean, out of all the stories Firefly could have came up with, they decided to bring back the Wolf? Complete joke. Secondly, is the voicing. Once again, Firefly was too lazy or cheap to hire decent voice actors. Most of the AI voicing is copy and paste from previous titles. And the women? They are male voices trying to sound female. What a crock. They did this in other titles as well. I believe Stronghold 2 is the only title that has proper female voice actors. Come on Firefly. Really. Lastly are the campaigns. Not much depth here. Either too easy, too bland, or just too boring. Move here, move there, kill this dude, kill that dude, grow some apples, gather some wood; rinse and repeat. In closing, the graphics are not too bad, and I love the weather effects and night/day cycle; something I always wanted in the Stronghold games, but even that does not help this game in the least. I'm glad I got the Gold Edition for like 10 bucks, because the game is not worth more than that. Maybe 5 actually. But any ways, try thinking up a better and original story Firefly for the next game. The Wolf was dead in Stronghold 1. I give this terrible attempt a 3. Yuk!

Stronghold 3 is bad game. So many bugs, shallow lore. It's a perfect example for a bad game that wanna sell based in fame of predecessors. Feels that was released in beta. ---> Positive points: . Retain some mechanics that made stronghold 1 so good. But didnt improve on that. ---> Negative points: . Generic e weak lore. And brings back Wolf who clearly died in stronghold 1. . Graphics are bad. Looks like a game from de 90's. For example, Warcraft 3 was 11 years older and has better graphics. . Bugs. The game crashes a lot at random; units get stucked and can't move ever again; you order a group of units to go certain way but some of then goes the opposite way; some units don't fight even when they have enemies at range.

Tiens, un jeu de stratégie en termps réel avec des châteaux-forts ! ça peut être rigolo... et ça l'est plutôt au début en tout cas... via une campagne assez bien scénarisée malgré des "cinématiques" du pauvre puisque cionstituées entièrement de **** dessins crayonnés, de brouillons ou d'esquisses ou ce genre de truc préparatoire qui ne fait clairement pas sérieux dans un produit "fini" ! Etonnant, car les voix françaises sont agréables et fort convaincantes et le jeu sans être exceptionnel (loin de là, Seigneur !) graphiquement parlant reste des plus corrects dans l'ensemble. L'interface s'avère en outre assez efficace et bien présentée malgré quelques manques d'informations flagrantes sur ce qu'on produit ou ce dont on dispose... ou pas. Mais le gros problème de ce machin, c'est qu'il semble qu'il n'y ait qu'une seule méthode pour venir à bout des missions, ce que je trouve particulièrement regrettable... la faute évidemment à des mécaniques rigides qui ne pemettent alors pas le moindre... "mauvais choix" de gestion qui entraîne alors par effet domino la catastrophe. De toute façon, on a jamais assez de pierre, assez de paysans, ni assez d'argent, impossible de réparer un mur (trop près de l'ennemi ? c'est une blague ! il est loin, putain, ton ennemi de merde !) et ainsi de suite comme pas pouvoir faire une caserne, du coup pas de soldats et tu l'as dans le baba... parce que t'as pas cliqué sur le bon bâtiment au départ. Dans ces conditions, je désinstalle et je balance tout dans la fosse... et le reste aux oubliettes, mon Seigneur !

This game is the worst in the series. I've bought it soon after its premiere and I've regret up to today. It might even be THE worst video game I have ever played. Not only that, but it destroyed my beloved franchise. I have no hope for any new good stronghold games.

It`s not a bad game is`t just a littel different then the most of the strongholds to me it reminds me of the first Stronghold and dat is a good thing but it`s also a disappointment but all in all it´s a okay game.

i played stronghold 2 and love it, now stronghold **** you made a stroy thats all i se bad really bad buildings are bad cant walk on wooden walls like stronghold 2 cant put barracks and armory together like in stronghold 2 the graphics are bad i like the stronghold 2 graphics more simple and the land scape is so small why what has happend did you release this game with out tidyup up cant target propyl i love playing building defense freeliy with everythink looking nice stronghold 3 is a fail thank you for stealing my money its like buying sacrid 3 and sacred 2 was better then 3oO pleas read this befor buying game.

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The game is more realistic as compared to other sequels. One of the reason is it has night effect, rain, sun, sunny etc. Overall, I liked it, but I believe that graphics can be improved further. It should be like Sims 3 or Sims 4 gameplay, I mean we can view from maximum possible angles and degree of rotation should be increased further to look more realistic.

I'm just going to start off by saying this: What A Load Of Crap! I got this game the day it was released and I was highly. I am just now reviewing this because I was refusing to even acknowledge this game's existence. I recently decided to to install it again to see if it had been patched and was improved, but I was still disappointed. In the original release you had four game modes, Military Campaign, Economical Campaign, Free Build and Multiplayer Skirmish. The campaigns had engaging stories, but the amount of bugs and glitches makes the game unplayable. I like what they did in free build where you can send invasions against yourself, but the fact that you had three maps, all of which had the worst keep, was a great disappointment. Multiplayer never worked very well, so I can't give anything more than that. The only good things about this game are the music and the story. One of the most frustrating things in this game is the build limit on buildings, while understandable, if you build a huge fort with walls and towers, you will have absolutely no economy. If you are going to buy a Stronghold game, get the Warchest (or whatever its called) from Steam for about $20 or Stronghold Crusader 2, which was released two days ago. In conclusion, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME, there are much better ways of spending your money.

Don't buy this game. I would rather be forced to do hard labor than play this game it's that boring and broken. If any credit could be given, it's to the one guy who voice acted at the start. I feel so cheated for having paid $4.00 for this I am just going to paste my Steam review under this. UI takes up 50% of the screen and no option to reduce it. Mini map and UI graphics look disgusting. There is no info, or tooltips on units. The game looks damn ugly. Very poor unit animation and movement is clunky as hell. They also move like snails. Fixed restrictive camera will drive you mad. The whole resource gathering mechanisms are horrendously simple and linear.

played the game the first time recently because i knew it was bad at launch and i hoped by now they would have fixed all the bugs but no they didn't gameplay is somewhat enjoyable but if many units stay close together i get a weird graphical glitch going that's just nice i have a up to date gaming PC whit all the latest drivers and this badly optimized game still doesn't work properly so long after release EPIC FAIL

Stronghold 3 is buggier than a big bug full of little bugs. Even disregarding the many graphical glitches, sound cut outs and AI that is stupid beyond belief there is still very little to recommend it. It looks extraordinarily dated more like a student project than a professional release. The story is forgettable and the campaign is slow. It advances at the same speed as your troops moving across the map; which is to say like molasses on slight grade. I have not played a previous Stonghold game so I don't know how this compares but the strategy and economics are pretty thoughtful and entertaining (between crashes back to the desktop). Get the combination and order of troops wrong when you assault another castle and you're going to suffer for it. Similarly if you don't tailor your economy to support your chosen troops you're going to lose. All in all this is a game that should have been a lot better than it is.

nerdiest game ever loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

It pains me to say this because of how much I loved the first game. But everything magical about stronghold was ruined when they went 3-D. Firefly mastered 2-D settings... but.... I can't even play this game without it crashing in the first ten minutes. Besides that.. there is hardly anything resembling an online community..... and they **** half of the settings that made us all fall in love with SH1

As a stronghold fan, I'm really disappointed. This game is unfinished. It's not a finished game, even it's not a beta release. Nearly nothing works in this game. First, the graphics are nearly the same as in Stronghold 2. Second, there is no skirmish. What the hell? Just remember the good skirmishes of Stronghold Crusader. Where is it now? And the campaigns are wasted. Also, the maps are tiny. Maybe much smaller then the maps in Stronghold 2. There are some "historical" castle sieges (such as in the previous Stronghold sequels), but these are really bad too. Finally, the multiplayer. Ahhh..... you can play only in four maps (2 map is 1v1 and 2 map is 2v2, there is no 3v3 or 4v4). The whole game is unplayable. I think there is no more words to ****'t buy it, it's a complete waste of the sea of p.o.o.

I don't know why this game has netted such bad ratings. Yeah, they scrapped skirmish mode (which consequently scraps kingmaker). No one would argue that that was a good decision. However, if you take this game for what it does well, i.e. it's single player campaigns, then for Stronghold vets like myself, this game has many improvements over its predecessors. Ignore Firefly's attempt at a multiplayer, and just stick to the single player campaign. Don't pay the $40 asking price though - wait til it goes on sale on Steam.

Alright, the game is fun, and it has all the right mechanics. But it's broken beyond belief. The graphics are glitchy, the animations are **** and then enemy attacking is just as bad.' I had a group of spearman spawn behind me while I was attacking their lord. What the hell.

All the hype built around this game was of no use as the developers of this game have delivered nothing but an unfinished,rushed and an uninteresting game. I advise you not to waste your money on this game.

do not listen to the person called "Lucifercrow" for was hired by firefly to try and get as many sales for this abomination **** that is called "stronghold 3" his main goal being to sell as much **** as possible before running away the reason why this is called for is because of one thing, the game upon 6 months after the disastrous launch it faced (similarly to swords in the stars 2) is still broken in many areas or missing many features which would be a standard copy and pasting (in terms of design, etc) where to begin multiplayer although multiplayer is not a selling point for many people it should be said that **** announces that it will have it then it will stick to it's promise, what we got instead was a mutliplayer game which cannot even be played because it has extremely poor performance issues which essentially break mutliplayer (not to mention latency spikes when more than around 80 units are on the screen Skirmish a stronghold game without a skirmish mode? well this isn't really stronghold (just stronghold slapped on as a title) stupid designs who the hell though it would be a good idea to have every unit (except ranged units) be able to destroy stone walls? i can understand wooden but not stone, walls from not only being rendered useless in stopping an attacking force (without siege units) from entering but they also made walls provide NO BENEFITS to those are stationed on them that's right your archers can be killed even in the tallest tower that is available there are many reasons why this game shouldn't be bought but the biggest reason upon all is provided by Firefly themselves, for the simple reason that will censor anyone whom may speak ill of there game, they have even locked there own forms to prevent people from putting others off this game (or perhaps to prevent them from taking responsibility for the game anymore?) and the best thing about firefly, as of the new DLC that was added to the game they have publicly announce they will not SUPPORT it anymore, that's right, they will not fix multiplayer or any other bugs which have been reported numerous amounts of time by the community so in all i hope this tiny review helped put you off this abomination, the money can be put towards something else (anything better, even nickleback)

The Stronghold series has a deep hole in my heart. I have always loved the series. Stronghold 1, Crusader are far the best, SH2 was buggy and ugly too, but still a new fun way to play. Now, Stronghold 3 tries to be original, from its former releases. It failed. Stronghold 3 fell in the same trap as Command and Conquer 4. A big failure. The game is too slow. Multiplayer fails. And no Skirmish or Trail. This was the most important factors in the earlier games, why throw them out? And granary and taxes interfaces, is now narrowed down to an action bar. The MUSIC! ooh the music does not fit the Stronghold series at all. So unorthodox, and wrong. It's not Stronghold anymore, and it has not been succeeding. Still, i give it a 5, because it still has the old Stronghold peasant voices. GG

I love the stronghold series but i freaking hated StrongHold 3. It was a complete bugged mess that was so hard to beat it was virtually UN-enjoyable. I hear there is a new patch out that i will try and if it helps the game i will give a better review.

Really dissapointing sequel. Is it even a sequel. Nothing seems to have changed. Maybe the graphics are a little better. Bland picturecard story telling. Poor line of sight mechanics. Poor troop control.

In my opinion its is nothing like Stronhold 2 which many people feel in love with. It has instead carried on with the same interface gameplay etc. as Stronhold Legends.....which i also thought was rubbish.

this game is definitely a zero. From the first underdeveloped slew of garbage that entered my computer, it was a nightmare. My primary reason for being so annoyed was that there was no skirmish mode. You could "re-enact historical sieges", but you couldn't generate a skirmish mode? With that aside, I created an account here to complain about the dlc, and how you couldn't just buy it- you had to purchase the game again. So, at 31.99 with 20% off they are trying to re-sell their underdeveloped game, with one addition campaign that nobody will ever play. I have nothing against dlc, but to charge for a whole game that still doesn't contain the basic components of a castle building sim is just ridiculous.

"People are coming to your castle," the scribe would say now that Firefly has released patch v1.10. There have been alot of positive reviews with this patch. Its been a successful comeback and it is quite relieving for those who couldn't play the game in the beginning due to those ghastly bugs. Though there are some superflous reviews of the same comments stating that the game is too pallid without a kingmaker, this won't bother the true Stronghold fan because with this latest patch, the game won't feel like a beta version. It is now stable and playable with it's full performance. ECONOMIC The economic campaign might prove very difficult to those who are new to the series. Collect 600 bread, 6000 Honor with very limited space, you can hear the wolves howling nearby and your armory is empty. What to do now??! Some aspects of the Economic can appear simple and dull when in fact it is very difficult. Building placement can be daft since the borders take ample space for a small building. Especially since House size is still dependant on the distance to your keep. The Economic region of the game has an incredible plot but...repetitive gameplay. If you enjoy collecting the same resources every mission this might be for you. There is minimal combat with a few wolves and bandits in every other mission but it is still fun to play. There are new useful features in this particular patch that includes Auto-sell. Lets not forget to mention that you don't need to spend wood in the beginning just to place a market at the start to save yourself from any economic troubles. Market is no longer needed so place a wood shop or two and some farms and start your game! There have been alot of praises in the forums that things in the game run smoother now that peasants walk faster and produce more food! One of the things you'll notice among your first mission with this patch is as soon as you place a wood shop, the peasants are not walking like turtles anymore. They're so much faster that you no longer have to put those extra 10 farms just to speed things up when you only need about 5. Noticable and helpful tweaks from the patch are how fast bread production is. I nearly had to place 10 bakeries just to speed up the process. Well FEAR NOT!! This problem has been resolved along with Honor meter out of sync. COMBAT: I was just simply fascinated when I completed the story 10 years later. Firefly managed to keep the story true and even the release date of the game similar to the original. If you havn't played Stronghold 1 I advise you to stop reading and play Stronghold 1 first before you step into Stronghold 3. You'll just be blank and thoughtless not knowing what happened when the past is mentioned. The combat missions are fresh each one after another. There will always be new tasks and stronger foes in every mission. Night time seiges are rare. There will only be about 3 of them. If you enjoy night time seiges as much as I do you can try out the freebuild! Stronghold 3 players might notice that there will be alot left in their stockpile since the peasants are faster. Every mission I play I always have weapons left that I never got to use and more resources than what I need. Sell it all with Auto-trade! I would always have to put about 6-8 weapon production buildings when now all you need is 2-4 (depending how far weapon production buildings are to your stockpile and how far the armory is.) It is good to see some extra materials every now and **** a little extra gold. Unlike stronghold 2 that you can pretty much build an army without a church or entertainment, its partially mandatory in Stronghold 3. There won't be one building you havn't used after you finish the game. You need almost everything at your disposal to survive 30-60 minute waves of armies. Knights are coming to your walls and you don't have pitch. You need peasants but there's 10 more seconds for another to spawn. Its time to lower your taxes and boost church services in order to balance out your peasant spawn time. Spawn time might not be a problem in the economic campaign since you have church, entertainment and decorations. Its a differen't story in military campaign. There will be buildings to help but it might be more demanding if you place military buildings since you see platoons of men-at-arms on the mountains marching to your walls. If the offputting reviews are deterring you from purchasing another Stronghold game well you can pretty much ignore them. Those reviews are outdated. The same people who bashed the game are the same people now praising the game with this new patch. They're now playing the campaigns and whispering to one another what happens in the story. I conclude this review with a recommendation of the game and to say its worth a try.

Stronghold 3 has had quite a lot of negative reviews because of the poor game. I completely agreed but after hearing they brought out new patches I decided to give the game ago once again. The game is a lot smoother now and you will encounter much less bugs and it's worthy of the Stronghold game title. I adore this franchise, and I'm glad I can speak good of it again - and I am hoping people will try the game with the patches. Firefly games wanted the game to be good, but they HAD to release it, hence why an unfinished one was released at launch - and you know what, at least it's being fixed. Only complaint: Fix the multiplayer.

Milking of the money teat at its very worst. This game is nothing more than a transparent attempt to bilk money from Stronghold fans by selling the title and not the game. In fact, I'm not sure there is much ****. Horribly unbalanced, buggy, and ridiculously boring, the campaign is closer to a CIA interrogation than entertainment. Avoid this at all costs - oh, and in my opinion, avoid anything from SouthPeak if this is the kind of drek they foist on people.

I've been playing stronghold for over ten years now, and Stronghold 3 is still not as good as the first. That said, it improves a lot on stronghold 2 and as the game continues to get patched and updated it improves. For anyone who, upon reading older reviews, decided not to get this game perhaps you may consider it again. They've improved it a lot, I actually enjoy playing the game now. Sure there's no skirmish mode, but they have random events in free build (controllable random events at that) and they have a good campaign to play. If you let yourself get into the game it's really quite nice, the sound and graphics pull you into the castle mood. I played this game for the first time in months this past weekend and it **** me in for hours. I was quite pleased with the work Firefly has done to improve it.

This is a very good game. They got it right after the failure of stronghold 2. Its pretty much like the first stronghold. The voice acting is awesome, the new features really nice (while still keeping the old ones from the first game). They also kept the interface more similar to 1 (2 was very bad), and the music is also good. The bad side is that there is no hard/easy mode, and the game is far too easy. There are also some minor things which could have been improved such as have scenes instead of just images on story, but overrall, the game is very nice. People rating it low have no idea what they are talking about or never played the first stronghold/don't really like this kind of game (which, along with 3, are the best ones).

i enjoy this game its very fun just like the other strongholds its addicting and **** if like other players the main reason this is bad is because this is a very hard strategy for hardcore strategy players if u cant play the game right dont write a bad review because its too hard for u you just **** its not fair for the makers so just shut up and play the **** better at it and it will be fun turn the difficutly down if u have to and use the glitches 2 ur advantage

Some bugs ive noticed after the TENTH{yes 10th}patch. Knights on invisible horses. Units that walk thru walls AI that is beyond horrible Units commands are broken Multiplayer is still for the most part unplayable. These are a few of the bugs i witnessed in 15 mins of gameplay Worst release ive seen in 10 years easily. STAY AWAY FROM THIS TITLE......... BUYER BEWARE

This game ruined stronghold for me. The only improvement, comparing to stronghold 2, is the graphics - and they're not good at all. The game is buggy as f'''k. It's takes an effort to even control your units and get them to move at all.. Just a really. bad. comeback. I don't even want to go into details, because if not the basics are in order, you really can't enjoy the game at all. Not worth a penny.

An insult to Stronghold Crusader. Let's not even talk about this game, let's talk about a good Stronghold - Crusader, a classic 2D RTS with excellent gameplay mechanics and serviceable graphics, 3 is terrible in every aspect, it doesn't have as much content to be terrible at.

Well first of all! I like this game! I just buyed it and played true the campaign and 1-2 online matches and loved it! Itâ

Game originally was not all that good. unbalanced food system, wall bugs, and a ai that kick your ass. this is no longer the case though i say you should check this game out now with the last three updates they have fixed many of the bugs and glitches that made this game bad. strongholds allways done this and any good stronghold fan knows this.

Anyone notice most of the good reviews were all around the same dates in OCT 11?? Firefly employees joined en-mass, to leave a review perhaps? Thanks all - I was going to buy this on STEAM. Will avoid it now and go play outside :P

Do you want to know the difference between stronghold 1 and 3? the PRICE,stronghold 3 has the same price that STARCRAFT 2,but with 1992 graphics and full of bugs,POOR game interface,poor sound,poor voices,just like DOS games from 1992. **** SO HARD bro,go buy it or throw your money to the river its the same

STUNNING GAME! runs perfectly well on my machine. no complaints whatsoever. i dont think iv ever bought a game that deserves zero, but this is the type of game i love. (and it plays folk music while u play :) )

I have really only made an account to comment on this game (which in my opinion is quite important because of its implications for firefly). My first comment is where on earth is skirmish mode and kingship my two favourite things about stronghold two. My second commnt is on the quality of the campaign, at heart the campaign has the right ideas but it hasnt worked on the little things I had expected would come out of games at this era like sketches instead of videos in my opinion is ridiculous and some of the glitches really annoy me because they come out of nowhere but however apart from a few small mistakes the campaign isnt that flawed. The multiplayer on the other hand sums up all my problems with the game it is slow ineffective and practically impossible to use WITH TINY MAPS FULL OF GLITCHES. I mentioned at the start the implications for firefly what Iam saying here is the failure of some aspects of the game could bring an end to the stronghold series which in my opinion would be disastorous as i have stronghold 2 i bloody well love it so in short firefly NEED TO FIX THIS GAME.

There is potential for a decent game. But it crashes constantly. I have been unable to past level 6 of the military campaign because of a consistent crash. I just cannot proceed any further. I sent all the log files that the developer requested weeks ago but they have not been able to fix it yet. They just released a new patch today (January 6th, 2012) and it did not fix the issue so the game is still unplayable for me. I don't really even mind the crashes because it keeps me from playing this game that was so unbalanced it was ridiculous. Like I said, the concept has potential but the execution is horrible. Here's an interesting glimpse into the problems you can face - this is taken from the release notes of the patch today: - Fixed the issue with the campaign not continuing after loading in a save game from the main menu. Take a minute to absorb that. Here were are, 3 months after launch and they have finally fixed a bug that made it so that saving the game was worthless. Sure, you could save the game. But if you dared load the game it made it impossible to continue with the campaign. I ran into this bug myself and reported it on their forum and they had it fixed about two weeks later. So picture what happened to me... I started Level 2, saved the game and quit. Came back the next day, loaded the game and completed Level 2 after about an hour of playing. I then wasn't able to advance to Level 3 because of this bug. I had to replay Level 2 from the beginning without Saving and Loading. This is just the tip of the iceburg with problems. It is very apparent that anyone buying this game for the foreseeable future is paying for the privilege of alpha testing it for the developers.

I think a constructive review is needed here. I don't normally review any games I buy, but I feel compelled to comment this time. There are two main elements I'm disappointed with - The Graphics, and the missing skirmish mode. Graphics - I loved the previous Stronghold games, I'm a huge fan. The Stronghold series really impressed **** simple yet wonderfully designed. The graphics on the previous versions were never cutting edge, but they always looked JUST RIGHT, no frills but very nicely and professionally done. All that was needed, after so many years, was an updated version; something that kept the best elements, added to them, and impressed the hell out of us graphically. I mean, this is not a sprawling game in terms of graphics production, so it should have been a simple job. Sadly, the graphics are, well, I'm trying to express this without being pointlessly horrible...they're grimy, look unfinished, everything looks dismal, and the quality of the textures is (I'm sorry) really poor. It's hard to imagine that this was done by the same art team as the previous games. The textures generally appear to have some kind of overdone bump or normal map (looks like a bump) which just looks noisy, especially on the castle stone. Everything seems so grey and dark. There is literally NO eye-candy, nothing at all to help immerse the player in the world. It kind of feels like it was made in the dark ages, it might be technically more up to date but the immediate impression (which has to come from the visuals) is that this game took a graphical step back from Stronghold 2. I wanted to create beautiful structures (and knock down beautiful structures). Perhaps the art team felt this 'messy' look added medieval realism, but I'm sorry they didn't quite get it right. Especially when viewed at a distance, it should all smooth out, and the overall appearance should never be so noisy. It's weird, it looks like a hobby project. Even castles still standing today look less messy than the Stronghold 3 structures, ****'s a **** it's great to be accurate but (A) they missed 'accurate' because of the poor quality, and (B) There was room for some artistic licence. Where the hell is the atmosphere? Is there any? When playing a game we want to be immersed, we want to feel uplifted or scared or excited or...something...anything! Overall the game looks like a wet weekend at the most depressing derelict castle imaginable. You know, you pay to get in then plod around a muddy site in the rain looking at some bits of old walls while the kids moan and you get soaked through from the drizzle! You wish you'd gone to a better castle. The only people appreciating the one you're at are members of 'time team' and only own wellies. That kind of place! The POV doesn't help either, and I couldn't find a way to tilt the camera (although I didn't play that long so maybe I missed something). I'm so disappointed, and I really don't understand what happened. There was nothing to stop this being wonderful, budget certainly couldn't be to blame because it's not a case of needing more graphics, they should just have been done better. We could easily have been creating super impressive castles, beautifully crafted stone giants gleaming in the sun by day and glowing by torch light at night. Graphics have come a long way, but even without any amazing shaders this could have looked wonderful. Very easily. I'd mention that a choice of styles would have been nice too, I mean castles don't all look exactly the same (especially from one country to another), but if you can't get one set right then adding more to the mix is maybe a bad idea. A careful postmortem is needed, and my little rant certainly isn't ****'s hard to nail exactly why this is so bad without going deeper. It just looks, and also FEELS, horrible...from the noisy mess of the graphics to the horrible non-snapping building placement and terrible camera control. Maybe I shouldn't instantly blame the art dept, maybe this all looked wonderful in Max or Maya (actually, no, it didn't), and maybe the code dept did a fantastic job of destroying it. Or maybe they outsourced the bulk to some cheap offshore place and ran out of time and money to fix the **** knows... Add to this the fact that, in single player, I can't just build and battle it out against NPCs, and I was just (again) so disappointed. And again, I wouldn't normally review games, generally I don't care enough and wouldn't want to knock **** I'd waited for this one, and what I saw (after the endless messing with Steam etc to install it) was just horrible, and for me that put a very final and sad end to what I had previously considered to be the best series of this type of game. So I thought, these guys need to know ... just in case they DO get to make another one, and then maybe next time they'll get it right?

What a disgrace. They still have the nerve to sell this piece of filth for the price of a normal game. No one should spend any kind of currency on this miserable excuse of a sequel. Just buy Stronghold 1.

You guys have never played a stornghold game and you think that 2007 was the best year for gameing it was not it was the start of crap.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................

I refused to write a review in order to give firefly a chance to fix the game, after so many patches and the release of today's patch (last patch in 2011) I decided to review the game, cause I lost hope in this game, the developers cant fix much really, instead they keep adding useless stuff like new maps & modes for multiplayer (multiplayer itself is still not working well), siege maps (boring to hell)... After you finish the military and economic campaigns there are no much to do, so you will go for free build, where you will build one time and set and invasion (then you wont play it again for sure) so after that you will jump into multiplayer, you will struggle and waste time in order to start the game, and if you succeed you will lag and maybe crash, thats it the game itself has a great potential but it seems a lot of things are broken and will be hard to fix. Stronghold series is unique and I love it, but SH3 is just so buggy with missing features that were avalable in previous game (skirmish for example)... This will be thier last game for sure, untill some developers will come and make us a nice castle RTS/ Sim..

this game is just a big bug...... no words!! never played a unfished game like this **** -.- ......................................................................................................

This game is just terrible. absolutely terrible. the gameplay is boring on tedious; Stronghold 3 really failed in micromanaging. and i can't believe they haven't fixed the horrible combat yet... battles still consist of 2 clusters of guys swinging at each other. I don't necessarily want my 50 dollars back because im cheap, i want my 50 dollars back because firefly doesn't deserve money for this terrible excuse for a game.

Well I gotta say thank you to Steam, Metacritic and you reviewers. For making it possible to many of those who've never played the game before to see what buyers are saying and not allowing companies to hide their Bull***t. See I'm an avid gamer and built my custom performance computer solely for it! I must say Firefly that I've honestly never played your games but from what I'm seeing from reading these owners reviews of this lousy game (so I'm hearing). It doesnt look like you'll be getting my money anytime soon for this game, nor will I waste the time installing it let alone play it. Its obviously a bad game when people from third world countries who cant even speak hardly a word of English are saying that this game is terrible, and then you have those who have pirated the game dont even give it so much as one point for even just getting the game for free for God's sake! (You know the game is really crap at that point and I've never even played the game yet!) Its obvious that you knowingly released a bad game and knowing (or should I say hoping) that you were going to make money of a lousy effort game. I gotta agree with the rest of these folks, you really should be ashamed of yourselves, give the money back to these people and dont release games until they are done and done RIGHT!! You guys know what today's gaming standards are! Live up to it or don't bother making the game and expect people to pay $50 or more for a lousy game when they can get a $20 game that is by ten fold better!! (Once again thanks to Steam, Metacritic and the reviewers for saving my bacon or wallet this time should I say. And lastly, I'm sorry Firefly, but when it comes to people who are leaving 10 for a Metascore....... O_o .......(C'mon! Really **** CLEARLY YOU when 70-80% of people are leaving no higher than a 2 if you're lucky. The only 2 conclusions that I could come to for people leaving a 10 in a situation like this is ........ #1 You either work for the company, or #2 You are seriously easy to please and obviously never played a video game a day in your life and/or are seriously simple minded. Sorry guys, I'm afraid you're probably gonna sink on this one fellas no matter how much you try to avoid it. Too many people already now know this game isn't worth the time to even install it! I hope it was worth it, cause you sure aren't getting my cash for this one. Not with scores like this. Terribly Sorry. :-(

I'm going to receive a lot of hate for this but i liked the game. sure it had its fare share of bugs and it was a bit slow i enjoyed it and the game is being patched every week and its getting better all the **** the reason i didn't give it higher marks is it is not excusable to send out a buggy and unfinished game to the consumers sure its getting better every patch but firefly should have checked the game for bugs i wouldn't of minded this game being delayed to finish it. Collapse