Stronghold

Real-time strategy games allow you to put your ideas into practice when it comes to building a suitable army and using it to defeat the enemy. However, in order to do that, a lot of resources are required beforehand, which means that you need workers to gather them, as well as a settlement to produce the troops.

Stronghold is an RTS that puts a lot of emphasis on the resource gathering part, since building an army is next to impossible without first making sure that your settlement has enough food, raw materials and people to sustain itself. It also focuses on the castle aspect, meaning that it is of capital importance to have a strong castle before you make any move against the enemy.

In the beginning, your main concern as a ruler is to increase the population and keep it happy, which in turn allows you to put the people to work on your various facilities. Naturally, in order for the villagers to be happy, you need to make sure that they have enough food and that your taxes are not affecting them too much, otherwise they will leave and leave your castle barren.

Unlike in other strategy titles, you don't create the units directly, but rather train the people to become soldiers. This means that you first have to manufacture the weapons themselves, as well have a population big enough to recruit, otherwise your resources cannot be spent. Although the taxes might hurt your popularity, gold is needed in order to produce troops, which means that you have to strike a balance somewhere in the middle.

There are a lot of new and interesting mechanics included in the game, such as the fact that you need stockpiles and granaries in order to store food and raw materials, otherwise you cannot gather anything. Moreover, the fact that you cannot manually create more population is also an interesting gimmick, since it forces you to pay more attention to the state of your establishment.

Stronghold provides you with plenty of reasons to start loving strategy again, as well as a truly addictive set of mechanics that keeps you playing for hours at end. The campaign missions are satisfying and there are plenty of other game modes to try out, depending on your play style.