Obviously, the most critical aspect is keeping your people fed and watered, with a roof over their heads. Keeping your popularity over 50% is your most important job in Stronghold 2 and this is managed in various ways. It all affects your popularity level and it’s this element that dominates most of the game. This mostly involves creating buildings and keeping your people happy. Now, the peace campaign is essentially the construction and upkeep of your castle. The game itself is broadly divided into two different campaigns – war and peace. Starting with a lord and some meagre provisions you construct a Keep and then let your, err, Stronghold build up around you. Stronghold 2 is, as you’d imagine, a castle building game, which is broken down into both an RTS and management aspect. Sadly, it’s maybe not quite as successful in doing this as we’d hoped.

Capturing this feeling is what a lot of God games attempt and it’s the essence of what Firefly studios is trying to create with Stronghold 2. They’re magnificent, even if I do say so myself. Take the shelves I’ve just put up for instance. Though fundamentally, the construction of something, and the ability to look and admire it, is an integral part of every person. I mean, that’s why games like Halo exist. Yeah, human beings also love destroying stuff too, no question about it. Which I think goes a long way to explaining the popularity of games like Civilization and Populous- games where construction is key. Whether it’s Lego, Play-doh or even a bed fort it’s something we’ve all done.

Even from an early age there seems to be an unconscious urge to build.

Game of war stronghold 21