Stronghold: Warlords

It is a combat-focussed game with city building and a pretty even balance between the two. You can play both single player and multiplayer campaigns. Compared with the original game, this iteration spends a lot of time and action away from your stronghold as you manage your warlords and bases, but do not neglect it as the evocative sieges so loved in the first games do eventually return, and you will need it to be strong and sturdy when they do.

As in the first game, you will need to build a stronghold – but this game offers so much more. The maps are larger, so large that you will need some well-placed ally bases. This is because between enemy bases and your stronghold are any number of neutral warlords. If you go to battle with them and win, you earn their loyalty, absorbing their lands, armies and resources into your stronghold. If not, they could join the enemy’s side and attack your stronghold!

The Nitty Gritty

Managing and designing your fiefdom is one of the game’s strengths just as it has been in every iteration of the game. There are five lengthy campaigns (of six missions each) to play through – with one campaign being entirely financial rather than battle-based like the others.

You don’t have to battle against the neutral warlords to win them over; instead, you can use diplomacy to schmooze them into doing your bidding which can include sending you resources, fighting battles on your behalf and sheltering your troops.

You have various types of siege equipment which fire everything from rocks to fire, and even diseased animals in a very medieval form of biological warfare. Classic western troops are joined by a wide range of oriental military troops of all sorts: ninjas, samurai warriors, warrior monks, horse archers, fire lancers and even pyromancers too.

And while you have to concentrate on battling your way to success, you mustn’t neglect your citizens who need to be kept sweet with food, clothes, tea and temples, especially if you’re going to crank up the taxes in order to pay for your wars. You can choose to be a popular leader or a feared one, building theatres or torture stations, respectively. The auto-buy and auto-sell factors ensure that your inventory more or less maintains itself at reasonable levels.

Four Famous Warlords to Play As

Genghis Khan in Mongolia: The leader and uniter of Mongolia, Genghis Khan was the first Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which stretched across much of China, Korea and Central Asia, large swathes of Europe and the Caucasus by the time of his death.

Thuc Phan in Au Lac, which is modern-day Vietnam. The Kingdom of Au Lac was based in the Red River Delta and Thuc Phan was the kingdom’s last ruler as it collapsed after his demise – which was by suicide in 179BCE. His character and achievements are largely unknown, with a cloud of confusion over much of his life, including if he was the ‘son of Shu’ as claimed by some historians, and who, exactly, his forebears were! Insert joke about ‘if the Shu fits’ here…

Toyotomi Hideyoshi in Japan was a samurai and daimyo – which means a vassal to the shogun. But he didn’t start out rich and powerful, his was a true rags-to-riches story, rising from a peasant beginning to becoming the warlord responsible for the uniting of Japan

Qin Shi Huang in ancient China was the man the vast country is named for. The emperor who in death commanded the terracotta army, Qin Shi Huang was a man who literally shaped the world into the shape he wanted it, battling various smaller tribes and drawing the whole of China into one unified nation