Rating: 
Summary: Stronghold
Review: Civilization was o.k. but heres the new game that wil get castle builders on their toes. Stronghold is an excellent game that is definetely over rated there is not much blood but still some violenece. Stronghold would make an excellent Christmas or Hannukah gift . Stronghold is an excellent combination of medivial combat and real life strategy.
Rating: 
Summary: in the spirit of "Settlers II"
Review: Do you remember Settlers II? That's what this game made me think of in that your basic mission is to build an infrastructure that supports the development of a castle and its interior components.
It's certainly an advance on that concept with greater control over miliary units and building/castle placement and planning. You basically build units and buildings in the time honored tradition of Warcraft et al and defend your realm from wandering wolves and bears, maurading bandits, and enemy armies.
The game can become fairly involved when you have to manage your citizens contentment level with defending them from attack. Once you've mastered early levels, the multiple difficulty settings and new challenges. Hopefully multiplayer will catch on, as of now I haven't had a chance to try it.
The negatives: hard to sellect things, controls can be awkward, it feels like it was made for PC (right clicking and such) and then not translated well to mac. The starting speed is AGONIZINGLY slow, but you can alter that a little bit in the options panel.
All in all, I'm very pleased with my purchase and consider this an excellent addition to my mac gaming library.
Rating: 
Summary: High Expectations-Low Outcome
Review: I cannot recommend this game to any of my friends.
The port from the PC version is buggy at best, with a weak interface. In addition, the game sttuters on my 350 Mhz G4 running with bare extensions.
But more importantly, the game play is frustrating. I will give one simple example, fie. Regardless of what you do or built around and about your fort, a preset event such as fire will break out. One time, I saved the game just prior to a fire starting. No matter how many times I restarted, the fire occured, though at different locations at different levels. I even one time build a well (they supposed to prevent any fires from occuring) at every possible square until the funds ran out just to see what happened. Sure enough, fire broke out and burned down lots of the wells!
This goes for all so called random events for each mission, which are not as random as you may think. Repeat playing one mission enough times and you will see a distinct pattern of these "random" events.
I found this game to be extremely disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Something for everyone
Review: I must admit that my first impression of this game was not very favorable. I had started playing several of the economic and although I found the game relatively engaging, it still fell short of the gameplay I experience in Age of Empires 2. That said, i moved on to play one of the Siege games and found it very disappointing since my troops were difficult to direct and the game seemed rather confusing and the action to be taken appeared overwhelming. I would have given this game 1 star.However, after several more attempts, I quickly learned that this game really offers something for everyone. If you simply want to play an economic campaign, you can do so, if you are into warfare, no problem. What I was looking for was some nice balance of both - the game does not dissapaint here either. there are so many different ways to play this game that it keeps me coming back for more. Yes, it took some time to understand what each character or item in the game can do, but once you gain such an understanding, the game is a lot of fun.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome Game
Review: In case you didn't already know, Stronghold is a game in which you build a castle kingdom from the ground up. You start out as a Nobleman whose father was murdered. Seeking revenge, you start your own kingdom to combat the 4 other armies populating the continent. In the early stages of the game, you start off with a small keep and then gradually throughout the game, you gain abilities to build walls, towers and gates as well as industry buildings such as bakeries, mills and so forth. My favorite part of strategy games such as Age of Empires or Warcraft is learning the different types of buildings and having them all work together, forming a system that aids you against your foes. Of all the strategy games I've played, Stronghold achieves this best. The controls are a little clunky (it was designed to be used with right/left clicking) but I got used to it fairly fast. I also like that you can change angles; something that hasn't seem to have caught on in the RTS genre. The popularity meter is another favorite of mine. If you raise taxes or lower rations, your villagers won't like you as much. But if you leave it at no taxes and full rations, the villagers will eventually love you. You'll find that sometimes you have to balance things out; you'll have tons of money but no food, so in order to keep the villagers from hating you, you half their rations but give them all a small bribe. Or vice versa. Last but certainly not least, the setting is very authentic. The voices can be a little cheesy, but they keep teh game from becoming too dreary. Overall, it really draws me in and makes me feel like I'm really a Nobleman who owns a village. At $[money]less than most games out now and with tons of replay value, I give Stronghold a 5 star rating.
Rating:
Summary: High Expectations-Low Outcome
Review: MacPlay have done a great job porting the PC game over to Mac. The game plays well and looks good. I haven't noticed any bugs. The game is a riproaring Real Time Strategy/city builder game where you get to build a castle and its economy (everything from wheat farms to armorers) and then defend it against raging attackers. The game is a terrible simulation of siege warfare because it confuses months and minutes. Unlike in Warcraft, nothing takes time to build, provided you have the raw materials for it. You can be building new walls or training up fresh archers in the same time it takes for enemy spearmen to climb ladders up your walls. You never have enough time to plan your castle, while in "real life" you'd have nothing but time while the masons laboriously placed stone on stone. It's also silly that spearmen can level a stone castle wall just by picking at it. These were clearly decisions to make gameplay more exciting, and if it's a fast game you're looking for, you'll like those decisions. If you like a thoughtful game like Civ 3, look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Nice port; good game; lousy simulation
Review: MacPlay have done a great job porting the PC game over to Mac. The game plays well and looks good. I haven't noticed any bugs. The game is a riproaring Real Time Strategy/city builder game where you get to build a castle and its economy (everything from wheat farms to armorers) and then defend it against raging attackers. The game is a terrible simulation of siege warfare because it confuses months and minutes. Unlike in Warcraft, nothing takes time to build, provided you have the raw materials for it. You can be building new walls or training up fresh archers in the same time it takes for enemy spearmen to climb ladders up your walls. You never have enough time to plan your castle, while in "real life" you'd have nothing but time while the masons laboriously placed stone on stone. It's also silly that spearmen can level a stone castle wall just by picking at it. These were clearly decisions to make gameplay more exciting, and if it's a fast game you're looking for, you'll like those decisions. If you like a thoughtful game like Civ 3, look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: stronghold
Review: strong hold is a great game to have. it is so realistic and it has tons of things to do , like build a huge army or a village. if you like this game you will love the others!
Rating:
Summary: Great game play!
Review: This game has it all. Warfare, strategy, and excitement. The graphics are simply tremendous. It will keep you occupied for months. In my opinion, one of the best games ever, clearly ahead of Civilization, Age of Empires, and Warcraft.
Rating:
Summary: Great piece of work
Review: This game is finely crafted and fun. It's a very complete Mac game in that it has 2 campaign modes for single player, a free build mode, multiplater both through GameRanger and LAN, as well as level editing tools for creating your own maps. It plays well on a G3 or G4 Mac, and is very stable. The gameplay is the best part, especially multiplayer. Highly recommended.
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