As you know Stronghold: Warlords will be the first game in our ‘castle sim’ strategy series to introduce gunpowder siege weapons. Coming in the form of thunder crash bombs, the fearsome mortar, hwacha fire arrow cart and more, each can be used in different ways to cripple and eventually conquer rival players. Spread fire across enemy farmlands by catapulting bombs over their walls, blow apart defences with massive cannonballs or breach their castle walls with ancient rocket launchers. Castle defences even benefit from the addition of gunpowder, with mounted hwacha able to mow down lightly armoured enemy infantry before they can approach your walls.

What you probably aren’t aware of is that rocks and Chinese thunder crash bombs won’t be the only thing you’re launching over 300 meters come March 9th… That’s right, diseased animal ammunition is returning to the series in Stronghold: Warlords! While the humble Pig featured early in our design documents as an intended option in siege warfare we weren’t always sure about what other animals would be lucky enough to make the cut. Enter the Stronghold Discord community, who voted overwhelmingly for Water Buffalo over hot contenders like the ‘Large Bactrian Camel’ and ‘A Horse With a Sore Throat’. Continue reading →

Join us for a full rundown of Stronghold: Warlords‘ titular warlords system, straight from the mind of Stronghold series Lead Designer and Co-Founder Simon Bradbury. Once again taking the video hot seat, Simon walks us through the finer details of Warlords’ new grand strategy gameplay elements. Accompanied by all new multiplayer footage, as well as a first look at the latest version of the warlords system itself, Simon goes in depth for the first time about what this new addition means for our ‘castle sim’ series.

Discussing the history of Stronghold’s estates and their evolution into the current warlords system, today we’re revealing new gameplay showing how this feature will work in multiplayer, the later stages of our campaign, skirmish and free build. In the final game players and computer opponents will battle it out military or politically, gaining ‘influence’ over warlords across the map by any means necessary. With the ability to force a warlord to bend the knee by military might or use diplomacy points to gain favour with them over other players, it is up to the player to decide how and when to conquer each warlord. Continue reading →

Earlier this year we announced that series stalwart Robert L. Euvino will be returning once more to compose an all new soundtrack for Stronghold: Warlords. Based on influences from Japanese, Chinese, Cambodian, Mongolian and Vietnamese culture, the music of Stronghold: Warlords is a unique hybrid of different styles. Today we’re releasing another early look at the music in the form of a soundtrack preview! Please enjoy the track as we prepare to launch Warlords on March 9th.

“Creating high octane siege music was an interesting challenge,” said Robert Euvino, Composer and Sound Designer on the Stronghold series. “Many far eastern instruments have a truly distinctive flavour and are never tuned to minor scales and harmonic minors, the scales that create darkers sounds associated with war. In many cases film and game music tend to abandon the instrumentation in favour of more traditional contemporary orchestral ‘war’ music. What we end up with is an interesting hybrid which should hopefully satisfy both longtime fans and purists!” Continue reading →