- Firefly Studios

March 17, 2020 By nickt in Firefly News, Romans: Age of Caesar, Stronghold Warlords Comments Off

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Statement

You might be wondering what’s happening at Firefly Studios during the COVID-19 outbreak and if it has affected us in any way. Rest assured that we are all well and still working on our main projects: Stronghold: Warlords and Romans: Age of Caesar.

However, following government advice, we have now switched to working remotely. Will this impact our work or the content that we deliver? We hope not. We are working with our team to make sure everyone has access to everything they need to work effectively, but please bear in mind that there may be some interruptions or delays in online content as we settle into this new routine. Most importantly we do not expect this change to affect any game releases and everything is still on track as planned.

Our marketing and community team will continue to work hard to bring you as much Stronghold content as you can handle, so look after yourselves, each other and don’t forget to wash your hands.

January 23, 2020 By nickt in Romans: Age of Caesar, Stronghold Kingdoms, Stronghold Warlords Comments Off

Firefly Studios in 2020

As is now a yearly YouTube tradition, Firefly Studios starts the year by looking at the months of productive game dev ahead for our two upcoming games: Stronghold: Warlords and Romans: Age of Caesar! So join Nick as he takes you through all the exciting plans we have for both our East Asian castle sim and Roman co-op city builder in 2020.

After a packed 2019 Stronghold: Warlords is on track to be one of the best Strongholds yet. Armed with the classic RTS-sim gameplay of its predecessors, the core Stronghold dev team has spent the last few months implementing brand new mechanics, upping the ante with animations and of course making sure besieging feels as satisfying as ever. Now that we have our first foot planted firmly in this new decade we plan to move forward, squashing bugs and adding new features with video deep dives to accompany each major update.

While granaries are set alight from gunpowder experiments and Mongols harass local farmers, half way across the world in a small south London studio Rome is of course also being rebuilt! The other half of Firefly Studios is also waist high in game dev, with Romans: Age of Caesar in development as the first ever online cooperative city builder! With our second alpha now well under way, with more major updates coming soon, we are nearly ready to showcase our first ever gameplay trailer! So make sure you’ve hit that subscribe button with notifications on to be the first to see it.

January 3, 2020 By nickt in Romans: Age of Caesar, Stronghold Warlords Comments Off

Dev Update 2019

Happy New Year! Firefly begins a promising 2020 with a look back over an exciting year of Stronghold: Warlords and Romans: Age of Caesar development. First a Stronghold: Warlords update straight from Senior Producer Paul Harris. From our initial E3 announcement to subsequent improvements for troops, walls, fear factor, fire and more, the Stronghold production team had a busy year indeed. Fuelled by feedback, design debates, reams of new code and a bunch of promising suggestions from the community, it’s been a fast and furious ride set to continue toward release in 2020.

We then catch up with Online Producer Ben Tarrant and his co-op city builder team working on Romans: Age of Caesar. An entirely different beast full of unique production challenges and lofty design goals, Romans has made great progress in 2019. With our first public Alpha now underway and the game’s update road map revealed, our dedicated group of community testers will be helping us mould this epic MMO throughout 2020 as we return to Rome!

If you want to stay up to date on everything Firefly Studios, including both Warlords and Romans: Age of Caesar, we will of course be continuing our regular video update schedule in 2020. In addition you can also now join the Official Stronghold Discord and follow us on Twitter to be the first to hear the latest announcements straight from Firefly!

August 28, 2019 By nickt in Romans: Age of Caesar, Stronghold Kingdoms Comments Off

Online Round Up 2 (ft. New Romans Alpha!)

This week Nick’s back with another Firefly Studios’ Online Round Up, featuring new updates from Romans: Age of Caesar and Stronghold Kingdoms. This episode takes you through the latest and greatest from our online titles as Alpha 2 comes to Romans bearing a multitude of online city building gifts, while Stronghold Kingdoms receives new tournaments and worlds. Among a range of improvements and optimisations made since Alpha 1, Romans is now equipped with an extended Empire Map, Forum relocation, multi-city capabilities, quest lines and Advisers. All this makes for new co-op grand strategy possibilities and a much easier to understand experience for new senators.

In addition to weekly tournaments occupying our resourceful Lords and Ladies, Stronghold Kingdoms gets a whole host of new worlds to begin fresh adventures with friends and foes alike. There have also been community requested changes as things get more competitive on Heretic worlds and we’re introducing brand new AI castle types to boot! If these updates sound like reason enough to get conquering in our online titles you can register for Alpha 2 using the link above or download Stronghold Kingdoms for free now on PC, Mac and mobile.

August 1, 2019 By nickt in Firefly News, Romans: Age of Caesar, Stronghold Warlords Comments Off

Behind the Studio (2019) – Part 1

This week premiering our brand new Behind the Studio series, Aaron invites you behind the game dev curtain to walk through Firefly Studios’ plans for both Stronghold: Warlords and Romans: Age of Caesar in 2019 and beyond. Find out how to stay up to date on everything Firefly Studios including where to get the latest information on Stronghold and Romans, our latest community videos and of course all the trailers, interviews and livestreams your strategy gamer heart desires. So if you want to stay in the loop on our game dev adventures make sure you are subscribed to us here on YouTube for weekly updates on our titles and studio developments.

April 18, 2019 By nickt in Romans: Age of Caesar Comments Off

8 Facts About Romans: Age of Caesar

Firefly YouTube commenters Walder Frey, Le Creeper, Baschdi Ro, Nightshade, Neofusionbeta, Silver Fang, Kasper376 and many others are in the spotlight this week as we run through ‘8 Things You Need to Know’ about Romans: Age of Caesar! Nick has been paying attention to your comments, observations, questions and feedback across our forums and social media to bring you eight of the most important facts about our upcoming co-op city builder. Continue reading →

April 12, 2019 By nickt in Romans: Age of Caesar Comments Off

Romans: Age of Caesar – Community Q&A (Part 2)

This week Nick and Aaron once again dress in ancient Roman attire to answer even more community questions about our upcoming online city builder. Whether you caught our announcement trailer and thought of our very own CivCity: Rome or simply want more co-operative gameplay in your strategy MMO, this second part of our Romans Q&A series reveals everything we can.

Topics cover historical authenticity, similarities to Stronghold Kingdoms, release date, co-op play and the odd Roman meme! Watch as Nick and Aaron reveal our plans for the game and more about the game’s overall design as we continue to develop the game with the help of the Firefly community. Continue reading →

April 4, 2019 By nickt in Romans: Age of Caesar Comments Off

Romans: Age of Caesar – Community Q&A (Part 1)

This week Nick and Aaron don authentic Roman garbs to answer your most pressing questions about Romans: Age of Caesar, our new co-op city builder MMO. Whether you saw our announcement trailer and felt a flood off Caesar-related memories rushing back or simply want a new kind of strategy MMO in your life, this new two-part Q&A series aims to reveal all we can at this early stage.

Watch as we deal with the biggest and most pressing questions, along with a healthy dose of playful comments and Monty Python references! Find out about Romans’ graphical style, RTS elements, barbarian hordes, territory control, gameplay and more! Continue reading →

March 28, 2019 By davidr in Firefly News, Romans: Age of Caesar Comments Off

Online Round-Up – Episode 1

This week we debut our brand new series, Firefly Studios’ Online Round-Up! Featuring the latest news on our two MMO strategy titles Stronghold Kingdoms and Romans: Age of Caesar. So whether you’re on the hunt for new countries to dominate in the Lord-eat-Lord world of Kingdoms or want to be among the first to see exclusive screenshots of our co-op city builder Romans: Age of Caesar. This is YOUR port of call for staying up to date on any announcements, news and feature updates across both titles and platforms.

So strap in as Nick takes you through what we have planned for Stronghold Kingdoms in early 2019 and provides a first look at Romans: AoC as the first wave of Alpha tests help us refine the game for release.

March 21, 2019 By nickt in Romans: Age of Caesar Comments Off

The Legacy of Caesar

This week we bring you a very special ‘Let’s Play’ of the city-building classic Caesar 3, starring the Lead Designer from then Impressions Games – Simon Bradbury. While our new Online MMO Romans: Age of Caesar is deep in Alpha testing, we thought we would turn back the clocks to the time of the floppy disks & CRT monitors in search of the strategy gaming legacy of Firefly Studios & our new Roman title. So whether you are an old school player who enjoyed the glory of the first golden age of city simulation games, or a game dev looking for the differences between making games as a lone freelancer vs a studio head, Legacy of Caesar has you covered!

Romans: Age of Caesar