Welcome to Stronghold Sessions. Today marks our second episode in a series of extended, unedited interviews lifted from the ‘20 Years of Stronghold‘ documentary released last year. Join us as we sit down with Paul Harris, General Manager and Producer of many Stronghold and non-Stronghold titles here at Firefly Studios for more than 15 years! Paul discusses the early beginnings of Stronghold 2 including tales from the trenches, design goals and player feedback. We then move onto how ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘His Dark Materials’ inspired Stronghold Legends and even what Paul’s ideal future Stronghold title would look like. Suffice to say the man is a fan of castle customisation! Continue reading
100 Facts About Stronghold: Warlords
Now that Stronghold: Warlords is deep into development and approaching launch later this year, we thought it would be a great time to reveal 100 small but interesting facts about our upcoming castle sim. Taking the form of a new rapid-fire Q&A, today Firefly’s community team answers as many Stronghold fan questions as possible in under 20 minutes!
Tackling these 100 questions are Natasha and Nick, who take them all on in quickfire fashion. Covering everything from core mechanics and design to a possible beta version and even the game’s final price, we attempt to provide as much information as possible at this stage in development. While we can’t answer every question for a variety of reasons, be they design, technical or otherwise, we can be open and transparent about the development process about each new title. So if your request or question wasn’t answered today rest assured it will be in later videos or even future entries in the Stronghold series. Continue reading
The Siege Weapons of Warlords #2
Today we’re has revealing three new siege weapons coming to Stronghold: Warlords! Ranging from classic Siege Towers to new-to-the-series fortification destroyers like the Korean Hwacha and Chinese winged rockets, our latest entry in the series will allow you to infiltrate, decimate and obliterate castle walls however you choose. Continue reading
Production Update
In today’s video Firefly Studios developers Matt and Paul walk us through the last three months of production, covering everything from campaigns to code. These two senior members of the team were kind enough to take some time out of their day to reflect on recent builds, design decisions and advances toward release. This is followed up by a lengthy FAQ featuring the ten of the most commonly asked community questions covering a possible beta demo, graphical improvements, easter eggs and more!
Romans Combat Update
We’ve just launched Combat 2.0, a brand new update for our co-op city builder Romans: Age of Caesar! This new update not only adds exciting and unique tactical powers, but also a completely redesigned Empire Map to secure make your impending domination over nearby lands. With key game revisions and balances added to the mix, Romans: Age of Caesar is growing into a thrilling multiplayer adventure spanning ancient Rome and beyond. Continue reading
Simon Bradbury Interview
Welcome to Stronghold Sessions, our new series on Firefly Studios’ YouTube! These videos will be a selection of extended, unedited interviews taken from our ‘20 Years of Stronghold‘ documentary released alongside our initial Stronghold: Warlords announcement. First up is Firefly co-founder and Lead Designer Simon Bradbury, a key architect on every Stronghold title to date. Here we discuss the early beginnings of Firefly Studios, development stories from the Stronghold series and even where Simon sees the games heading in the future after Stronghold: Warlords releases later this year.
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.
Military Campaign Demo
We’re back with more raw gameplay of Stronghold: Warlords, our upcoming RTS castle sim! Today’s video showcases of our first full mission taken from the Chinese portion of our main single-player campaign, featuring legendary figure Qin Shi Huang and infamous rebel warlord Lao Ai. This demo is intended as a vertical slice of the full game at its current stage of development. It includes some of our more recent additions including new units, siege weapons and warlord mechanics, in addition to an expanded castle economy.
So sit back and relax as Lao Ai’s fort is decimated by player-controlled warlord attacks, Hwachas, Fire Oxen, classic Catapults and more in a devastating display of gunpowder-fuelled destruction! Combining our first ever use of gunpowder in the Stronghold series with some incredible historic weaponry and the new warlords system, this new demo should give you a flavour of things to come. The demo also features new production chains and economy mechanics unique to Vietnam, China, Mongolia and Japan and firsts for the Stronghold series as a whole. Adding a fresh layer of resource and management gameplay has been a core goal since the start of development.
Economic Campaign Reveal
It gives us great pleasure to reveal that our upcoming ‘castle sim’ Stronghold: Warlords will include a bonus economic campaign! Available at launch and featuring Warlord’s very own version of the Scribe, this six mission campaign will feature feudal events, weather and unique objectives.
Stronghold: Warlords will feature several single player game modes, with the main story split between our combat-heavy military campaign and the more city-builder focused bonus campaign. The full four-part historical military campaign will be set across ancient Vietnam, China, Japan and Mongolia, with players balancing between castle besieging and economic gameplay to succeed over 24 missions.
Alongside this there will be a new ‘Path of Peace’ bonus campaign centred around castle building, resource gathering and reacting to feudal events. With the ability to boost or crush a player’s popularity, events will change fortunes with the coming of monsoon rains, lightning storms, bandit attacks, wildfires, festivals, typhoons and more! Continue reading
The Siege Weapons of Warlords
The Stronghold series has a long history with siege weapons. From almost 20 years ago when players were deploying their first Trebuchets in Stronghold 1 to now, as our fans discover the rampaging Fire Ox in Stronghold: Warlords. So assemble your Laddermen and load up your Catapults as Nick brings you our first episode in this brand new YouTube exclusive series: ‘The Siege Engines of Stronghold: Warlords’.
In today’s episode we kick things off with a mixture of classic fan favourite castle conquerors and brand new tower topplers. We dive in with the chaotic Fire Ox, humble Laddermen, trusty Mantlet and classic Catapult. You’ll see how we’ve improved on these siege weapons from previous Stronghold titles, as well as the new roles they will play in overthrowing enemy fortresses in our upcoming Far Eastern instalment. As Nick announces in the video, this is merely the first of several episodes in our new Siege Engines mini series here on YouTube. So make sure you’re subscribed for future instalments covering the revered Trebuchet and much more!