An excellent sequel for vets of the series and newcomers. Combines economy and medieval warfare like no other RTS ever.
User Rating: 9 | Stronghold 2 PC
Gameplay - It might take awhile for people new at the game to get used to it, if they don't do the tutorial. Playing Stronghold and it's expansion Stronghold: Crusader it didn't take me long to get used it. The hardest part of the game to master is the economy and your castle duties/problems. Economy for me is managing your food and raw materials, selling/buying of it, and deciding how to use it. For example: you need wheat farms for wheat, and wheat for bread, and bread for food. The lord (which is you) has to worry about honor, popularity, crime, etc. Honor can be used to get knights and buy new terrorities which are like towns. Popularity is how the people love you, if it goes below 50% you lose citizens. The war part is the easiest for me at least. Castle building, defense, offense are the obvious things. When you are assaulting and being assaulted using weakinesses in castles is needed. Unlike other RTS games rushing doesn't really work. You do build a lot of troops to attack but sending them straight at a castle is stupid. Siege weapons, tunnelers, and the certain mix of troops is the way to go. It seems more of a sim then a RTS at times. In the warfare-centered campaign (Path of War) you have two big things to worry about. Economy and of course the Warfare part. The economic-centered campaign (Path of Peace) focuses mostly on the economic part of the game. I suggest doing the Path of Peace if you haven't played the first game. Then after you beat the PoP you got the economy down for the PoW. Graphics - For an RTS it has great graphics, as good as any other one of the market as of now. Zooming in doesn't look good but isn't extremely blocky. You won't be zooming in that much anyways. Looking into your keep and other building is very nice. Sound - Nothing to write home about here. Your peasants say things but gets old after awhile. Music is well done and fits the theme of the game. Value - The two campaigns are lengths enough but don't have too much replay value. The economy and warfare parts are fun if you know what you're doing. Haven't played Multiplayer yet so can't comment on that. Tilt - At first the bug where very annoying and frustrated the hell out of me. The patch came out fast and fixed most things. This isn't a major breakthrough in RTS but is a nice change. If you don't want to worry about economy, citizens happiness, and just want battle SH2 isn't for you. Might be overly complicated to people new at it but adds a lot of depth. 
