Stronghold HD - 5/20 hours

Weirdly, I am enjoying the military campaign more than the economic campaign. Call it a case of managing expectations. On an economic map, I am expecting to have to build up my economy, and thus I get quite upset when enemies come around and wreck my shit. On a military map, I am expecting to fight enemies, and thus am pleasantly surprised when doing so requires me to build up my economy. In practice, though, the two mission types are basically indistinguishable.

The main problem I've been having is that I keep overestimating the strength of my castles. I'll have this wooden gate, with five archers on top and then four guys will come to the gate, smash their way through, and slaughter my entire force . . . all without losing a single member. I'd have thought that the combination of fortifications and ranged weapons would be an insurmountable advantage against foe that did not greatly outnumber me, but I'm coming to learn that if I don't outnumber the enemy at least 3 to 1, I might as well not bother showing up, castle or no.

The other problem I've had is a sillier one. It's not always apparent to me which terrain is passable and which is not, so when I build my walls, I'll think I have them abutted against a natural barrier, and then the enemy will beeline for the one diagonal tile between them and just slip through as if there were nothing there. I've started to compensate by over-fortifying, building 2 or 3 layers of walls where 1 would look better.

Free build mode is everything I said I wanted in my last post, though once I got a chance to build without interference from wolves or bandits, I discovered that there is no depth whatsoever to the game's economic system. You can precisely control your population growth by building hovels, and then, after the fact, build the production buildings necessary to utilize and support that population. Without the threat of invasion, there's no challenge at all.

I guess that makes sense. The game is called Stronghold, not "Medieval Village Simulator." But I can't deny that this has become something of a contest of wills. Either I will bend the game to my will, or it will bend me to its, but one way or another, I am not getting through 20 hours of this without some form of creative destruction.