I played 20 hours of Stellaris over two of the last three days. So in theory, Stronghold 2 shouldn't be that difficult. I think the problem is that I've exhausted my interest in the series. That's not a commentary on any of the individual games, it's just that real-time battle tactics have never been something I've cared a great deal about, and while I can usually get through RTS games by focusing on the economy, 60 hours is a long time to spend trying to force a game into a more congenial genre.
It's not really fair to the game, though. If I had done the sensible thing and only bought the single most appealing entry to the Stronghold series (which seems to be Stronghold Legends, from my superficial perusal of their Steam pages), I'd have undoubtedly finished the game with some kind of backhanded comment like, "assaulting and defending castles isn't really my thing, but I like that I got to build something practical and test it out, and RTS games aren't too bad as an occasional change of pace."
Because that has been my honest opinion of every Stronghold game I've played so far . . . taken individually. But I'm not playing them individually. I'm playing them as a series, and it's getting to the point where I can scarcely look at the screen without radiating 100 megawatt "I don't care" beams out of my eyeballs.
I'm going to take some advice I got from the rpg.net forum and play two games before returning for Stronghold Legends, though I'm not sure how viable this is going to be as a long term strategy. I'm getting to the point where my only remaining games are ones that I've put off playing, for one reason or another.
Out of the 23 games I have left, I'd say that there are five that I'm genuinely looking forward to, and have been saving so that my last few months aren't a total death march. Then there are four that are on the list purely because I have a friend I play weekly co-op games with. Those games have been fun, but I'm dreading playing them solo (like, seriously, how am I supposed to do 20 hours of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes). Six of my remaining games I got for free. They were interesting enough that they were able to tempt me for a price of zero dollars, but were not necessarily things I'd buy on my own. Three games look decent, but are probably too short to play for 20 hours. One game I bought purely because I thought the title was funny. Three of them are Stronghold games. And the last one is Age of Wonders III, a member of a series I actively disliked, but which I'm hoping is modern enough to downplay the things that annoyed me about its predecessors.
I've got to have hope, though. I've got exactly 20 weeks until my self-imposed deadline. That still gives me six days per game. I figure I'll probably pick up a couple of days with some of the rpgs and grand strategy games. I just have to keep my fingers crossed that it's more than I lose with the ones I'm starting to dread. . .
(Sorry, Stronghold 2, you deserve better than that, but there shouldn't have been six of you.)
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