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''Stronghold: Crusader'' is a 2002
real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that does not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time." By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, tur ...
video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
developed by
Firefly Studios Firefly Studios Limited (also stylized as FireFly Studios) is a British video game developer based in London. Formed in August 1999 by Simon Bradbury, David Lester, and Eric Ouellette, the company focuses on historic real-time strategy games for ...
and originally published by
Gathering of Developers Gathering of Developers, Inc. (shortened as G.O.D. or GodGames, and branded as Gathering between 2003 and 2004) was an American video game publisher based in New York City. Founded by Mike Wilson and associates in January 1998 and originally b ...
for
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. It is a sequel to the 2001 video game ''Stronghold''. ''Crusader'' has much in common with the original ''Stronghold'', but differs from its predecessor in the fact that the game is no longer set in England, instead being set in the
Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
during the
Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...
. Another prominent addition not found in its predecessor is a
skirmish Skirmishers are light infantry or light cavalry soldiers deployed as a vanguard, flank guard or rearguard to Screening (tactical), screen a tactical position or a larger body of friendly troops from enemy advances. They may be deployed in a sk ...
mode in
single-player A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the gameplay. Video games in general can feature several game modes, including single-player modes designed to be played by a single player in add ...
, allowing customized battles with AI opponents instead of the linear campaign. The game was also released as ''Stronghold Warchest''. This version was a compendium of ''Stronghold'' and an enhanced version of ''Stronghold: Crusader'', containing additional characters and an additional Crusader Trail. ''Stronghold Warchest'' was only released in a limited number of countries (e.g. USA or Poland), meaning players in the rest of the world have never encountered the second Crusader Trail, or second set of characters. This changed when an updated version of ''Stronghold Crusader'', ''Stronghold: Crusader Extreme'' was released in early 2008. ''Stronghold: Crusader HD'', a high-definition
remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same s ...
of the original, was released in 2012 by Firefly Studios. Both ''Stronghold: Crusader'' and ''Stronghold: Crusader Extreme'' are included in this edition. A remaster subtitled ''Definitive Edition'' is scheduled for release on Windows on 15 July 2025 by Firefly Studios, four years after
Devolver Digital Devolver Digital, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Austin, Texas, specializing in the publishing of indie games. The company was founded in June 2009 by Nigel Lowrie, Harry Miller, Graeme Struthers, Rick Stults, and Mike Wil ...
purchased the company.


Campaigns

''Stronghold Crusader'' features several
real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that does not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time." By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, tur ...
campaign strings. These document the
First First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...
and
Third Crusade The Third Crusade (1189–1192) was an attempt led by King Philip II of France, King Richard I of England and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to reconquer the Holy Land following the capture of Jerusalem by the Ayyubid sultan Saladin in 1187. F ...
, as well as conflicts within the individual
Crusader states The Crusader states, or Outremer, were four Catholic polities established in the Levant region and southeastern Anatolia from 1098 to 1291. Following the principles of feudalism, the foundation for these polities was laid by the First Crusade ...
. Each campaign comprises several battles, such as
Nicaea Nicaea (also spelled Nicæa or Nicea, ; ), also known as Nikaia (, Attic: , Koine: ), was an ancient Greek city in the north-western Anatolian region of Bithynia. It was the site of the First and Second Councils of Nicaea (the first and seve ...
, Heraclea, the siege of Antioch,
Krak des Chevaliers Krak des Chevaliers (; , ; or , ; from , ) is a medieval castle in Syria and one of the most important preserved medieval castles in the world. The site was first inhabited in the 11th century by Kurds, Kurdish troops garrisoned there by ...
, and the Siege of Jerusalem. The game also features the Crusader Trail, a series of 50 linked missions against various opponents. ''Stronghold Warchest'' adds one more Crusader Trail, consisting of 30 linked missions.


Gameplay

The gameplay is similar to the original ''
Stronghold A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from La ...
'', the major difference being that the game is set in the
Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
. As a consequence, farms can only be built on
oasis In ecology, an oasis (; : oases ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environmentKnights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...
. Other than farms there are other resources such as iron ore, quarry (for stone), and marshes (for oil). These resources are deposited on the stockpile and the player can choose to either sell or use them for defence purposes. There are two ways to build an army; either make the weapons and then spend a little gold to turn peasants into soldiers, or turn them directly into soldiers using more gold via the mercenary post. There are historical chapters (mostly fictionalized) which are to be completed using the resources given to the player at the start of the missions. Along with that there are 50 levels designed with increasing difficulty. In each level, the player must defend the kingdom and defeat one or more Kings. There is an option of three chickens at the start of the game which the player can use to skip a particular level. There are 30 additional levels added by the developers in the form of an additional Crusade Trail. The design of these mirrors the original 50 levels with the difficulty rising as the player progresses through the levels.


Characters

The game contains several different characters that all appear as AI-controlled lords in the Skirmish mode, available to be selected as allies or enemies. One unique aspect of the game is that the characters have individual binks (small short videos) by which they communicate with the player, asking for goods or help if allied with them or, if they are the players' enemy, taunting them when attacking or expressing worry when under siege. These videos were absent for ''
Stronghold 2 ''Stronghold 2'' is a 2005 real-time strategy video game developed by Firefly Studios and originally published by 2K for Windows. The third installment of the ''Stronghold'' series and the sequel to ''Stronghold'', the player again develops ...
'' but returned in a new form for '' Stronghold Crusader II''. In the base game, eight AI lords are available, including the opponents from the original game (The Rat, The Snake, The Pig, and The Wolf), as well as new Arabian, Kurdish and Crusader lords (
Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...
,
Richard the Lionheart Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language">Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'st ...
, The Caliph, and The Sultan). With the Warchest edition, eight additional lords were added. Three of these ( Emperor Frederick,
King Philip King Philip may refer to * Philip I of Macedon (fl. c. 593 BC) * Philip II of Macedon (380–336 BC), Greek conqueror and father of Alexander the Great * Philippe of Belgium (born 1960) * Ee-mat-la (died 1839) war leader of the Seminole in the Seco ...
, and The Sheriff) were made available by Firefly as a free download, but the five others - Nizar (based on the real-life
Hassan-i Sabbah Hasan al-Sabbah also known as Hasan I of Alamut, was an Iranian religious and military leader, founder of the Nizari Ismai'li sect widely known as the '' Hashshashin'' or the Order of Assassins, as well as the Nizari Ismaili state, ruling fro ...
), The Emir, The Wazir, The Marshal (a repurposed Sir Longarm from the original Stronghold), and The Abbot - had to be obtained via buying the Warchest package. These additional lords were, however, properly included within the game's later release on
Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...
at no extra charge.


Reception

The game received "generally favorable reviews" according to the
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website
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
.


Sales

As ''Stronghold'' was a commercial success in the German market, local commentators suggested before ''Crusader''s release that it would become a hit as well. The game opened as September's fifth-best-selling full-price computer game, according to
Media Control The GfK Entertainment charts are the official charts for music, home video, and video games in Germany and are gathered and published by GfK Entertainment (formerly Media Control and Media Control GfK International), a subsidiary of GfK, on be ...
. It maintained an unbroken streak in Media Control's top 30 for full-price games through June 2003, placing 20th that month. In August, it debuted in first place on the chart for budget-price games; by August 2004, it had spent 10 total months in the budget top 20. ''Crusader'' ultimately received a "Gold" certification from the Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland (VUD), indicating sales of at least 100,000 units across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. According to ''
Edge Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...
'', ''Stronghold: Crusader'' sold at least 100,000 copies in the United States, but was beaten by the first ''Stronghold''s 220,000 sales in the region. Total US sales of ''Stronghold'' games released during the 2000s reached 590,000 copies by August 2006.


''Stronghold: Crusader Extreme''

On 28 January 2008, Firefly Studios announced an expanded version of the game: ''Stronghold: Crusader Extreme''. It boasts "new AI opponents and maps", a "new crusader extreme trail", "battles featuring over 10,000 units" and
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...
compatibility. It was released in June 2008. It also contains an updated version of the original ''Stronghold: Crusader'', which includes everything except for outposts, the god powers and the Extreme Crusader Trail. However, if the official HD patch is installed, outposts can be built on maps on the original Stronghold Crusader part of Stronghold Crusader Extreme.


Reception

The ''Extreme'' version received "generally unfavorable reviews" according to Metacritic. It was criticized for its extreme difficulty, lack of new audio, and not having graphical quality up to par for a game released in 2008.


Sequel and ''Definitive Edition''

On 30 August 2012, Firefly Studios announced '' Stronghold Crusader II'', a sequel to the original ''Crusader'' game. The company said that the game would be self-published, with additional funding to be sourced via crowd-funding site Gambitious. The game was released on 23 September 2014. In early 2025, ''Stronghold Crusader: Definitive Edition'' was announced by Firefly, with a release date for July of that year. Along with upgrading the graphics and tweaking the interface, other additions included new AI lords, new in-game units, larger map sizes, and additional cooperative options for multiplayer.


References


External links


Official website
via
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

''Stronghold: Crusader''
at Firefly Studios * *
''Stronghold Nation''
{{Stronghold series 2002 video games Cultural depictions of Richard I of England Cultural depictions of Saladin Gathering of Developers games Multiplayer and single-player video games Real-time strategy video games Stronghold (series) Video game expansion packs Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games set in castles Video games set in the Abbasid Caliphate Video games set in the Crusades Windows games Windows-only games