15 Things You Never Knew About Stronghold

1. Firefly Studios is a smaller operation than you’d think. A quick employee headcount puts the developer at just 26 full-time staff. The upside to this of course is that, if there’s a problem, they can just call across the room to whoever has a fix.

2. Despite the fact that there are seven Stronghold games in existence and only three numeric ‘core’ titles, they are all stand-alone games with varying styles of gameplay. They are also fully playable on their own – Even Stronghold: Crusader Extreme, an update of 2002’s Stronghold: Crusader, did not require the original game to run.

3. Stronghold was first conceived by Simon Bradbury and Eric Ouellette in 1999, shortly before they formed Firefly Studios. Having worked together at Impressions in the 90s on Caesar and Lords of the Realm, the duo understood how to make great RTS and great sim games. All they needed to do was combine the two.

4. Stronghold games have been on store shelves for 10 years now, with series sales currently standing at over 5 million.

5. In 2001 Stronghold actually outsold Grand Theft Auto 3 in Germany, one of the most critically and commercially successful games of all time. Firefly’s first game stayed at number 1 in the German charts for seven months, becoming the second best-selling title that year in Germany across all formats!

6. Instead of a conventional rock-paper-scissors RTS combat system, where each troop category would be weak against certain types and strong against others, Stronghold used a “soft-counter” system based on strength stats and hit-points. It is also worth noting that there was no healing system, meaning that injured soldiers remained injured for the rest of the mission.

7. Among the lesser-known features of the original game was reforestation. Mature trees would seed saplings nearby if left alone, meaning that an area could reforest itself if the player did not completely clear it.

8. Players were more aware of the ability to flatten the landscape in Stronghold by hitting spacebar, which made castle outlines (and any gaps in their defences) easier to see. Interestingly no other RTS had included such a feature yet, making it a genre first.

9. A number of (admittedly extremely generous) sprite limits were imposed in Stronghold – The player was limited to 2000 trees and shrubs, 1500 people and animals, 2000 ‘flying things’ (arrows, flags, birds) and 1000 buildings on any one map. By the way, if anyone managed to find this out on their own Firefly would love to see a few screenshots!

10. The original Stronghold was actually meant to feature a skirmish mode, but due to time constraints and Firefly having to get the basics down of their new gameplay system it didn’t quite make the cut. This skirmish mode would later feature heavily in Stronghold Crusader.

11. At the earliest stages of development Firefly toyed with the idea of including more siege equipment in the game. However after gameplay testing and balancing they decided on more traditional RTS elements, such as using foot soldiers and tunnelers to knock down enemy walls.

12. We hope you enjoy the Stronghold soundtracks as much as we do. Since the very first game they’ve been composed by resident sound guru Robert Euvino, whose Gregorian chants are back for Stronghold 3!

13. Fans are still making and uploading Stronghold maps. In the short time it took to write up this article two maps were uploaded to Stronghold Heaven. This is in October 2011, ten years after the game was released.

14. The aftermath of the original Stronghold’s story, in which you (The Boy) took back your lands from the clutches of The Rat, The Snake, The Pig and The Wolf has been a mystery for ten years. It is only with the release of Stronghold 3 that you will discover the fate of The Boy and how The Wolf (spoilers!) managed to survive being impaled and thrown from his tower!

15. Do the voices in Stronghold 3 sound familiar? That may be because many of the voice actors who’ve provided classic Stronghold dialogue in the past are still being used by Firefly today. The current crew of actors include young whippersnapper Dom and one VA who’s over 70!