Dungeons & Dragons - Stronghold: Kingdom Simulator

This is an absolute genius gem of a game from 30+ years ago. I played it then, and I'll be playing it for along time right now! This is a simple but long development, strategy, land building, monster lair slaying game. :D

Once you start playing and getting into it you'll experiences crashes. Error 26 and error 27 freezes the game.

Played so much of this game back in the 90s, from the original Gold Box D&D set. Very enjoyable kingdom simulator with a number of approachs on how best to build everything up. Generally you want a Cleric, Fighter, and Halfling character. Normally I then go Mage and Elf as the benefits of Dwarves and Thiefs aren't overly useful. As a quick tip. This game has the biggest bug/flaw/whatever that allows you to rapidly level nearly any one. You want to build a random world with a lot of low and high level intelligence monsters. Ideally you want Purple Worms and Dragons on your map, though Fire Giants are also good. Send a 1st level cleric against the Purple Worms, and Archers (from fighter or elf) to the dragon or fire giant. Just before they enter a map with the monsters, pause the game. On the map with the monsters, press space bar until your character appears, then game will now unpause. Now, if you arrow across 1 page, the game pauses again. Arrow back and the game unpauses. With your unit, stay on the screen until either they attack, or the enemy does. If the enemy starts their attack animation first, arrow off the screen. If your unit attacks first stay on until they have completed the hit (audible sound tells you when they have hit). What this allows you to do is nickle and dime every enemy and as long as you are careful enough, your unit will not get hit. Keep this up until you have killed everything on the screen. In previous games I have sent 1st level clerics into Purple Worm lairs and have stayed there until the Cleric was high enough to learn finger of death. Same with Elves fighting dragons until they can get disintegrate. It takes up a bit of time but the results are more than worth it.

The game is a good bit of early 90's nostalgia, somewhat limited by modern gaming standards but for the incredibly low price tag it will definitely be worth it for those that enjoy AD&D and early 90's games. First off, the demo intro of this game on startup is absolutely one of the best I've ever seen in ANY game, including the modern era, both the music and presentation were absolutely top-notch. It serves as effectively a trailer for the game, and it's honestly better than 90% of modern trailers. When I was a kid I used to watch it in full every time I booted it up, sometimes letting it loop a few times, when I started up the Steam one the intro hit me hard in the nostalgia feels. For the gameplay, as city builders go it is very basic, with only a handful of buildings that you will really be using, probably 95% of your buildings will be farms, houses, and later inns and bazaars. As it uses AD&D rules, the various monsters and party members are unfortunately VERY unbalanced, with elves and mages already incredibly powerful, which is compounded by the slow ground movement of all units in combat making melee units nearly worthless unless they attack right on top of enemies (which you can control with careful movement on the map). Although the entertainment value from spawning them on opposite sides and watching a single level 1 Elf kill a Fire Giant is absolutely hilarious. The combat is actually quite well done for such an early game, with actually impressive spell animations for the era, although the DOS system does hang up when too many units are casting spells at the same time on screen (which can actually be mitigated by setting message delay to 0 and spam clicking) - which was a problem present in the original game as well. The biggest negative on the game is that, as with a lot of early games, the AI is EXTREMELY limited, on a strategic level it does nothing but spawn units at their capital, send a single unit at a time to attack units in their territory, or occasionally 'attack' by sending some units in a straight line to one of your capitals. This makes the game extraordinarily easy, once you grasp the basics of the game there is not really any chance of actually losing a game even on max enemies (barring extreme RNG where something like a vampire spawns right next to you and one of them attacks early). The only real challenge comes if you self-impose limitations such as not making max party members, not using the absurdly overpowered ranged units, intentionally limiting your stats in character generation, etc. But the AI is so limited that even a a max enemies Neutral halfling-only no-mine run is not particularly challenging, just time consuming. Still, for the price tag it is more than worth it, particularly for those that played the original in the 90's and want to waste a few hours in nostalgia.

Auf dem Weg zum Kaiserthron Hier geht's zu meinem Nostalgie-Waetsch's Play: https://youtu.be/cGb-8GuhViU Da durchwühlt man seine Kiste mit den alten Handbüchern und denkt sich "Huch, was ist das denn". Ein Königreich-Simulator klingt ja erst mal nicht schlecht in den Ohren des verkappten Monarchen. Auf Steam und GOG gibt es zum Glück digitale Versionen. Ja, man muss sich natürlich auf ein Spiel von 1993 einlassen. Grafik und Komfort sind nicht mehr State of the Art, aber was an Spieltiefe hier lauert, ist schon erstaunlich. Nachdem wir unseren Charakter erstellt haben, suchen wir uns ein hübsches Plätzchen für unsere Burg und können dann auch gleich weitere Heldinnen und Helden erstellen, die ihr Lehen auf unserem Land zugeteilt bekommen. Schließlich durchwandern wir in "First-Person-View" unsere Ländereien, errichten Gebäude, legen Äcker an und kümmern uns darum, dass es genug Essen für die Bevölkerung und Gold für mich gibt. Natürlich schleichen auch weniger freundliche Gesellen durch die Länder, gegen die wir uns zur Wehr setzen müssen. Nach einer Stunde Abtauchen in die Nostalgie bleibt das Gefühl, hier nur an der Oberfläche gekratzt zu haben. Wahrlich ein Königreich-Simulator, der einen Blick wert ist (rosa Nostalgie-Brille aber nicht vergessen aufzusetzen). Folgt mir auch gerne bei Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41912197-waetschs-play

Ah, what to say about this game. It has a clunky UI and not very intuitive game play. However, as a kid I loved D&D and I remember buying and playing this game back in the 90's and enjoyed it, despite its flaws. I find I still enjoy this game years later.

El Stronghold de 1993 , un juego de estrategia mientras creas y expandes tu reino por el mundo , te enfrentas a enemigos y al duro invierno , que es lo que hace verdaderos estragos en la economía y en el mantenimiento de las granjas / comida . Entretenido al máximo . Lo he adquirido de oferta por unos 2 € , funciona perfectamente . Para todos los jugadores que en su momento jugaron en los ordenadores y quieren volver a hacerlo lo recomiendo .

Played this for the first time as an early teen back in '96-97ish with some friends. I have to say this brings back memories for sure and it is very unique playing experience. This game was my first Dungeons & Dragons game and is also the first of many that started my love for city builders and city management games. I wish someone would be able to update the game and lift the population cap as when your population gets too big and the 2nd wave of monsters come, a ton of your characters such as homed characters start disappearing which is very annoying because you lose access to your buildings and they start deteriorating.

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So this is pure nostalgia for me. This was one of the first computer games that I bought as a kid. And I was shocked that I got it to run on my IBM PS/1. Yup, that 25mHz beast of a computer. Anyway, This is a very old game... and if you wanted to try a very early city building game, here you go. Mind you I am thinking about writing a guide about it, just because I kind of figured out as a 12 year old how to best build and trade between the different leaders. Anyway, yes I recommend. I still have the original book and everything.