Stronghold 3 Gold

always loved the stronghold series my entire life, utterly heartbroken the devs put so little effort into this game. they did poorly with warlords too, i really hope they get their motivation again and make a better game

Ready for an advert for another game when you open this one up? Neither was I but here we are.

As a fan of this franchise and the original game's story, I really wanted to enjoy Stronghold 3. I tried my best, but sadly, I can't say my experience was pleasant. Frequent crashes, bugs, atrocious AI (even of our own units!), horrendous pathing, unnecessary gameplay changes that made the game less fun (compared to Stronghold 2), dull campaigns - all of that made this game hard to be enjoyable at all. Sometimes I felt that the most challenging element was actually playing it without being interrupted by a random crash happening out of nowhere. Irony aside, it's a shame that Stronghold 3 present such strongly underwhelming quality, especially after brilliant Stronghold 2. The only elements I found good were very nice soundtrack and fine medieval atmosphere. And that's pretty much it. Definitely not enough to compensate all gameplay and technical shortcomings, or to recommend this game to anyone but very devoted fans of this series who are willing to play every Stronghold game.

Thought the reviews might be exaggerated, but this is one of the worst games I've ever played

[h1]Should we blame the dev? Or the publisher? There's a dilemma.[/h1][hr][/hr] 　At least we all agree, Firefly was never the main villain in the fall of Stronghold 3. Is it a good game? Well it is. Is it bad? Well it also is. [H3]Summary Review:[/h3] [table] [tr] [th]　　About[/th] [th]　　Description[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]Gᴀᴍᴇᴘʟᴀʏ[/td] [td]　 　2011, you woke up, opening your Steam before Steam became mainstream. Mean you're old af. Hey, me in 2011 not even had a credit card yet. For me, I was opening pirate sites. We both surprised, huh? There's a SH3? If you are white, you bought it on Steam. For me, torrent site is my first wife back then. For my case, I was looking for SH2, not knowing or attached to the gaming industry yet, download the wrong version I guess. We both played it. We expected the game would be the same. SH2, Sir William, apple farmer planting his apple trees manually and honor system. Oh wait, it's the same from its previous? Huh?! Where's the rat running around the farm? The thief? Why there's 3 wood cutters who punch wolf instead using their axes? Where's the gong? Where's the ♥♥♥♥ mechanic that western people love for fart jokes years? Ugh, I don't know, that's ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. What's wrong with you white people? 　This is not Stronghold 2 successor. It's SH1 with 3D mods. It's back to its old formula. Simple, straight, just easier but buggy, unbalance, unloved, uncared. Even the content is not even finished yet. They literally gave us storyboard sketch illustration, even less effort than SH classic. How is that even acceptable? Who greenlit this? Oh yeah, Southpeak. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Gʀᴀᴘʜɪᴄ[/td] [td]　 　Tbh, i think SH3 had a decent graphic. It was too dark yea, but the fog of war actually pretty fun and unique for a Stronghold game, and it does work for this game. The problem is SH3 failed to bring a good gameplay with FOW like how far away your unit can see those giant walls. And yea this game had the biggest walls and towers than any other Stronghold game. Its quite realistic but it was a downgrade. In SH2 you can see inside the tower. In this game however it does have tower room but its just a path to go up to it and nothing much. Like i said, this game feels like SH1 mods with 3D graphics. For me, i'd love the setting atmosphere, but in some cases the game is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ dark. So dark that the game died in the dark. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Mᴜʟᴛɪᴘʟᴀʏᴇʀ[/td] [td]　 　Don't even bother. Every Stronghold fan knows how bad and not working Stronghold multiplayer is. Even the mods on their Discord forced to make some Indonesian propaganda strategy and keep saying 'I don't have any problem with multiplayer.' Tf that means? Feedback is trashed directly from Firefly. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Cᴏɴᴛʀᴏʟ[/td] [td]　 　Feels like Stronghold game, no problem with keyboard and mouse. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Pʟᴀʏᴛɪᴍᴇ[/td] [td]　 　Depends on your side, could take 7-10 hours. Eh, i was playing this game back then when i was still pirating games. I bought it because i'm not a typical Indonesian low SDM who thinks they would go to heaven because their gov says peasant doesn't use dollar and don't buy Stronghold game. Hey, i bought all Stronghold DE day one. Aaand yea, SH3 is really a bottom tier SH game. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Sᴛᴏʀʏ[/td] [td]　 　Bringing Wolf to the story is a big mistake. Classic Stronghold brings memorable characters, but you keep bringing back old characters to milk the game? Oh hell nah. Aaand it's also not inspiring or anything new. It's been like what, 10-20 years? Stronghold games died in their own genre because no new stuff. Even all the stories of the franchise are cliche and similar tbh. I know it wasn't really Firefly's fault, but why? I know they tried new characters like SHC2 and Warlords, and yep nobody remembers them. Classic always wins. Even in SHC DE, the new character is ♥♥♥♥. People rather keep fighting against Wolf, Lionheart, and Saladin. And anyway, no skirmish. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]PC ᴘᴏʀᴛ[/td] [td]　 [b]Performance Test[/b] (For this review) 　•　+60 FPS. 　•　Run on NVME. 　•　HD resolution. 　•　CPU | Low-Medium Usage (Optimise) 　•　GPU | Low Usage [b]Game Optimization[/b] 　Now this is the reason why you see thumbs up. Holy cow, an old game that's optimized with modern hardware. You don't see that everyday. I'd rather keep this game on my library than SH Warlords. And why? CPU usage is understandable. The more things going on on the map, CPU works as intended, unlike Warlords that keeps using your single CPU thread like a psychopath. Why can't they do this for future 3D Stronghold games? 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Aᴄᴄᴇssɪʙɪʟɪᴛʏ[/td] [td]　 [b]Audiotory[/b] 　✓　Playable with disability _ Speaker config 　•　- Sound Setting 　•　Master 　•　Music 　•　SFX 　•　Speech [b]Visual[/b] Colorblind 　✗　Deuteranopia 　✗　Protanopia 　✗　Tritanopia 　✗　Custom UI 　✓　Dark 　✗　Scale 　✗　S. Preset Subtitle 　✓　on/off 　✗　Scale Display 　✓　Fullscreen 　✓　Windowed 　✗　Borderless FPS 　✗　30 　✓　60 　✓　Unlimited / Any Misc 　✓　Vsync 　✓　Gamma 　✗　Contras 　✗　Brightness 　✗　Resolution Scale 　?　Customize config file 　✓　Advanced graphic setting [b]Motor/Body disability[/b] Control type 　✓　Simple 　✗　Complex ✗　Slow reaction ✗　Binding custom control [b]Verdict[/b] 　Best optimised 3D stronghold ever made than it later series. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Bᴜɢ / 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚒𝚗[/td] [td]　 　•　Unfinished. 　•　Stronghold: Sketch Edition. 　•　Disowned by Firefly. 　ⓘ　Build ID 16963451 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]DLC[/td] [td]　 　I don't think DLC even work for this games... 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Exᴛʀᴀ[/td] [td]　 [b][VALVᴱ] 2020 Suggested Region Price[/b] Correct　　:　13 Cheaper　 :　12 Overprice　:　16 [b]Overal score : 4.5/10[/b] 　If you are a person who buys games and plays it instead of collecting, don't buy this game. Still, it's worth to try. [b]Community Health[/b] 　✗　Toxic 　½　Moderator/Developer Problem [b]Note :[/b] 　you can play it on modern rigs. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Oᴘᴘɪɴɪᴏɴ[/td] [td]　 　You know what? I'd rather play this than SH Warlord that cooks my CPU. I mean both games had the same buggy back and forth unit, clunky, and sometimes pathfinding is bad. For me, from all the SH games I've played, this game wins for being the most optimized 3D Stronghold game. Instead of looking at this game as a failure, Firefly should start seeing how good this game runs on PC compared to their latest games. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Rᴇᴄᴏᴍᴍᴇɴᴅᴇᴅ?[/td] [td]　 　Yes! Experience the most buggy and unfun content in a Stronghold game and appreciate the optimization. Disagree? mind your own business. cant even read what my review name called. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Oᴛʜᴇʀ[/td] [td]　 [i]Previous reviews have been posted　:[/i] 　•　[url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/RensAgatha/recommended/907650/]Stronghold: Warlords[/url] 　•　[url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/RensAgatha/recommended/1105510/]Yakuza 5 Remastered[/url] [i]Playtime source　:[/i] [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/HowLongToBeat]HLTB[/url] 　[/td] [/tr] [/table] [H3]Extended Review:[/h3] [table] [tr] [th]https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3718239146[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]Due to Steam's 8k-character and limitation for reviews, read the full in-depth review in this guide![/td] [/tr] [/table] [quote][h2]If You'd Like To See More, Consider Following [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35820949-My-Stupid-Review]My Curator Page[/url].[/h2][/quote] © 2026 MSR by Rens Agatha 　ᴵ ʷᵃˢ ⁿᵒᵗ ᶜᵒᵐᵖᵉⁿˢᵃᵗᵉᵈ ᶦⁿ ᵃⁿʸ ʷᵃʸ. ᴾˡᵉᵃˢᵉ ᵛᵒᵗᵉ ᶦᵗ ᵘᵖ ᵒʳ ᵍᶦᵛᵉ ᵃⁿ ᵃʷᵃʳᵈ ᶦᶠ ʸᵒᵘ ˡᶦᵏᵉ ᶦᵗ. ᴵᶠ ⁿᵒᵗ, ᶠᵉᵉˡ ᶠʳᵉᵉ ᵗᵒ ᵛᵒᵗᵉ ᶦᵗ ᵈᵒʷⁿ ᵃⁿᵈ ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵉⁿᵗ ᵒⁿ ʷʰᶦᶜʰ ᵖᵃʳᵗˢ ʸᵒᵘ ᵈᶦᵈⁿ'ᵗ ˡᶦᵏᵉ.

I didn't even consider buying this terrible game until it had a very steep discount. I figured I'd try it out, and it is truly as bad as anyone may say. However, it may be fair to note that I stopped after the eighth or ninth mission as I had lost interest and was tired of how broken this game is. I'll start with the pros, partially because there seems to be far fewer of those. - The music is the same old amazing stuff as well as a new song that is most probably old style or something.The new song isn't bad, but it's also not as good as the original stuff. - The art isn't bad. It's more rustic and shaded than usual SH games, but it might suit your fancy. - The story has interesting aspects. - The cut scenes are well done with an interesting art style and fairly good voice acting. - You can adjust how close you are by scrolling. The real reason for this review: the cons. - Did you build a wall? Well, you won't be able to thicken, add on, or branch off of it, and good luck attaching a castle building to it such as the barracks or wall structure. - You have no idea if a certain seemingly flat portion of land is truly flat because that indicator is gone. - Every building has a sort of boundary that has to fit, and it's not immediately set to fit either. That is, you will struggle to make things fit squarely or even just not look terrible. While it could possibly be helpful having a full range of motion with a building, it's more of a pain than it's worth. - The hovels come in different sizes with varying capacities and costs, The top type with morale benefits can only be built right up against the keep's boundary and the further away from the keep your build planner for the hovel goes the more degrading it gets. There is no picking a town house and building it out of the way. - You can adjust your height by scrolling, but that's also how you turn the building, so if you're trying to be precise and need to scroll in for that, then you have to cancel, do so, and try again. - The story seems fairly interesting enough with some new aspects, but it's ||the wolf|| and your old enemies' offspring. - The soldiers need so much work it's not even funny. Spearmen not throwing spears when the enemy is literally right in front of them sometimes. - Soldiers halting their charge if the enemy died, but there are other enemies even in aggressive stance. - Soldiers getting stuck randomly. For example, I tell them to go somewhere like attack the enemy gatehouse, and then some of them remain and are stuck. - Why is their movement speed so slow now on normal? - Instead of a number, you have slow, normal, fast, and very fast. Normal seems slow, but fast is only really appropriate if you're not building or planning stuff. I may be nitpicking a little bit here and there, but this is not a good game, and is so very broken. I would only ever recommend getting it if it was on such a steep discount that it was basically free, like I did. I find it mind boggling that they're trying to sell it for $30 with how broken and old it is at this point. What even happened to Firefly? Such a sad shame.

3 days playing so far Didn't saw any problem Bought on sale Can't understand so many negative review