Your typical management game requires you to take control of a building or a business, and then try to make money, make people happy, or something like that. In 2001, Firefly Studios added flaming arrows and boiling oil to the genre with Stronghold--an unusual strategy game in which you were required to not only manage a medieval European castle, but also help defend it against sieges. Stronghold was later expanded with a standalone follow-up game, Stronghold: Crusader, which was set during the medieval religious campaigns known as the Crusades. Now Firefly is gearing up to create a full-fledged sequel. Lead designer Simon Bradbury provides the details in this exclusive first interview with GameSpot.

　　Get that boiling oil ready. Firefly is working on a sequel to Stronghold.

　　GS: The most obvious improvement in Stronghold 2 seems to be its new 3D engine, which is a huge upgrade from the 2D engine in the first two Stronghold games. But what are some of the other, less-noticeable new features in the game?

　　SB: First off, we have lots of new units, siege equipment, and castle defenses. On top of this, there are a lot of new gameplay features requested by users, such as stronger walls (troops cannot hack them down this time) and much more emphasis on scaling walls and good castle design. A castle architect view, fallback points, and formations will also help make Stronghold 2 a game about fighting in and against castles. Other new enhancements will be the use of the new "lord sim" side of the game to generate a new primary resource, "honor," and all the interesting ways to expend this resource.

　　GS: What kind of feedback, praise, and complaints have you received from fans of the previous games? Can you give some examples of some of the feedback that you plan to incorporate into the sequel?

　　SB: We have received a lot of really good feedback from the Stronghold community. We have talked about some of the combat changes we are making based on user feedback, such as formations and stronger walls, as well as evolutionary gameplay advancements. On the economic side of the game, we have taken the feedback and gone through all the original game systems to see how we can improve them.

　　Examples of this are the religion and ale systems in Stronghold. These systems didn't reach their full potential or were not often used, because they were a little too technical and hidden from the player. Players would have to go into report screens to get feedback from these systems. Now, for example, the religion system has a full church service that characters in the game will attend. It is a long service and it interrupts their normal duties, but at the end the player receives a large popularity bonus from the church. The service and the reward are very visual. The same goes for ale. After characters drink at the inn, a popularity bonus will appear onscreen and the character will stagger away drunk for a while, unable to work.

　　GS: We recall that the first game had a general medieval-Europe setting, while Stronghold: Crusader focused on the Crusades, but tell us about the setting of Stronghold 2. Does the new game have a single, overarching story? We know that there are multiple campaigns, so how will the story and setting affect the single-player game?

　　The sequel will also attempt to re-create the pomp and pageantry of being a medieval lord.

　　SB: In Stronghold 2 we have gone back to a European setting and, overall, there will be many ways to play the game. Of course, a strong story-driven campaign game will be part of the package. We start at the end of the reign of terror of the Vikings. One of the characters you will meet very early on is Olaf Grimtooth, the last of the great Viking warlords. There are eight other characters (both good and bad) who all intertwine in an epic tale of treachery and valor. The big news, however, is a completely new mode we're adding in Stronghold 2. This is a new way to play the game and is an extension of skirmish play. We'll be talking about this in the months to come.

　　If players want a calmer game with a full storyline--a game that is more focused on pageantry and castle design--they will be directed to the castle sim campaign. Other modes supported are the sandbox mode, the historical scenario missions (in which you attack and defend historical castles), a skirmish mode with up to seven computer-controlled opponents, and an eight-player multiplayer mode.

Have Fun Stormin' the Castle

　　GS: Tell us about the city-building elements of Stronghold 2. For example, will players still need to build and manage interdependent economies of workers who grow wheat, send the wheat to a mill, grind the wheat into flour, and then make the flour into bread, and so on?

　　You can expect to see full-fledged economic strategy in Stronghold 2.

　　SB: Most definitely. Stronghold 2 will actually have greater depth in the economic area. We have increased the number of economic-resource chains by about 50 percent. A few examples of these are sheep farming, weaving, royal foods, and falconry, as well as the new honor resource. Overall, in terms of play style, we are looking to keep a similar mix as the previous games, with perhaps 50 percent of your time in real-time combat and 50 percent in castle building and management. The first game seemed to spend a little more time in the real-time strategy portion, and we are looking to tweak that slightly to generally give the player more breathing space between intense bouts of combat.

　　One of the ways we are expanding the city-building side is through the idea of "living like a lord." While developing the first Stronghold, we had limited time. I think we did a good job on the resource chains, and we were very happy with the siege combat. What we weren't able to do--partly because of technology and partly because of production time--was explore the grittiness of peasant life and the pageantry of the nobles in medieval times. We are now going to explore and visually show what it was like to live in a castle in medieval times. We are pushing this to the limit with the introduction of systems such as feasts, jousting tournaments, holy days, marriages, fairs, trials, and so on. These will be very visual, with a huge amount of detail and animation. The aim is to create the richest and most detailed depiction of living in medieval times ever found in a computer game.

　　GS: Tell us about the game's promising-looking 3D engine. What sorts of graphical features will it support? Is the 3D engine simply being used to make a better-looking game, or does the use of a 3D engine allow for any new gameplay possibilities, like increased environmental interaction, height advantages in combat, and others?

　　SB: In the past, all the games we worked on were in 2D. We knew going to 3D would be a lot of work and didn't want to start down that road unless we knew it would make Stronghold 2 a better game. We set out (a little tentatively at first) and built a completely new 3D engine. I think 3D has come a long way in the last few years, and we have the benefit of working with a more-mature 3D industry, better 3D cards, and so on. We are happy to say that we have not only been able to retain the amount of detail we had in 2D, but have also realized a huge number of gameplay benefits.

　　First, for a castle-building game, having 3D controls just feels right. Smooth scrolling, zooming, and rotating add a lot to where we were in 2D. The castle feels more solid. It's much easier to navigate and build.

　　Another great benefit is the amount of animation we can add to the game. In terms of taxing your computer system, animation data is almost free in 3D, compared with what it costs in a 2D game. The only limitations are the amount of motion capture and the number of animations we chose to create. We are now able to give game characters much more in the way of animations and personality. All this will only increase the realism in the game.

　　Combat also gets a big boost from being in 3D. We can now have much more-realistic physics and particle systems during combat, with smoke trails, fire effects, walls exploding, guys falling and being thrown off walls by rock impacts, and so on. It's very cool!

　　Oh yes, if you own a castle, you can expect to see a lot more of this, too.

　　Lastly, a big technical leap we can make is how we treat buildings. In Stronghold 2, you can open virtually every building in the game and see what is going on inside. For combat, this means that units can fight not only outside buildings, but also inside. The keep, for example, has four levels that units can be fighting on at one time. Units will have to fight their way through the keep, up the stairs, and to the top in order to take a castle. The same thing applies to towers--units will have to fight their way up the stairs (Errol Flynn-style) to reach the top. Technically, the routing on this is a very hard thing to do. It adds a lot to the gameplay, and as far as we know we are the only game to do this.

The Bells! Sanctuary!

　　GS: We understand that sieges will still play an important role in the sequel, but how will the siege mechanics change? For instance, in the previous games, you had a limited amount of time to prepare your defenses before the enemy was upon you--will time limits and other features return in the sequel?

　　The sequel will even feature expanded armies.

　　SB: The biggest change to the siege mechanics is the removal of the foot soldiers' ability to demolish walls with their weapons. This is unrealistic in any game, but perhaps more so in Stronghold. Now, however, you have two main ways in. One, you can knock a hole in a wall with siege equipment--sounds easy enough, but now the castle engineers will be busy filling in any breaches you create unless you can get troops up close enough to command the breach (which of course may put them at the mercy of your own rock throwers). Two, you really will need to use ladders and siege towers this time and try to work your way along the walls. This makes good castle layout far more important, as a cunning defender can accept the loss of an outer wall gracefully by pinning the invaders there with pikemen while the crossbowmen on the inner wall cut them to pieces!

　　Also, the many new pieces of siege-defense and attack equipment thrown into the mix will change the way siege battles are fought. Time limits will vary depending on the kind of game mode you are playing. For instance, historical sieges will have preset time limits, while in the campaign, we can provide more-balanced options for players. In multiplayer, we find that people tend to be a little less charitable in their timing!

　　GS: Are there any noteworthy new weapons or pieces of siege equipment you'd like to tell us about? How about new defenses?

　　SB: We can't go into too much detail yet. But there will be more than twice as many unit types as in the original. Also, some of the more popular unit types from Crusader will be available to hire from the mercenary post, such as the assassin. There will be several new types of siege equipment and castle-defense technology. We are working hard to ensure that they are all better balanced this time around, so that every piece has its place in the game. Overall, there will definitely be many more ways to slice, smash, pierce, incinerate, and generally pulverize your foes!

　　GS: Some players have criticized the artificial intelligence in the previous Stronghold games, saying that that the AI was somewhat simple and basically just tried to overwhelm you with numbers. Will opponents be "smarter" in Stronghold 2? Will they analyze weak points and attack them more effectively? What kinds of improved AI strategies and tactics can we expect to see in the sequel? Can we expect to see improved autonomous AI to manage certain aspects of your holdings while you're focusing on others?

　　SB: Certainly in terms of your own friendly characters, yes, and this ties into our new gameplay mode. In terms of enemies attacking your castle, the answer is yes and no. While we can see with hindsight certain areas of the opponent's game that were in need of improvement, we are also great fans of the "overwhelming odds" scenario. It is part and parcel of a castle-based game that your (well-designed) castle should allow you to hold out against overwhelming odds of three to one or greater. This is not the way a classic real-time strategy game functions, but then again our combat is purposefully different from most titles. To answer your question, then, yes we will be working on making the AI less dumb in certain areas and giving it a degree more of analytical capability, but we also want to keep realistic odds, and furthermore make the AI earn this knowledge. For example, only once the castle defender has satisfactorily dumped several pots of boiling oil on the enemy's troops in a "kill zone" will the AI be allowed to figure out that it had chosen a bad place to attack. This is quite realistic, and certainly more fun.

　　GS: This may seem like an odd question, but some of the most memorable sound effects from the original games were the death screams--specifically those from people who were burning to death. Are the sound effects in Stronghold 2 also being overhauled to match the new graphics? Can we expect new sound effects for units? What about a dynamic soundtrack that changes when you're being attacked?

　　SB: We have the same musician who produced the popular and stirring audio for the original games. We will of course have new music tracks and sound effects, and, as always, we'll have lots and lots of speech to support what is happening in the game. We will also make more use of directional sound to provide better audio clues for in-game events. Finally, regarding death screams, we are investigating a new approach to further boost this popular area of the game's audio.

　　GS: We're told that Stronghold 2 will feature improved multiplayer. What are some of the new multiplayer features you have in store?

　　SB: The main multiplayer mode will be a skirmish mode with a mixture of up to eight human and computer players. We will support the multiplayer options that we had in Stronghold and Stronghold: Crusader, as well as a cool new multiplayer option having to do with the honor system, which we can't talk about yet.

　　GS: Fair enough. Thanks Simon.