Stronghold: Warlords

Stronghold: Warlords is a real-time strategy game set among East Asian kingdoms and armies. You lead a faction through campaigns and battles, developing a fortified settlement while preparing to fight rival forces.

Build up your castle economy by managing resources, food, production, and the needs of your population. Recruit troops, defend your walls, and attack enemy strongholds with units and siege weapons, including gunpowder-powered arms.

Warlords control forts across the map and can be brought under your influence through conquest or diplomacy. Their abilities can provide resources, troops, or military support. Play through campaigns and skirmish scenarios, fight multiplayer battles, or build freely in a sandbox mode.

Player reactions are mixed. Positive reviews often enjoy the East Asian setting, castle building, and the added strategic choices of capturing or influencing warlords for resources, troops, and other advantages. Some also praise the variety of units and the campaign or skirmish battles. Critical reviews frequently report crashes, bugs, and unit-control or pathfinding problems; others find the warlord system distracting, battles repetitive, or the game less satisfying than earlier Stronghold titles.