The learning campaigns are narrated and written in such a way that it paints King Richard as a brash foolish idiot, where as in SHC1, it was way less biased in how it described the scenarios; its so bad it feels like the devs are actively making fun of the crusades and characterizing them as morons; again, SHC1 was a less serious game with tons of funny lines yet it did not make King Richard seem like an idiot.

Clicking on peasants no longer causes them to say a quote, they just do not say anything at all, those quotes were part of strongholds charm, whoever decided this was a good idea to remove peasant quotes is a massive idiot, funny quotes were part of the heart and soul of stronghold, and you destroyed that joy and the potential for memery and quoting your game.

No longer can you stuff a bunch of units in towers, you're stuck with placing a few in each tower, makes siege defenses harder, makes sieges easier.

Your assistant sounds far too pleased to give you bad news, his line delivery and tone make it seem as if he is trying to intentionally sabotage and mock you at the same time and he sounds far too happy to hear you struggle.

Pretty much it feels like this whole game is mocking the crusaders and painting them as fools, warmongers, idiots, and the old stronghold games didnt do this, they didnt constantly mock any faction to this degree.

Basically Stronghold Crusader 2 feels like its mocking the crusades and crusaders, removed peasent quotes and soul the original had, changed material cost for everything across the board for no reason, changed alot of stuff that throws off anyone coming from the older games for no good reason; the units which used to be funny are now played pretty straight and their quotes give less identity to the units since their lines arent silly like they used to be; which has always been part of stronghold games

This game has no soul, and it mocks the crusades, stick to SHC1, this isnt fun, and it mocks the very history its based on with a clear bias for anyone with ears and the ability to read.

It's good

The Co-op mode is definitely a highlight for me! You can team up with a friend and run a castle together, which wasn't a thing in the old version. It's a blast, but I just wish you could play the classic campaigns in Co-op mode too, instead of being stuck to multiplayer maps.