111 people found this review helpful
3 people found this review funny
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 1,640.5 hrs on record (1,480.0 hrs at review time)
Posted: 10 May, 2021 @ 10:27am

When the crusaders came to the Pope and asked him how they would know which people in the city are faithful to God and which are not?
The Pope replied that you need to kill everyone and God will figure it out!

The Crusades are the most brutal and bloody military campaign in which Knights and Governors went to a distant desert to seize valuable resources and violence in the name of God!

Please read the Stronghold HD review at first! Since this is the second part which is a great addition to the first one!

After the first part of the game in which we developed the economy and military affairs in a balanced way, here the main emphasis is on bloody military battles that look simply amazing and epic!

Plot:
Oddly enough in this game it is much more ambitious than in the first part, and here are Insidious desert dunes in which you do not have more friends and everyone around you craves for your blood like the last drop of water!
There is also a large company here which is pleasant to pass and read as an interesting history book!
But also individual missions will not leave you indifferent! On the luscious Oases you can build a good economy and on the hot sand you can spill the blood of your enemies!

Gameplay:
As I said earlier, in this game the main emphasis is on the military battle, so here you can see really epic large-scale military battles between Europe and the Arab world! At the same time, the entire Gameplay from the first part of the economy and the development of the castle and the creation of the army remained the same. Of course there are some changes, but they are more like little things that bring some additional taste and flavor of the East to this game!

Music:
Does Stronghold HD have us immersed in the World of the Middle Ages! Here you are lured by the enchanting East, its stunning melody of caravans and life that penetrates our ears and our hearts and remains there forever!
I also saved all the music of this part to one of the best albums on my phone and listen to it, drink delicious coffee brewed on an open fire and imbued with the enchanting aroma of sweet notes of an Oriental tale!

Graphics:
This game also has an HD version as in the previous part and you can see on the large monitor not only your entire castle and its economic development in the desert, but also an amazing large-scale military battle, and if you run Stronghold Crusader Extreme HD you will get epic large-scale battles with thousands of units on your screen!
At the same time, the texture of the units and all the buildings looks pretty good despite of the fact that this game appeared in 2002 !!

100/100 Crusaders for the Faith! Deus vult!
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10 Comments
Santiago 8 Apr @ 8:06pm 
The Crusades were a centuries-late response to jihad in defense of eastern Christendom.
Trip Fisk 5 Jul, 2021 @ 1:37am 
Ah damn! Now I notice Foxlek's reply. Hey! That's the guy who wrote this review! wtf!
Trip Fisk 5 Jul, 2021 @ 1:29am 
"When the crusaders came to the Pope and asked him how they would know which people in the city are faithful to God and which are not?"

Ah! This is a quotable quote from the commander of the Albigensian crusade and definitely not the pope! This was when the Catholic church declared Cathars, a weird sect of Christianity, heretics because they couldn't convert them to Catholicism and believed they assassinated the last cardinal who tried. So the church laid siege to Albi, France to exterminate them. The Albigensian Catholics were instructed to leave the city so the crusaders could butcher the Cathars who lived there, but they refused. That quote comes from the commander when the crusaders asked him what to do since they couldn't tell Cathar from Catholic. And yes, it was a crusade, but not for the holy land and most definitely not against islam/muslims. It was one of those weird Catholic church getting drunk on sacramental wine and butchering other Christians.
Showkey 24 Jun, 2021 @ 5:47am 
@imp If you're still butthurt and want to ignore these undisputed facts and be mad at anyone but your own people for their despicable actions however, I suggest you go and be mad at Mongol expansionism which really set the whole chain of events in motion.
Showkey 24 Jun, 2021 @ 5:47am 
@imp You call the Turkification of Anatolia the "Islamic invasion of Europe"? You understand that from 1000-1350 there were no Muslim nations living in or invading Europe, other than those currently being cleansed out of Spain by Christian rulers (after they had settled there 500 years before the first crusade)... Infact there were no real “Islamic invasions into Europe” until 200+ years after the first crusade, with the “crusaders targets” barely noticing them or the significance of their attacks at the time, having no idea that they were religiously motivated but rather assuming they were the latest in a long line of Byzantine mercenaries. Almost all the crusader’s early successes owed to this fact and the total lack of pan-Islamic unity or retaliation at the time, so an idea of an “Islamic invasion of Europe” is beyond laughable.
imp 19 Jun, 2021 @ 6:34pm 
*not mentioned
Also the crusades were to counter the Islamic invasion of Europe, but of course nobody likes to mention that bit.
FoxLeks 11 May, 2021 @ 3:05am 
These words were said during the Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar was a Crusade initiated by Pope Innocent III.
Massacre at Béziers (France, July 1209) was under the command of the papal legate, Arnaud Amalric.
It was reported that Amalric, when asked how to distinguish Cathars from Catholics, responded, "Kill them all! God will know his own."
Some historians doubt that Amalric actually said this, but maintain that the statement captures the "spirit" of the Crusaders, who killed nearly every man, woman, and child in the town.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade
¡¡¡ Clever_Ren 10 May, 2021 @ 9:31pm 
:47_thumb_up:
* Celtic Pride * 10 May, 2021 @ 5:50pm 
pope said that???
Pumpkin 10 May, 2021 @ 11:08am 
:cupup: