Stronghold: Warlords is a combat-focused game that recreates East Asia’s castle economies and allows players to take command of samurai clansmen, Mongol hordes, and imperial warriors as they besiege fortified Chinese cities and Japanese castles.

The game allows you to command, recruit and upgrade AI lords in the form of “Warlords.” The warlords have unique characteristics, perks, and upgradeable skills that can increase your strategic prowess. You can use them to forge weapons, join forces for pincer attacks, assist your industry or fortify borders. Each multiplayer battle, campaign mission, and skirmish game gives a new tactical depth to explore and new warlords to command.

Single and Multiplayer Modes

Warlords allow players to recall famous historical sieges and battles from China’s Warring States period and the Mongol conquests and invasions in 1200 AD. Players can participate in the founding of the Japanese shogunate, Qin dynasty, and Au Lạc kingdom, as well as Genghis Khan’s conquests.

Stronghold: Warlords has one Multiplayer mode and three Single Player modes. If it’s your first time playing Warlords, you can play the Tutorial to learn the mechanics of the game. This mode will teach you everything about building a base, bare-bones combat, and keeping your citizens happy. It’s under the Single Player mode.

The game has five campaigns to choose from. Four of these campaigns feature popular historical figures from East Asia, such as Qin Shi Huang and Genghis Khan. The campaigns are divided into six missions that require players to protect an existing kingdom or seize new territories. If you love rebuilding areas, you will like the game’s economic campaign.

You can also set up a custom skirmish against AI-controlled leaders. Another option is to play in teams of different sizes. You can pick from nine different maps. Some maps are “Unbalanced,” while others are “Balanced.” Unbalanced maps can either give you an advantage over your opponents or increase the game’s level of difficulty. If you don’t want to compete with other players or maintain an army, you can just go for the Free Build. All you need to do is to build a city. That’s it!

What to Expect During Fights

Warlords are all about building castles with an economy and different defenses, as well as besieging your opponent’s castle. You also need to set a stockpile that stores resources and place a granary that stores food. But the job doesn’t end there because you need to keep your people happy and well-fed as well as build a strong military to defend your territory. You can lead your people either through admiration or fear using taxation, torture, and medieval entertainment.

The unique element of the game is its diplomacy system. The maps are populated by different “warlords” that you can recruit into your army. There are two ways to do this. You can either use Diplomacy Points to force these warlords to pledge allegiance or defeat the lord that protects each respective castle. However, other players can also use their Diplomacy Points to control the warlords. Diplomacy Points accumulate automatically, but you can build embassies and consulates to get more Diplomacy Points.

You can give orders to your warlords by using your Diplomacy Points. The order that you can give depends on the kind of warlord you own. Orders can range from attacking enemies with gunpowder, fire oxen, and other siege weapons to requesting combat units. You can also upgrade the warlords by using your Diplomacy Points to make them stronger.

Conclusion

Overall, Stronghold: Warlords should be a fun and exciting game for fans of city-building, strategy, and management games. The buildings are magnificent with their authentic Eastern designs and rich color palette. You will be able to build your city and take control of historical warlords, something that we will never be able to do in real life.

What are your thoughts about this game? Let us know in the comment section below!