Simon Bradbury: Well, I think really it's overdue, if anything. It's the tenth anniversary of Stronghold coming up now, and we've had a lot of people asking for it. It's been a very successful game, commercially, and it's kind of in our blood, castles. As far as the relationship: the biggest thing that fans have asked for is to make it more like the original Stronghold. When we made Stronghold 2, we did what I guess a lot of people do, we went: "Oh, we've got a hit game here, what can we do with it?" And you start to think: we can add this in, we can add that in, and with Stronghold 2, we added in a lot of "sim" stuff in particular, to the nth degree, including a crazy crime system that forced players to place like 20 buildings in a castle just to get it to not be dysfunctional. So our additions kind of ballooned into this monster. And with Stronghold 3, we've got another bite at the cherry, so we're going back to core gameplay mechanics.
A day night cycle should lead to spooky night raids.
GameSpy: Okay, so give us some specifics of drops and adds.
Simon Bradbury: Sure. For example, the honor system, which is tied to luxury goods: in Stronghold 2 it required you to place a whole chain of buildings to get the luxury goods, and we've simplified it in 3, so that now you just place one building, say a vineyard, and it just automatically delivers it to the keep. Another thing we've done is simplify housing. So, in Stronghold you could place a house and it would give you, say, eight more beds. Didn't matter where you placed it, so people would place them on the tops of mountains and elsewhere, where they couldn't be attacked. They didn't really integrate that well into the game ethos. In 3, as you're placing a house, where you place it matters: the closer to the keep you place it the nicer and more spacious a house you get. A long way from the keep, it drops down through six different stages all the way down to a house that will only house one extra guy. So it brings in a new element: the closer you get to the keep, the more risk of attack you have, but the more benefit you get. Plus it looks nice, as well.
GameSpy: Stronghold 3's engine now features a day-night cycle and night-time battles, which is very cool. What else is new and snazzy about the new game engine?
The new engine is a massive improvement on Stronghold 2.
Simon Bradbury: The new engine allows some things that are new both in combat and in the economic game. First off, you can now place structures in any orientation. Everything in Stronghold 2 was based on a grid system so it was all 90-degree angles. This time, the maps are slightly smaller and the buildings are bigger, so to get everything to actually slot in, you'll need to rotate them. It gives everything a much more realistically medieval look, and almost creates a Tetris-like mini-game where you have to make the most efficient use of space. We've also added Havoc physics, which looks great, but it seems like it was almost invented for castle games: knocking things down, crumbling walls, rag-dolling guys falling off cliffs, it's perfect for it. And it affects combat, as well, because we've introduced splash damage, because if a wall explodes, it will collapse realistically and shatter, killing people around it with shrapnel. We've also got weather, all sorts of weather effects in the game, and these look nice, but also cause scripted events that can affect your popularity rating.
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