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Game Info
Year
2009
Players
1-4
Age
14+
Playtime
60 min
Collection
Mechanic profile
Not enough video data yet
Vibe profile
Not enough video data yet
Description
Stronghold is a game telling the story of a siege. Players take opposite sides, one has to defend the stronghold, the other has to break into the castle as soon as possible. As time passes, defenders get Victory Points every turn for their efforts on the walls.
The game board represents the stronghold itself as well as the surrounding terrain, where enemy forces are placed and whence they proceed to the walls.
The defender has a small number of soldiers manning the walls, while the invader has an infinite legion of attacking creatures. A desperate fight is taking place every single turn. The invaders build war machines, equip their soldiers, train them and use black magic rituals to achieve victory. Meanwhile, defenders repair walls, build cannons, train soldiers, and do everything they can to hold the castle as long as possible.
Featured Videos
Rules Teach
Stronghold - How To Play
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All mentions
Browse transcript mentions, sentiments, pros/cons, mechanics, topics, quotes, and references.
Total mentions: 3
This page: 3
Sentiment:
pos 2 ·
mix 0 ·
neu 1 ·
neg 0
Showing 1–3 of 3
Video fiV4C-ZujqY
watch it played Rules Teach at 0:19 sentiment: neutral
video_pk 65190 · mention_pk 158818
Click to watch at 0:19 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
neutral
Pros
none
Cons
none
Thematic elements
- Orcs, goblins, priests, soldiers, and marksmen defending a stronghold.
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Action Point Allowance System — The Invader chooses actions from a row of ascending values, moving left to right, potentially skipping ahead. The defender uses hourglass tokens to perform actions.
- Area Control — Invader units move to wall sections and ramp parts, potentially overwhelming defender positions.
- Area movement — Units move along connected paths between foregrounds, ramp parts, and walls. Movement is generally forward only.
- bag building — Invader draws cubes (goblins, orcs, trolls) from a bag.
- Combat — Strength is calculated for units on wall sections, including bonuses from banners and defender equipment. The player with higher strength wins, potentially breaching the wall if the advantage is sufficient.
- Dice rolling — Used implicitly when drawing 'hit' and 'miss' cards for siege machines and cannons. The 'bloodstone ritual' also involves revealing tokens.
- hand management — Defender draws and keeps two defense plan cards. Invader shuffles and draws action cards, keeping specific values and randomly drawing from others.
- Modular board — Defender can place and arrange building tiles inside their stronghold.
- player elimination — The Invader wins if they breach any wall section before the end of the seventh round. The defender wins if they prevent this.
- Resource management — Invader spends goblins, orcs, or trolls to gain wood tokens. Both players manage hourglass tokens for actions.
- set collection — Defender collects hourglass tokens and assigns them to building spaces to resolve actions. Invader collects specific tokens for machines, equipment, and other effects.
- track movement — A round token moves along a round track.
- Variable player powers — Hero pieces have unique movement and order capabilities. Different unit types (goblin, orc, troll) have different strengths.
- worker placement — Defender places hourglass tokens on action spaces of buildings to resolve actions. Some actions require filling a row of hourglasses.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- Orcs rolls and goblins build trebuchet work up incantations and Advance on the stronghold walls while inside priests cast blessings on soldiers and marksmen who prepare to protect their home from the encroaching Invaders only one side can Prevail
- The Invader wins the game if they can breach any one of those wall sections before the end of the seventh round and the defender wins if they can prevent this from happening.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video 2dVYCyuJ1hk
3 Minute Board Games Discussion at 4:17 sentiment: positive
video_pk 11088 · mention_pk 32608
Click to watch at 4:17 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
none
Cons
none
Thematic elements
- historical/fantasy warfare
- medieval siege warfare and castle management
- grand strategy with siege elements
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- area control / war game — players contend for map control and resources in a siege environment.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- there's something intrinsically incredibly rewarding about winning a game with a faction no one thinks is any good
- i love games that understand that family friendly doesn't have to be boring and awful
- the fact that there's a game for everyone out there is pretty cool
- i love designing board games
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video K5xSPyZUxYU
3 Minute Board Games Discussion at 2:21 sentiment: positive
video_pk 6062 · mention_pk 17968
Click to watch at 2:21 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
- Solid game
- Still in print
Cons
none
Thematic elements
- Siege warfare
- Medieval fortress
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Mechanics unknown.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- I used to call this a shelf of shame that was a pretty common thing to call it back in the day and I don't never really liked that term because I don't feel shame that I haven't got to these games
- this is mostly work like this is just a backload of things I probably should get to
- people will still be looking for it
- it doesn't matter if the game is like 20 years old people will still be looking for it
- I've painted this one and I spent a lot of time doing it
- there's no point putting them on the channel I think both of them have been out of print for like a decade
- one of the worst kickstarters by one of the worst studios in board gaming history
- Golden Bell Studios did everything wrong you could possibly think of
- purely toxic company run by incredibly terrible people
- it would be kind of a joke that I'd be able to do a three minute video of feudum
- this game has a tutorial video online that's like 40 minutes long
- The Rose explanation video feels like a parody but it's actually how the game is played
- nothing personally to me puts me off playing a game that then sitting down unboxing it and having a craft assignment
- stop making me spend hours assembling your damn games
- this is an uncontrollable mess right now
- I'm a full-time dad and I'm really doing this in the evenings
- I have a finite space and also it just puts pressure and stress on me having a whole bunch of crap there that I know I'm not going to get to
- I'm going to do a big cull
- I will be published by this company but that doesn't mean I'm going to be slavishly devoted to every single game they put out
- I am a sucker for cute animal games like I really am
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Transcript Navigation
Showing 1–3 of 3