Stronghold (1993 video game)

Stronghold is a Dungeons & Dragons city-building real-time strategy computer game published by SSI and developed by Stormfront Studios in 1993.

Development
The game designers include Don Daglow, Mark Buchignani, and David Bunnett.

Gameplay
Players balanced resources to build a town with unique neighborhoods, each with its own unique architecture. Residents and craftspeople of each neighborhood could be summoned to defend any part of the city that came under attack. Players could choose from a variety of neighborhood leaders including Mages, Clerics, Thieves, Fighters, Elves (a combination of fighters and mages), Dwarves (stout fighters who are also great miners), and Halflings (excellent thieves and farmers). Players could use, for example, a spawned Elf to build a building on a plot or the player could focus the elf on training to build up character levels, amass an army and march them overland and defeat a neighboring monster. Or a player could focus entirely on city development and win the game in that way instead. Maps are constructed from triangular wireframe colored tiles. The color of each tile designate the terrain type; water, plains, mountains and hills. A random map generator allows for good replay value.

Reception
According to GameSpy, "cities could quickly become very difficult to manage, but those players who became fans swore that the game was one of the most addictive management simulations they had ever played".

The game is often referred to as "SimCity meets Dungeons & Dragons".