GS: We also understand that the game will have new death traps to deal with infantry invaders. Give us some examples of these new traps. Aside from letting players with a sadistic streak amuse themselves by lighting enemies on fire with cleverly placed oil pots and fire arrows, what purpose will these new traps serve in the game? Will they decrease an enemy's morale, for instance?
One false spark and your entire kingdom could go up in flames.
SB: Stronghold has always been an unfair RTS--it's one of the things that make it so different in the genre. One side gets loads of troops, and the other side gets a castle. More troops in an RTS should be a walkover victory, so the castle builder must use their skill to funnel the attackers into their specially prepared "killing zones." This could be with overwhelming firepower or the array of traps and death-dealing mechanisms they have at their disposal. This isn't sadism; it's life or death for the plucky defenders, and yes, the good old oil pots will be there as usual, along with new devices such as stake traps that spring up (dealing instant damage) and then remain as a barricade. Morale has never played a part in the Stronghold series, and I think that it's best left to other games. If I place an armed peasant in the path of five knights, then I jolly well want him to stay there--the god of RTS games decreed it so years ago.
GS: We know that Stronghold 3 is powered by a new graphics engine with lots of new graphical bells and whistles, including a new day/night cycle. How does switching from day to night (or night to day) in game time affect what happens in a game of Stronghold 3? For instance, does darkness affect visibility for your archers?
SB: Darkness changes the game in a lot of ways. On a more philosophical level, the story is much darker because the Wolf is bitter and twisted, so he's attacking at night�which is really extremely dishonest.
One thing to note is that we're not necessarily going to have the standard day/night cycle that you see in other games. Instead, you might start a level in the dead of night, and you'll be advised that you must infiltrate a castle before the break of dawn. Then at key points during the stage, the light will increase a set amount. We think this will be a much better way to increase the tension, rather than just slowly watching the sun rise over the horizon.
However, there will also be levels that are played entirely in darkness, and we like to think of this as Stronghold's realistic version of fog of war�because it's literally so dark you can't see anything. Your own buildings and troops will have lights, so you'll be able to see around them, but outside of your castle it is pitch black. To counter this you can place towers that can be set alight with a flaming torch or you can launch flaming bales of hay into the battlefield to try and locate the enemy. This will definitely add a new element to sieges because you'll never be 100 percent sure about where the foe will attack next, and you could be tricked by fake attacks, while the main force is using the cover of darkness to creep up on your castle.
GS: How will Stronghold 3 improve on multiplayer? What new features and changes are planned?
SB: Stronghold has always had a big multiplayer following, and we find it's the best tool for getting the game balance right--so it's getting a lot of attention at the moment. One big new element in multiplayer will obviously be the nighttime maps (which is the one area where we will cycle through day and night). I love this option, as it really does make meaningful use of a day/night cycle. Instead of just a few minor changes to stats, the whole gameplay changes dramatically--fog of war on, fog of war off, fog of war on�
Another example of what we are doing is bringing the historical castles into multiplayer. These are great if you just want a quick battle with preset troops and have a very different feel to the standard deathmatch game.
GS: Fans of the series have enjoyed making modifications and custom content for previous games in the series. How does Firefly plan to support the mod community, and fans of customized content in general, with Stronghold 3? Any plans to release a toolkit, for instance?
SB: Absolutely! We've always been amazed by the creativity of the community (particularly their ability to re-create locations based on a
particular series of ring-based fantasy films), and we hope that with the improved engine they will be able to make more spectacular maps. In fact, we can't wait to release the game just to see what they come up with, and this time they will be able to showcase their work far more easily as we are incorporating a simple upload, download system into the game as part of a raft of other online features that we are adding.
GS: Finally, is there anything else you'd like to add about the game?
The annual parade of torture is always a favorite with the locals.
SB: We're really taking our time with Stronghold 3 to create something that we--and the fans--can be proud of. We appreciate that everyone's had to be patient to wait for this follow-up to Stronghold 2, and we're hoping that the improvements we're making, along with the refinements of gameplay from the original game, will combine to make this the best Stronghold ever.
GS: Thank you for your time.