Stronghold is an excellent game, though it can be challenging at times, the key is to understand how the economy works. The economy is all about having storage and population space for resources, weapons, and the peasant population, managing resource collection and taxation of the peasantry, and managing production chains for bread, ale, and weapons. Try the economic campaign and missions to learn how to build a prosperous economy, the real key to the game. If it had skirmish like Stronghold Crusader, Stronghold 2, and Stronghold Legends, I probably wouldn't play the others besides Crusader much. Okay, so the graphics are bad, but what do you expect from a 2D game from 2001? Stronghold 3, which is out in October, looks to be the best in the series. Stronghold Kingdoms looks great, I am playing the beta, and like what I am seeing; comparing it to Evony is a fair assessment, and I believe it is a better game.