Stronghold HD

FireFly Studios' Stronghold is a combination of a building simulation (like SimCity) and a real-time strategy game. The player can build and conquer castles, populate lands with his peasants and defend his estate from invaders. Castle management involves food production, resource gathering, processing supplies and weapons production. Peasants must be satisfied and efficient, and these needs are done through food ration sizes, tax (or bribe) management, nice or cruel town elements (boost happiness and efficiency respectively), religion and popularity supervision. Should popularity rise above 50, more peasants will enter the castle until the capacity is filled, otherwise they will leave, and all production will eventually halt. Occasional disasters can occur, such as plague, fires, sudden apple tree rots and even attacks from wild animals and bandits. Many of these can be avoided (with apothecaries, wells, and proper defenses), while others cannot. These events can sometimes affect popularity as well. Stronghold HD (versions 1.3 and newer) is a high definition re-release of the original game. It introduces high resolution support to the game that allow the player to zoom out and view the entire battlefield on a single screen. For owners of the original game there is an official HD patch to upgrade that version, free of charge.