I was disappointed to see there was no chatter around this game. It almost seems like it's flying under the radar. While I've never played the originals, I'm a poor RTS player, and I'm aware of the problems with Stronghold 3, for some reason I can't help but be genuinely interested and excited to try Crusader 2. Doesn't everyone want to build awesome castles and armies? I do. Plus, I really hope Firefly will succeed now that it's self-publishing.

Does anyone else look at this game and think "YES!" like me...?

Doesn't look like my kind of thing, but hey if you enjoy it I certainly don't think you should feel guilty about it!

The original stronghold was AMAZING. All the Stronghold games that have come out after have been pretty horrible though. I really really want them to make this one good but I'm not getting my hopes up. I've been burnt too many times before :(.

@paradigm87: Yea, I understand. As someone who has more experience with the series, have you seen any (and what are your thoughts on) gameplay interviews like Polygon's?

http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/31/5957149/stronghold-crusader-2-preview-video

The thing that puts me off is that I've really dug the original Stronghold like many people, but the crusaders setting I am not a huge fan of, well rather then location and visual style rather then setting, I'm more into the european motif of it, rather then the desert one.

@tennmuerti: I can see that; it does look a bit bland at times. They have said they will be updating and adding (likely to be free) content to the game post-release. Maybe some different textured maps?

It's always okay to be excited, even about relatively unexciting things.

@onionknight14: From the video it definitely looks promising. The building and economy management seems really similar to the original. The main problem I had with the games after the first Stronghold was that they were all incredibly buggy even to the point of being unplayable in some cases. I didn't see any of that from the video but it's kind of hard to be sure until you get your hands on it. After their track record with the previous games I'd be skeptical until I actually try it or enough people have tried it and said it's okay. It'd be great if we end up getting a quick look of it when it releases since I think Drew liked the previous Stronghold games as well. Stronghold is definitely one of those unique rts games though. There aren't really any other rts games I can think of that are quite like it so hopefully they get back to being good.

No. They're using the Crusader name cus they fucked up the vanilla Stronghold name and think a direct sequel to the fan favorite will cause people to forget that terrible Stronghold made not too long ago by the same people working on this thing.