One of the games I planned to play at BGGCon was Stronghold.
I played a 4 player game. I think the game will play in roughly the same time with 2 or 4 players so it scales well.

About the fun factor. This is a measure of the minutes of fun in the game vs the amount of time it takes to play the game. For example, I feel that Munchkin has about 30 minutes of fun crammed into 120 minutes of play time. On the other hand, Vegas Showdown has 50 minutes of fun and takes an hour to play. Ricochet Robots is 1:1 since you play as long as you enjoy it, and then stop.

Fun Factor does not completely cover games which I play for the experience rather than for fun (like Arkham Horror and Titan). I enjoy them on some other level--- but I play them rarely.

Parts of the fun factor will drop (Novelty) and rise (Rules) over time. Some parts of the fun factor depend on the number of players. Fifteen minutes of downtime is a little painful... 45 minutes of downtime is longer than many games.


Fun Factor Factors
1) Theme : Strong or pasted?
2) New Ideas : New ideas make your brain happy.
3) How much downtime is there overall? : Are you spending most the game waiting?
4) How long is a particular downtime? : Are there 15 minute chunks of nothing?
5) How quickly can you start the game? : Are the rules long? Is setup long?
6) How much of the game is productive activity? : Are there stalemates?
7) Rules Time & Frustration? Are the rules well organized with good examples and whitespace?


1) Theme
The game has a strong theme. The game is a simulation of a siege against a castle. This is not another auction game with a pasted on theme. While the strong theme contributed to my enjoyment of the game, it also created some fiddly rules and no-op rules (explained in 6).

2) New Ideas
The concept that my actions gave the other player action points was not completely new to me but it is a fresh concept. I had seen a similar concept in Thebes with a slightly different implementation. Essentially, if you do something fast, the defender has little time to react. If you do a lot of time consuming activities, the defender has a lot more actions (represented by hourglasses) to prepare with. I liked this concept and did not see the strategy around it as quickly as my co-besieger.

3) How much downtime is there overall.
Overall, the downtime is balanced between the players and broken into discrete chunks which strongly limits analysis paralysis by either side. At most, you usually have three choices to make- often you have one choice.

4) How long is a particular downtime.
The particular downtime in this game is small. The designers broke each turn into 6 phases. In each phase, the besieger takes actions which give the defender action points. These actions have to be spent in the phase they were acquired. So if the besieger does nothing, the defender can do nothing.
While the game can be long, you generally get an action every 30 to 60 seconds. This is very engaging. You are generally spending the downtime you have thinking about your next action or reacting to the opponents last action.

5) How quickly can you start the game.
This is a major problem. The rules need a rewrite. And the rules might need to be trimmed (see 6). It took a knowledgeable teacher about 45 minutes to explain the rules to us (with several errors).
We were still on the 1st page after 10-15 minutes. It may be too much jargon, not enough white space around the text. I think they need a "trainer game" with 3 phases and then the real game, and then advanced (and fiddly) optional rules.


6) How much of the game is productive activity?
This was a major issue. Many of the actions the attacker takes, create the time needed to counter the action. This lead to many fiddly, "no-op" turns. I push the marker forward, you push the marker back. I move special troops up- that gives the time to kill them. I think the "no-op" actions should be reserved for the advanced rules and some might be better off trimmed entirely.

7) Rules Time and Frustration
Some games have short rules and are easy to pick up (Quirkle).
Other games have long rules (Star Fleet Battles)
Some games have well written rules (Stone Age, Thebes).

The rules for Stronghold could use improvement. The rules were muddy and cluttered. They could use a larger font, more editing, white space, and bulleted lists. I recall reading one section on the 1st page which was a list turned into one giant run-on paragraph. It would have been trivial to read as a bulleted list.

One of the defenders got very irritated with the rules during the game. It was a common comment by random people who had played the game.

Many players missed the special victory condition rules around breaching and felt the game was hopelessly slanted to the defenders as a result.

Conclusion and Rating

I think that the game will generally take about 90 minutes to play once you get the rules down. I felt the game had 45 to 60 minutes of fun which would give a fun factor of 66% which would equate to a 7 ranking. I'd enjoy playing the game again but it wouldn't be my first choice.

G'day Mcleod (such a cool name),
I really appreciate your review. Many of us down under have been slavering in anticipation for this behemoth of a release. The gushing reviews have been excellent for whetting the appetite, but the more subdued, objective experiences like yours have allowed a token 'step back'.

Don't get me wrong, I am still GETTING this game, its just that now I have more realistic expectation of what is emerging as a complex beast, ephemerised by a strange ruleset and a bias towards the experienced player.

I for one am anticipating 'unlocking' the meta-game of Stronghold. With the delightfully appropriate cliche 'Forwarned is forarmed', due to your observations... Hopefully there will be substanially less gnashing of teeth and furious gesticulation once the heady aroma of wooden cubes and freshly punched cardboard subsides.

Obviously not a 'Gateway' game! Ha Ha.

I walked past the Stronghold stand numerous times at Essen, but I could never quite pull the trigger and buy this game. The complexity and volume of the rules became apparent as the guy behind the counter stumbled to provide a concise overview of the game - which didn't bother me so much, but it wasn't until a companion (who was less impressed from the outset) remarked that he had no interest in playing a war game wooden blocks - that I realised what the impediment to me purchasing Stronghold was.

For me war games must be played with at least a reasonable representation of the combatants and that a white block is not going to cut it as a mighty hero, nor will a collection of tiny red, white and green blocks conjure impressions of a goblinoid horde. Since this game plays so heavily on theme (which shows in the reviews too) I'd consider it a glaring oversight.

Maybe I don't know what I'm missing out on after all this doesn't seem to be an issue for anyone else, maybe there'll be a "Collectors Edition" that has minis instead of blocks, until then Stronghold can wait.

Not a big fan of the huge realm of chit or block based wargames then?

B>

It depends if the piece has some sort of representation of what it is supposed to be. Chits can have pictures, wooden pieces can be meeples. In Stronghold the pieces are generic, the castle walls are manned by Agricola stables, defending against Stone Age scoring markers. Say what you will about Games Workshop, at least the theme doesn't end at the game board.

If figure-supported theme is what you're after, it's very difficult to argue this is superior to Games Workshop stuff. Myself, I prefer interesting games.

B>

This idea might work.

Draw the squares from the bag, but use figures on the board.
You probably have tons of figures in other games.

I have a gazillion 15mm figures, 25mm figures, 28mm figures.

I think 6mm might work, anything bigger might require a re design of the board to accommodate larger scale figures I have a feeling that someone will take that up that challenge if they haven't already.

My original point was that I think the components are poor and ill-suited to the genre. Sure, dyed-in the wool gamers (BGG'ers) who can look past aesthetics won't have a problem with it, but while I could get beyond this, I don't think I could get it to fly with the rest of my gaming group. Shallow it may be, but aesthetics count and I think the makers have missed getting a wider audience here.

I'm rather glad it wasn't aimed at the gateway non game playing crowd you describe.

B>

Oh of course, there wouldn't be any room left in the Ivory Tower of Infinite Elitism if "all the kids are playing it".

You've obviously reached a higher state of gaming nirvana than I have - eschewing the crude temporal "form" embracing sweet gaming logic and lovingly encompassing it in a beautiful shell script. I submit to your ascetic purity, and scold myself for allowing to be corrupted by such base urges.

I shall now return to more suitable fare perhaps, a quick round of Candyland or Slamwich with the drooling troglodytes that comprise my group.

No need to pour gasoline over yourself and engage in self immolation.

Experienced and abstract players are part of the market too.

The publishers weren't attacking you when they chose to go with cubes. It probably held the price of the game down to $50 instead of $75 and picking 10 cubes from a bag is faster and requires less rules than some kind of cards or rolls on an allocation table.

I wish you peace and joy in this holiday season and I'm sure you'll find plenty of games you like as well.

I'm glad you and your friends have found some games you enjoy.

B>

Isn't there a fence somewhere you should be sitting on?

That's novel. I'm not usually accused of sitting on the fence.

B>

Wow this thread was entertaining.

I think the pro-wooden-blocks/abstract gaming side needs to admit that there is a reason so many games include miniatures. People like them. They are fun. If aesthetics count for nothing, and everything can be abstracted from the theme, the you can lead yourself down a reductio ad absurdum.

1) why is the game board so well drawn, eh? Why not just a schematic representation of a castle?

2) If you like how blocks save you money over miniatures, why not just print out a paper version of the game and be done with it?

etc. etc. One of the reasons we like boardgames is they give the feeling of moving something real and physical and pretty to look at. If I just wanted perfect abstract simulation, there are plenty of computer simulations that would do it far better.

Arguing from the other side, miniatures do increase cost and set up time pretty dramatically, so I can see the benefit to blocks and markers. But if a game is good, does it really matter whether it costs $50 or $75?

I've played the game a few weeks ago. If there would have been miniatures, they would have to be very very small, otherwise they don't fit in all the spaces!!!

Some people have used War of the Ring minis to play the game, as can be seen in the image gallery. Rather, the problems of the game are other and different.

I'll echo the thanks to the reviewer. I have been looking at this for a while, but I was waiting for a more objective review of the negatives (all games have them) to see what else was there.