Mac game publisher MacSoft today announced that its new game Stronghold has gone gold master. It will begin shipping to stores on May 21.
Stronghold is a “castle sim” developed by some of the same folks behind Sierra’s Caesar III strategy game. Combining elements of a city building game and a real-time strategy game, Stronghold puts you in charge of protecting your medieval land from invasion while keeping your serfs well-fed and happy.
To that end, you must build a castle and tend to its surrounding land, harvesting resources, building protection and manning the castle will specialized troops and units. You’ll participate in warfare against siege troops who will attack you with catapults, siege towers, battering rams, ballista and trebuchets.
Stronghold features four separate game modes: a non-combat economic campaign; a mode that lets you siege famous castles; test your own castle-building abilities in the “Siege That” challenge mode; and a free building mode that lets you design your own ideal castle without worrying about being attacked.
Originally developed by Firefly Studios, Stronghold was published last year by Take-Two Interactive Software. The game was part of a multi-title Mac game licensing deal struck between Take-Two and MacSoft’s parent company Infogrames, which enabled MacSoft to publish several Mac versions of games originally intended for Take-Two’s now defunct subsidiary Gathering of Developers.
The game also incorporates a full-featured editor that lets you create your own maps and scenarios, and sports LAN and Internet-based multiplayer gameplay.