Stronghold: Crusader Extreme

Stronghold: Crusader Extreme is an updated version of 2001's Stronghold expansion, Stronghold: Crusader by Firefly Studios. Crusader Extreme is set in the Middle East during the Crusades era.

Stronghold Crusader Extreme has additions of larger armies of 10,000 men, new buildings and missions.

New Features
Stronghold Crusader Extreme includes the following new features:
 * New Extreme mode which covers over 10,000 units on the battlefield
 * New buildings (outposts that generate both enemy, allied, and player-owned troops according to ownership)
 * New tactical special powers (reinforcement, field hospital, rock volley attack, arrow volley, engineer team, macemen squad, uncover gold horde, call for knights).
 * New Crusader Extreme trail with 20 linked missions as well as new stand-alone maps (for single or multiplayer mode).

In addition, Stronghold Crusader Extreme features new AI previously obtainable opponents (The Wazir, the Marshal, The Emir, The Abbot and The Nizar from Stronghold Warchest edition).

It also contains an updated version of the original Stronghold Crusader, which includes everything except for outposts, the god powers and the Extreme Crusader Trail.

Reception
The game's new features for the original Stronghold Crusader, including new characters, campaigns, and other features, were generally well received by the public, but game critics criticized the game for extreme difficulty, lack of new audio, and not having graphical quality up to par for a game released in 2008. GameSpot gave the game a 3.5 out of 10, and 1UP gave it a D-. Critics pointed out that many of the game's "Extreme Crusader" missions were extremely unbalanced, as the computer-controlled players not only instantly get unlimited amounts of troops, but also are typically in teams of 2 or more, making it almost impossible for the player to fend off the attacks.

Patches
On 3 February 2009, a 1.2.1 patch was launched. The main fix being reaching the 10,000 troop limit, which previously caused a crash.

System Requirements

 * Operating system: Windows 2000, XP, XP Media and Vista.
 * CPU: Pentium III 500 mHz (1Ghz recommended)
 * RAM: 128MB (256MB recommended for multi-player)
 * HDD: 850MB