r/stronghold

Are there any shortcuts for opening barracks etc. ?
The only ones i can see in the settings are the one to center on those buildings, but not open them. Am i tripping or was it a thing in og SC?

Figured I would hop on the Stronghold 4 announcement trend and give my two bits on what I've seen in the announcement and gameplay demos, knowing the devs frequent this sub.

The Good:

• I really like the general look of the game. I think there are some issues with the current lighting (looking at u/CoupleOk6506's post) and the cartoonish/ai-ish look of certain assets, and clunky animations, but nothing that can't be fixed in due time.
• The honour system - one of my favourite stronghold features, good to see it improved upon in the new title.
• The castle feels alive once more, with improved production lines and churches to boot.
• Events! Great new feature, I think the timings are a little off. Maybe that's just me, as I haven't played the game yet. I'd like to see these affecting more than just popularity, though that may already be in the works?
• UI improvements. WOW! Unit and building stats to help you optimize, and are easily understandable and displayed on all fronts.
• No stacking units!!!

The Bad:

• The targeting. I'm assuming this is on the to-fix list, but watching catapults be unable to fire, and watching all the archers target the same unit is so blatantly bad that I have to put it on here. These things really kill the immersion and experience.
• This one might be a hot take, but Good and Bad things. Why are these back? This feels like a huge waste of potential for an innovative new system to add to the game.
• The Hovel upgrades feel... out of place. There does not seem to be any reason behind adding this feature, so why is it here? Extra/passive honour? Surely there are better means to accomplish this.
• The cover art background is good, but the character clashes with the scene. It looks really bad currently because of it.
• BRING BACK THE JESTER

Some Ideas and Thoughts for the Road:

• Stables - it would be cool if a large variety of units could be mounted for increased functionality/mobility through a building akin to the SH/SH2 stables.
• Upgradable Keep - instead of upgrading hovels for passive honour production, perhaps instead you can upgrade your keep to grant passive honour, more protection for your lord, and increase the build distance of your walls. Dare I say, the upgrade process functions like SH2 build sites, but an instant upgrade would work as well.
• Hovels house more peasants closer to the keep (I think this was a thing in SHC and SHC2, good feature, and you already potentially have multiple hovel assets to use for it).
• Apothecary/Hospital - works in conjunction with the events system, diminishing the effects of those which cause disease or illness in the castle, and the worker can also heal troops brought to it. An injured lord could visit this building to get healed. Something similar to what we see in SH, but modified to fit the new game.
• Ruined Castles - if a lord is slain, their castle should turn to ruins instead of being outright destroyed, and their walls should stay in place. This could offer some interesting strategy, as a ruined castle could become a battleground.
• Estates - akin to ruined castles, it would be interesting to implement some sort of estate system into the game. My thought is that it would be something similar to what we had in SH2, but without the hard borders and the ability to outright destroy it. The player would not be able to build anything for their estates in this case.
• Build Sites - these are incredible narrative and dynamic tools, and I really hope to see them in this game for both skirmish maps and custom maps.
• Attack Here - this is sort of a nothing feature, but I always liked being able to fill your own troops with arrows.
• Boats - I would love to see some sort of naval transport option in this game, but such a feature might be better suited for a Viking installment.

Overall, I am looking forward to what you guys create for SH4.

its not just the graphics. what we have been seeing now. and the gameplay demos people allready got to play. this looks a bit like they recreating SH2 with some influences of warlords.

wich could potentially work. but they are allready crunching. a 2026 release after just announcing the game mid year. seems way to soon IMO especially with fireflys track rekord.

and the trailer and the demo just dosnt give me something to be exited for. that would make me think thats worth it. the coolest feature so far we have seen is the terrain. i dont know if anybody is exited about honour coming back. or wonky phsysics when towers crumble.

under the video they allso explain that they currently have 2 teams one working on SH4 and the other one working on crusader dlc. but the 2d team only churns out AI lords and map packs and trails currently. something players allready can and do create on mass with the included editors.

wich just showcases an inherent inability of firefly to get what their product actually is and what its strengths are.

I really REALLY hope they get new music for this.

I understand the original songs are awesome and classic but if this is supposed to be a sequel then I believe the music should also evolve.

I'd even go so far to not include any of the classic original songs.

(Before the demo for the whole public comes out)

Just came across this.

I think it has really improved a lot compared to Stronghold: Warlords. Although the awkward movement of units and the lackluster 3D character modeling are a bit disappointing, as it is the first work made with the Unreal Engine, I believe the future titles will be even better.

The first six definitely will be returning characters - Rat (appears in the demo), Snake (is hidden in demo game files), Pig, Wolf, Sir Longarm (also appears in demo) and with high probability Lord Woolsack. The last 2 can be our new protagonist Penryn (unless he will be treated like Matthew Steele) and the girl seen in the trailer.

Hope Stronghold 4 is more like Stronghold 2 than 3 was... return of the honor and ranking system is very promising, having a proper campaign again as well should be nice.