Stronghold Crusader HD (2012)
BANGER · Strategy · 2013
Steam Deck PlayableThe verdict
BUY IT.
A BANGER at $9.99.
- Length
- 15.6h
- Value
- $0.64/hr
- Reviews
- 98% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 512 MB of memory, 64MB DirectX 8.1 Compatible, 850 MB of storage. Windows only.
The highly anticipated sequel to the best-selling Stronghold, Stronghold Crusader HD throws you into historic battles and castle sieges from the Crusades with fiendish AI opponents, new units, 4 historical campaigns and over 100 unique skirmish missions.
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
The value story
The lowest price on record is $1.99, set in June 2017. Its cuts run 75 percent off as a rule. There have been 45 in the 13 years tracked, about 7 weeks apart. Today it is at full price. The last sale was about 4 weeks ago, and on this game's rhythm the next one tends to arrive within 7 weeks.
Against its own genre it lands in the top 1 percent on value. It is pricier than 70 percent of its genre, and the best reviewed. The nearest things to it, Stronghold 2: Steam Edition ($14.99, scores 77) and Stronghold Legends: Steam Edition ($14.99, scores 52), are both worse buys on this math.
78 from critics against 98 percent from players, and the player number comes from people who own the game.
Of the 567 Steam-purchase reviews this site sampled, none come from buyers who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written March 2020 to August 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 88 percent of the 964 reviews written there were positive, against 98 percent overall, and those are 6 percent of everything written about it.
Finishing takes 15.6 hours; clearing it takes 104, which is 6.7 times the campaign.
Still 746 concurrent players, 13 years in.
Players
746 players at peak in the last day.
The chart appears once this game has been counted more than once.Player counts via SteamSpy.
What players say
Stronghold Crusader is one of those timeless strategy games that never gets old. Building an economy, designing the perfect castle, and watching huge battles unfold is still incredibly satisfying. The soundtrack and voice lines are iconic, and the gameplay has aged surprisingly well. A true RTS classic that keeps me coming back. Highly recommended for anyone who loves castle-building and strategy games.
Player reviews from Steam: the most helpful all-time, plus the newest that clear the same quality bar, with the hours each player had put in when they wrote it. The mix of Recommended and Not recommended follows the game's Steam ratio. Rotates daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: achievement curve (Steam global achievements).
Cite this score
Embed the live badge, copy the line, or download the card.
Stronghold Crusader HD (2012) scores 97/100 on the BANG Score (a BANGER). The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/40970/stronghold-crusader-hd-2012The BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Aug 3, price as of Sep 24.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.