True, Stronghold keeps things interesting by requiring you to keep resources flowing at a steady rate to keep your economy stable and your peasants happy. But the economic model, as with everything else, fits squarely in the RTS rather than simulation camp.

For starters, the view is strictly RTS - the classic top-down isometric view. The resource gathering is RTS, the castle building is RTS ... you get the picture. But that is not to say that Stronghold is a yawn-inducing exercise in been-there-done-that. Far from it. In fact, if you are at all interested in RTS-type games you will find a whole lot to like. On the other hand, if SimCity is your idea of a hot date, you'll probably be disappointed.

The graphics in Stronghold are lush, well-painted 2D sprites on a 3D modeled landscape which can be viewed from any of the four points of the compass. The castle walls and towers in particular look suitably imposing, and the scenery and ambient effects are impressive. Especially the wild animals - a particular highlight is hordes of rabbits devastating your crops.

The unit animations are somewhat limited, with each unit only seeming to have eight facings. This makes movement look a little jerky; but the upside of opting for basic animations is speed. There was very little slow-down on the review machine even when the battlefield got crowded.

There are several game modes included in Stronghold. These are divided broadly into military and economic games (more on this later). But the basic core of the game, as far as most players are likely to be concerned, is the 21 mission military campaign.

This campaign unfolds in the typical RTS style, steadily growing in complexity as new units and buildings are introduced. It flows well, introducing the concepts and units at a pace that is quite easy to digest, while ensuring a reasonably smooth increase in the challenges offered. The campaign story revolves around a small band of nobles, loyal to the King, isolated in Devonshire in the late eleventh century when the King is captured overseas and four nasty noblemen carve Britain up between them. These rebels, of which you are needless to say a key commander, set about knocking off the four bad guys one by one until you have recaptured the country.

The story unfolds through well-acted and animated dialogue. It's a bit Walt Disney-ish in execution - cartooney, but not quite funny - yet it is well produced and reasonably engaging. Some of the voiced over briefings and narrative can feel a bit long, but on the whole it's well above average.

More or less all of the campaign missions play out as you would expect for a real-time strategy offering. You start out with some starting resources - whether building materials, buildings, troops or some combination of the three. You set about building a castle, complete with peasants and productive enterprise, to provide the economic base to raise and equip an army. Your army then sets about either defending your new castle from a seige, or laying seige to an enemy castle, or both.

The much-touted 'sim' bit of this exercise is in laying a good, sustainable economic base to your castle and maintaining it through attacks. The economy is probably best described by looking at how you might go about constructing a working castle in an early campaign mission. First, you place your keep and a granary to store food. Peasants arrive and loiter around the campfire until you give them something to do. You'll need resources and food to grow your castle, so build some woodcutter's huts near some trees and hunter's huts somewhere near where the herds of deer hang out. All of your basic buildings, as well as your basic weapons, will take wood to construct so you need to keep a steady flow coming. Likewise, every peasant in your castle requires food so you need to ensure the food keeps rolling into the granary.