When I opened Stronghold Crusader Definitive Edition just now, the voice that usually says "Greeting Sire" as you reach the menu instead said:

Happy Anniversary to Stronghold - the original Castle-Sim

After checking Wikipedia, it looks like today marks 25 years since the release of Stronghold on 2001-10-19!

Congrats to Firefly Studios. I always loved the original game with the little story between the missions. And I like how they even localised the campaign map, it showed Germany when I was playing in German as a child!

Schlagt die Trommeln, blast das Horn, das Schwein ist im Anmarsch direkt von vorn!

Wood needed sire!

Your castle's grainery is full my lord!

The original Stronghold must be one of my most played games. Replayed it countless timed as a kid, spending hours to fortify each map until every inch of the map was covered in trees, production facilities and impenetrable walls.

The military aspect was simplistic, but the management sim aspect was top notch, that hasn't been replicated for over 20 years, until Manor Lords was released.

Die Leute verlassen die Burg.

Can't place that there my lord

25 YEARS???!! Fucking hell.

I'm very excited about the upcoming Stronghold 4. Pretty much every promotional material about it says that they went back to the original formula and mostly just made quality-of-life improvements to the core gameplay. If it's half as awesome as the first one, it'll still be better than most recent releases I've played.

Just gonna drop this epic song here.

https://youtu.be/Fmutyrc2os4

I've given them up since Stronghold 2.

Crusader Extreme was also good