FortressDesign

External readings
The Fortress will be a game inspired by the old DOS classic Castles. You can read more about castles at the following pages:
 * Wikipedia
 * Abandonia
 * Underdogs

General issues

 * Game will use 3D graphics. It might be a little more difficult but we don't have to create the next greatest graphical spectacle, just basic working 3D graphics can be made to look nice quite easily. This also allows us to improve the graphics later on -- with 2D graphics we'd be stuck with 'old-fashioned' look (not that The Fortress team has anything against 2D graphics ;) )


 * Just castles or more buildings? Stronghold is a modern-day equivalent to Castles but it felt more like a city-builder than anything else. There was too much emphasis on the balance of people/structures when it should be more about castle design. There weren't enough limitations making it a repetitive process of just building up your city and making a giant wall. In The Fortress there's going to be more castle-oriented subtleties - thus reducing the emphasis on non-castle structures (however they should still be part of the game)


 * Resources? Resource management is an essential part of any game these days. Gold, wood, stone, metal...


 * No RPG elements. The Fortress team is a pro-RPG folk but think that mixing RPGs with strategy games is not a good thing. Also we believe that the secret to any successful game/software is to focus on one thing and do it well. As they say, a jack of all trades is a master of none. Because of all this there won't be RPG elements in The Fortress.

Design
Instead of full-fledged LOTR-style game we implement campaign as a series of territories to conquer by building castles. Each territory would have different sets of resources available (possibly introducing trade elements) and different enemies and challenges. The campaign progress would be shown as a series of in-game animations showing a map with territories being occupied by different parties with some text (and possibly voice) narrative. It would be ideal to have some kind of strategic element to it - that is, you have multiple choices of realms to invade and build castles in, and different goals to acheive and a limited amount of time in which to achieve them. Each realm would be to fend off different threats. For example - say [set in England] the Scottish (from the north), the Welsh (west), or the French (South East) would all represent different threats, plus the threat of civil war if people are discontent or given too much freedom.

Additional notes

 * A series of in-game animations showing a map with territories could of course be replaced by cutscenes but that would require having a good and dedicated animation artist. 2D map + narrative is much easier to do. Remember Myth and its mission briefings? I don't know about you but some of them gave me creeps :)

Future ideas

 * The Fortress 2 could be named "The Fortress: Lords of the Land". Idea is to marry Castles with Lords of the Realms II. Arguably combat was the weakest part of both LOTR games (not counting LOTR3 as a valid sequel since it was some silly mistake accidentally named after the famous game). Castles + LOTR would be a perfect match -- player would get a thrilling strategy game with additional bonus of fantastic castle building! It would be great to go from one territory to the next waging a campaign of war whilst creating fortifications to protect a realm. Then player could introduce seiges and all sorts making them meaningful as well as multiplayer aspects. It would be ideal to see such mix done as The Fortress 1 but that would make it much bigger game which may not be a good idea for the first game in this series.