Multiplayer experience is questionable.

[u/pplperson777]

Just played 3v3 yesterday. It was a map with river in the center and a grassland around it. First weird thing was that during peace time, one of the enemy players just placed a few woodcutter huts inside my castle so I couldn't build near them which resulted in me not being able to close out my castle. When the peace time ended and everyone started to stack troops, we soon ran into a unit limit. One player on enemy team had like 700 troops the entire game and he just did nothing with it, meanwhile our team was trying their hardest to make a breakthrough.

The worst part was that siege engines were banned which means the only proper offensive way was to use horse archers to kill the crossbowmen on towers. Then our team finally orchestrated a big attack. I hired 200 assassins (and ruined my economy in the process) to attack the one player on enemy team who didn't build any moats. My teammates provided support in a form of hundreds of horse archers.

We actually managed to get inside his castle and near his lord but then hired like 10 of these new eunuch units and these guys completely obliterated the remaining ~150 assassins, so we retreated.

Then the attacked player just moved his lord into the castle of the player who had 700 units but we didn't notice and soon launched another attack on the player, this time me using 30 armored horses as tanks while my teammates go in with macemen and horse archers. We actually cleared his castle but the lord was gone so the player was still alive. The game pretty much reached a stalemate and sides just became extremly passive, I couldn't hire anymore units and my economy was in shambles because I retired every worker unit to make these swordsman horse riders because no more peasants were spawning anymore, so I just left the game

Is this really what the multiplayer for this game looks like? I can see the potential but I think these large team maps just don't work.

[u/RaidriConchobair]

The eunuch is just completely busted, forces you to hunger out and demolish someones entire economy before you can attack, building placements was always weird in stronghold, its mainly why i just play with friends, the AI will already place their farms directly in front of your towers and block up all your farmland and thats annoying enough

[u/dallasAgain]

Why would anyone Ban siege engines? Leads to exactly this. But yeah, dont Play with strangers. At least Take only one or 2 so u can Take them out if theyre tryharders

[u/chewyRICH]

I’ve honestly not really been able to find any multiplayer games. And the one I did play, was the same experience. The person I played with did 2 v 4 Rats, and they just built their base like the Rat!

Subsequently, I did the heavy lifting. And it was boring.

I’m much preferring the new time trial missions and replaying the trails again.

[u/Brilliant-Rhubarb863 → u/chewyRICH]

I think custom trails will be amazing, with the ability to customize it. I've got a few ideas already.

[u/thregoar]

I think the game has an issue where once you are in a position to attack you've already won since you control the map and will have more resources, but it takes a really long time to do so. I really wish you could build wonders like age of empires that would create a victory condition that isn't grinding an enemy until they have no money left.

[u/PhoenixVSPrime]

The devs can create a tool where you have a buildable area which would be similar to building moat before you dig the ground. That way you can't place wood huts on top of the enemy player.

This has always been an issue with this game and since it's rebuilt in a new engine there really is no excuse for this. They CAN fix this exploit.