When comparing R.U.S.E. vs Stronghold Crusader HD, the Slant community recommends Stronghold Crusader HD for most people. In the question“What are the best RTS games for PC?” Stronghold Crusader HD is ranked 3rd while R.U.S.E. is ranked 33rd. The most important reason people chose Stronghold Crusader HD is:
Easy to learn mechanics of economy, castle building and army production. Does not overwhelm players with choices.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Excellent campaign
Each mission in the campaign plays out slowly and requires careful planning, make a slight mistake and the game will not be that forgiving. This means the player must give full attention to the game and its enthralling story as it unfolds.
Pro Active multiplayer scene
Despite the age of the game there is still many people playing online so it can be easy to find online matches.
Pro Great for RTS beginners
Easy to learn mechanics of economy, castle building and army production.
Does not overwhelm players with choices.
Pro Deep yet intuitive interface
Many options are available in the game along with good tutorials that introduce the player to these. While not all options are necessary the inclusion of them is welcome for those that would like to take advantage of them.
Pro Unique Gameplay
A unique blend of real-time battles and castle-sim, which the Stronghold series is famous for
Cons
Con Removed from Steam
Con Slow
The pacing is quite slow, which may take a player quite a while to get interested in the game. This may be a turn off for some as it can take too long before interesting plot points happen.
Con Lacks polish in some areas
Things like buttons on the bottom of the screen that are not intuitively placed as well as notifications that can not be filtered to the more important. This can detract from the gameplay as it is immersion breaking to have to rifle through inconvenient button placement as well as notifications looking for what you need at the time.
Con Multiplayer is a hassle
A third-party connection app like Tunngle, Hamachi, GameRanger is needed to play the non-steam version of the game and therefore multiplayer games are mostly unresponsive and error-prone