Oh crap, Lords of the Realm 2 will have you hip deep in gaming for a good long time. I played the heck out of that game back when it came out.

Those are good favorites :)

I've played Castles II and I can tell you that Castles II is a great game. However, I do have to warn you that there is currently a bug in Castles II wherein you probably won't be able to load from a saved game. The details are here. Unfortunately this issue has not been resolved by GOG.

I've not played it myself, but Master of Magic is essentially Master of Orion (same people) in a fantasy/medieval setting and I've heard good things. The Heroes of Might and Magic and Stronghold series also both have good ratings (and again never played myself).

Castles II also has a lot of personality in addition to the strategy with plots and intrigues as well as great little BBC videos about the history of, building, attacking, and defending castles. Unfortunately it does have that bug. Castles II is also an older game than Lord of the Realm II. However, like you with Lord of the Realm, I have a lot of fond memories of playing Castles II.

Space rangers 2 is fun,may not be what your looking for.Play as one of 5 races,pick your starting gear,skills and class.Lots of freedom to do what ever you want.At first your ship will be bad at fighting,later on you will be able to buy that ship of your dreams.Buy,sell and trade.Can talk with other ships in space in order to team up on,lets say a pirate.Can get missions,which can range any where from travel take this item to x and then come back to b for reward, to a text base adventure or rts with robots.technology in the game gets better as you go on. Could find a better weapon or the same one only smaller.


Stronghold[or crusader] is great fun.Keep your lord alive and kill the enemy lord[s].Build your castle,raise a army,feed your people and kill that other guy!Set taxes at your keep,which will make the peasants unhappy.Build a inn,give them some ale or more food to eat in order to keep them happy..Build a barracks and a armory to train troops.Wait not so fast, need to make or buy weapons in the marketplace.To make a sword you need a blacksmith,for him to make a sword you need iron,to get iron you need a iron mine.Once you get the iron the blacksmith will make a sword and place it in the armory.To make that swordsman you need both a sword and armor in the armory. To make armor need to build a armorer.

To build troops need,gold,peasants at your campfire,and weapons in the armory.Trust me,more fun then it may sound.One last thing. You can be a good lord or a bad lord.A good lord has better troops,at the cost of his peasants taking breaks from working.The good buildings will make your peasants more happy.A bad lord gets worst troops,which is made up for by having your peasants work better[aka 3 swords and not one when the blacksmith goes to your armory].The bad buildings make your peasants unhappy.You will need to build more good or bad buildings as you get more peasants in order to keep them in line or happy.