I have not played the HD versions yet. I only played Stronghold 1, the regular vanilla version. I have Crusades on CD, but haven't played it yet.

In my opinion, Stronghold is the best castle simulator I've played. It gives you the freedom to build what you want, where you want. Strategy in placement of walls, tactical structures, farms and warehouses and manufacturing locations and economic stability are spectacular.

I last played it a few years ago and I enjoyed it. I think it stands the test of time quite well.

I heard that the Extreme mode (where 10,000 units are on the map) is a bit overwhelming. It would be for me. I don't know if that feature can be turned off in the HD game. If it could not be, that would be a deal-breaker for me. I don't want to manage 10000 units.

They're superb games and a lot of fun to play. Stronghold is like a hybrid between a city-builder and a RTS, and it blends the two quite nicely. The free-build lets you build some pretty spiffy castles, and both the original game and the Crusader spin-off have a wealth of different missions. The original Stronghold has a better campaign mode (though beware its difficulty - it's quite unforgiving) and castle siege mode. Crusader introduces the aptly-named "Crusader" mode which is basically free-form castle-versus-castle gameplay; you and the AI each build up your respective castle towns and try to lay siege to each other.

With all that said, Crusader is overpriced. It's no better and no worse than the original Stronghold, and there's no good reason it should be priced higher. Crusader does boast about its 80-mission campaign trail, but a lot of those missions are just repeats of earlier missions at higher difficulty, and they're much shorter and less intricate than the original Stronghold ones. Both versions have different strengths and weaknesses, and at this point they should really be bundled into a single product. You're not missing anything. It's a very lazy addition to the game, introducing random unit spawns and special powers that charge up. They detract rather than add to the experience, and make stone the only resource that matters. There is no point in mining iron and forging it into swords when the game is going to give you 50 free swordsmen in the time it took you to create one sword. The novelty wears off after about 5 minutes. Play it once to see what it is, then go back to playing the superior classic mode.

I love them.

It's worth pointing out that you get both the extreme and regular version of Crusaders when you buy it here.

If you love city building, did you try Caesar III, Pharaoh, Zeus? In Caesar III, you can select missions - city building only or together with some battles.