Last updated on November 30th, 2025 at 08:05 pm
Stronghold Kingdoms Castle Sim – Strategy Game Review
Stronghold Kingdoms Castle Sim is a Strategy/Simulation game from Firefly Studios, first launched in 17th August 2017.
It’s rated 12+ and currently has 2,298+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Stronghold Kingdoms Castle Sim Stand Out
From the Creators of Stronghold
Grand Strategy MMO
Free to Play
5 Million Players
Become Lord of the Middle Ages in Firefly Studios’ Stronghold Kingdoms! Expand your medieval empire and construct mighty castles to protect it. Farm peacefully, engage in political mind games, seek vengeance on sworn enemies and lead your faction to glory across a medieval kingdom. Besiege other players, battle AI opponents, research new weaponry, forge alliances and fight for the eternal glory of your House.
..::: FEATURES :::..
BUILD an online stronghold and protect it with impenetrable castle defences.
RULE the Middle Ages and wage war across England, Europe and the entire world!
BESIEGE enemies, trade with factions and explore a medieval world filled with thousands of other players.
RESEARCH new technology and become a trader, farmer, crusader, diplomat or warlord.
LEAD your faction to victory and forge alliances, becoming the elected leader in a player-controlled political RTS.
PLAY FOR FREE on iPhone and iPad, with frequent updates and cross-platform multiplayer.
..::: PRESS :::..
“More challenging than Supercell’s megahit” – Touch Arcade
“A world map that’s constantly shifting and adapting” – Pocket Gamer
“Stronghold Kingdoms does boast some interesting features” – 148 Apps
..::: USER REVIEWS :::..
"Brilliant MMO, I love the castle building and faction warfare" – 5/5
"One of the best online games I've played" – 5/5
“It's like the child of Stronghold Crusader and Clash of Clans” – 5/5
Stronghold Kingdoms is the MMO successor to the Stronghold castle building series, most famous for the original Stronghold (2001) and Stronghold: Crusader (2002). Unlike the original and Crusader, Kingdoms allows players to relive the Middle Ages in the world’s first castle MMO. A cross-platform strategy game, Kingdoms invites mobile and desktop players to battle together online by thrusting the Middle Ages and famous Stronghold characters into a persistent MMO world. Besiege the castle that’s never been taken, overthrow ruthless tyrants, bankroll your faction’s war effort, pillage your neighbour’s resources, peacefully raise cattle or do it all!
Only by engaging enemy troops, taking back villages from The Wolf and winning votes in the political arena can players hope to succeed. Stronghold Kingdoms is set in a fast-paced, challenging game world designed for large numbers of players working together in pursuit of a common goal.
..::: COMMUNITY :::..
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/StrongholdKingdoms
Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/PlayStronghold
YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/fireflyworlds
Support – http://support.strongholdkingdoms.com
..::: MESSAGE FROM FIREFLY :::..
We designed Stronghold Kingdoms to be the first fully fledged PvP (player versus player) strategy MMO RTS for mobile devices. As a developer we’re best known for the core Stronghold series, which sees you besiege friends and war against AI opponents like The Wolf. With Kingdoms we’re taking Stronghold online, giving players an immersive medieval game world populated by real players, war and political strife. Firefly is a small independent developer with a lot of respect for our players, so we’d love to hear your thoughts on Kingdoms! Please try the game out for yourself (it’s free to play) and send us a message using one of the community links above.
Thanks for playing from everyone at Firefly Studios!
..::: DEVICES :::..
- iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 2 and above
- iPhone 5S and above
- Runs on iOS 9 or later
Please Note: Stronghold Kingdoms is a free to play MMO RTS, however players are able to purchase game items using real money via in-app purchases. If you don’t wish to use this feature you can disable in-app purchases on your iOS device, making the game completely free to play. Stronghold Kingdoms also requires a network connection to play.
Like the game? Please support us with a 5-star rating!
This Strategy game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Stronghold Kingdoms Castle Sim is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 15th October 2025
Recent improvements include:
Update released to patch Unity's "Code Execution / Elevation of Privilege" vulnerability
Download & Availability
Stronghold Kingdoms Castle Sim is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Stronghold Kingdoms Castle Sim on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
If yall read this all we got to say is that every stronghold game that has come out is great and fun. And if there is anyway to put it on consoles (Xbox) that would be great.
We used to play this game on PC and the admin were great about banning cheaters. On the mobile game all of the top players have alt accounts. Many of them share passwords. People have told us in game that they have 4 accounts. We havent heard of a single person being banned. We follow the rules and it put us at a huge disadvantage. Dont waste your money on this game the game creators are more concerned with getting people to spend money than making it a fair, fun experience for everyone.
And awesome game!! Once you start playing, be forewarned that it is addicting! If you have time, find the one for the PC as well. Its called stronghold crusaders. You will not be let down.
Love this game! Play it all the time.
Real strategy game, we love it…. Jjj.
Wish it had a better balance of playability vs buyability. We feel like we have to purchase everything.
We played Stronghold/Stronghold 2 on our PC many years ago. This version contains a lot of content from the original games, but it is missing some of the fun details. If you loved the old games you'll have mixed reviews of this version. That said, it's good enough. SHK is addicting and fun. You can play for a while believing the game avoids common pitfalls of MMO games. There's not such an obvious attempt to take your money, but you will do the in-app purchases. Reasonable rules are in place to protect low- from high-level players. But the good design is all for nothing because the game doesn't require players to follow the rules. If we pay money, we expect 'fair' play. You'll see bugs mentioned in many reviews. Each update seems to make good progress, but there is a long way to go. Not recommended.
What is up with the lockups? They are constant and persistent. Our makes it really hard to enjoy the game. It locks up on our ipad and iPhone. Yuck.
While there are some bugs and issues, we just enjoy this game too much and appreciate the frequent bug updates to not give it 5 stars. There is the ability to pay to win, but the game can be enjoyed casually without it. Do note that this game drains your battery faster than other apps. Then again we dont game on iOS much so that may be typical. Good job on the import, overall.
Fun but broken UI. Stuck at tutorial (attacking). Cant get past dialogue box.
Ive been playing stronghold since the very first one on PC. Firefly as a company has been around for a long time and made many great titles. Please explain to us why the graphics on this game look like they were drawn by a toddler? Firefly, you have way too much experience to be putting a game out that looks like it hasnt even hit beta yet. When we saw that this garbage is in like version 2.7 of something we about fell out of our chair. There are hundreds of better games with far superior gameplay out there, why would someone want to spend money on this trash.
Yes the mobile app has bugs but overall its great . Back in the fight,.
Started playing the pc games when they came out and have been waiting for a phone version ever since, not exactly like the pc versions but still fun.
We cant how to to add people as a friend. Dont see our village tax status. Also cant see which troops are inside the village or out inside the village over view. Troops does not getting selected sometime when you go to battle so cant set the catapult for single targets. A lot of options are not active in phone. When we send a massage to different person it seems some time it does not go it goes to same person on and on. Our reports sometime does not want to be deleted and also we need to have a option to save reports. We started playing the game after one year because the mobile version in up. Now we cant start the in our computer because it saying file data error. Please help us out to solve all the issues.
Every time we go to Attack a wolf icon it says this crap! We thought up dates are to fix problems not make new ones.
Village placement makes no sense. We choose an area and then it says found a village in another place and now village is there. Okay, Ill just delete it at try again. Happens again. Go to delete that village but it says we can only abandon a village once a week?! How does that make any sense? Wait, the village is not where castles are built? Back up, what the hell is our actual land? Does our kingdom grow from the first village? Is that area in which our village is placed in the world map ours? Why is there no general overview explanation?! This game is very complicated and very different than the classic pc game. Im totally lost.
We played this game on the pc a while back and loved it and we got back into it we were so happy when we found out there was a app so we can check it at work and stuff the app hard to get use to going from pc to the app our major issue with the app is its a little hard to place building in the right spot and you cant move them unless you spend money also our building on the app are telling us it takes 20hrs to build but when we get home on pc they have like 2hrs kinda annoying when we know the building is done and on the app it is still going.
Fix 1 bug have 5 more. Cant even log in after update today. Fun game when it works but dont spend any money until they figure this out.
We feel robbed with the cards. Whats the point of having a Merhcants can carry x3 what they carry but when we dispatch one merchant it says Im left with 17 not 19 merchants left. No point of the card.
This game is one of our favorite MMOs, but the app is awful. You cant send mails, you cant send attacks with captains and full armies. It need major work. Ill update our review when the developers patch these problems.
We love playing this game with our dad. It reminds us of the good old days.
Classic game mixed with a classic phone game.
We played this on pc a ehile back and just started on mobile. We cant do any quests without doing the "learn about invite a friend" quest but its bugged and crashed when we hit complete. It then sends us a mail saying it is complete but it actually is not.
We liked this game when we played on PC. Thanks the developer to bring it on mobile. We loved it.
There is fun to be had, and its been interesting learning. But this app is plagued with bugs. Fresh update yesterday, with improved UIs and market info, but for all we have spoken with, actually made it worse as now not allowing transfers of anything except wood as a bug. Also have read and can confirm that ransacking not available on some devices including iOS… Mail has been hosed up as long as Ive been playing, and if switching between villages, app needs you to open certain aspects of village or it still recognizes previously selected village values. Whats worse, is that all the links for help or support send you to the pc game site or wiki, which while similar has many differences. Launched too early IMO, poor performance.
We initially couldn't run the game, but we got a new phone. It works great now! Thanks for the response.
Glad they got it on mobile we've been on and off the game for about 7 years and the app runs fantastic.
This app sucked us back into playing the game after a two year break! DEV did awesome job executing the app to be playable just like the pc game.
UI is awkward. No way around it. Great game though.
This game is easy enough to pick up and play. Its fun too but there are some kinks. Our ale production doesnt seem to work. We cant send our monks and other glitchy things that dont make the game unplayable but would be nice if it all worked as it should. All in all a good game.
We been playing stronghold since when it first came out on pc and really love it. We now play stronghold kingdoms exclusively over all online games. The pic version work really well but the Mobil app needs some tweaking to make it an equal with the pic version. We still play on the Mobil app when we're not at home because we love the game that much. Get it and enjoy.
It's a great game, although we wish resources were generated faster.
Mobile version is new and is getting better! But we cannot send mail! This has been hurting us very much! Please fix this.
This is not the Stronghold we know! Where is the free build option? And on top of that we lost our village and we wasn't gone for very long at all! What a rip off! Better stick to the computer versions. This is not even worth our time VERY disappointing.
This game is so awesome we have been playing for a while on PC and was so excited when it was announced to be on Mobile, you don't have to spend money to keep playing or to even get far in the game. Don't give up on the game the longer you play the more fun it gets.
Very true to the computer game.
When SHK said they were going mobile with the game, we were expecting another low pixel type game. However, they have proven us wrong. This mobile version of the game is pretty amazing and we love the recent updates they made to it. Now we can be online all day at work and not worry about what's happening to our account. Even better on our iPad, bigger screen. Lol. Great job SHK. Everyone needs to get this. This game is amazing.
This game is very fun. We started playing on PC a little while ago, and we've got to say, we're extremely happy it is on mobile now. This is a game where you can check up a few times a day once you get going and get everything set up. The concepts of attacking and defending are great, and the community is even greater. The only issue we personally have seen so far is what it does to our phone battery. It drains it like 10-15 percent instantly, then it continues to go down fast from there. It kind of prevents us from playing while we're out due to needing to conserve battery. But other than this, this game is one we will be playing for a very long time.
Haven't played game yet, but we're so excited.
We've been a fan of Stronghold since the original was released in 2001. Stronghold Kingdoms is no exception. We're stoked that the mobile version is finally out. While we do think that it could use some improvements (especially where building placement is concerned), it's off to a great start. Once it's been patched up a bit, and feels a bit more like the PC version, we'll happily write another review – with a five star rating.
We're getting used to everything so far so good! :).
Returning player from when Stronghold Kingdoms first released on steam. We have some bugs we would like to report to help development of this game on the iOS platform but do not know the best way to report them. This game is a work in progress be patient as the kinks are worked out.
As long as the PtW aspect doesn't bug you this game is fun, but if you progress far enough you'll find a huge jump where it requires major real money expenditures to keep up. Fun until then though.
This app could have been so much better. The pc version of SHK is a wonderful game, we have been playing for many years. To hear that a mobile version was coming out was exciting, but after years of working on this app it came out poorly. It is very complicated and hard to access. We understand that the app is new and has some bugs to be worked out but the design is bad as well. It is hard to do most of the need features to play shk. If you haven't played shk on the computer or aren't going to, don't download. This is not a game to only be played on the phone.
We are not sure if this app supports only global conflict world but we can't get out of it and go to our world. We are not sure if anyone has experienced this.
Just bring out the original strong hold game play and charge $20 for it. The interface is cumbersome, awkward and not near as fun as the stronghold we played in back in high school. Piss poor disappointment.
We started playing this game some odd 6 years ago on PC, and it never failed to be a 30-minute-a-day type. One could argue this game is like Clash of Clans, but it's so different in all the right ways. If you spawn in the right places, you've got yourself a Game of Thrones-like, topdown strategy game like no other. The attack style is fun, and the defense style is even better, but the real magic happens away from the battlefield, making allies with those around you, and working together to push the borders of your enemies further and further back until you have a real foothold in real world regions. The most fun we personally have had, is spawning in an outside region of where we live, and working together with new friends to fight into that region and build a new village where our home is in real life. 10/10, a truly great experience.
We have been waiting for this to come out on mobile for a very long time now here it is we plan on being a king by the end of the week.
Great game. Just wish we knew how to use reinforcing troops in battle.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.0.1953
- Size: 684.14 MB
- iOS: 12.0 or later
- Languages: EN, FR, DE, IT, JA, KO, PL, PT, RU, ZH, ES, ZH, TR
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References, Loot Boxes, Frequent/Intense Contests, Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: Firefly Studios
Last updated: 15th October 2025 | Genre: Strategy, Simulation | Developer: Firefly Studios