Fungeons And Dragons: Project Eternity's Strongholds

Are you ready for a painfully tired joke? Oh man, you'd better sit down for this one. That way, you won't be able to throw your chair at me. OK, here goes: we haven't heard anything substantial about Project Eternity... in an eternity. Urgh. I told you it would be painful. It really has been a while, though, so let us excitedly giggle and wriggle over Obsidian's breakdown of the modern hopefully-classic's stronghold system. You can tax people! And imprison them! And somehow still be a "hero" I guess! Videogames!

In short, the stronghold is your main base of operations, and you can refurbish and upgrade it to grant you all sorts of special options and abilities. Resting stat bonuses, crafting ingredients, special offers from rare visitors, bonus adventures for idle party members, and wealth via taxation of surrounding lands are just a few of the bullet points. Also, you can cram your enemies in dungeons, thus making Project Eternity probably the only game ever to use dungeons as they were actually intended.

"If you have cleared the dungeon and built a prison under your stronghold, then when you are fighting some of the named NPC’s in the game, you will be given an option to take them prisoner instead of killing them. Prisoners are kept in a cell in your prison, where you can visit them and talk to them, and occasionally use them as leverage later in the game. But you will need to keep your security level high, or you might suffer from a prison break."

Your stronghold can also come under attack, at which point you can rush back and hold down the fort or rely on pre-prepared defenses and hope for the best. That might leave your troops dead/on fire/with a series of uncomfortable bruises, however, so it's not always the best option. It really depends on the size and level of the attacking force, though.

Sounds like a neat addition to me - at least, so long as there's not too much micromanagement involved. I mean, sure, adventuring is great, but it's like they say: home is where your captive-overstuffed underground prison is. What do you think, though?