Stronghold: Crusader is an RTS where you need to build a castle, manage the food and weapons production, resource influx, taxes and peasants' happiness and efficiency, while at the same time dealing with enemies and occasional disasters such as plagues, fires and pestilence.

The game is a successor to Firefly Studios's 2001 game Stronghold. Crusader has much in common with the original Stronghold, but differs from its predecessor in the fact that the game is no longer set in a pseudo-Europe, instead being set in the Middle East during the Crusades.