[Dan Petrovic]

I was a little nervous when that teaser was revealed because previous games with heavy-handed theming have been far from my favorites.

Now I know that correlation is not causation. Recycle Rush and Lunacy wouldn't have been much better if they took away the themes (although, RR would have felt a little less FLL-like...).

In the case of Stronghold, it still would have been a good game without the theme, but I do think the medieval theme helped in some ways - particularly in naming the different Defenses. It was largely unnecessary, though.

All in all, I'd prefer to avoid corny themes (do we really have to call these noodles "litter"?) but if they're going to use themes, I'd rather they not lead to core game mechanics that are frustrating to play with like the regolith from Lunacy or counter-clockwise motion of Overdrive.