Take-Two sent us two screenshots and a movie from Stronghold 2 revealing details about “Gong Farmer”, a term used in England in the Middle Ages to describe the guy whose job it was to empty latrine pits that sprung up in and around a crowded village. In Stronghold 2, piles of refuse will start to spring up and if left alone, they will grow until eventually, they start to produce deadly disease (which has a negative effect on your castle’s popularity). So to deal with this problem, you must make sure your castle has sufficient Gong Farmers to clear up the mess. What works well with this system, is that it links very nicely with other systems, such as rats, falconry and apothecaries, to create its own mini ecosystem. In the works at Firefly Studios, Stronghold 2 will be released by 2K Games in April 2005.