These are good news:

- an Alpha bigger than ever, with many new players (playtesters?) taking part. A challenge for the server.

- Captains and Tactics implemented, so that almost all scheduled features will be active then (Spies missing).

Stronghold Kingdoms has proved to be an exciting game along the series. It is open in different economic ways for players to specialize and progress. Lots of measures and levels influence popularity - never before, providing various food types had so high an impact.

- For the MMO nature, Firefly developed a a new manner of castle warfare. Battles are fought calculated by the server. Placing troops at the start is significant for the outcome of the battle. Here it's where Tactics and Captains will help to lead and order troops.

I love the new economics, but I wonder how a Campaign will be worked in.

Tactics. That's going to be fun

Has Firefly decided whether to rename it to MonkWars?
Partly kidding there, but I play the game for castles and armies =)

The win condition for Alpha 3 was great by that potentially every player could take part.
On the other side, there's nothing much in triggering monks. It turned out a matter of quantity rather than skills.

Firefly was told by members of both big houses the feeling that monk power ruled the test too much. They may adjust that before Alpha 4, perhaps by increasing the costs of Faith points per monk action.