How is Stronghold different from Streets and Alleys?

One free cell. The deal, the suit-blind downward building, the single-card moves and the open spaces are all identical; Stronghold simply adds one square beside the board where a single card can be parked and later retrieved. Because the deals match and the cell is optional, any Streets and Alleys game you could win you can also win here.

How is Stronghold different from Siegecraft?

Where the Aces start. Siegecraft founds the four Aces before the deal and lays out eight piles of six; Stronghold buries the Aces in the deal and lays out four piles of seven and four of six. Both have exactly one cell and the same building rule, so digging out the Aces is Stronghold's opening problem and does not exist in Siegecraft.

How many cards can the cell hold?

One. While it holds a card it refuses every other, and the card inside can be played back to the tableau or up to a foundation at any time.

Can I move a run of cards together?

No. Only the top card of a pile moves, one card per move, even when the cards beneath it are already in descending order.

Does suit matter when building?

Only on the foundations, which each collect a single suit from the Ace up. In the tableau any card one rank lower may be placed on a pile's top card, whatever its suit or colour.

Why does the game not tell me when I have lost?

Because with a free cell it almost never can. While the cell is empty nearly every exposed card has a legal move into it, and while it is full that card usually has a move back out, so a board is hardly ever completely locked. Rather than claim a verdict it cannot deliver, the game leaves the judgement to you.

Stronghold Solitaire - Play Online & 100% Free

Play Stronghold Solitaire — Streets and Alleys, and One Place to Put Something

Stronghold is Streets and Alleys with a single free cell beside the board, and that one square changes the whole feel of the game. The deal is identical: all 52 cards face up in eight piles, four of seven and four of six, with the Aces buried wherever the shuffle put them. The building is identical too — down by rank regardless of suit, one card at a time, and an empty pile takes any card. What is new is that you may park exactly one card off the board and take it back whenever you like. In a game where a blocked pile is otherwise simply blocked, that is not a small thing. Free in your browser, no sign-up.

How Do You Play Stronghold?

Goal: build all four foundations from Ace to King by suit.

Setup

Tableau: eight piles, face up — four of seven cards and four of six (52 cards).
Free cell: one, empty at the start. It holds exactly one card.
Foundations: four empty piles. The Aces start buried in the tableau.
No stock, no waste, no redeal.

Rules

Build tableau piles down by rank regardless of suit: any 9 goes on any 10.
Move one card at a time. Packed sequences never travel together.
The free cell takes any single card from a pile top, and that card may go back to the tableau or up to a foundation at any time. It holds one card and refuses a second.
An empty pile accepts any card.
Foundations build up by suit from the Ace. Cards on a foundation stay there.
There is no redeal. Play until the foundations are complete or you run out of moves.

Stronghold Strategy

One cell sounds generous after Streets and Alleys. It is, but only if you keep it available.

Treat the cell as a bridge, not a cupboard. Its value is letting you take two cards off a pile in the right order — lift the blocker into the cell, move the card underneath, then bring the blocker back down onto its new host. A card parked with no plan to retrieve it turns the game back into Streets and Alleys, but one card shorter.
Dig for the shallowest Ace first. Nothing banks until an Ace is free, and with only one cell you can rescue exactly one awkward card per dig. Count the cover on each Ace before you commit.
Keep your pile tops spread across the ranks. The build ignores suit, so all that matters about a host is its rank. Eight tops at eight different ranks give the next uncovered card the best chance of a home; two tops at the same rank waste a pile.
An empty pile beats the cell. A space holds a card and can then be built on, while the cell is a dead end until you empty it. If you can clear a pile, do — and then use the cell to help fill it usefully.

Stronghold in the Beleaguered Castle Family

Stronghold belongs to the open castle line that descends from Beleaguered Castle: no stock, nothing hidden, single-card moves, and a game decided entirely by the order in which you dig. It is Streets and Alleys with one reserve square, and it is catalogued that way — the PySol Fan Club collection implements it as exactly that, and it appears in Thomas Warfield's Pretty Good Solitaire, where the single cell is described as the lifeline the older game lacks.

Its twin in this catalogue is Siegecraft, which adds the same single cell to Beleaguered Castle instead — so the Aces begin on the foundations and the opening problem disappears. Playing the two in turn shows exactly what the buried Aces are worth. There is also a version of this board with two cells, called Private Lane; this catalogue does not carry it, because a third entry differing only in how many cells sit beside an identical board would be a setting wearing a name rather than a game.

One honest note on difficulty. Figures circulate for Stronghold, but none of them carries a method or a sample size, so this page does not quote one. What can be said without a citation is a matter of logic: every game of Streets and Alleys that can be won can also be won here, because the deals are identical and the cell is optional. Stronghold is easier than its parent by however much a single card of storage is worth — and no more.

For the same board without the lifeline, play Streets and Alleys; for four cells and alternating colours, play FreeCell.