You largely answered your own question.

You think once you get the stronghold it will be wonderful, but you need even more scrolls to do the things inside, it would seem the most benefit you get is access to the special equipment, but these are expensive to research and need loads of silver to make .

No I am not selling you the stronghold, the game is, if you have the time and money to spare.

The stronghold is like the town, you can build things in there, in fact you must,but unlike in the town you have to use other things.

You convert the 5 basic resources into 5 new resources, its slow and expensive.

First you use standard equipment for our hero,which is useful in the early part of the game, though it is also true to sy that some of this equipment is the best you can get in the game ( so far).

Then you find that most of the invaders equipment is better than the standard equipment, so you change to that as fast as your wallet allows.

Then they introduced special equipment which gives you even more benefits.

The drawback of this ,and a clever ruse by the owners is, that in order to make this special equipment, you have to use some of the standard and invader equipment to do so.

Not only that, it costs mega silver, some of the cheaper special equipment costs around 5 million silver,and the newer introductions much more , theres one helmet costs 91 million.

Also, before you can even attemot to forge any of these items, you have to study drafts, costs time money and coal..nothing is free and easy.

Oh I forgot, thought you had done when you got 10,000 scrolls to build the stronghold..think again  you need them for working inside.

What do you get free ?

A boost on gold and resource yielding, a few other benefits, and improvements when you upgrade to higher levels. 

Still want to buy?