Greetings My Lord, current guide's main purpose is to give new players obscure information about the game and tricks on how to play it. More veteran players probably will know most (if not even more) content of the current guide, but nevertheless, the game has a pretty successful re-release and even without discounts got a decent playerbase of newcomers who just don't know the basics, how much each place at stockpile holds, or building placement recommendations.

Before reading this guide, I hope you finished the ingame tutorial and played at least few skirmish battles or few trail missions to cover the basics. There are be no recommendations to the advanced players like "Best PvP zerg-rush tactics" or something like that, there be most useful info about solo-coop based gameplay. Current guide is most adapted to the Definitive Edition and the new features like Auto-Buy/Sell.

First thing first - the game got the wonderful ingame manual, created by the developers with a lot of useful info, like characteristics of each unit, and how to play in total. It's the great guide, and it's official. It's made like in old times, when you got a jewel case with game and there was one printed. And it's translated into most of the supported languages, so if you are not an English-speaking user, you will find it easy to use to, you can find it on the main page of your Steam's Library on the top right side of a screen. Some small amount of information will be taken from there, but it's definitely worth checking it.

- "Not enough wood m'lord!"
Stronghold's Motto


At stockpile all Wood, Stone, Iron and Oil (building and crafting resources) stocked up to 48 units;
Wheat and Flour (bread materials) up to 32;
And Hops with Ale is up to 16.

Usually builds 4-6 sized stockpile, but, if you are in need small and compact castle, knowing of these numbers will help you to save space building lesser storages, with new auto-trade feature, it's completely possible to build small 2-3 size stockpiles without overflowing them. But you must know, that if you auto-buy stuff, up to the maximum number, there never be second pile of resources, it all be stocked in one pile, but if some materials are gathered, and if auto-sale was set not pretty low of max storage amount, there can be spawn a second pile, which not be removed with auto sell, until it be completely depleted.

Each armory can hold up to 50 units of weapons in total, no matter how many different weapon types are placed.

- "As me been told, the truth - is that, what is now the good for the king... All the rest is the
lie and the crime..."

Science Fiction Novel - Hard to Be a God, by A. and B. Strugatsky, 1964
Each fear level will make three separate mechanics:

1. Change Popularity level. It's will allow not only an increase in taxation but also mainly compensate for other penalties like small rations or complete absence of food with other popularity sources if positive, or if negative, it's the penalty itself.

2. Increase a unit attack force. It will not increase defense capabilities, only the attack rating. For example, usually a crossbowman needs 12 shots to kill a swordsman, with a max positive rating, there would only be need only 10 or with max penalty - 16. Same for all units, melee or ranged.

3. Change total production output. For Bad FF, it will substantially increase the total amount of produced good, up to 50%. For example - if ox tether brings 8 stones at default FF, with maxed bad - 12. If fletcher brings only 1 bow / crossbow at default FF, with maxed bad there every second trip to the armory, he will bring 2 bows / crossbows.

But the Good FF is works a little different for production in comparison with bad, because workers become lazy and total production output will matter from placement of Good Things inside your domain (then where bad things placed doesn't matter at all). They will try come to the nearest free good thing to take a rest there and if its pretty far away, they will still go there, even if walking distance from workplace and to the good thing will spend more time than production itself.

So, there are two major strategies for placing good things to keep production stable:

a) Place good things at some close distance near workshops, in that case they will spend the least amount of time walking, and production will stay at reasonable speeds.

b) Or place them at inaccessible spots, or simply behind the walls. In that case workers will just wander across your castle for some time, but still, it may take way less time than across the edge of your domain. But, if you put them just across the locked main gate, at the moment then it be opened to release the troops, many workers can just rush there, so make sure they can't access those places at all. Some completely inaccessible high mountains or islands at lakes or rivers, are the best places for that.


What to take you may ask? That will depend on two major variables: current goods and production situation and a map itself.

For the map, if you have a small area to build, bad thing can be the great way to increase production, allowing a stronger army than with bonuses. But if you have enough resources, a decent economy, and already some forces recruited, you can tear down all bad things and replace them with good for the last advance to the enemy, but be sure that your economy will not crumble after this. Because taxation is rarely more useful than large scale production, and food production can be just not enough to support your population. Advanced taxation and food further.

"You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage. Besides you don't build a better world by choppin' heads off and giving decent girls away to frogs."

Fantasy Novel - Witches Abroad, by Sir Terry Pratchett, 1991


Right placement of production buildings is essential for managing an effective castle, which will allow you to more quickly resist stronger enemies and create an army. Every production building in the game relies on the stockpile, as the main source of materials to take or put back in as an intermediate product. So, the first thing is stockpile placement itself:

Then the game starts, you can slow down the game (+ - keys) and quickly delete before there be placed some starting goods or pause the game right after start (space key) and press “Undo” button, it will tear down stockpile before anything was placed and you can build stockpile much closer to the oasis, iron ore or even to the oil. That way you can drastically increase production output, because walking is usually the most limiting factor for your economy.

If a stockpile is placed near an oasis, the total amount of output from the wheat and hops farms can increase substantially. Windmills can be placed farther from stockpile, because there are three workers at the same time, and even 2-4 workshops away from the stockpile, it can work almost 100% of the time. Bakeries must be placed somewhere between the stockpile and granary, but because there is only one trip between each of them, they can be placed after Fletcher’s Workshops, about which we talk next.

One of the best ways to create a steady flow of money, is weapon workshops, especially a Fletcher’s Workshop. To craft one bow, there must be taken two units of wood from stockpile, for crossbow – three. Fletcher can carry only one plank at the time, so he must do few trips back and forth before he starts a work, after that – he will make one trip to the armory, to deliver a weapon (and even if there two bows, from the Fear Factor, he still delivers both them at the same time). In reasons before, fletchers’ workshop must be placed most closer than any other buildings to the stockpile.

Only Poleturner’s workshop beside Fletcher’s is the only workshop that will require two trips to the stockpile if pikes are produced; spears (and all other workshops) will use only one unit of resource.

Breweries and inns are one of the farthest away from the stockpile buildings in comparison with others , because they will need only one trip back and forth, and most of the time is spent in their buildings respectively.

Because wood is single depleted resource in the game (all woods be cut down, with enough woodcutters), there can be placed enough woodcutters’ huts and wood is cheap to buy in case of emergency, so never place stockpiles closer to wood for gathering it, just place huts in the middle of the woods or from edges if you need to clear that space. Sometimes, you will find woods as a more frustrating element of gameplay than some resource.

And the most independent building from a stockpile placement perspective is the quarry: its speed of bringing stone blocks depends on the number of ox tethers, so you can place a stockpile closer to the rock deposits to reduce the number of workers, but after you save some space for oasis, workshops and iron ore deposits.

- "To alcohol! The cause of - and solution to - all of life's problems."
Animated Sitcom - The Simpsons, Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, S8E18


The Ale is one of the best in game mechanics, which usually underappreciated by players, but only ale alone can reduce spends on food completely or allow to sell it for profits. For some exemplary numbers, we will assume that all buildings relatively close to the stockpile:

1 Hops Farm produces enough hops for 3 breweries, and 1 brewery, is supports 2 inns, in total 1 farm can grow enough hops for 5-6 inns. Buying some starting hops and ale recommended (~3-10 units of each, depending on a scenario), because a cold start of the ale industry can cause heavy popularity fluctuations.

Selling hops or ale for money is not advised, because yields of hops are pretty low and producing ale takes a lot of time, which is just not worth it - 1 unit of hops worth 8 GP, 1 unit of Ale – 10 GP, so sell it (or auto-sell it) only to clear up the stockpile.

One inn produces +8 happiness for exactly every 30 peasants, so, keeping ale production scaled accordingly and with proper inn placement, you can completely forget about food production, or at least reduce it. But if you got Cathedral or even with Church popularity bonuses, you can remove food production (or forbid consumption of it and sell it) and have low taxes. Even if you buying hops (ale buying is works too, but way less efficient), you still can have completely independent from oases domain and produce effective army with always positive economy.

- "There was no safety. There was no pride. All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died."
Fantasy Novel - Going Postal, by Sir Terry Pratchett, 2004


In some scenarios you will be placed in a situation like a very hard-to build economy based on resources, because they can be extremely limited or absent at all, in that way, you must buy some raw resources and from them build the most efficient producing for sell and taxing economy. The most useful way to sustain that kind of economy is producing the leather armor and crossbows. Additional bonuses for it – nobody must go outside your walls, so workers are as safe as they can be, and crossbowmans are available all the time for their base price, which is excellent for starting defense.

Leather armor will be limited by accessing to the oasis and, each sell will bring you 12, knowing that you are invested only once on workshop and dairy farm, they will bring you are a pure profit, but if dairy farms are far away or undefended, this can cause some inconsistences in production. One dairy farm is supports 10 ±2 leather workshops with minor waiting for cows time.

Walking distance is not a consistent measure for tanneries, because they can go from the workplace, don’t find a cow and go back to the workplace instead of waiting. On the large scale this will be almost not seen, the main goal is to place enough tanneries so dairy farmers don’t have the opportunity to produce cheese. One cow is enough for three leather armors, so, I recommend to you build tanner’s workshop, most possibly close to the armory, not a dairy farm.

The more consistent way to get money, is massive crossbow production, each crossbow sells for 30 G, even if wood was bought, materials costs for 12 G, in total – 18 G of profits. That will allow you almost from the start to have great income, and even if you don’t have access to the oasis or tanner’s workshop, you will still be able to equip a large defensive force, just buying leather armor because they are pretty cheap - 25 G per one.

Combined with the complete ale coverage mechanic and religious building bonuses, you are not only completely covering the lack of food, but still able to have low taxes and strong economy. Additionally, if it’s a compact castle, without farmers / miners / woodcutters e.t.c., religious bonus can be a great way to compensate for a bad fear factor and boost your crossbow-based economy even more.  Religious bonus will be review in the next chapter.

Bad Fear Factor is great in that situation, because from the same amount of wood, you produce more goods, you still will spend 12 G per work on materials, but the outcome will increase from 18 coins (from 1 crossbow) up to 33 (from 1,5 crossbow per work), and because this situation is some kind of a race, it's wise to combine ale, religion, and half rations to achieve the best results as soon as possible.

- "God doesn't take vacations, does he?"
- "Did you ever hear of the Dark Ages?".

Comedy Film - Bruce Almighty, by Tom Shadyac, 2003
This is the most powerful positive population bonus in the game, and yet – most hard to get and often useless to max. It is separated into two different mechanics:

1. Building Bonus - it’s the most stable and consistent bonus. Just build a church for a permanent +1 bonus and a cathedral for +2 (it will be gone if the building is destroyed). It's almost always from the “must have” category bonus. Build them as soon as a basic economy be ready, an army for first defenses is gathered and you can spare some money for them. Because they are so big, you can build them far away from your keep, just in some safe spot, and work in there can be put to sleep, not to force priests to run across the map. More churches and cathedrals count as regular chapels.

2. Blessing bonus – by itself, it can give +2 popularity for each 25% population blessed, up to +8 at 100%. It’s possible to achieve with enough chapels in most populated spots in a small and well-organized fortress, but almost impossible if you have large domain with dozens of farmers, miners and woodcutters across it. Well, not “impossible” but definitely not reasonable.

These bonuses are stackable, allowing you to achieve +11 in total, but if be honest, just to have +3+2/4 it’s already great—way more than you may need. Who said that faith can’t replace food?

Blessing mechanics it’s not complicated, but inconsistent — priests must manually come to the peasant, bless him and for the next 3 minutes (at default 40 speed) he will count as blessed. After every 4 blessings, priests will go back to the chapel for… *cough* “reloading”… Vancian Magic in action, or blessing on ration cards… Never mind.

Additional note - mothers and childrens from hovels don't need to be blessed. You can place them outside of chapels range.

- "Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero."
Fantasy Novel - Going Postal, by Sir Terry Pratchett, 2004


It’s most base moneymaking mechanic, but not the best one, it’s good to trade some surplus popularity in exchange for money, but rarely worth to increasing the food consumption to cover them, beside some niche situations like early attacks and enemy’s harassment.

Amount of taxes at the same levels majorly depends on the advantage the player or AI opponent has (which is set in Custom Skirmish setup or default set for each map of the trails by devs). Each advantage gives a bonus to the collected taxes, disadvantages matter only for the starting sum of money.

Note: 100% tax is when 1 peasant pays 1 gold.

As you can see, if you play with advantage, it can be wise to make taxes based economy, at least for begginer players, it will be possible to concentrate more on warfare and how units works, but for latest missions of trails (and co-op is pretty challenging, created for more veteraned players) you must get used to play when AI got tax advantage, not you.


As you can see, in trail missions, AI lords usually have a good advantage over players, and this  means that they get better taxes for the same amount of popularity. General rule - increased rations aren't worth higher taxes. Usually with small taxes, selling excess is way more profitable than increasing rations and trying to have more income, especially in large domains. Taxes higher than the 4th level are recommended only when you got a large amount of popularity from other sources, because popularity starts to drop not by -2, but by -4 per level for the same amount of increasing taxes as before.

European and Arabic Bowmans are very similar to each other. Arabic shoots a little faster than European and gives substantionally more DPS output, but each european, with bought bow got price of 43 G in total, which on 32 G lesser than Arabic counterpart and even more cheaper if that bow produced.




Most useless, at the same time, one of the most essential units in the game - Spearmans. Dies in metric tons under arrows, rocks and almost every melee unit, nether the less, extreme fast and cheap production of spears (3 G on bought materials) and cheap hire itself, allow to player equip substantial force to defense. Under covering of friendly fire, can give enough time to dispatch more heavier troops in early stages of game.


Macemans - these boys usually are the main power in the game, fast enough to travel under arrows and dodge from them, can dig, can climb, and if they get one the walls, be sure - they will fast clean them up, and good thing to have few in reserve, to quicky seal enemy’s breach.




Crossbowmans are gives the best range output in the game, beside stone in the face from a mangonel, they shoot much slower than any other ranged unit, but way more devastating in total. They are not only great at defenses on the walls and towers, but with coverage of portable shields – on offense they are good as well; leather armor on them gives substantially more health. These guys with a couple of healers will make an extremely serious force.



Pikemans - Mirrored version of the macemans, same production cost, less damage, more damage resistance. Ideal for keeping advancing enemies, under cover of friendly arrows and can dig a moat under substantial enemy fire. Best unit for the front line of defense.



Swordsmans - are the toughest and strongest units in the game. And slowest too. They are great for assaulting the hardest lines of defense, but their speed will punish for mistakes, if they will stuck in a pitch ditch, they will all burn without chances to get out, but if they manage come to the enemy keep – the victory is in a few moments away.


Knights are slightly less damage resistant and not able to climb on walls and towers version of the swordsmans, but they for that price got most fastest speed in the game. They are difficult to produce on most maps in large quantities, because you are heavily limited by stable placement, and in total, they are bad for frontal assaults, but great for covering the flanks, harassing enemy ground-ranged units, destroying siege engines that attack your castle, and developing the success of the offensive.


Slaves are great for digging a moat at your domain right at start of the game, harrassing some outposts or unguarded buildings and in dying. In the last one they are even better than spearmans, but if you need some cheap but short distraction from enemy fire, they can be excellent cannon fodder.




Slingers are bad in common, but the cheap price allows you to keep a massive army of them. They are great against monks, spearmans and decent against skirmishers, they are quick, and if some will die, it’s doesn’t problem at all, always you can hire more.


Assassins are expensive for their basic damage / resistance characteristics, but they are invisible to the enemy while no enemy units are near (peasants count too) and when assassins don’t attack. But their ability to climb on walls, gives them unique tactical possibilities; For example, besides destroying the enemy gatehouse, they can capture it, and that not only allows assault units to come inside but also makes it possible to quickly and simply climb your ranged troops on the enemy walls and towers, gaining a height advantage against enemy troops.


Horse Archers are a unique unit that can fire on the move, dodging not only enemy ground forces but ranged attacks too. They are great for starting a fight or harassment of enemy production like, to make the enemy starve and deplete resources. Even few of them on hostile oasis can make lots of troubles.




Arabian Swordsmans are something between Pikemans and European Swordsmans, they are reasonably slow, strong, and damage resistant, making them one of the best defensive and under cover of an friendly fire – assault units in the game. Just lack of utility, like digging the moat, doesn’t give them a place above the pikemans.




Fire Thrower are utility unit, few of them can burn dozens of heavily armored units at narrow way, light up pitch ditches when enemy is really near the walls and under cover shields and moderate melee forces, can burn enemy castle throw thin fortifications.

Skirmishers are decent units for hit-an’-run, can make heavy javelin volleys, and run away to reload. But even in melee they are pretty decent too, but on the walls, they count only as moderate melee support to keep walls clean.



Sappers are utility unit, they not much of the fighters, but able to survive in fire and traps, great for disarming the approaches to the castles, and breaking down walls and towers.



Camel Lancers is one of the best units in the game. They are as fast as knights, and only a little weaker than macemans, but extremely cheap for their qualities. It’s almost the perfect unit for defense from raids, destroying siege weapons, and flanking maneuvers.




Heavy Camels – strong melee and decent ranged units at the same time, fast and armored, jack of all trades. With portable shields coverage, they are great to assault fortifications, but it is the single unit that requires not only a decent amount of money to hire, but also 2 peasants for each unit, which will limit large production even with a strong economy.



Demolishers are advanced sappers; they are not only more damage resistant, but also have a shield, with its own health pool, which gives them great protection against ranged troops. They are great to disarm first lines of defenses and make a breach in the walls.




Eunuchs powerful melee units and their main advantage is area damage; they cut down multiple units at the same time, even swordsmans are not safe from them. But they are slow and crossbowmans shred them to pieces.




Healers are utility units only, and they are… Heal your units. The only downside with them is they can’t heal themselves. They are great on towers with range troops, so place two of them on each to make sure that they not only heal others but themselves too.




Ambushers are completely the same units as Fire Throwers only with two exceptions. Then they are stationary – ambushers become invisible and throw projectiles twice faster.




This is possibly the best units in the game, Black Monks and Temple Guards are extremely cheap, and way sturdier than any other unit for that money. If you build a cathedral early in the game, it can make a serious dent in your treasure, but make available to you the best possible defense for the early game. Their major weakness is vulnerability to the ranged fire.



Tunnelers will dig tunnels under enemy walls and towers to collapse them. They are weak, and they can do almost nothing except tunnels. Lookout Tower, Perimeter Turret and Defense Turret will be destroyed after the first tunnel; Square and Round towers cannot be dug up. In the walls, sappers left breach in 1 unit wide, so to breach 3 units thick wall, you need 3 diggers in the row at the same time. Combining them with sappers to defuse traps and cavalry to hold the breach from repairing while the main army coming is advised.



Laddermans are... Bring ladders to the walls. What else did you expect? Well, they're even cheaper than slaves, so you can hire them, just to have some number of units to dismiss and right after re-hire hundreds of proper units at the same time at the late game or just draw fire for a few moments from advancing troops.




This is the most useful utility unit in the game, king of the siege, master of defenses. At the Engineers and their work, we will look at the next chapter.

- "He'd been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower."
Fantasy Novel - Mort, by Sir Terry Pratchett, 1987


Catapults are great. They got a awesome range of fire, farther than any range troopers, only balistas can hit it from the safe distance. Catapults fire with a straight trajectory, so it is hard to shoot targets behind a wall, or at towers that are covered with it. Still, if you place a dozen or more catapults in a row, you will be created some kind of “Catapult Shotgun”, which effectively destroys almost everything in the line of fire. The more the merrier. Greatly benefits from covering by portable shields.



Trebuchets are similar to the catapults, except: 1. The possible range of fire little further, which allow to throw stones deeper in the castle from the safe distance; 2. Stones fired by parabolic trajectory, so you can bombard buildings and units behind the walls. 3. It’s cannot be moved after construction.


Siege Towers have only one purpose: to allow quick access for troops on top of a wall. There can climb units that can’t use ladders, and it’s cannot be destroyed so easily. Main disadvantage—it ’s can’t be used on curved and diagonal walls.

Battering Ram is a decent way to make breaches in the walls or destroy gatehouses and towers, but despite the large healthpool against the arrows, it may be better to use just a few sappers covered by shields or just a company of melee units. But for some early sieges are good enough.


Portable Shields, are awesome. They great for cover at almost every situation, as for assault and for defense as well. Cover catapults from ballista fire? Sure. Archers against enemy fire? Yes. Assault force that takes down the gatehouse? Of course. Or just some ground defense forces while it's not possible to build walls? Great strategy. Just move them as separate squads with the units, or combined.



Fire Ballistas good in theory, but in practice – pretty week, because if there few of them, they all often select the single target to fire at it, and because of it, they just overkill it, while rest enemy forces is advance. But their range and ability to start a fire, are useful for some guerrilla tactics against weakly defended targets.



Tower Ballistas are really good for defending your castle from enemy siege engines, AI lords don’t use portable shields, so all catapults and trebuchets in direct line of sight can be taken down, only sometimes you will need to manually order fire, because they often shoot at the least prioritized targets.

Mangonels tools for taking out large amounts of enemies at the same time, no matter of their defense. It’s extremely inaccurate, so be aware of friendly fire; it can harm you more than enemy. In co-op gameplay, there is no friendly fire from it. If the enemy castle is pretty close to yours, even one mangonel can tear the enemy's base down, and then AI lord will constantly try to repair walls and towers, the economy can crumble, allowing you to take it down with ease.

- "We must fight... to run away!"
Fantasy Film - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, by Gore Verbinski, 2007

First thing you must understand is what "Height Advantage", it's not only work for missile units in towers, but for all terrain in total. So if the tower is pretty small, you can negate it by climbing on the hill. If your archers at the lookout tower one hill, shooting at archers in lookout tower on the plains, yours will have an advantage, for all towers and walls its works the same. Sometimes, a company of archers or crossbowmans, covered by some melee units and engineer's shields on the hill, can be a way better defense, than any tower, especially when you're short on supplies or enemy sends large squads of siege engines.

Basically, most melee fights can be compared with rock-paper-scissors, spearman beaten by Maceman/Pikeman, they are beaten by Swordsmans. But how to get to the melee fight, is the main art of the warfare. Each unit has its own strengths and weaknesses, and only by combining them can you defeat a truly powerful enemy.

Most fights happen near the walls of the castles, rarely in open field and if it so happens that you encounter the enemy in the open field and are forced to fight, always stop your archers and open fire with them, or even try to retreat at safe to fire positions, they are useless at melee fights. If you have an advantage in speed, you can use it to avoid close combat, for example – archers against pikemans or eunuchs.
 
In melee vs melee fights, always try to group your forces as close together as possible. In the game, hundreds and hundreds of units can be placed in the single tile, which from a bug become a feature, and if you get large forces in the small spot, you can inflict more damage on the enemy, than the enemy can on you, and you will win with fewer fallen troops than otherwise. When assaulting heavily guarded towers or keeps, try to do the same, select a few small squads and send them at the same spot for better effect.

Siege engines, such as catapults can be used against enemy units too, not only against the walls and towers, but be careful, if archers and crossbowmans can’t hurt your own troops, rocks from mangonels, trebuchets and catapults can and will.

Use terrain to your advantage, shooting from high rocks will help against enemy archers, the same as in the field or to nullify towers height advantage. Or simply hide behind them, to force enemy archers to come closer to you.

- " I am your king."
- "Well, I didn't vote for you."
Comedy Film - Monty Python and the Holy Grail, by the Monty Python comedy group, 1975


At the start of the game, AI lords will try to take down the closest or most valuable building that you have at the moment. In the first way, quarries, mines, woodcutter’s huts, and in the second variant—granaries, armories and barracks, place them somewhere safe in advance. And your stockpile cannot be destroyed or stolen from it, so you must defend buildings around it. And if there only a small sabotage party, you can take them down by your own lord, it’s the most powerful unit in the game, he can take down a few swordmans and arabian healer can heal him after.
 
Build a large fortress may not be a good decision, if you will spend more time fixing the walls than boosting your economy or commanding an army, sooner or later, a enemy can simply overrun you, sometimes (especially at early stages of the game) the best way be just to build one-two towers, with a gatehouse near it and place a few archers. Always try to put crossbowmans on towers and walls as a priority, because they are the best defensive unit on the game. If you have one of two narrow ways to your keep, it be wise to build near it, from obstacle to obstacle, it will save a lot of stone and make it difficult to assault your walls, and fewer troops can cover a single way in.

Sometimes, when the enemy overwhelms you with siege engines, such as trebuchets or catapults, you can dig a moat instead of walls. It can be even more impenetrable than walls, but can be easily dug up if left unguarded. Another good way to have defense at the start of the game to make your starting keep a major part of your defenses, it’s cannot be destroyed, so hiding a tower behind it from possible routes of the enemy, can greatly boost your defense or with a small castle design, it can be a permanent solution.

Don’t underestimate the Killing Pits, if you have spare wood, you can place them instead of selling, or if some enemy units advanced inside your domain and you are don’t have units to take them down, you just can place few rows of pits on the road of invaders to take them down. Pitch Ditch is can be useful too, but you must be careful not to light up the oil before time, the best way be to keep only few outlook towers with Braziers, but without archers inside, to have one-two lads near them. And then, when the time is right, come inside and light them up, or simply – don’t put braziers in advance, keep archers on the walls and towers and put a few at the right moment. Just don’t forget to remove them when you will restore pits, or they be lighted against a few spearmans.

You can use hovels as some layer of additional protection; it’s weak, but at least it will not take valuable space inside the castle and force the enemy to change their way. And if you are on the hill you will not be able to dig a moat, so if you build hovels or good / bad things around your walls, you will be protected against the assassins on that side.

Don’t place the Apothecary in advance, or at least if while you don’t know the enemies behavior, and only then cows constantly launch at your castle, you can place a few. It does only two tasks: cure active clouds of plague (useful only in some missions) and give passive resistance to all your troops, so 2-3 apothecaries are enough to be safe from cow’s rain.

Not only the plague, but fire too cannot spawn randomly in skirmishes and trail missions, so just you can not build wells and water pots in advance, still, it could be wise to know your enemy, such as Snake, he will send to you pretty early squads of slaves to harass your economy, they can be easily dispatched with starting spearmans. But a few missed firethrowers can within seconds destroy your base. In total, if your castle is protected, a well watch will just eat your rations and produce nothing, but if you build open domains only with some moat, to have few and leave some space between groups of buildings, it can be the right choice after all. Fire spreads only for up to 6 tiles, and walls don’t protect from the spread of it.

Try to build square or round towers as possible and place there ballistas. They got farthest possible range of fire in the game, you can destroy with them every possible siege engine, so if you have wall of square towers with them, it can be almost impenetrable fortress. And there lots of enemies and siege engines not a problem – mangonels excellently help you to reduce large amounts of enemy units at the short periods of time. Additionaly, wall of square / round towers is easier and faster to repair, but a little more expensive if it gets damaged after all.

Try to keep a few heavy units at your gatehouses, some AI Lords love to use assassins to capture them, and ranged troops cannot always kill them before they climb on the walls. Moat is good against assassins as well.

Most of the times, there aren't many reasons to build a large gatehouse; A small one, protected with towers, can be more desirable, because it’s way smaller and harder to hit, not only space-saving.

You can place dozens of ranged units at the same lookout tower at the same time. Just group all units in stacks of 5, pause the game, and send them there one after another, un-pause and there will be dozens of units, almost like a medieval machinegun.

Don’t forget to place stairs, or a second gatehouse, right after another, or you will not be able safely put your troops on the walls.

A few well-placed fire throwers can burn dozens or even hundreds of swordsmans and friendly fire is dangerous only to your units; your buildings are safe.

Sometimes, a lower wall can be lifesaving, allowing you to close the way to the enemy with way lesser costs for the same build distance.

If your castle is small and compact, probably building Arab ’s and Bedouin’s barracks after fortifications can be a good space-saving solution; they are cheap and you can manually set an assembly point.

Place a few trebuchets to throw cows over the wall on attacking forces, can a simple, but effective solution to help your ranged troops on defense.

- "Look, you stupid ba***rd, you've got no arms left!"
- "Yes I have."
- "Look!"
- "It's just a flesh wound."
Comedy Film - Monty Python and the Holy Grail, by the Monty Python comedy group, 1975


Every castle requires its own approach, and easiest ones, doesn’t require plan to capture them, but more complicated, like Wolf’s castle at its last stages need to have some ideas how to assault it, general roadmap for more tougher enemies be next:

1. How to weaken the castle before the assault:

The best ways to reduce defending forces are to make the enemy economy throttle: attack oasis’s farms, quarries, and mines with horse archers or slaves; bombard granaries from trebuchets to force enemy to spend money on food and rebuilding workshops in total.

2. How to disarm traps, if they are there:

Usually, for this business is well suited sappers and demolishers, but on classic trails, they are don’t available, so any large amounts of cheap units, like laddermans or slaves would be great for it. If enemies heavy range fire doesnt allow to come close, a few portable shields can do take some fire on themselves, at the end, just some your basic infantry must do the trick. Pitch ditches are most dangerous, and at the same time, you don’t need to sacrifice lots of troops to burn it down. Or simply light it up by fire throwers, but it can be a little tricky.

3. How to clear walls from ranged troops and defensive siege weapons: 

One of the best ways for it is lots of crossbowmen with portable shields; they are fantastic with it, horse archers have great mobility, and because shields are fast too, they are nicely combined. Heavy camels can be reasonably good too, because they don’t need to be covered by melee units. Dozen and more catapults as “Catapult Shotgun” are reasonable tactics as well, to blast most defenses with units together. Catapults and shields can be friends too.

If you have portable shields, tower’s ballistas are not a problem for you, but mangonels are another business; they will smash down not only your units, but shields and other siege engines too, so taking them down first is extremely advised. Horse archers are good for that kind of task. If towers are poorly guarded, small assassins company can cut down everyone on fortifications, or simply work fast, make a breach, get to the keep before mangonels will smash most of your forces.

4. How to breach or capture walls and kill the lord after;

It probably sounds simple, but sometimes it’s can be more dangerous that it should be, enemy can gather lots of melee troops for the last fight and they can be more powerful than yours and they can rush to the breach in order to keep you away. Because of that you got two major scenarios:

Make a breach with a catapult / ram / melee, place ranged troops near it and allow them to shoot the enemy down, through missing fortifications;

If you manage to bring a siege tower to the walls or capture a gatehouse with the assassins, you can place your ranged troops on enemy walls and towers to get a height advantage and finish off the rest of the troops while they are trying to get back the gatehouse.

Another way to take down most of inside troops, it’s just blindly shot them with “Area Attack” command over the walls, it’s will take some time, but still, very effective tactics. Defensive troops will not sally outside the walls (besides an attack party or if you entered into the breach) and AI's ranged troops at the keep will retaliate less accurate than yours.

If you do everything right - the keep is yours, and you can take down an enemy lord. After that you will get some spoils as rewards; usually it's some resources, weapons, food, and 25% of the total amount of current enemy treasure, but no less than a 500 G reward.

So, in some trail missions, when you get major disadvantage in 3 000 G, but AI lords for 40 000 G advantage, it can be reasonable to zerg-rush the enemy, and if it doesn’t hire huge army at moment of arrival your troops, you can get 8 000 – 10 000 G in first few minutes of match and build more powerful economy with army against rest AI lords.

- "So what do we do now?"
- "I say we get drunk, kids — because I'm all out of ideas."
Comedy Film - Dogma, by Kevin Smith, 1999


1. Don’t hoard the gold; spend it right after the start on starting an army for defense, fortifications, and most importantly, buying materials for mining, farms and workshops for boosting the start economy. If you spend starting 2 000 G, you can boost your economy for 5-10 minutes in comparison with just waiting for resources and it will be essential for some later trail missions.

2. Don’t forget that you can change game speed with num + and – and set the game on pause, this is not cheating as some may call it, this is intended by developers ingame mechanic. If you are struggle with some mission, restart it, set it to a pause, set lowest possible speed and plan what you will do first, after that un-pause, at slowest speed build everything you need, and speed up the game after. Take that pace of the game, which is most comfortable for you.

3. If you select the market first and press the pause after, you can calmly buy the right amounts of good or set auto-buy/sell ratios without a hurry.

4. Don’t forget, that the Definitive Edition got the Auto-Trade feature, which allows you to quickly and easily sell all excess goods and production, food too. With that function, you can have small (2-3) sized stockpiles and not be bothered with overfilling it. For the granary situation, it's the same, you can just hold one and sell the excess.

5. Monks are extremely powerful, even if building a cathedral can spend half of your starting money, you will not only have one of the best possible units for the early game, but also a +2 popularity bonus, which will help you with early taxes.

6. Your AI allies with flood you with resource messages, which you even don’t have, ignore them, but if you will have a strong economy, which spawns thousands of golds per few months, send them surplus money, they will buy everything which they are need and extremely fast will build their strength, if they wasn’t able to do so before. That will help you a little to distract enemies to them or even help you in attacks.

7. Moats can replace walls in early stages of the game, just hire some slaves to do the dirty job. Fast, efficient and cheap.

8. If yours castle is close to the enemy's castle, place a mangonel to bombard the enemy's keep. The be damaged whole castle, and expenses to repair it eventually will ruin the enemy.

9. You always can send a few horse archers to harass enemy farms and mines in patrol mode, that way they'll be pretty safe from enemy units and inflict heavy damage on the economy in total.

10. Your quarry’s stock is almost always full? Just build more Ox Tethers! That will increase your stone income.

11. Market are free to build, so you can place whatever you like, just make it fast to buy goods ASAP. Replacing is free too.

12. If you don’t have wood, the first woodcutter hut is free to build it.

13. Flags and heads on spikes are free to place, but don’t count for Fear Factor either.

14. Doesn’t matter, more expensive or more cheap Fear Factor building you place, it’s just bigger cost less, smaller costs more.

15. If you are forced to buy food, then set on auto-buy for all 4 types of food with small quantities at the same time, that way you will have +3 for different food types bonus for free. There's no reason to buy only one type of food. And that way, if you set half rations, you will have only -1 penalty in total.

16. If you wish to get more money from selling iron, you can create a metal weapon or armor from it first. That will increase total profits by 30% from each iron bar. But never buy iron, to make metal goods for sale, you will end up with a loss. Buy it only to make it cheaper equiping units.

17. You are not only able to overflow towers with your units, constantly sending there new ones, but if your large company of units divides into smaller ones, and separately be sended each of them to breach a gate house / tower / wall, they will clip together, combining efforts, and that construction will be broken down way faster than usual.

18. Sometimes it is wiser to build a small castle combined with your keep and then expand it later, deleting old fortifications and building new.

19. Learn the hotkeys or even change them in settings; they will make not only your gameplay a little faster, but easier too. You don’t need to remember where you place trader, granary, or barracks.

20. For more faster and easier placement of multiple siege weapons and portable shields, auto-clicker will greatly help you.

21. Against some AI lords, crossbowmans can be too overpowered, and slingers and bowmen can be just enough to keep away from the fortress.

22. If you are building wall from one obstacle to another, but that you didn't do it properly, if you don’t hear “The keep is enclosed” and over the map doesn’t appear the green circle, that’s mean somewhere is some space left, where enemy can pass at foot.

23. You can hire cheap units such as laddermans or slaves, to have excess recruits; just disband them when the time is right, and you will be able to hire hundreds and hundreds of proper units at the same time.

24. Using SHIFT + LMB on a workshop’s production select icon, you will set all same workshops to manufacture that product. No more selecting each building separately. CTRL + LMB on any building or tower will select it for construction same, as you found and select it from the build menu, but just save some time.

25.You can skip the game's intro at launch. For that open in Steam Library - "Properties" - "General" tab, find "Launch Options" and write there "-skipvid" (without quotes).

26. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different tactics and strategies; after all, exactly that makes Stronghold: Crusader the game, which lives on 23 years after the first release.

I hope the current guide helped you to understand some in-game mechanics and now you're much better with the game. Later, probably more information will be added, like more detailed characteristics for each AI lord, but I'm not sure in what kind of format it must be done, and after all – there is any reason for that? In-game descriptions are pretty detailed already.

I hope you are having a great time and will hold many fine victories on the battlefields!