Stronghold Tactics Discussion

I'm a bit late to the party on this, but its an excellent topic that deserves an answer. I will focus on Crusader as it has been far too long since I played SH1.

What approach do you take when building a castle (in-game or in-editor)?

I take very much a horses for courses attitude. Generally I enclose my keep, usually with walls, although sometimes just moats. Square towers for defense. I try to keep as much of my economy inside, with the occasional exception of the barracks/mercenary post. Quarrys and farms are not kept inside my keep if I build a square castle surrounded by walls.

Do you ever use mongenels on square / round towers?

Only if I am in close proximity to enemy lords' keeps. Otherwise I like having ballista to pick off catapults.

Do you ever use turrets, or do you always build towers?

Always a tower man, and usually square ones only.

Have you ever set troops to patrol an area?

Defensively, no. Offensively I sometimes use horse archers on patrol to harass quarries/farms, or to annoy the likes of the sultan.

What troops do you use to defend the keep? Walls? Gatehouses / Towers?

It depends on the opponent. If it is against the snake or rat (lords who focus on lightly armored units) I tend to just build archers. Against most other lords its Crossbowmen. For the caliph, I tend to build a combination of both. These are usually on square towers. I tend not to use troops on walls or gatehouses. As for hand-to-hand units, I occasionally keep a few inside the keep, although I rarely focus on this. It is only for some very dicey missions that I use these defensively.

When sieging an enemy castle, what do you use if you use anything?

Hmm this is where my tactics vary a lot. I tend to focus on building a very strong defense in missions. If it is a map that is rich in resources, and gold is easily obtained, then its not uncommon for me to just mass horse archers and some melee units (be it arabian swordsmen, assassins or macemen) to finish off the job.

When I originally played the game, my most common method of sieging was a smash and grab approach. Use some catapults to punch a hole in a wall and then storm in with an army of fast units like macemen. This time around I tend to build a handful of fast units (knights/macemen) to take down any barracks/mercenary post outside the keep and to keep the gates closed. Horse archers, crossbowmen or archers I would aim to position at the same time to clear the towers and walls (prioritising mangonels). Then once the enemy lord is trapped, light the keep on fire with some fire ballista. Once they have burned alive, I use an assassin to open a gatehouse and then march in with some ground units to finish the job.

What's the hardest troop to kill? The most annoying?

In short, whatever the pig builds. Catapults are my biggest irritant (my poor walls), but macemen have caused me problems in the past with their speed. Crossbowmen defensively are a pain too. Special mention to those early raiding parties of horse archers that Saladin sends out. Those are annoying too when you are trying to get your economy up and running.

What's your favorite troop? Least favorite? Most useful?

My favourite troop. Hmm. Probably either the maceman or fire ballista. Least favourite would be a ladderman (just trying to think of what I never use). Most useful? VS the AI I would almost say slaves. Moats are so good defensively and slaves are so cheap to hire that they make a strong defense very easy to achieve.

Do you ever use spearmen when you have better troops available?

Haha usually not. I have completed a few missions before by trying to mimic the rat, but that was just for fun.

What about laddermen, monks, and tunnellers?

Laddermen and Tunnellers I tend not to use. I have used monks in the past to complete missions, but usually just for fun to provide that final killer blow.

Which is more important: iron or pitch?

Iron. I'm not a big pitch man.

What food(s) do you use?

Focus is always on bread. There is usually a dairy farm or two for the tanners, and if I have space I add apple farms for the popularity bonus.

If you can't use bread, what food would you grow?

In missions where I can't produce bread, I usually rely on buying hops rather than produce other food. I would probably focus on apples though if I had the space.

Do you use cremulation for defensive purposes?

Do I use it? Yes. Is it for defensive purposes? No. I just think it makes my castle look pretty?:D

What's your average population size? (Especially Crusader)

Probably in the region of 70-90. ~50 is not too uncommon, but I very very rarely go above 100.

Are macemen worth the leather? (Does their power make up for the fact that the leather has to be shared between them and crossbowmen?)

Yes yes yes. I love macemen. Also leather armor is cheap enough to produce so selling some maces or crossbows if needed to buy some more is easily done.

Which is worse (in Crusader): Starting Rush (Trainging a bunch of mercenaries then attacking while the opponent has no time to build up defenses) or horse archers with portable shields?

I've never tried the latter, but I would have to pick it from what I have read. A rush can backfire ?leaving you in a weaker position but horse archers are strong enough without the need for portable shields!

Which do you prefer: catapults or trebuchets?

I use both depending on the situation. Smash and grab: Catapults. Slow and steady (partly destroying a tower so they cant rebuild): Trebuchets.

In Crusader, what's your average siege army size?

If I don't hear "Your army is approaching its maximum size" then its not big enough! On a more serious note, probably 100-200 units offensively, although I change it up depending on how I feel. Defensively Its hard to gauge.

In Crusader, what style of gameplay do you use (defensive, offensive, support/economy, support/defend, etc)

Defensive (followed by an army boom and a decisive victory). The best offense is a good defense.

What tactics would you use if you couldn't build walls, moats, and other commonly used defensive structures (pitch / boiling oil allowed).

Possibly replace the stockpile at the start, positioning my economy further behind my keep (using natural terrain where possible) and using my keep as a tower?:D. Then a combination of fireballista and small groups of crossbowmen supported with macemen (slightly behind crossbowmen to be out of range of original arrows, but close enough to rush forward and protect vs any melee troops that make it close.

Who's harder: Saladin or the Wolf in Crusader?

They are quite similar I find. It really depends on their castle and how quickly they attack. If I have time to get up some moats and square towers its fine. The original horse archers from Saladin are a pain, but overall probably the wolf.

How many Rats would take to kill Saladin??

It depends on the map I guess and how favourably you position the Rats (and how much you incapacitate Saladin).

Been a long time since I have been on this site.

So, some more questions to answer in case anyone still plays these archaic games:

In general, after basic wood, stone, and food acquisition, what do you focus on next in an invasion/skirmish fight? (Getting weapons, enclosing the keep, etc.)

How many layers of walls do you use typically use?

Do you use multiple defensive layers? (Troops have to pass through multiple gatehouses)

Do you find playing as a bad lord or a good lord (or maybe even neutral!) to be more beneficial?

Do you ever keep archery troops atop your keep after a basic castle defense has been established?

You're wrong pal, this game is not archaic, this game is legendary! :D Especially as Stronghold 1 and Stronghold Crusader are in a way almost the same game, only:

-Crusader has faster economy, more dynamic multiplayer, awesome skirmish games, etc., while

-Stronghold has slower economy, which makes multiplayer less dynamic but still more interesting because players need to be much more careful, and awesome campaign.

There are so many young players who like this game, but sadly they just leave their questions and comments in Steam Discussions even though Forums like this are way better. Sadly they don't know because of laziness, it's easier to ask what they want at Steam Discussions, although contributing these places would be way more valuable...

Now let's see those questions.

1. I can't say much about what I do in scenarios because it heavily depends of the scenario. In skirmish I start by making few wheat farms (usually two), one hops farm, not so little woodcutters, maybe a stone quarry, and I start weapons production - bows and spears. I may also buy some bows to train some more archers, to have them to defend my castle. Enclosing castle is not a high priority to me, I mostly focus on economy, and having defensive structures on the side from which I expect early attacks, and later I enclose my castle while I build the rest of my economy. For example, as soon as I get some wheat from wheat farms I have a mill built, etc... Oh, and I never build those early defensive structures randomly, I always build them in a way so I could easily finish my castle without changing anything on those early structures.

2. One layer of three layer wall.

3. Usually no.

4. Neutral.

5. I have at least 20 swordsmen on my keep to protect the lord in case of danger, but I often make my troops to collect on my keep so now and then you may find tons of my troops there. :p

Yeah, so I'm going back through the military campaign (Stronghold 1) and thought I'd try it on very hard.

The 4th mission (Hidden Lookout) was fairly difficult. After finding myself practically defenseless the first time I got attacked, I changed my strategy up a bit and ended up focusing on weapon production first before building my perimeter wall. One thing to note on this level was the lack of enemy archers making the level much easier to defend.

The 5th mission (Between a Rock and a Hard Place) was extremely difficult to do on very hard. The primary problem was the number of archers the enemy possessed. The first time I tried it, I didn't have nearly enough troops and lost practically all save like 3 to the first attack and then lost against the second swarm. So, I restarted the mission and tried again. Once more, I focused more heavily on weapon production. The first invasion was repelled a lot easier as well as the second invasion. The final invasion with the siege weapons once again proved problematic (cuz my gatehouses got catapulted and all my archers kept getting slaughtered by enemy fire. What I noticed after trying a few times was that the Rat's archers would clear the front and right gatehouse defensive troops as well as the keep troops, but would leave the archers on the left and back gatehouse alone for the most part. So, I had about 6 archers or so on the left gatehouse that cleared A LOT of troops. The Rat (due to his great stupidity) failed to destroy my economy (save maybe a woodcutter or two), so all during the siege I was recruiting more archers to keep the Lord safe on the keep (and to replenish killed troops.) It was still super close --> I used the Lord to kill several spearmen because my archers were busy killing enemy archers. In the end, I lost about 78% of my troops total and my Lord was inches away from death (red life bar).

What I learned from both missions was that I could *ahem* cut out some of my food supply and focus more on weapon production early on.

I'm not (fyi) doing the siege missions on Very Hard (possibly normal in fact) because I'm a terrible sieger but I think experimenting with different defensive strategies and combinations to find what works best might be an interesting endeavor. Definitely would be worth discussing in here. (Even the two missions I just mentioned that allow you only to recruit archers and use wooden defenses can have vastly different results depending on your approach.)

As to my own questions and my answers to them:

1) See above; mission 4 was what made me think of the question

2) One wall thick layer with cremulation usually

3) If I have the resources and the space, I would, but alas, that's usually not the case

4) I usually played as a bad lord because the efficiency boost is nice. The troop penalty is kinda obnoxious though. I don't like good things cuz "breaks" seem to be semi-random and sometimes kills my food supply, etc. if they take breaks

5) Really depends, but for me, I generally don't keep troops there.

Another question for possible discussion:

In Stronghold 1 (in Stronghold 2, religion got a massive boost as well as Ale getting a small boost), do you feel religion is worth the gold or not (if the map is reasonably long enough)?

Answers in bold.

You're wrong pal, this game is not archaic, this game is legendary! :D Especially as Stronghold 1 and Stronghold Crusader are in a way almost the same game, only:

-Crusader has faster economy, more dynamic multiplayer, awesome skirmish games, etc., while

-Stronghold has slower economy, which makes multiplayer less dynamic but still more interesting because players need to be much more careful, and awesome campaign.

It's been out for how long? Almost 20 years? It's pretty old. That doesn't mean it's bad though (maybe archaic was the wrong word to use....).

 

There are so many young players who like this game, but sadly they just leave their questions and comments in Steam Discussions even though Forums like this are way better. Sadly they don't know because of laziness, it's easier to ask what they want at Steam Discussions, although contributing these places would be way more valuable...

I just like these two games better than the other two that I own. Partially because they run smoothly (Stronghold 2 and Stronghold Legends seem a bit above my computer's capabilities...) and I like their simplicity; I think the user interface is much friendlier, especially for building walls.

 

Now let's see those questions.

 

1. I can't say much about what I do in scenarios because it heavily depends of the scenario. In skirmish I start by making few wheat farms (usually two), one hops farm, not so little woodcutters, maybe a stone quarry, and I start weapons production - bows and spears. I may also buy some bows to train some more archers, to have them to defend my castle. Enclosing castle is not a high priority to me, I mostly focus on economy, and having defensive structures on the side from which I expect early attacks, and later I enclose my castle while I build the rest of my economy. For example, as soon as I get some wheat from wheat farms I have a mill built, etc... Oh, and I never build those early defensive structures randomly, I always build them in a way so I could easily finish my castle without changing anything on those early structures.

Btw, I forget; I know Crusader does, but does Stronghold tell you if your keep is enclosed? (Doesn't seem like it) Anyway, usually, I focus on the perimeter first but as I wrote in my last post, focusing on the economy especially weapons seems to be the way to go for winning campaigns on harder difficulties.

 

2. One layer of three layer wall.

 

3. Usually no.

 

4. Neutral.

 

5. I have at least 20 swordsmen on my keep to protect the lord in case of danger, but I often make my troops to collect on my keep so now and then you may find tons of my troops there. :p

Edit: Forget about the double-posting rule. Is there a way to merge posts? (I'm used to it elsewhere plus I used the quote button for this reply.)