For Newbie

Starting Out

When you first attempt to play Stronghold Crusader, you may have no idea what you are doing or you may know exactly what's going on. Either way, it takes skill like in any other game to get good at it. As soon as you begin a battle with any amount of opponents, you immediately need to place your granary, a marketplace, stockpile space (preferably in a rectangle formation), and your means of creating troops and an engineer's guild next to it. I prefer to use an Arabian lord with nothing but Arabian troops. I'll immediately place all of these buildings as quickly as I can along with any buildings that will have space taken up by others if I have allies fighting with me, such as iron and stone mines and farms. As soon as I have these placed, I get to work on my defenses. I start with square towers wherever my property's bounds are and where the enemy would most likely prefer to come at me from. Along with the towers, I'll mount either ballistas or mangonels in the towers depending on how close I am to an enemy's area. Practically all of the game's characters build castles with lots of stone and are very spread out or are very compact, so a mangonel would rip away at the tops of walls and towers and would destroy buildings quickly. Ballistas are very useful in defending your castle from distant soldiers and siege equipment like catapults. Soldiers that move slowly can take lots of damage and deal lots, so ballistas that fire from a far distance can do lots of damage to heavier troops that may become a threat to your lighter defenders on your walls. Along with these I place anywhere between 15 and 30 Arabian archers in each tower with braziers. The braziers make all of the difference due to the fact that they help the archers do more damage and allow them to set fire to the pitch that you place in the ground. You can use any method of defending your lord, but the idea of castles seems to allow your enemies to get as close to your important buildings as possible. The use of towers along boundaries keeps enemy troops at bay and doesn't let them near your inner castle. I always tend to then use any other stone to build walls that connect my towers and I then build a large, thick wall around my entire castle. Give yourself plenty of room and build quickly because if you have allies, they may choose to build wherever they want, even on your resources even though it's a pain in the butt and it may take your room. Set things up quickly, get plenty of room, and your allies will take care of themselves, DON'T WORRY ABOUT THEM!!

More examples

Wheat and hops farms provide food, popularity enhancement, and money

Stone sells for a high price and is a good way to make money

Sell other items like hops, ale, wheat, and flour every now and then to loosen up your stockpile

Further Advancement

When you finally have a grasp on your defenses and main parts of your stronghold, you can begin to build more productive buildings. I always start battles with the Deathmatch setting and give both the enemy and I 10,000 gold. With Deathmatch, you get lots of resources and 200 bread as starting food, so be sure to place your granary quickly but take your time in setting your defences. I always use nothing but bread for food because it's made quickly and in larger quantities than apple or cheese farms. Hunter's Posts are an ok option, but your hunters are always at risk of being killed unless there are deer inside your keep if you decide to close yourself off completely. Wheat farms are 15 wood to build and are smaller than other farms, so i place anywhere around 5-7 wheat farms and 1 or 2 mills to obtain flour. I then place (this is all over a short period of time as well) about 8-16 bakeries depending on the number of people I currently have. The number will most likely grow in the future to provide room for more troops, so I always add more granary space and buy bread in the beginning if the bakeries don't start baking fast enough. Once you have food coming in, you can start gathering more resources like wood, stone, and iron.If you ever run low on building materials, don't feel afraid to spend a little gold to buy the needed materials, you'll get plenty more later on when you have things placed. If you are on a map that his limited space for placing mines and woodcutter huts, which is usually the case, you may have to conserve space and manage it carefully. Try to squeeze in as many mines as possible and don't forget to place at least 2 ox tethers for each stone mine. Things can often get crammed in, so make sure all of the mines are accessible from at least one way. You're now beginning to make a living and are starting to raise gold for your army. Now you can start to do other things like set up inns and breweries to serve ale to your people that will greatly increase your popularity. With extra boosts like that, you can increase taxes to bring in even more money. From here, just continue to make money and watch your stockpile, granary, and defenses. It's time to start planning on how to take out your enemies.

Attack Techniques

Catapults are the most effective siege engines

Fighting against the Rat, Snake, Sultan, or Lionheart

These 4 characters are the lowest on the difficulty chart in the game. They are good starters to practice on before you attempt harder enemies. Their castle structures are either small or poor in construction and they don't have a very well grasp on castle building tactics. The Rat in particular, may send lots of troops your way but he only sends spearmen and archers who are very weak and only are good in groups. He sends them in lines that can be easily picked off and he never sends siege units, so there's no need to worry about catapult fire. If you are against the Rat, just be sure that you build up enough defenses and be aware of his raids because they can become very annoying. When you're ready to attack him, follow these guidelines:

• Build up an army of about 20-40 or more swordsmen
• Get together anywhere between 10 and 20 catapults or 5-10 trebuchets (within range of his castle)
• Try to set his castle on fire if you want (mostly because it's fun to watch any castle burn to the ground!)

• Get together a small band of horse archers, maybe 20-30 and circle around his castle to pick off any archers that may be a threat to your entrance into the castle

After you've done these tasks, proceed to take him down. Move in with the catapults and take out a section of his wall, preferably where it is close to his keep so you can make it in quickly. Keep in mind also that any enemy, smart or stupid, will be unfortunately smart enough to try to rebuild what you rip down with your catapults. Keep firing at them until they run out of stone and make sure that you refill your catapults with rocks every now and then. You also need stone to get rocks so save some up in your stockpile before you go to attack their wall. After you've managed to break your way through, proceed to take out more of their castle and watch your ammo on your catapults. I can't stress this enough to everyone who reads this because you could be full on second and the next you could be empty so watch the ammo!