( Stronghold FAQ 0.4 )
: ) by Skroll ( :
' (
[email protected] ) '
)
http://www.disemboweled.net (
==============================
------[ News & Updates ]------
==============================
v0.4 - Internet connection lost due to unforseen bout
with networking cable. Excessive work done in a single
Sunday, realization of a lack of a life. Added unit
information, along with part of the walkthrough.
v0.2 - Revised menu headings, added table of contents,
have a structure building.
v0.1 - FAQ freshly started, castle building started,
along with some pitch information. Submitted to GameFAQs.com
==============================
----------[ Sites ]-----------
==============================
+-+ Firefly Studios (
http://www.fireflystudios.com)
Developers of Stronghold.
+-+ Gathering of Developers (
http://www.godgames.com)
Publisher of Stronghold
+-+ Disemboweled.net (
http://www.disemboweled.net)
My site. Just a plug, it's pretty dull.
+-+ GameFAQS (
http://www.gamefaqs.com)
The only place you should find this at, if you see
it anywhere else, report it to me at
[email protected]
==============================
------[ Introduction ]--------
==============================
Well, this is my first FAQ I've ever written, so it's part a FAQ, and
part of an experiment. I figure, since my early receival of the the
game, along with alot of extra time to play it, I'd figure I would write
my findings, along with any information I came up with.
If you find any errors in my FAQ, fact, grammatical, or otherwise,
please feel free to contact me. Also, if you have any additions to the
game, write me as well. However, I cannot help with specific parts of
the game, on an individual basis. Sorry, but I am working 2 jobs, and
I can't reply to those kind of questions.
==============================
-----[Table of Contents]------
==============================
1-1 Walkthrough
1-2-1 Combat Missions
1-2-2 Gathering the Lost
1-2-3 Finishing the Fort
1-2-4 Eliminating the Wolves
1-2-5 The Hidden Lookout
1-2-6 Between a Rock and a Hard Place
1-2-7 The Rat's Proposal
1-2-8 Breaking the Siege
1-2-9 Dealing with the Devil
1-2-10 The Rat's Last Stand
1-2-11 The Snake hunt Begins
1-2-12 First Blood
1-2-13 The Ransom
1-2-14 Snake Eyes
1-3-1 Economic Missions
2-1 Castle Building
2-2 Initial Planning
2-3 Starting the Castle
3-1 Units
3-2 The Lord
3-3 Archers
3-4 Siege Engineers
3-5 Spearmen
3-6 Pikemen
3-7 Monks
3-8 Macemen
3-9 Crossbowmen
3-10 Swordsmen
3-11 Knights
3-12 Laddermen
3-13 Tunnelers
4-1 Strategies
4-2 Pitch Traps
==============================
------[1-1 Walkthrough]-------
==============================
There's no definitive way to finish the game. Different strategies
work in different situations. This guide will run down possible
difficulties, and problems I faced in the game.
______________________
1-2-1 Combat Missions
----------------------
As the name implies, these missions center around combat, although
you'll have your share of economic strife. They almost all revolve
around you killing off some sort of enemy.
________________________
1-2-1 Economic Missions
------------------------
These missions are non-combat related, although, there are times
when there are things to kill. (bears and wolves and somtimes rabbits).
You will deal with constant plagues, hop weavils, rabbit explosions,
wolf attacks, and everything you can imagine, all trying to hold you
back.
_________________________
1-2-2 Gathering the Lost
-------------------------
Your army is in sorry shape, indeed. Site your keep somewhere by
the trees. Place your granary anywhere, and plop down three woodcutter
huts, and three hunter posts. Place the woodcutter huts by the trees,
and the hunter posts nearby the granary. Sit back and watch your men
collect the needed supplies, because you just did all there is to do
here. If you can't do this one, might as well give up.
==============================
----[2-1 Castle Building]-----
==============================
Castle building often depends on your mission. If you're not to the part
of the game that requires stone to build, don't worry about it then. You
won't need it. Same with iron. I'm going to assume that you have
available, every single building and unit available in the game. You can
substitute stone for wood, and so forth, but it's not until you have the
different units that the game becomes really interesting.
___________________
2-2 Initital Layout
-------------------
Before laying out a castle, you have to take a few things into
consideration. First off, your location. You wan't the most
resources available nearby. You probably don't want trees too close,
because you cant build walls through them, which gives the enemies
easy access inside your castle, and soon enough, macemen are charging
through the walls, slaughering yor archers and crossbow men. This,
of course is not good. So, keep your castle close to tress, but with
enough space to place infrastructure.
Next up, is the stone and iron. Quarrys and mines cost way too much
to get destroyed and make you build them over again. It is best to
have them at the rear of the castle, if possible, and defended with archers.
So, make sure your castle starts nearby the stone. Plan to have your
farming on the outside of your castle, especially if you're on high ground
(you can't have farms on dirt). But keep any production buildings inside
the walls.
Last, in combat, elevation is god. Archers on a tower are great, but
archers on a tower on a plateu rains wooden (and often fiery) death onto
any oncoming attack. Consider this in your planning.
_______________________
2-3 Starting the Castle
-----------------------
First, place your keep where you want it. Next, site your granary,
as the guy with the repetitive and irritating voice tells you to. What
he doesn't tell you though, is that the granary will be there for a while,
and you can only build more granaries attached to the original, creating
one big granary. Therefore, leave room for a few more granaries, so you
can stockpile food later. This also leads to the stockpile, right away,
build a few more connecting to the original one. (they're free, anyways)
Next, wood choppers should get cranking, about three to start. Also,
an extra hut wont hurt, as long as your quick on cranking out food. Start
with hunters, they are a nice starter food, especially with a low
population level. Once food starts coming in, build dairy farms, because
they take a bit to start going, but produce a new food source, and multiple
types of food increase your popularity.
Afterwards, either go for barracks, and crank out some archers, or if
there's no immediate threat, get the rest of your infrastructure going.
Set up the walls any way you want, however, crenulate them as soon as you
can. Gates are a must, and should be heavily guarded (they are weak, and
if destroyed, you have a HUGE gap in your walls). Multiple food types
should come first, and then you can raise taxes a bit. Religion should
always come last.
==============================
---------[3-1 Units]----------
==============================
____________
3-2 The Lord
------------
Type: Melee
Requirements: None
Cost: None
The Lord is the most important unit in the game, and with good cause. If
he should die, the game's over. So protect him. You don't have direct
control over him, except for the fact that you can tell him to attack
enemies. When there is no combat, he will just wander around your castle,
and talk with your military units. However, when a large siege comes,
he'll retreat to the top of your keep. Put some sort of defense up there,
a mixture of ranged and melee fighters, to keep him from dying too fast.
His attack is very powerful, but a handful of macemen will kill him all
too quickly.
___________
3-3 Archers
-----------
Type: Ranged
Requirements: Bows
Cost: 8 gold
In the early stages of a mission, Archers are your best defense. Putting
them up on walls, they rain down showers of arrows onto a ttacking targets.
Their long range and fast firing, will take down the bulk of a siege force.
But once armored units start moving in, they are almost useless. They are
best for taking care of laddermen, when you want to concentrate your
crossbowmen on more powerful targets.
___________________
3-4 Siege Engineers
-------------------
Type: Siege
Requirements: none
Cost: 30 gold
Siege Engineers are very versatile units. They are used to man any
mounted defenses on your castle, and to power siege units. Also, if
you are boiling oil, they can pour it onto enemies attacking you walls.
They only cost gold, but die quickly, so protect them well.
____________
3-6 Spearmen
------------
Type: Melee
Requirements: Spear
Cost: 8 gold
Spearmen are another defense for the early part of a mission, or they
are good filler for a siege. They die quickly, but are good in the
masses. Also, you can line them up on a wall, to push off any laddermen
that are on your wall. They are also good for filling in moats of the
enemies castles.
_________
3-7 Monks
---------
Type: Melee
Requirements: none
Cost: none
___________
3-8 Macemen
-----------
Type: Melee
Requirements: Mace, Leather Armor
Cost: 20 gold
_______________
3-9 Crossbowmen
---------------
Type: Ranged
Requirements: Crossbow, Leather Armor
Cost: 20 gold
The Crossbowmen will be your main defense. As they should be, because
their attack is very strong, although a bit slower than the Archer. If
behind a crenulated wall though, they are VERY strong. Their leather
armor makes them superior to the Archer. A huge group of Crossbowmen
will slaughter the attackers fast, but don't make the Crossbowmen a
replacement for Archers. Crossbowmen's s lower shots are wasted on the
laddermen that will eventually be charging your walls.
______________
3-10 Swordsmen
--------------
Type: Melee
Requirements: Sword, Metal Armor
Cost: 40 Gold
Your elite footmen, they come in, get the job done, slaughter everybody,
albeit slowly. Heavily armored, they move slow, but shrug off Archer's
arrows. Crossbowmen can pierce their armor, but normal Archer's barely
hurt them. Cover them with supportive fire, such as Archers or
Crossbowmen, and s urround them with macemen. Because once they get
inside the castle, they will raze it, and bring it to the ground.
____________
3-11 Knights
------------
Type: Melee
Requirements: Sword, Metal Armor, Horse
Cost: 40 Gold
Knights are practically Swordsmen on horses. They are armored, move
fast, and are very lethal. Once again, they should be kept away from
groups of Crossbowmen, because they will get cut down fast. Knights are
ideal for probing your enemies defenses. Also, they work good for hit
and run attacks, destroying farms or stone quarries, and taking off for
home before the enemy can move his defenses over to them.
______________
3-12 Laddermen
--------------
Type: Siege
Requirements: none
Cost: 4 gold
Quite possibly the worst job in the world, the laddermen's job is to
rush the walls a castle and hold a ladder to it, and let attackers climb
up. Spearmen can knock them off walls with ease, so you need a large
volume of them to work. They only cost 4 gold, so bringing thirty or
so of them to attack is not uncommon.
______________
3-13 Tunnelers
--------------
Type: Siege
Requirements: none
Cost: 30 gold
Tunnelers are the perfect opening for a siege. Simply put them near a
castle you want to attack, and send them to do the dirty work. They
tunnel underground towards a castle, and burn the supports underneath.
They can take down towers, stone and wodden walls. However, they are
useless if theres a moat surrounding the castle.
==============================
------[4-1 Strategies]--------
==============================
_______________
4-2 Pitch Traps
---------------
Pitch traps are a very powerful, one time defense. Probably the first
thought that comes to mind, is that you should just lay down a huge pit
filled with pitch. This is a very LARGE waste of pitch, and here I'll
explain why.
The fire from a pitch ditch spreads quickly. Well, actually, the initial
blast is the most fiery, causing a great deal of spread, and a very intense
flame.
A little experimentation revealed some helpful information. I decided to
place a single spot of pitch down, and fire an arrow at it. The results
are interesting. Below, is the pitch map I made, rotated 45 degrees, so
it is no longer isometric. On each map, I aimed for the center, and hit
it.
....x..
x....x.
xxxx&xxx
xxxxxxx
.x.xx..
xxx...x.
The (&) is the initial piece of pitch I laid down. Remember, it is only
one square. The (.) were spots that weren't burnt, and the (x) is where
the fire spread. This is a random occurance, Sometimes the fire spreads
more, sometimes less. Either way, its a very large spread for such a small
piece. Here's another map.
................
......xx........
...xxxxxxxx.....
.xxx&&&&&&x.....
..xx&&&&&&xx....
...x&&&&&&xx....
..xx&&&&&&x.....
...x&&&&&&x.....
...xxxxxxxxx....
......xx........
Same key. Lets do some math now.
On the first map, I laid down one square, and got 25 burnt squares.
Excellent. On the second, I laid down 30 squares, and got 67 burnt
squares. So, one square produced 24 burnt squares, and 30 squares produced
37 burnt squares. Thats only 13 more squares, with 30 times more pitch used.
Not cost efficient.
Next example.
................
......xx........
...xxxxxxxx.....
...x&x&x&xx.....
..xxx&.&.&xx....
...x&xoxoxxx....
...xx&.&x&x.....
...x&x&x&xx.....
...x.xxxx.xx....
......x.........
It's hard to read, I know, but its for the sake of warfare. :) And we
introduce a new symbol. (o) is a square that had pitch laid down, but
wasn't burnt.
15 squares produced 28 burnt squares, and left 2 unused. I used half
as much pitch as last time, (15 less squares), and only produced 9 less
burnt squares, but wasted 2. Still, it's more economical, and saves
precious pitch. Saving 15 pitch may not seem like alot, but imaging it
on larger scales. On a patch 4 times larger, you'd save 60 squares.
However, you leave spots that aren't getting burnt, and is a waste unless
you fire a second shot quickly. Either way, it's a save.
What does this boil down to? Well, this helps you think up some
strategies in building these things. Heres one of the best set
ups I've come up with.
xx.x.xx.
x.xx.x.
xx.x.xx.
x.xx.x.
xx.x.xx.
x.xx.x.
xx.x.xx.
Just keep repeating that pattern. It uses less pitch, and causes
a total coverage (most of the time) of the whole area.
