i played stronghold. went to free build and i ended up with about 15 full granaries with double rations and bout 5kinds of food. more than enough army to fill up the entire map.. too much walls.. oh i dunoo.. too much of everything.

I play Crusader and Stronghold both damn good games. Crusader if you want an easy death for another king right when your starting out. Choose to start with a buncha gold, usually just about 40,000 will do it. After you have a base economy setup, like say some farms, a granary and definitly about 5-6 houses, build the Mercenary Barracks and hire a ton of those heavily armored mercenary guys. They cost alot but you dont gotta build any swords or shields for them and early on rushing with 60 of these guys can easily overwhelm any keep as the AI doesnt buy mercenaries usually. Except certain higher up kings like the wolf which you can count on has tons of crossbowmen waiting to greet your guys.

I have also noticed on keeps that arent defended that great, a big rush of Assassins works well too, position them behind the stronghold, then make them throw their grappling hooks over the wall directly behind the kings back, he wont stand a chance .

Dont underestimate Tower Ballistae, they dont seem to be doing much but they tear siege engines to shreds and are the bane of any mounted unit.

Always have plenty of oil engineers lying around (build a cauldron then have them pickup pots of oil and position them about on walls) make sure their on steps and not on the wall, on the wall they can easily be shot by arrows, they can save your hide when theres a battering ram outside your gate that oil can burn it straight back to hell.

Bread is the fastest food to be created in the game, it also happens to be the one thats consumed the fastest. To slow consumption of food, try mixing foods between meats, dairy and bread.

Its standard RTS fare, but many people dont realize how a well planned castle can be the difference between having a war party and a small group of soldiers. Leave small spaces for fletchers, smiths and general weapon production buildings so the workers dont have to walk around houses and so forth. To maximize your weapons output, make sure the weapons production facilities are near your stockpile and that near these facilities is also an armory. Try to keep it flowing towards one direction, say place a stockpile, then a line of armories (2-3) and then build the weapons production facilities. This way, when they take resources, they goto build them, then walk back, drop it off at the armory and pickup more right away, this way it all flows.

Ale and Religion are always good to have, as they raise your peoples happiness, thus, you can tax them freely, so say a church adds +2 to happiness, then you can tax them for the same amount negatively so apply some likes second level taxes which give you -2 popularity, but make sure to also have ale, so your popularity is at least +1 and plenty of food so you have a steady flow of peasents coming in.

Metalworkers can be convinced to move faster by placing torture devices like dungeons and guillotines on their walking paths, this may significantly increase your metal income.

Dont ignore the market, if your low on a resource, sell what resources you have extra than buy what you need, this is great for maps with a lack of forest but plenty of rock or metal for example.

Thats all i can think of for now



"I see dumb people....... they 're everywhere. They walk around like everyone else. They dont even know their dumb"

I play Stronghold. It's a fun game

Life: No one gets out alive.