Ale and candles production | Key elements of gameplay Stronghold: Crusader II Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
Ale and candles are both 'exclusive' goods - you will be able to live without them, but the availability of those resources makes one's life easier. Thanks to them, and with the help of an Inn, as well as Church / Mosque, you will be given a huge positive bonus to your popularity - additionally, lack of those resources won't have a negative effect on your peasants, like food does.
Ale
Food production (and consumption) requires you to build three buildings - Hop Farms, which, as the name suggests, grow hops, Breweries, where the hop is turned into ale, and finally an Inn, where ale is distributed to your peasants. In contrast to previous installments of Stronghold, you do not need to build ' an army of Inns' to satisfy the needs of your peasants - all you have to do is to construct a single one. An efficient ale production requires you to build 1 Hop Farm for each 3-4 Breweries.
Candles
Candles are easier to manufacture than the previously described ale - all you need to built is just a single building, Candle's Workshop, to be able to manufacture the good. Another advantage of candles is that they are 'made out of nothing' - you do not need any resource to be turned into candles. In fact they are a free (if you don't take building cost into consideration) and effective way of providing yourself with a popularity boost.
Similar to the case with the Inn, you will need to build a Church (or a Mosque, depending on your side) to be able to perform religious rites. In a way it's similar to the Inn - you will have to build a single Church / Mosque (in contrast to the previous installments of the game, where you needed several of them) to be able to satisfy the needs of your peasants.
Of course, there's a little catch - you won't be able to manufacture enough ale / candles by building a single Hop Farm + Brewery or Candler's Workshop, especially if you intend to keep their distribution on a higher (x2, x3) level. The influence is as follows:
- No distribution - no influence on the popularity
- 1x: +8 to popularity
- 2x: +14 to popularity
- 3x: +20 to popularity
- 4x: +25 to popularity
- 5x: +30 to popularity
As you can see, by using both of those goods you can give your kingdom a huge boost to popularity. It's hard to tell how many of them you will be able to manufacture. If you want to keep their distribution on x2, or x3 levels, remember to build one Brewery and one Candler's Workshop for every 10 peasants in your castle and you should be able to sell some surplus on the market.