Economy first, army afterwards | Units Stronghold: Crusader II Guide

A good, prosperous castle is the basis of this tactic.

A totally different approach from the one described in the previous section. It employs the focus on setting up your economy and defenses first - you shouldn't think about attacking enemy before that happens. This tactic is less risky than the last one and it assumes that the "peace timer" was turned off.

Depending on the amount of starting resources, as well as gold, your first constructed buildings will differ slightly - maybe not differ, but it will simply take more time to set them up. You should start with:

• 4-6 Wood Camps
• 3-4 Apple Orchards
• 1 Hovel for 8 peasants

Afterwards, as you start to get wood deliveries:

• 1-2 Pig Farms
• 1-2 Dairy Farms
• 2-3 Wheat Farms
• 1 Hovel for 8 peasants
• 1 Mill
• 3-4 Bakeries
• 1-2 Stone Quarries + 1-2 Ox Tethers for each
• 1 Hovel for 8 peasants

The buildings should be built in the exact same order. Of course, if you've started with a huge amount of gold, you can use it to buy a few hundred pieces of wood from the marked and place them all in an instant - it will surely speed up the expenditure of your castle. Remember to build walls as well - if you don't have the required amount of stone, try to at least surround your Lord, and don't forget to build a gate so that your peasants can move in and out.

You should also build Barracks and an Armory - you should've started with the basic amount of weapons, allowing you to hire a small group of Archers.

Do not buy stones! They are extremely expensive because of the fact that buildings need huge amounts of them - surrounding your whole base with a single line of wall will cost you hundreds of stone, which will turn out to be thousands of gold. It's better to just buy some extra wood and construct additional Stone Quarries.

After you've constructed the mentioned buildings, you should start ale / candle's production. Construct:

• 2 Hop Farms
• 3-4 Candler's Workshops
• 3-4 Breweries

After the production starts, try to collect enough resources to build a Church / Mosque and an Inn. With the increase in your population, remember to build additional Breweries / Candler's Workshops.

Now it's the time to construct weapon production buildings. Construct:

• 2-3 Iron Mines, with 1-2 Ox Tethers each
• 1-2 Fletcher's Workshops
• 1-2 Armourer's Workshop
• 1 Artillator's Workshop
• 1 Blacksmith Workshop

Those are the basic buildings which will allow you to recruit Archers, Macemen and Crossbowmen. You should now build other buildings according to your own preferences, as everyone likes to use different units and tactics. Try to at least recruit over a dozen of Archers / Crossbowmen and send them on the walls to protect yourself from smaller attacks.

After you've set up a working economy, your castle is surrounded with walls and your Armory gets frequent deliveries of weapons, it's time to make your army. The choice of units depends on the amount of gold and weapons in your possession, as well as your personal preferences. Below you will find 'a way' which is the most effective to attack with, but probably the most boring one.

Forceful approach

After seeing an army like this everyone will turn into a chicken...

It focuses on a couple of strongest, as well as the most expensive units in the game. It's an unstoppable attack force, but it requires tremendous amounts of gold, weapons and other goods to prepare.

The backbone of your army will consists of four units: Templar Knights, Sergeant at Arms, Archers (or Crossbowmen, or even a mixture of both) and Trebuchets (or Catapults / War Wolves).

Of course, the more army you manage to accumulate, the better the effect, but you should stick to this proportion. For every 10 units in your army, hire:

• 3 Templar Knights
• 1 Sergeant at Arms
• 4 Archers / Crossbowmen / Mix
• 2 Siege Machines

For instance, if you have an army consisting of 100 units, the most optimal composition would be: 30 Templar Knights, 10 Sergeant at Arms, 40 Ranged units and 20 siege units. To make it even stronger you can use Hussite War Wagons to protect your ranged units.

Mercenary approach

If you don't want to spend so much resources, or you want to be playing more tactically, you can use this formation: Arabian Swordsmen, Assassins, Arabian Archers (in Hussite War Wagons), supported by Catapults / Ballista / Battering Ram. This way isn't that expensive, and in some cases it may prove to be more effective. Additionally, you won't have to manufacture / buy a single weapon, as it only uses gold to hire units. Afterwards, you should:

• Use your Ballista to decimate units on the walls
• Catapults should focus their fire on the walls to burst through them
• If you are unable to do it with force, use your Assassin, climb up the walls, kill the enemies stationed there and open up the gates.
• Archers hidden in Hussite War Wagons are extremely effective at clearing the walls off the enemy soldiers.

As you can see, there's a whole lot different approaches to sieges - the only limitation is the imagination, the amount of resources you can spend and the state of enemy's defenses.