Industry | Buildings Stronghold: Crusader II Guide

Last update: 11 May 2016

Industry buildings are used for basic resource production, such as wood, iron, stone or pitch. From this building tab you can access buildings such as: Stockpile, Wood Camp, Stone Quarry, Iron Mine, Ox Tether and Pitch Rig.

Stockpile

One of the most important places in your castle. Stockpile is used to store all (besides food) resources you currently have. In contrast to the first installment of the game (and the Crusader expansion) you only need to build a single Stockpile, because it has infinite storing space. Most of the mission (and all the skirmishes) start with you placing the Stockpile.

Additionally, by selecting the Stockpile and a specific resource, you will be able to buy, or sell it on the market by clicking the appropriate button. In contrast to the previous Stronghold games, you can buy and sell resources without placing the Market first.

Wood Camp

Cost: 20 wood, 1 peasant

Produces: 16 pieces of wood

A building allowing you to cut trees and then process it into wood. It's probably the most important production building in the game - without wood you won't be able to construct most of the buildings. Wood Camp is extremely cheap, so it's generally worth to build at least a few of them (from 3 to 6, or more, depending on the mission and your needs).

Remember to place your Wood Camps near trees - this way you will decrease the travel time of your woodcutter, increasing the production rate of the building at the same time. You can also place your camps near the Stockpile, which may not be the most efficient way in terms of production, but it will allow you to protect your buildings, as well as woodcutters, from the enemy attacks.

Stone Quarry

Cost: 50 wood, 3 peasants

Produces: 32 pieces of stone

This building allows you to extract stone. Stone is mostly used to construct base defenses - walls, gates, and towers. Those buildings require enormous amounts of stone, so it's a good idea to invest in and build your quarries as soon as possible. You should opt to avoid buying stone on the market - given the astronomical amounts of stone required to construct certain buildings it's not very profitable.

Stone Quarries can only be placed on 'special places', or to be more exact, on stone deposits - they are easy to locate (green color on the mini-map). You will also need Ox Tethers to transport the stone to your Stockpile. You should construct several of them for each Stone Quarry you have, as it can take more than a minute to transport the stone to your Stockpile, depending on the distance - during the time there's no free Ox Tether near a Stone Quarry, the building won't be producing any stone. Each Stone Quarry can support up to 4 Ox Tethers, but most of the time you won't need so many of them (2 will suffice in most cases).

Placing a Stone Quarry (or a few of them), along with Ox Tethers, will cost you hundreds of pieces of wood and several peasants, but stone production is way more profitable than buying stones off the market.

Iron Mine

Cost: 50 wood, 2 peasants

Produces: 8 pieces of iron

A building which is very similar to the previously described - the only difference is that it produces iron instead of stone. Just as with Stone Quarries, Iron Mines must be constructed on iron deposits, which can be easily located (reddish color on the mini-map). You will also need Ox Tethers to transport iron to your Stockpiles - you should build them in accordance to the distance to your Stockpile, but 2 of them for each Iron Mine is more than enough.

Iron is required to produce most of the weapons (and the only type of armor) in the game, which will be needed to hire troops, so a proper iron production is crucial. In extreme situations (being under siege, for instance) you can buy iron from the market, but it's price is quite high. Remember to sell any excess iron on the market, as it's one of the best ways to gain lots of gold.

Pitch Rig

Cost: 40 wood, 1 peasant

Pitch Rig is probably the least useful building from this category, as the pitch produced by this building can only be used to construct defenses. Pitch can be used to construct Pitch Ditches, which can be lit by your Archers (with the help of a Brazier), or to build an Oil Smelter, which allows your engineers to spill boiling oil on your enemies.

Pitch Rig can only be placed on swamps, which are hard to locate and access to them is extremely limited (most of the time they are on the enemy troops route and will be constantly attacked). If you can't afford a constant inflow of pitch, you can hire Oil Pot Throwers from the Mercenary Camp - those units aren't as effective as engineers, but they are cheaper and more reliable.

Ox Tether

Cost: 15 wood

Ox Tether, as it was previously mentioned, is used to transport stones from Stone Quarries and iron from Iron Mines to your Stockpile. It's a very useful building, without which you wouldn't be able to produce both resources.

Ox Tethers are cheap and they do not need peasants, meaning that you should build as many of them as possible, to maximize the stone and/or iron production rate.