Stronghold Crusader trick and tips

Various Cheats
At the Main Menu, press Shift + Alt + A to enable cheat mode. Now during gameplay, press any of the following:


Alt + C = All Missions
Alt + K = Free Building, No Resources Required
Alt + X = 100 Popularity and +100 Gold

Stronghold Crusader screenshot, author: Powell

Game tips, hints and secrets submitted by our visitors.
Submitted by: gunman
Hold Enemies Captive Inside Their Own Castles
Take a small building such as an Oxen Tether. Place 1 or 2 of them right outside the gatehouse(s) of your enemy's castle, but make sure their keep is enclosed first. Immediately put the Oxen Tethers to sleep. The ground troops will walk to the gatehouse to destroy them but they can't get through, so they just walk back to their spot. Your enemy's buildings outside of the castle will spontaneously crumble because the workers can't get back inside the castle. Also, the gatehouse(s) you blocked might spontaneously crumble after a while. Soon there will be no food and the peasants will leave the castle. The small army will be trapped inside their own walls awaiting your arrival. When your army is built up, you can just waltz over and wipe the whole castle off the map. (Note: Make sure there are no enemies outside of the castle, or else they will probably come and destroy your oxen tethers.

Submitted by: Stronghold Addict
On most games on Stronghold Crusader, it is easy to win. All you have to do is build a barracks, armory and a market. Spend all your gold on producing macemen. If you do this in the first 4 minutes of the game you can sent your macemen to your unready enemies and destroy them. Easy as pie!

Submitted by: Wild cat
If your enemy has a well-defended castle with two or more lines of walls, here's a strategy that might help you to defeat him:

1. You kill the archers on the first wall, usually they are not so many.
2. Get your archers (better crossbowmen) near the unguarded wall, but really close.
3. Now the enemy ranged units cant see yours, because they are hidden behind the walls. All you have to do is command your hidden archers to shoot at the enemy.

Note: Your archers aren't accurate at all because they can't see their target.
Good luck!

Submitted by: nick
If your tower is full of archers and you want more archers in the tower, this is what you can do. 1st take all the archers of the tower and put them on the ground. 2nd hire more archers and put them on the ground but away from the other group of archers. 3rd take one group of archers and put them on the tower. Then very quickly get the other group of archers and put them on the tower before the other group gets up there.

Submitted by: Vasko Kendev
If you want to be protected very well, make this:

1. Build a normal wall.
2. Build a second wall, but make a place between two walls.
3. Set a cage with dogs in the free place between the walls.

When enemy attack you and destroy the first wall you can let the dogs.

Submitted by: Bill
If you want to be really economical, because if you raise taxes to average people will leave, just make a mercenary post and make some horse-archers and then you can gallop to meet your enemy when they raid you and most adversaries send in short range men so generally you won't have to worry about them firing back. So get some horse-archers and then you can concentrate on economy and give the people food, a church and anything else you want to add (i.e. maypole, dancing bear, flags, communal gardens, gallows, apothecaries etc.) and then once you are on a stable 100 popularity, raise taxes to average make weapons, sell some, use others for men, an make macemen or whatever you want, plus some men from your mercenary post. Also, monks are good and you can get monks from a cathedral, they are good against the snake or the rat because they are good in brawls with spearmen.

Submitted by: bud
When fighting against any of the largest and most viscous Lords, the best way to keep them small is to buy as many archers from a mercenary post as you can at the start of the game, then send them out and keep them busy at the oxen tethers and quarries and mines sending regular reinforcements as you do, but keep an eye on them because the enemy will send out forces to kill them. Just pull your men back until the enemy stops chasing them, horse archers work better for this trick because you can put them on a long patrol from your castle to theirs and they will shoot as they go.

A nice way to start your economy is if you have oasis land to slap down three wheat farms and three bakeries. This will use up all available campfire men but if you put them to sleep will also increase the amount of men you have for defense measures. Don't put them to sleep too long or you will run out of food, three farms run for about 20-30 people if I remember right, but keep an eye on things anyway and it doesn't hurt to add farms and orchards when you can.

The first woodcutter you put down in the game is free but he won't cover very well so three woodcutters will be a nice start.

Submitted by: Aftin
If you have trouble with enemy archers a good tactic is to make at least 30 horse archers and command them to patrol in front of the enemy castle, this makes a hard moving target and you will take them out as you move.

Submitted by: ho
Building 3 orchards at the beginning of the game can be extremely useful as they are cheap and support a large population.

Submitted by: Nisde
By immediately placing a group of Woodmen Huts around an enemy base, then putting them to sleep, you will block the area and prevent him from building Barracks or a Mercenary Camp. It costs a lot of Wood, but it means they cannot make any troops and therefore very easy to defeat. Note: This does not work on the Pig. In the most difficult levels when the enemy comes at you very early, try to set up a trap. Build strong walls around your land except in one area. Leave an opening and have as many troops as possible covering that area. The enemies often ignore the undefended walls and go for your "weak spot" Instead, they walk in to a wall of Ballista, Archer, and crossbow fire; and a few Knights for good measure. Do not forget your Lord is also a superb fighter that also can be used.

Submitted by: Shaun
To have more than having just 24 peasants near your campfire, do this trick: have plenty of hovels (houses) and make at least 16-10 wells (the ones that's hold up to 3 people). Now when you need extra people for whatever reason (making units, having peasants faster than what they once were) you just need to put the wells to sleep and presto, extra peasants in the campsite.

Submitted by: Ryan
To get a high religion coverage, place chapels by your gatehouses. The villagers all have to pass through one to drop off their provisions at the granary/stockpile, and since priests stay in rough proximity to their chapel, you can get a very high religion coverage with not too much expense.

Submitted by: Desdichado
1. As soon as the game starts, reduce the speed, place a mercenary post, a market, two or three hovels and sell all the resources and produce swordsmen and assassins. Charge at your enemy who will be just starting to produce the army.
Note: This works only on few enemies and not all.

2. In case your enemy's defense is too good to approach, get 20 engineers near his castle (not too close) and build catapults. Throwing stones at a time, from ten or more catapults will produce unimaginable damage to the enemies.
Note: You need to stabilize your stone production before your attempt. Place 5 to 6 fire ballistas around the catapults for their safety.

3. Not all games require a fort around your house. If you're placed in one corner of the map, just two round towers with archers and engineers on top with a line of fire ballistas will almost prevent any kind of army from reaching the manor house.
Note: This way, you have more stones to use, and less stone buildings to lose.

Submitted by: Valo
The best thing you have to do in order to make enemies not to attack you is making 30 archers on horses and attacking all the time. In this way, the enemy can't develop and attack you. When you have enough money, you had better increase the number of your horses and leave them attacking the enemy. Then make some soldiers just to kill the king (tip: send the soldiers all together because the king is very strong and can kill someone alone in no time.)

Submitted by: Vio
Exploiting the blatantly stupid AI:

* Put woodcuter huts right next to the Snake's buildings. He will burn them down, along with his own castle.
* Combine the "weak spot" strategy with some pitch. Even when it's already burning, they will run right into it.
* Make towers unusable without fully destroying them, and they will never be replaced.
* Build your gatehouse in a way that your keep is not enclosed *until* the drawbridge goes up. The enemy will send no siege machines, and then leave his confused knights standing at the moat.
* Do not destroy mines/orchards he builds next to your base. Instead, station an archer there to shoot his ever returning peasants.


Submitted by: Messenger
I have been playing the game for more than a year now, and it still gives me great challenge and pleasure. When I upgrade my platform I will buy 'Extreme'. I would also like to thank all of the players who have freely given their hints. May I add one I learned from another site? Place two or more workers into a single building or farm to garner greater production without having to buy a separate building to house each. Select the bread farm, click pause, put it to sleep, then wake it up, then unpause. Thanks, and good luck.

Submitted by: Adm. Awesome
Is the enemies base well defended by fire ballistas? You can use this against them! Find an open spot inside their fortress, build an Ox Tether there. It will take awhile, but eventually they will set it on fire, which will spread through-out their fortress. They will probably put their buildings out, but yours will continue to burn. If you can, find another open space and build another Ox Tether, hopefully the first one will light the second one on fire too. If done properly, you can keep flames spread through-out their fortress for the whole game, this will kill their workers and any soldiers who try to travel on the ground. Plus various buildings and maybe their grainery. After all this is done, let the fire go out and all they will have left is their towers with some archers in them, easy enough to get past.

Submitted by: Blake thoughts
To enable the cheats, go to the main menu, hold [Ctrl], and type "triblade2002" without the quotes (and while still holding Ctrl) (yes, I know that sounds like a fake activator, it isn't amazingly). After the cheats are enabled (you will not receive any notification if they are), press the following keys during a game to activate certain cheats:
[Alt] + X: Raises popularity to 100 and gives 1000 gold. Can be held down for massive gold.
[Alt] + C: Unlocks all missions in the game
[Alt] + K: Makes it so when you build buildings, they do not use the resources they normally need. Be careful when activating this cheat, and try to hold alt and tap the K key once and very quickly. Holding down the K key for even a short time can cycle between activating and deactivating the cheat.
Press [Alt] + K once more to deactivate the cheat