Stronghold 4 Beginner Guide: How to Start Well

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Your first steps in Stronghold 4

1. Place the stockpile. Everything your workers gather goes into it: wood, stone, iron and pitch, and goods such as wool, wheat, flour, hops, ale and candles. Put it close to where you will work. To add more, click the same tile again and the new stockpile joins the first; most farms and industry buildings can be added the same way.
2. Woodcutters next to the trees. Firefly calls them the heartbeat of your starting economy: when wood runs short, construction stops. Put the huts right beside the forest so the walk is short, and build more than you think you need.
3. Apples first. An Apple Farm costs 10 wood and one worker, and its apples go straight into the granary with no second building. It is the cheapest way to keep your people fed early on.
4. Then stone and iron. A Stone Quarry has to sit on a stone deposit and needs one or more oxen, which carry the stone to your stockpile. An Iron Mine has to sit on an iron deposit. Stone gives you real walls; iron gives you weapons and armor.
5. Then bread. A Wheat Farm (20 wood) feeds a Windmill, which makes flour, which a Bakery (50 wood) turns into bread. Build the whole chain at once: a bakery with no flour does nothing.

Every food chain with its wood cost is on the Stronghold 4 buildings page, with a calculator for a whole build.

Keep your popularity up

Popularity decides whether peasants come to your castle or leave it. The popularity panel shows food, ale, religion, tax and fear factor as separate lines, so you can see what pulls it up or down. Firefly names a few levers:

• Food and ale. Keep the granary full. A Hops Farm (20 wood) and a Brewery (50 wood) add ale, which has its own line in the panel.
• Housing. Too little shelter for your peasants brings popularity down.
• Churches. They raise popularity.
• Taxes and honour. Some choices trade honour and unit unlocks against higher popularity and better taxes, so decide early whether you are building an army or a rich town.
• Fear factor. Harsh rule makes peasants work harder, but it costs you in popularity.

Mistakes that sink a new castle

• Too few woodcutters. Every building waits for wood, so a short supply stops the whole town.
• A bakery without a mill. No flour, no bread. Each food chain needs all its buildings.
• An empty granary. Hungry peasants lose faith in you and leave, and fewer peasants means fewer workers and soldiers.
• Walls too late. In Free Build invasions come, and in Skirmish the CPU lords attack; the Stronghold 4 AI lords guide says who they are.

When you are ready for an army

Most troops cost gold, honour, a weapon and a peasant each; the Stronghold 4 army cost calculator adds up a whole force. To see a full game from the first farm to the first siege, read the Stronghold 4 gameplay guide, and practise all of this in the free Stronghold 4 demo before Early Access starts on December 7.

Questions