Crossbowmen:
Crossbowmen are useful for base and offensive measures. You should build up at least fifteen Crossbowmen at the start. Buy them and place a tower near a stronghold or farm, depending on the landscape. For offensive tactics, build up at least 75-100 Crossbowmen, 2 Balista or 8 Assassins and 2 Catapults. Take out enemy tower first, then move the Baslistas and Crossbowmen in for the kill. Pick off enemy troops and use Assassins to take the gate house, or have a Siege Tower so you can get on to the ramparts. Then, have your Crossbowmen shoot the Enemy Lord while only suffering minimal casualties. Note: This does not work well in multi-player games against human opponents without the support of a lot of Swordsmen. However, this is still a high risk tactic in multi-player mode as the opposing lord may wipe out your Crossbowmen. For base defense, when you have your production up and running, you need to have two to three large Siege Towers full of Crossbowmen. This tactic works very well. To get crossbowmen recruits up and running, build one or two dairy farms. Then build three Tanners to each farm and have three or more armorers to build crossbows. Have eight or more peasants around the campfire. You should have your keep enclosed by now. If you have a money source, you can buy Crossbowmen. Have many iron mines or quarries for income. Also, you can have inns and raise taxes. You should also have gardens for the people.
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.
Cheat Mode
To enable cheat mode hold shift + alt + A at the main menu. Enter one of the codes below during gameplay to achieve the desired effect:
Code - Effect:
ALT & X - 100% Popularity and 1000 Gold
ALT + K - Buildings are free
ALT + C - Change character
ALT + B - Change Enemy Building 1 on Square
ALT + F - Change Enemy Building 10 on Square
ALT + S - Changes Time of Year
ALT + P - Character Increases Level
ALT + D - Debug Mode
ALT + K - Destroy Enemy Fortress
ALT + G - Destroy Main Stronghold
ALT + Q - Double Time Lapse
ALT + Y - Hit All Enemies On-screen
ALT + L - Increase Unit Level
ALT + S - Kill Selected Troops
ALT + Z - Kill Single Enemy
ALT + M - Quits Game
ALT + C - Unlocks all missions
Siege equipment on walls:
Use the following trick to get siege equipment on walls (not the mounted ones that are bought, but the ones that you make). Build a Gatehouse connected to a wall and build stairs far away from this. Send the equipment that you want through the gate from the outside to the inside. As soon as they are inside the gate, shut it and they will appear on the wall heading for the stairs. Stop them where desired (but not on towers as they will disappear), then you have a nice weapon on a wall.
Make your Own Taunts :
First, go into C:\Program Files\Firefly Studios\Stronghold Crusader\fx\Speech or wherever you installed Crusader. You will find a bunch of sound files. You need a microphone to do this. To make this easier, put the list of files in alphabetical order. Now, scroll down to the file Insult1. Insult1=F1 and you get the idea. (You can double click to listen to the file). Now right click on Insult1 to bring up a menu. Look down the list and find, "record". Click on that and it should bring up the sound recorder. Press record, record what you want to say and click stop. Instead of going to file save, press the close box and it should come up with a message stating the directory of the file changed and it will ask you if you want to save the changes. Click yes. Now, you can go into the game, press F1 and you should hear your recording. You can also do this with any other file in the speech folder. Note: Be aware that you can't change the file back to its original voice unless you reinstall the game. This is based on Windows XP and it might not be the same on Windows 98. etc.
Mounted Knights:
Mounted Knights are very useful for being a thorn in the enemy's side. Build 20 to 40 of them (depending on the enemy; Rat will only need 20, but Saladin will need 40). Send them out to destroy enemy farms and resources. Make a destructive sweep, then return to your castle. This is quite useful for stalling enemy production.
Selling weapons:
You can sell crossbows for more than just wood and can sell swords for more than raw iron.
Archers:
It is cheaper to buy archer bows and make Archers out of your barracks than it is to hire them from the mercenary post. They both have the same attack rate, defense rate, movement speed, and range.
Mangonels:
Tower-mounted Mangonels can prove to be good siege weapons. In many maps, the keeps start in close proximity to each other. Build your walls out as far as they can go. Place round towers and lookout towers on the wall facing your opponent's castle. Fill them with Archers and Mangonels. In many cases, you can hit the enemy's walls with the Mangonels from you own. Also, if you Archers can reach their walls, you can clear his Archers from your own walls.
Lookout towers:
Lookout towers are very useful, as they give good missile unit defense. Build an army of 20 Archers and select 5 of them. Set the game to slow speed and send the 5 archers to the tower. Quickly select another 5 Archers and send them in before the others get there. Do the same for the other 10 to get 20 archers on a small tower.
Food management:
It is easier to build, manage, and supply Inns rather than food because ale lasts longer. You can use the extra available farm space to build wheat fields and mills to make flour. Once you have flour, you can sell it for a profit or you can make bread and raise your taxes.
Conversation keys
The following is a list of things that will be said to an enemy after the corresponding key is pressed. Note: The spelling is the same way as it appears when done in the game.
[F1] - Oaf
[F2] - Varlet
[F3] - Fool
[F4] - Knave
[F5] - Peasant
[F6] - Help Help
[F7] - I win you loose
[F8] - Ill string you up
[F9] - You Damn Fool
[F10] - Mwahaha (Snort) haha
[Ctrl] + [F1] - Jack o napes!
[Ctrl] + [F2] - Buffoon
[Ctrl] + [F3] - Straw Pole
[Ctrl] + [F4] - Slubberdagollian
[Ctrl] + [F5] - Dastard
[Ctrl] + [F6] - Dolt
[Ctrl] + [F7] - Lollard
[Ctrl] + [F8] - Dotard
[Ctrl] + [F9] - Weasel turd
[Ctrl] + [F10] - Popinjay
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