Guide

to castle building in Stronghold Kingdoms

Created by Green Apple February 20, 2014
To help new players with designing a stronghold castle capable of withstanding all but the most signicant of aacks, I have wrien up this guide detailing the various defensive buildings, research and castle designs.

Research
The absolute minimum research required for starng a good castle design is Forcaon to level 8 and the 1st point in Defenses. This will allow you to build great towers and guardhouses, two of the most important structures in castle defense.
Forcaon requires the rst point in Castellaon to be unlocked. Each progressive level unlocks addional castle walls, towers and gatehouses. Level 6 is required to build stone gatehouses and level 8 is required to build Great Towers. This is an essenal research as all the strongest castle designs use almost enrely great towers. Defenses requires the rst 3 points in Castellaon and is necessary to unlock various defensive technologies and upgrade the armor of archers on the wall. The rst point unlocks guardhouses which allows 10 addional troops to be placed in your castle for each guardhouse. Moats, killing pits, smelters/oil pots are all unlocked via this research. This is an essenal research. Construcon decreases the me it takes to build your castle and requires ve points in Castellaon to unlock. At max level it reduces build me by 60% reducing the average build me of a castle from 65-75 days to 26-30 days. This research is essenal if you want to be able to defend against other players in a mely fashion. Sally forth research requires 6 points in Castellaon and enables knights to charge from your keep to the enemy in waves while being aacked. These knights move quickly, have high damage and defenses and can easily destroy weaker armies, catapults, archers, or hold up a chokepoint prevenng the enemy from passing. 10 sally forth spawn at max research and addional knights spawn with use of cards. Vaults require 2 points in Castellaon to be unlocked and help protect the castle against pillage aacks. When AI or players aack a castle via a pillage aack, a countdown starts with the value depending on the percent of goods the enemy is trying to take (Default 9,000 for 90%) and counts down depending on how many troops are standing within the white line. Vaults increase the starng value by up to 200%. Diplomacy requires 4 points in Castellaon to unlock and gives you up to a 50% chance of stopping an AI aack while sll geng all the honor you would have goen if you had successfully defended the aack. You can turn this feature o from the aack screen if needed. Cards can be played that increase this chance by 50% to a total of 100% chance of stopping an AI aack. A few other important areas of research for castle defense is Command to 500 which allows you to build up to 500 troops which you can use in your castle. Pike and Long Bow research increases the HP of Pikemen and Archers by up to 100% increasing their survival chance. Conscripon can also be useful when a tunnelors Guild and tunnel are present as the spawned peasants can have up to 100% addional hp making them last much longer and potenally killing many more catapults/archers.

Research connued.
Recommended order for Defense Research: 1. Forcaon to rank 8 and Defenses to rank 1. 2. Construcon to rank 10. 3. Defenses to rank 7+ which allows moats. 4. Long Bow to rank 10 (Archer HP). 5. Sally Forth to rank 10. 6. Defenses to rank 10 and Castellaon to rank 10. 7. Vaults/Diplomacy to rank 10. These are a suggesons and you should denitely do other essenal research in industry, military, farming and educaon in between steps.

Castle Fundamentals
Your goal with a castle is to have as many defenses between the white line and the entrance to your keep. If an aacker has even 1 troop make it to the back of the keep, their aack will be successful whether it be a vandal, pillage, ransack, capture or raze. The vast majority of aacks >80% hit the front of the castle. When I speak of front of castle, Im referring to the boom le corner of the castle. This is also the direcon of the opening of the keep and is the shortest path from outside the white line to the center of the keep.

Level 10 Keep

Level 1 Keep

Level 10 keep, lowered with pikemen staoned inside.

If you look at the above pictures, you can see the change in art work and how the opening of the keep faces to the boom le corner. This is considered front door. This keep is also the only thing present when you rst build a new village. In the picture to the right you can see a black outline around the keep. This is an area where you cannot build anything, but you can place troops as pikemen.

The above image shows the keep in the center of a diamond shaped white box. Anything instead the box, the keep will shoot arrows at. Also, any counters will only countdown if enemy troops are beyond the white line which why it is important to try and prevent enemy troops from even crossing the white line. Inside the white line you can place towers, other defensive buildings and your own troops, but the only thing you can place outside the white line is the tunnel where the peasants exit out of. When an enemy aacks you village, they can place their troops anywhere outside the white line. The size of the white outline is 52 x 52 squares.

Defensive Stone Structures

Once you have research forcaons to rank 8, the stone tab on the upper right hand side of your screen when at the castle screen should look like this. To build walls, select either wall buon and click and drag. For towers, select the tower and then click on the desired locaon to place the tower. Click conrm to nish.
Stone wall icon, when selected allows you to click and drag placing a single line of towers at a me. Can be destroyed by enemy melee units. Stone gatehouse icon, allows friendly troops such as swordmen, pikemen and sally forth to pass through. Cannot place any units on top or inside. Stone wall icon, when selected, allows you to click and drag placing a rectangle of stone walls. Will also ll in gaps when dragging over towers. Same as other stone walls. Small tower: Occupies 2x2 space. Can place up to 4 archers on top. Weakest of the towers, but can only be destroyed by catapults. Large tower: Occupies 4x4 area. Can place up to 16 archers on top. Second strongest tower and can only be destroyed by catapults.

Medium Tower: Occupies an space 3x3, can place archers on top. Can only be destroyed by catapults. Great tower: Takes up 5x5 square area and is the strongest and biggest tower. Can place up to 25 archers on top. Can only be destroyed by catapults.

Defensive Buildings:
This buildings are found in the buildings tab when on your castle screen. They are unlocked via Defense research and by building and upgrading certain buildings in your parish.
Guard House: When built in castle, allows you to staon an addional 10 troops in your castle. 3x3 area Killing Pit: Triggers when enemies walk on top; deal signicant damage to all enemies that cross over for a short me. Must be repaired aer every use. Oil Pots: Must have smelter built in order to place. When enemies walk near, oil pots dump large area of aming oil for a short period of me damaging all enemies that stay in oil. Must be rebuild aer use. Can be placed on top of walls and towers. Turret: Rapidly shoots arrows at medium range. Occupies 2x2 space. Unlocked via parish building.

Smelter: When built in your castle, allows you to place up to 5 oil pots per smelter build. 4x4 area Moats: Can place up to 500 moat at 20 gold each. Must be dug up my enemy troops in order to pass, cannot be damaged by catapults. 1x1 Tunnel: Place where peasants exit from tunnelor guild. 1x1 space, must be placed outside of walls.

Ballista: The ulmate catapult killer. Has slow rate of re, but one shot kills any unit and has ~52 square range. Hits catapults rst if they are in range. 3x3 space. Unlocked via parish building.

Defense theory connued:

There is no one correct or best castle design, however there is beer or worse castle designs. Your goal as the defender is to make it as dicult as possible for enemies to enter your keep. Because so many player aack from the direcon of the front door, your primary goal is to have only the strongest structures between the white line and your keep. Meaning, the only thing between the center of the white line and your keep should be moat, great/large towers, and walls. No open spaces, no gaps, no guardhouses, no ballista or anything else. The two images to the right show examples of solid tower/moat/wall between center of white line and keep. The next page shows an image showing why you need to orient your defenses this way.

This image shows an aack formaon with the catapult line of re shown. This army has 500 troops with 75 catapults. As you can see, the catapults line of re will break a path to the center of the keep destroying the towers and walls in their path. As the defender, you want to have as much defenses as possible between the white line and keep so the your defenses have me to kill all the enemy troops and prevent the catapults from blowing a huge hole in your castle. Ideally you want primarily moat and great towers as great towers take a lot of catapults hit to be destroyed and only enemy melee units can destroy moats. In the example to the right, the player has a couple great towers between the white line and keep, but has 5 layers of open spaces, 1 gatehouse, guardhouses and unnecessary layers of stone wall mean that an aacked can break through those defenses much easier. So reiterate DO NOT PLACE GUARDHOUSES, SMELTERS, BALLISTA, or OPEN SPACES into the red triangle area show below, especially in in the front door triangle. Similar triangles exist for the other three sides as well, but this is rule is extremely important for the front door triangle area.

Building your castle:

As I menoned earlier regarding the white line, any counters will only decrease when enemy units are standing within the white line. This means you want connuous defenses touching the white line around your enre castle like the pictures to the boom right. There isnt enough room to only use great towers, so most people use large towers in or near the corners as this area is rarely aack. The two designs to the right are extremely common and is how the outside of your castle should appear with only minor variaon. I personally prefer the upper one. Next you need a place to put your guardhouses, smelters and ballistae. As you cannot put them in the area between the center of a white line and the keep, you must put them in a corner. Below I have a number of examples of various corner designs.

Castle Design Connued

Some of the important decisions to make are:

Whether or not to have smelters. Central keep design Whether you want 3 or 4 great towers in the middle row. Exit locaon

All of these can greatly eect your overall design. For the area around the keep, there are three common opons. First is to surround the keep with 8 great towers, with moat, or with large towers. Each of these have their advantages.

All these designs are viable and good designs because it allows you to put lots of archers close to the keep while sll making it dicult for catapults and enemy troops to break into the keep area. Also, all of these designs have the gatehouse facing toward the back where it is most dicult to successfully aack from. Your choice will come down to personal preference and which features you want to be a part of your castle. The next few pages will show several complete castle designs to give you an idea of the diversity of eecve castle designs.

You should have a prey good idea of how to design a castle from the above examples. There are dozens of other similar castle that are just as good if not beer, so experiment a lile to nd out what works best for you.

Addional informaon regarding castle defense:

Sally Forth
Sally forth are knights that periodically charge out of your keep during a siege. Sally forth are the second strongest unit in the game behind captain in aack damage/hp, but can quickly move around the map. Sally forth has a priority list of who they go to rst to aack. First priority is catapults, followed by archers and nally pike/other melee units. Meaning that if a player aacks with catapults, if they dont have archers near their catapults, your sally forth will run to the catapults and quickly decimate them. However, without cards, the most you can have spawn over the course of a ght is 10 with 3-4 spawning at a me. With cards, it is possible to have 20+ addional knights spawn during the course of a bale. Sally forth are also good at clogging up narrow paths against melee, but do not fair well against massed archers/infantry units.

Tunnelor
The parish steward can build a structure called Tunnelors Guild which when upgraded allows players in the parish to place a tunnel exit which will spawn up to 50 peasants during the ght. This peasants will have any HP upgrades you have researched and will head straight for the nearest catapult. Tunnel exit placement can be anywhere outside the white line and ideally should be in a posion that allows the peasants to rapidly get to and kill aacking catapults. Turrets Turrets are a defensive buildings which is unlocked when the parish has a turret maker built and upgraded. Up to 10 turrets can be built at the cost 2000 stone each. Each turret will rapidly re arrows in a medium range around the turret. Ballista Ballistae are a defensive building which is unlocked when the parish has a ballistae maker built and upgraded. Up to 10 ballistae can be built at the cost of 10,000 wood each. Ballistae one hit kill any enemy unit and target catapults in range rst before other units. They have a range of ~52 square units. Smelter and Oil Pots Smelters are unlocked via defense research and when built allow the placement of oil pots. Each smelter costs 400 iron and allow 5 oil pots to be built. Oil pots placed prior to destrucon of smelter do not disappear so a viable strategy is to build a lot of smelters, place as many oil pots as possible and then delete the smelters. The oil pots once used however, have to be rebuilt.

Killing Pits
Killing pits should be placed along the path to your keep. Pikemen can be placed on top of killing pits. Killing pits need to be repaired aer use for half the inial build cost.

Archers
Archers are essenal to a castle defense. Without archers, even weak aacks to break through to the keep. Ideally you will want 340+ archers on the walls at all mes. You can use your own village troops or your liege lord troops for defense. Just beware that if the liege lord using his troops, those troops will be pulled o your wall leaving you vulnerable so make sure you talk to your liege lord rst. Archers have increased range when placed on top of walls and tower though they get an even bigger bonus to aack range when placed on towers vs walls. On ground is 13 squares, on tower is 28 squares. With max level defense archers take 50% reduced damage.

Pikemen
Pikemen are an important part of a castle defense. They cannot be placed on towera/walls, but should be placed in the keep and in narrow paths/chokepoints in your castle. Five pike in the keep with 380 archers on the walls can destroy 1000s of enemy troops even with a clear path from the front white line to the keep. Most people will have 5-20 pike in their castle. Swordmen can also be placed, but are not recommended due to their lower hp. Pikemen can get set to passive or aggressive. When on aggressive, pike will seek out nearby enemies to aack. The 5-6 pike in the keep should never be set to aggressive, but other pike on aggressive can be very useful.

Captains
Captains can also be placed in the keep. They have the highest hp and aack damage in the game and can be an eecve part of a castles defense. However, they are extremely expensive and you can at most only place 5. Against weak aacking captain armies, having captains in the keep can be very eecve. Overall, they are not worth the price as they can be easily killed by skilled players and are expensive to replace. Price is (#of captains you currently have + #villages you have) * 1000 meaning if you have 3 villages with 5 captains each, the 15th captain will cost 15,000 gold.

Building a new castle from scratch

Your rst goal during your 3 days of peaceme should be to build around your keep using one of the keep designs shown earlier in the guide. Next get your guardhouses down so you can put troops on your inner towers. Then build towers around your guardhouses and outer wall and nally build your middle/inner towers. This should give you an eecve defense early on before your whole castle is nished.

Cards
Castle Building Cards
Cards are an important part of stronghold kingdoms and can greatly increase your oensive and defensive capabilies and speed up various aspects of the game. For building your castle there are 2 primary types of cards. Masons card which increase your castle build speed and designer cards which instantly build a certain number of hours of construcon. There are three Mason cards, Master Mason (x1.5), Masonry Team (x3), and Expert Masons (x5) build speed. They each last for six hours. For designer cards there are: Castle Designer (3hrs), Master Castle designer (6hrs), and Expert Castle designer (48hrs). There are also Wall Construcon Team (12hrs of walls) and Moat Digging Team (12hrs of moats). TIP: Never use designer cards without rst playing the best masonry card you have. If you just play an expect castle designer, you only get 6hrs of construcon completed. But if you play an Expert Masons card, the x5 build speed mulplies the eect of the Master Castle designer instantly compleng an eecve 30hrs of construcon. Thus by pairing Expert masons with a few designer cards, you can almost instantly complete your enre castle in a few minutes fairly inexpensively. A day 30 built me can be completed instantly with one Expert Mason and 20 Master designer cards. Even with only 3-4 designer cards + mason, you can get your basic defenses up quickly so you can survive early aacks.

Castle Defense Cards

A number of cards increase various aributes of your castle. The most important two are Stone wall and Stone structure cards. These cards increase the amount of damage your stone walls and towers can take before they are destroyed. Improved stone walls (x1.5), Advanced stone walls (x2), and Expert Stone walls (x2.5) Improved stone structure (x1.5), Advanced stone structures (x1.8) Improved Moats card which increases moat ll length by x1.3

Castle Defense Cards connued

Call to arms doubles the keep ring rate for (2hrs, 12hrs, 24hrs) Improved pits increase killing pit damage for by x1.5, x2, x4 for 24hrs. Oil pots cards increased oil pot area of eect by x1.3 and x1.6 for 24hrs Expert turrets double turret ring speed for 24hrs Expect tunneling doubles the number of peasants spawned Knight Cards Surprise aack cards can be played and will be used up the next me your aacked. These knights spawn at the beginning of the aack. (2,5,12 knights) Last Stand cards can be played and will spawn a group of knights only if the enemy army nears the entrance to your keep. Knights charge doubles the speed your knights for 24hrs.

Desperate Defense
Desperate defense cards can be played, and the next me the castle is aacked will instantly repair the castle assuming you have enough stone to repair the damage. If your under aack and there are large numbers of aacks hing you all at once, assuming you have lots of desperate defense cards, can spam the card while being aacked, instantly repairing your castle in-between the <1s gaps between aacks. With a lile luck, you can survive 10-20 med aacks using this trick. Guard houses Guard house cards increase the maximum number of troops you can place in your castle by (x1.3, x1.4) allowing you to place up to 520 or 560 troops on your walls at once. These troops will remain on your walls even if the card expires. However, you will need to replay the card in order to move the troops are replace lost troops. The x1.3 card only costs 10 card points and is a cheap way to dramacally improve your defenses assuming you have enough archers to place on your walls.

Other random ps/tricks:

You can use your castle to temporarily store wood/stone/iron/gold via placing the respecve structures and then removing them prior to the structure nishing. For example if your parish is under aack, you can place up to 500 moat, (10,000 gold worth), let the aack hit, and then delete the moat before it is built. If you have a small stockpile, a similar thing can be done with your castle. Place a few great towers/ballista, and then delete the unnished structure before its completed to get your goods back. Just beware that if deleng the building will overow your capacity, you will lose those goods.