Stronghold Heaven

County of Tripoli

Objectives

"The Lord of Lacum has requested aid. He has found himself fighting a war on two fronts with the Snake on one side and the Wolf on another. If Lacum can be secured it will prove an ideal location from which to finish the Snake for good."

Notes

Of the 5 Crusader States maps, this is possibly the most difficult. You have a combination of the rush tactics used by the snake and the more planned, deadly attacks of the wolf.

First of all, build a few woodcutters’ huts near the keep. Start food production as soon as possible and again concentrate on wheat/bread. With the starting stone, build a barracks and wall off the north side of the keep. Initially, leave the east side open – there is a reason for this!

Buy crossbows and leather armour from the market and recruit about 12 crossbowmen. Place them on top of the keep – not the walls, as they will be damaged later. Also build a mercenary post and recruit as many horse archers as possible. Try to do this within the first few months of the map as the Snake will send slaves and pikemen to attack. With the crossbowmen on the keep, leave a few horse archers near the wheat farms to defend against any slaves or pikemen that slip through.

Both the Wolf and the Snake will send catapults to your castle. Try to hold them off by moving troops (archers, pikemen) to destroy these. The wall I built at the start of the map takes a bit of a beating but it ensures the slaves are filtered to the front of the castle where they can be picked off more easily and cause less damage.

In order to stand a fighting chance against the Wolf, who had easy access to iron and therefore more heavyweight recruits, I needed to rid myself of the snake. I moved the horse archers (30 in number) to the south of his castle and let them kill as many troops as possible. I also recruited a couple of flame throwers and moved them to within striking distance of the buildings within his castle. They were extremely effective and burnt down almost everything, including new buildings that were constructed. This small force will pin back the snake quite effectively. Once gold allows, recruit a few Arabian swordsmen from the mercenary post and force your way in to attack the Snake. Losses may be quite high here but by this point you should have no other troops to cause you any concern from this castle.

With the Snake gone, you can concentrate on defending against the Wolf. As long as the Snake has been disposed of quickly, you will be able to being recruiting for the defence of your castle. Surprisingly I found defending here to be easier than first imagined. Gold again came from selling all bread once religion and ale coverage was reaching peak coverage and food consumption turned off. At this point you can start to wall in the keep. I found that one quarry placed on the stone outcrop near the ridge running the length of the map was enough to produce stone for construction. The way I found most effective to defend my castle was crossbowmen, archers, Arabian archers… anything with aerial firepower, and in huge numbers. With the iron I bought I made metal armour and recruited pikemen, keeping them in reserve and ready to defend the keep at all costs.

The Wolf does have one particular weakness here. If you can get flame throwers near enough to the castle without getting killed, they can burn pretty much everything and take out a large number of the wolf’s troops in the process. The buildings are close together and numerous. After quite a few years defending against a variety of attacks, I moved ALL of my army in a desperate effort to take control of the wolf’s castle. Using the masses of archers I had, including all my pikemen, Arabian swordsmen, assassins, etc I launched a huge blitz but keeping the flame throwers a safe enough distance. When I thought I had cleared a path I moved them to the wolf’s castle and set fire to anything and everything! In between periods of burning things my pikemen were sent into the castle primarily to kill the wolf. It’s a great scrap and as long as your economy is in full swing and you have plenty of troops with weapons manufacture to back you up, you should be okay here. Patience is again the key. Don’t even think of attacking unless you have an army of 200 or more, with 100 being pikemen and at least 90 being crossbowmen or Arabian archers.

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