Mathew Steel

So any SH2 player knows that gold is one of the most important resources. It's used for troops, defences, trading and even some buildings. So what if you're low? You can't train troops, can't keep a decent working economy, can't even buy the wood you so desperately need. From playing multiplayer yesterday with a certain Lord_Chris, him and I now know how important it is to keep a steady amount of gold for backup. Especially if you have the upper hand and you are taken out from a few knights and ladder men *cough* Chris *cough* it's important to be able to train new troops to defend your territory and Lord quickly. So here is my guide for sustaining gold both in single and multi player. For the purpose of the tutorial I will start by assuming the player starts with the rank "Freeman". And if not you can skip to later on in the topic. Follow this link for advice for general SH2 tips. Use the tips from the link and the tips in this topic together for a great outcome. The tips were written by Lord_Chris: http://forums.stronghold-nation.com/post/1275/#p1275 Starting out: Of course it's important to start a small economy before anything. Place your stockpile as near to stone and trees as possible, of course if you can, place near iron also. Now place your granary, then 5 wood cutter huts next to the trees, and 3 apple orchards next to the granary. Starting in Freeman, you need to make the choice of a barracks or treasury. Place a treasury near your keep (this makes it easier to keep thieves away). Set the granary rations to "Extra" (+4 Popularity) and wait until the popularity raises by 4. Now increase the tax to "Normal" (-4 Popularity). Continue to work on your castle. Placing extra hovels and food resources (while discussing this, be sure to place apple orchards, dairy farms, and hunter's posts, as this will increase the honour gain). Once you feel you have enough food, change the rations to "Double" (+8 Popularity) and change the tax to "High" (-6 Popularity). The reason you don't want any more tax than that is for the next stage in the ranking system where gong is a problem. THIS IS A MUST NOTE- Do not buy from the market after being promoted to the next rank. This will start a bad habit and you will lose gold fast. Next stages: Try and maintain over 500 gold once you reach the rank "Knight" (3rd Rank). This will assure that you have enough gold for troops. Keep the gold above 500 and make sure that you have enough weapon production at the same time. Keep following this formula- 1+ Promotion, Maintain +300 gold. If this is done up to the higher rank (Baron, Earl, Duke). You will have a lot of gold to train troops, assuming you follow this formula, you won't need to be placing any gold consuming buildings by the time you reach the rank "Duke" (Highest rank). Trading: Trading excess goods is an easy and quick way to make gold. Here's a guide I use for goods trading. Sell- Iron, if over 20. Stone, if over 200 (this varies depending on castle size, towers, walls, gatehouses etc) Wood, if over 200. Excess food (if units of food do not go below 500, sell excess food, while making sure you have a fair amount of apples, cheese and meat to keep honour high) Buy- Stone Bows Lord's food Other resources are okay to trade but these are the best things to trade. Estates: The 10+ gold from estates won't be greatly useful. But, the amount of food produced from estates is high indeed. Send 50+ apples to your castle from each estate. You will be able to sell a large amount of apple in return for a very high amount of gold. Troop Training: Be sure you have enough gold for troops. By the time you reach the rank "Duke". If following the tips given out by Lord_Chris (linked in this topic) you should already have everything you need as in buildings, defences etc. Assuming you've followed my tutorial, you should have over 10,000 gold by the time you're at the rank "Duke". Training troops is of course a huge part of SH2. The best troops to train are in the barracks. Even the Knights, only cost 200 gold each to train. Considering the amount you should have, this is not much. Of course the mercenary post troops can be quite useful. Such as horse archers, in great amounts do a lot of damage. But be wary as they are some of the most expensive troops. Stay away from troops from the monastery. They aren't expensive but they are a waste of gold as they are not efficient for anything really, in large numbers they do decent amounts of damage, but aren't worth it for the amount of gold spent. Gold Cap: Try and keep above 5000 gold. This will reassure that you can train a lot of troops as backup. With this you can train... (assuming you have the honour and weapons) 1. 25 Knights 2. 62 Horse Archers 3. 250 Crossbowmen 4. 416 Archers 5. 1000 Armed Peasants (silly) Of course these are separate. You can not raise an army of 1753 troops with 5000 gold. I hope this tutorial was of use to you, and that you can manage your gold better from following it. Leave any other tips in the comments, and reply with feedback, thank you :) EDIT: Apologies for the broken link, unsure how to fix. Someone reply or edit themselves, thank you!

I noticed that a lot of the members have what operating system and what web browser they use below their username. I'm curious to how to show that on my profile?

My GameRanger ID- {SHN} Mathew Steel: 5570539

That's true. For me SH2 is my favourite mainly because of the building availability. Something that ruined SH3 was the building cap. And troop cap was too low!

Don't worry about it Eagle. Wish you could have joined us it was a lot of fun. But it's good to put yourself first sometimes :)

Ahh right that's good to hear, thank you Chris.

Better be better than SH3. Stronghold 3 wasn't a bad game, but from what they promised, it was rubbish.

Lol yes Chris very true. And thanks for the avatar Eagle, I'll change it now :) As for the game tonight I'll be able to play. Might be 10 minutes late though if that's okay, if not I understand :)

I'm devastated, on the bright side, it will make it a better game, plus it's released on my birthday :D

I'll participate. 6pm UK time sounds great. I don't think I'll be doing anything so I'll let you know tomorrow :)