A way of sustaining gold!

[Mathew Steel 151]

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!

Edited August 30, 2014 by Lord_Chris
Fixed broken link

[Lord_Chris 251]

A great topic indeed! This deserves a sticky and a rep point from me - Thanks very much for sharing :)

 

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Try and keep above 5000 gold. This will reassure that you can train a lot of troops as backup

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I manage to do that - but as soon as I start sieging, it just goes straight down and I can't get it back up. Maybe having 5000 in reserve would be a good move.

[Mathew Steel 151]

Yay stickied :) thanks Chris. It can be a struggle when sieging. That's why I had so little Knights, but I did manage to hold off by doing so.

[Lord_Chris 251]

You probably caused more damage with those pesky horse archers than I did with all my knights in the end :)

[Mathew Steel 151]

That is true :D

[Lord_Chris 251]

We'll definitely need a rematch sometime now I've found an efficient way of dealing with them using fire ballistas.

[Mathew Steel 151]

Lol yes, I couldn't do much about your ballistas.

[Lord_Chris 251]

I saw that whenever I brought them in, you just targeted them and nothing else until they were destroyed - and I was so busy getting in behind your castle that I kept forgetting about the ones next to your gate and leaving them for you to destroy, then buying new ones and it was a vicious circle :rolleyes:

[Mathew Steel 151]

Yes I'm glad I moved my troops away, otherwise we would still be playing right now.

[sh4d0wknight7447 8]

Placing a market and selling pretty much all my resources is the religion I live by. :cool:

 

Honestly, I don't think there's ever been a game I've played (or any game for that matter) in which people don't use markets for mass-production and hyper-inflation. I probably shouldn't do this because it sends my entire kingdom into a depression and then I get promptly slaughtered by Olaf and his 1 million beserkers who destroys my kingdom anyway.

[EaglePrince 230]

Back when you wrote this I was thinking about to read it, but I was always doing that partially, and I never wrote a feedback. :) As you know, this was very helpful to me. I will only say what I do now to compare your way with mine.

 

While you want to place stockpile closer to stone, iron and wood, I do it differently - I start by placing two stockpiles next to each other near my stone keep, and I place my granary close to the fireplace in front of the keep.

I do this because I can always add few more ox tethers to bring me stone faster, while this way I can also build my workshops and bakeries close to those stockpiles, so I get efficiency, and they will be easily protected within my walls. I also keep in mind - the smaller my castle is, the easier it will be defended. Also, I place bakeries between granary and stockpiles. Another thing - I build two stockpiles because in later stages of the game I will be sending lots of resources into my castle, and this way I don't have to worry if it is full while I'm fighting.

 

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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.

Read more  

I am unsure what you meant by this, but I do tend to buy some stone after the first promotion to build lords kitchen. I don't have to buy wood, I usually have a lot of wood pretty soon, but I do buy some food for lords kitchen. This way I can get promoted to another ranks quickly, and perhaps even buy a village. I do have this habit to buy that fancy food I don't produce - in my castle estate I mostly build only vegetable gardens and pig farms.

I also buy clothes.

 

 

Still, here you were describing how to make a start, and how to prepare for battle by our usual deal not to attack before we are dukes.I would like to bring into this tread how to make gold, to hear what are your ways.

 

For example, what I usually do is producing food to give my people double rations. This way I get honor too. Also, I build church - castles are easily produced even inside the castle if needed, but it's preferred in a village, and thanks to church and food I get +16 popularity factor which allows me to take maximum taxes - to -16. Do you do the same way? I usually use only food and church to get this popularity factor, but do you use inn for example? In my case they are unnecessary. On the other hand, maybe I would be getting more gold overall if I build an inn and produce ale to get +8 popularity factor, and not to give double rations to people but to sell food. This way I would be getting less honor, but I would get more gold...

 

So actually, we choose between more gold or more honor. :) What is your choice here? :)

Edited April 12, 2016 by EaglePrince

[EaglePrince 230]

In the previous message here I didn't separate my latest paragraph from the rest of it, so it stayed unnoticed. To cut the long story - what do you prefer to get more gold: to have -16 taxes and:

-to have +16 popularity effect with food and church, or

-to have +16 popularity effect with inn and food, or

-to have +16 popularity effect with inn and church?

 

I mostly pick food + church combination, as this way I gain some honor as well, while I also use food + inn when I don't have enough space in my estate.

[Cortez 1]

I always sustain myself via crossbows. If I have access to wood, I don't need any other resources. In SHC, I managed to thrive in the middle of the desert with no resources available because I put down an inn, bought wood for crossbows and bought ale. Same work with SH2, wood is 15 gold/5, crossbow selling 150/5, so you make 135 profit on it.

[EaglePrince 230]

That things with crossbows is great in Stronghold Crusader 1, but I am not sure how much it is applicable to Stronghold 2 economy. Maybe it is, but I just feel that the best way to sustain gold in Stronghold 2 is to reply heavily on your villages, to get food and everything from your villages, and to produce some weapons in your castle, and have those buildings such as church, inn, musicians guild, etc. with which you can set high taxes and earn honor. Plus, in Stronghold 2 one can build farms wherever they want. :)

 

But your way does seem really interesting for managing economy in small estates. :)

[Cortez 1]

Crossbow is the same for SH2, that's why I said. It works the same as SHC. My gold goes up to 10K in no time.

[EaglePrince 230]

Yes, I do know it is the same when it comes to price. Quite interesting, so in Stronghold 2 this gives even more gold than in Crusader 1. :)

[Cortez 1]

Not that much. Wood is 15 in SH2, I guess 20 in SHC. Crossbow worth the same. Usually I don't even mine other stuff, only stone for castle. A game without wood however is painful.

[EaglePrince 230]

Yes, 5 wood is 20 gold in Crusader 1, but what I meant is that in Stronghold 2 those guys may be faster in producing crossbows. I haven't tested that, but I assume that's the case, because in Crusader 1 crossbows don't bring gold that fast, although in addition to taxes and other things producing and selling crossbows does boost the economy.

[Cortez 1]

Maybe, in SHC, it requires more wood I think. In Legends, bow and crossbow worth equal.

[Sir Nikola Altomanovic 4]

Hello, Greetings to all.

I am so many places for your tactics which I read not long ago. I play Stronghold 2 in childhood and it was really funny and good.

I make a plan for two different tactics one is for gold, another is honor.