Mission 41: Thunder Hill (very intense, HARDCORE) - Stronghold Crusader HD (90 gamespeed, 4K 2160P)

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This VERY HARD mission - hits you like a hammer, because you will be under attack after a short while by three opponents who will press you hard because of gold advantage.

Content:
00:00 - 02:30 - built very little economy and first 3 defend towers
02:30 - 05:45 - trying not to die
05:45 - 10:00 - building 3 more towers and army during heavy siege
10:00 - 12:20 - trying not to die, 4 more towers with ballistas
12:20 - 12:50 - building extra tower in the north for north - western attacks
12:50 - 21:30 - few more towers, fence, steady economy growing and defending
21:30 - 25:40 - gathering first army for Richard (orange) elimination
25:40 - 29:00 - Richard destruction
29:00 - 33:00 - gathering more army, catapults
33:00 - 37:20 - tearing down Caliph (blue) castle to garbage
37:20 - 38:00 - killing Caliph
38:00 - 39:30 - gathering final army
39:30 - last enemy destruction

What I have did to complete this mission. First phase:

1. Immediatly removed stock pile and placed new ones much higher, near the mountais.

1.1. Place granary next to stockpile - just in case you forget it later, most of the times I placing it when popularity hits 51-50 it let me to save some food in the beginning, but this mission is very intense especially at beginnig so we can let popularity drop down to 49 or lower because it can cost failure.

1.2. Place some apple farms 6-9 it's up to you to keep up starting food.

1.3. Place some woodcutter's hut's; 3-6 hovels (people houses) - they should be placed on the mountain so catapuls and enemys won't destroy them and ruin your popularity unexpectedly.

1.4. Also armory and barracks - and this is our start up. You have to do it very quickly if you go on 90 gamespeed, othetwise just slowdown game speed to 50 or even 20 to build up your start.

Note: if you want to go for 90 speed, but you missing out than skip woodcutters and apple farms, maybe even granary. Place only stock piles, hovels for more people and others leave for later.

2. Second, STARTING DEFENCE step:

2.1. Buy 20 crossbows/leather armors and make 20 crossbowmans. In same move press "4" to choose new location for new units and mark it in your stone keep so all new units that you will hire automatically will go to stone keep - IT HELPS ALOT.

2.2. What I have found and worked best for me is place round tower + square towers. I came up with this idea only after recording, but first tower should be round tower, because it will absorbs pretty much all the damage from catapults. Round has 2000 life points and square only 1600 so it makes pretty big difference. Place it in parallel with stone keep like I did in video, than immediatly place two more square towers on the right side of round one.

NOTE: Don't place them above round one because in that case they all will get damage from catapults, I placed them like that ant only most left tower was getting damage - so you have to keep eye for only one tower health.

2.3. Place 3 ballistas in your towers, than lead your units and lord to the tower. After that build
engineer's guild. Make 6 of them and lead to your ballistas.

NOTE: Shields are always welcome and very helpful, but in this mission you can go for them a little bit later on - before calips ballistas shows around.

2.4. Place stone wall in front of stone keep, that way you will cover people from enemy archers killing them for a moment or so. After that make 15-25 archers, they are also needed, because Caliphs sends lots of slaves, also archers will hit catapult's and ballistas (where they can reach) very fast instead of crossbows so it also helps surely.

What I have left: wheats, hops and ale.

3. Third phase is making economy and starting gold.

3.1. When you already have spare food make food consumption to +8. Also place one bar. Immediatly raise the taxes to -8. After bar starts working look for a popularity bonus and raise the taxes even more. Place one brewery to make ale. I placed two, but I think one is more than enough at the beginning.

3.2. Place iron mines, stone mines and few (2-3) water pots to protect from slaves burning your buildings. Also mines and wells are good because you always have spare people if you suddenly need them. You can put them in sleep mode and immediatly get 20-30 spare people for hiring unit's and so on...

That's pretty much it. After all this if you managed to keep alive just make some shields, place most of them I a main tower. Make more crossbowmans and achers. Keep building more towers with more ballistas and do it fast. When you get like 50 crossbows, 30+ archers and 6+ towers the siege should start calm down little by little.

3.3. Keep building towers and archers till you have steady income and then it's your choice how to eliminate enemies.