41. Thunder Hill - Stronghold Crusader HD Trail [75 SPEED NO PAUSE]

Me vs Richard and 2 Caliphs, Mass crossbows and macemen. So this mission.. Where do I begin? Honestly if you're doing a playthrough yourself just use a chicken and skip it. This mission you get catapult pushed from 2 sides + slaves runbys + occasional swordsmen attacks + balista pushes and also horse archer runbys. And yes you have to hold all of that with only 3K gold, while they all have 40K and a huge amount of resources behind them. Alright so enough ranting, Relocating my stockpile was actually a really good strategy in this mission it was almost impossible to do this mission without that. The goal here is to make as many crossbowmen and balistas as you can and making sure they don't die for free, once you get to a high number you can start making catapults and finish them one by one, you need to be careful though as they always have enough money to continuously throw units at you.

Mission 41. Thunder Hill
Stronghold Crusader HD First Edition Trail

[amazakiaula]

protecting your building is more preferable than your king in this mission

[arekusu.]

33:29 bro went through every stage of grief in like 15 seconds 😂

[FastFoodVicar]

I had no idea you could do that with stockpiles. That actually changes everything

[osiris]

i loved at 4:30 when he saw the slaves getting into his economy... didnt even try to manual the crossbowmen to kill them... just went ahead and placed a water pot lol

[lazyishardwork]

Stronghold is an economy game. You always need to think about how you're going to make a relatively high steady income and protect the buildings that sustain it. Building must be very quick. First thing I do on this level is put the granary at the bottom of the hill on the right and keep the grass clear. I put the armoury in the area between the hills, build 2 of them. Then I put the market up on the hill on the right with 6 houses around it. My barracks and engineers guild go way back on the left hill. I get plenty of archers out and about 16 engineers. I then dig a moat all the way around from the bottom of the left hill, behind the keep and stockpile nearly to the very right edge of the screen. I build a tower that can hold a ballista just behind to the right of the tree near the keep, I then continue the moat in a maze from the right of the screen to near the tree, then from the tree back to right of the screen, leaving a gap to walk, You should end up with 4 lines of moat zig zagging to the tree in front of your tower back to the right of the screen. While I'm digging the moat I build dairy farms and tanner armourers. Your economy will be cheese and leather armour. The tanners do not need to get to the stockpile to build leather armour. You should also get your tower manned as quickly as possible and lay pitch traps along the zig zagging moat. Early in the game you move your king to safety on the right rear hill near your market. Build another ballista tower on the rear left hill, and leave space to the left of it, your left, to build two taller archer towers. Use the engineers who dug the moat to build ballista's and place about 6 by your bottom tower and as many as you can by the rear tower on the hill. When the enemy comes they'll have to walk the maze and pass your lower tower 3 times. You can pick them off with your archers in the lower tower, or if there's a huge hoard, set fire to your pitch traps and nothing will get through. Meanwhile your dairy farmers will fill the granary quickly and the tanners are out of harm's way between the granary and armoury on the gap between the hills. I've been playing stronghold for years and that plan works perfectly, if you get it done quickly and right. With the moat dug like a maze it offers you the opportunity to produce new archers and engineers. They are your key defence in this level. When the enemy aren't attacking so heavily you will get your own troops, or replacement workers who've been killed, through the maze relatively safely. You'll lose a few engineers and archers, but the more you make the more that will get through.

[kungfuman]

This strategy literally saved me in completing this mission, highly recommend!

[dinohunter]

I was thinking to get the Keep as main target from catapults, and you put in practice. Well done!

[nokomentsEVH]

your videos are gold, I wouldn't be able to do this mission without seeing how you did it.

[ShardRaven]

Wow, never even expected Thunder hill to be this hard :0

On my first attempt, I raised 35 mace-men by gambling all my starting gold & other supplies on killing Richard, conveniently! He takes a minute to make melee units, and he builds the tower near the gate last, so my mace-men went straight in lol.
Getting that sweet 6-7k gold saved my life.

[paijokotak]

Thanks for this, move stockpiles and towers in jungle is really effective. As long the catapults from lionhearth been halted or destroyed, you win. I need only 2 towers behind the keep and spam crosbow + shields.

[jasonbennett]

I’ve played the game for years on and off, learning different strategies each time. Even though I’ve completed the game in the past I’m having a hard time with this one. What I don’t understand on a lot of these tutorials is how you expert guys get so much done before really being attacked. I’ve tried getting several strategies to work here but I am getting overrun by enemies before I can get a good economy or defense going.

[TjoaWeiHan]

This mission is the exact reason why I love the market autosell on Stronghold Crusader 2

[dominykaszakrys]

The most powerful siege equipment in missions like these - the woodcutter hut at the place where enemy barracks should be :)

[BluDrgn]

I probably watched this vid over a year ago, but only just yesterday did I play this level on my own and beat it. I came back to see how a pro does it. I was getting wrecked so hard. I tried making archers and crossbowmen as fast as I could and was making use of those same stone quarries and two iron forges for money. The catapults and slave fires were such a pain in the ass. I had to make a full retreat to the keep and just added towers to it and bunkered in while still pumping ranged units. Thank goodness the farms can be placed plentiful and away from the chaos. I was placing walls down haphazardly just to block catapult attacks. In the end the battlefield was just riddled with stones and broken walls. But amazingly the bunker method held and got my vengeance with my own catapults and assassins!

[ocavaleiroleald]

dude, I try this level 20 times and as u say it... its impossible bcause the enemy near kill all ressources coming to stockpile. I will try that first step to build 2 towers behind the castle bcause it is impossible to crash and act like a shield to then... I try a lot of strategy and all fail... I used a chicken to see the next stage but my conscious shout to defeat this level hahahaha... so many atempts... even oil, traps, dogs, slave archers... all fail... and this catapults become a pain in the ***... when I resist using oil, enginers to drop and bring fire... etc and etc... they crash the wall and start to destroy the builds of ressourcers... happines fall down and people leave castle without possibility to build more army... its impossible and incredible dificult this level

[noneX]

interestingly unbalanced flow of mission difficulty in this game. This one is a very hard one, but one before it was a walk in the park. Actually 2 or 3 before this one were walk in a park.

[violentjingo]

This mission is designed terribly. There is no way they intended for it to be THIS hard

[AlexandruIațenco]

I send my lord to the walls of Kaliph, then macemen rush him with positive fesrfactor. The trick is to constantly click on climbing his keep instead of killing every unit in the game. Then 2 towers top, two towers bot, ballistas on top, crossbowmen production, monks to deal with land units, building economy and win.

[aneeshvinesh]

you can build oxes inside the caliphs ( both ) castle . They get burnt by his own slaves, that will slow their economy as well

[SS-krus]

I have but one word to say ... *DAMN.*