Stronghold Crusader: Definitive Edition is here and we found it to be pretty amazing. Its mix of accessible simulation elements and fast-paced RTS mechanics still works wonderfully, and while it’s welcoming, we believe many players will be looking for the best cheats, console commands, and beginner tips too.
Below you’ll find a handy collection of the very best Stronghold Crusader: Definitive Edition cheats and console commands we’ve found so far, as well as our most useful tips for beginners and lapsed lords.
Stronghold Crusader: Definitive Edition cheats and console commands
We don’t have any Stronghold Crusader: Definitive Edition console commands to share yet. As for in-game cheats, we can confirm Firefly Studios has included them in a new, easy-to-access form.
The previous iteration of the game, Stronghold Crusader HD, had a number of pretty straightforward in-game cheats that were easily accessible, but after trying them out ourselves in the Definitive Edition, we can confirm they don’t work. Instead, this iteration of the game has a cheats submenu inside of the Game Options menu. Just click on the chicken button to access them.
There’s a basic cheat which unlocks all missions temporarily (until you exit the game) or permanently, plus the option to reset them to their default state. This is pretty great for returning players that want to skip the easier parts of the campaigns and replay fan-favorite chapters.
Moreover, you can “enable cheat keys” if you tick a box. Warning: These will prevent you from earning any achievements until you restart the game, but we think they’re neat to tinker with the game. These are the in-game cheats available at the moment:
- Reset popularity: Puts popularity back to 100. No hotkey assigned; enabled from the submenu.
- 1000 gold: Does exactly what it says, can be used as many times as you want. This one doesn’t have a hotkey either.
- Free buildings: This one can be toggled on and off (achievements remain disabled though). Buildings won’t cost wood, stone, or gold, yet some restrictions related to placement still apply. The hotkey is Alt + K.
On top of this, we’re fairly sure the community will work on trainers and cheat mods fast, so keep an eye on this page, as we’ll be updating this section with the latest cheat mods as soon as we see them.
Stronghold Crusader: Definitive Edition tips for beginners
No matter which faction and lord you choose, warfare and castle-building in Stronghold Crusader is a bit different from the original game’s gameplay loop. In spite of much-needed improvements and tweaks, the Definitive Edition plays exactly like the HD and original releases in general, so the old tips still apply here.
Regardless, our essential Stronghold Crusader: Definitive Edition beginner tips assume you’re a newcomer and have been tested in this new version of the game. We’re not giving you an unofficial tutorial. Instead, we want to inform you about things you might’ve missed.
Change taxes and rations as needed
Stronghold Crusader’s economic and food systems are very simple, but you should go hands-on with them often in order to maximize your performance and keep your popularity up.
The advisor at the bottom right will give you an overview of your popularity. Once it goes below 50, people will begin to leave the castle and you won’t have new arrivals. This is bad. You want to keep the number above 50. Many actions and events have an effect on this, but food rationing and taxes can easily send it up or down.
When you’re in dire need of gold and don’t have much to sell with your market, raise the taxes. This, in turn, will annoy the populace, but raising the amount of food everyone’s getting can help with that. How do you do that though? In case you missed the initial tutorial on this, just click your fort to change taxation and any granary to tinker with food rations. Just make sure to take things back to normal once you’ve been able to stabilize other resources.
Numpad +/- changes the game’s speed
As far as we can tell, the game doesn’t tell you this essential information that will make the wait times and overall length of your play sessions far less miserable/slow. While you don’t want to play the game at max. speed at all times, especially when dropping down buildings and planning things out right at the beginning of a mission/skirmish, if you have things under control and just need resources or units (or a big scripted event to happen), hit (+) on the Numpad. Obviously, (-) slows things down.
Towers need to be connected to walls
Placing down defensive towers and other structures in this game is easy enough (as long as you have the required stone), but despite the limited options and perspective, it might take you a while to figure out how to get units to use them.
Well, it’s as easy as building walls (drag to make them longer) that connect to them. It must be noted that dropping them right next to a pre-built wall won’t connect them, so do the towers first. Once you see the walls can be walked and lead directly into the towers’ access doors, make sure units can get on the walls by building a set of stairs that connects with the ground.
Animals move around the map, so spread the hunter’s huts out
When you begin a mission/skirmish, you might instantly look at a group of wild animals and go “that’s the perfect hunting spot,” but the harsh reality is that there’s no perfect hunting spot, as wild animals just roam around the map, thus making the hunters walk around a lot.
You can’t prevent this, but you can have a single hunter cover each area that’s often visited by the animals. Instead of building two or more huts around a single zone, examine all the places the animals frequent and build one hut near each one.
Set your military units to ‘aggressive’ stance
Whereas other RTS games make different unit stances very useful to control the military units’ behavior depending on their positioning and what’s going on, Stronghold Crusader is a bit too frustrating when they’re set to anything other than ‘aggro’ because they’ll just stand around and receive plenty of ranged attacks outside their own attack range without responding at all.
Defensive might make sense if you really want to amass forces before launching an all-out assault, but for regular defense & attack movements, especially when handling dozens of units, you want them to be as aggressive as possible so they can properly hunt down and respond to attackers.
The topography is your best ally
The older an RTS is, the more useful a map’s topography is, as the limited perspective and movement options mean both human and AI players have to walk around natural obstacles.
While some unexperienced players might find this frustrating, a map’s rocky (or watery) topography can be used to one’s advantage quite easily with walls which force the enemy to funnel their units through small gaps. Unlike in other RTS games set in the Middle Ages, breaking through walls isn’t super easy, and sieges usually involve… siege equipment and well-planned incursions. Look for easily defensible spots thanks to natural rock formations and bodies of water and you’ll have a much easier time focusing on expanding your castle and the surrounding village while fending off attacks.
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