Not only the moat, you can place a lower wall and then a normal wall as well. Assassins will turn stupid mode on and climb on lower walls but won't be able to climb higher. And also caliph easily counters an assassin only army with his pitch. It's still unstoppable if you didn't prepare for a 300 assassin attack but you gotta spend time to replenish them after each battle meanwhile with horse archers not so much.
Yeah but for me the biggest advantage is that they are fast, I normally don't use europeans, because the weapon workshops take up too much space and I am a great producer of bread, so the mills and bakeries take up enough space as it is, and I don't use too many resources on my castle in order to sell as many of them as I can, so when I kill all the units of an enemy, I send in assassins to kill the lord, because they are really quick............
or Fire ballistas with shields but its not so mobile and shields cant catch up too them moving them together. but once formed together its unstoppable.
Mangonel for me is an S++ tier in small maps, where your towers can reach enemy base - it's such an devastating siege unit, once you get like 3-4 towers close to enemy base with Mangonels - it's simply GG; - no cost for small stones, stones almost 1 shot everything and they also do siege damage over time. You can simply target fire some ground path in enemy base, and go macro your base. You look at enemy after 5mins, and you see deserted base with lord alone in the keep
It is. Against bots at the beginning of the game I place a single tower with a mangonel/ballista depending on how close to the enemy castle it is, 20 crossbowmen, 10 shields and 10 arabian bowmen. Unstoppable defense unless the enemy starts mashing you with mangonels too and you don't get rid of them fast enough.
I've got a few disagreements: 1. I would definetly place pikes in S list - they are great counter against xbows and fairly cheap/fast moving for heavy infantry. 2. Knights also should be in S list - they are one of very few units extensively used in 'expert' games (along with catapults, assassins and horse archers with shields of course). The reason for using of knights is simple - they are only unit that could match horse archers in terms of speed; and they are capable of decimating a fairly large forces of horse archers if you have better micromanagement than your opponent of course). I tend to agree more or less with the rest of the ranking though. Good job, mate!
I agree with everything you said, I definitely placed knights way too low. Pikemen though they hard counter archers but at the same time they lose to every melee unit (Except knights) in the game, also crossbowmen do well against them. Maybe higher spot in A but it's hard for me to put them S.
@@Jefflenious But crossbowmen is fairly weak against pikemen. Pikemen are best unit for breaching xbows defensive lines head-on (they are way cheaper than swordsmen and knights, their speed is at least sensible and they can endure up to 17(!) xbow shots - this is by far the best result in the game). Knights are also can break through crossbowmen defensilve line head-on due to their speed and nice armor (which can endure up to 10 xbows shots) but they are simply too expensive units for such objectives. Swordsmen are useless against xbows due to dramatic lack of speed, inferior armor (up to 12 shots) and high cost. More agile (but also more fragile) troops like macemen or assassins are also no match against massive xbow fire in head-on charge. Pikemen are by far the most cost-effective solution for breaking through massive xbows defensive lines in game.
I would partially disagree with this assessment. Pikes are slow and get beaten by quite a few melee units. Notably, swordsmen, knights, assassins, monks, arab swordmen and macemen. Also massed crossbows still work pretty well against massed pikes. Also, they use iron via the armourer shops which is quite valuable and sells for a lot. If you pay for the goods via the market they end up being quite expensive as troops. Knights should be in A, but S is too high. They die to massed crossbows too easily, and they require stables which take space and only benefit them, and they only supply four horses at once. In small maps this makes them hard to mass which is what they need to beat crossbows. Also, they cost the most material wise of any unit. Their only purpose is to destroy shields, catapults and other siege quickly. Lastly, to add insult to injury they can't climb fortifications, so if you have any crossbows on towers they're screwed, and they can't go into castles to kill lords, which is a huge reason you use melee.
@@Jefflenious Pikemen have a Bonus against Armored Units, Yes in 1v1 Fights cleary Swordsmen win, but Pikemen are faster moving, meaning if it comest o battle they can even mass up faster than the Swordsmen do, means their DPS gets much higher in terms of speed then the Swordsmen. In mass Combat Pikemen outrade Swordsmen, move faster which is a huge advantage for Sieges, can Digg pitches, and are in general cost effective. Pikemen (S Tier) Knights are the Ultimate Assault and Schockunits next to Macemen, yes they have a high cost, but can also rade enemy economy quite effectivly and even breach a well defended Gate with low numbres. In general Pikemen and massed Macemen would be the only concern. Knights (A) Tier with the rest of the list i agree
@@dragonlord4643 Yeah knights are too low, I think they can even get to S because they're probably the best melee units with unlimited economy. Pikemen ARE good but thing is every time I tried to use them in online matches I was just wondering why I didn't play macemen or knights instead, I felt like I'm handicapping myself because they're too slow and low on DPS. If we had a larger sample size on SHC online matches this would've become so much easier
Would have put pike en way higher - good speed -super tanky -can take a lot of crossbow hits -ok vs fire (better than swordmen) -can dig -great vs walls
Hey guys new list here: ruclips.net/video/XRFevJilXbQ/видео.html Wanted to correct some of the misjudges I made on the list, check the new list before commenting, Thanks!
I agree with everything in this tier list especially s and s+ tier every online match is dominated by horse archer+shield+catapult and these guys are the only units people should make if they want to win
I would change one thing, I would put the pikemen in S-tier, simply because they tank fire the best of all units, and you can get fire in nearly every game, and they got armorpiercing capabilities. Rly try 100 monks against 100 pikemen, they would just smash the monks, but other wise it´s complete like it is. Just know fire is op in this game.
Idk why but everytime i use slingers against any armored unit the armored unit takes a lot of damage so i feel like slingers are like cheap anti tank units If im wrong then i guess in dumb
@@idkanymore1034 I always had the same feeling but no they don't deal bonus damage to armored, they're just way too cheap and you can get a lot of them easily
Never used laddermen the intended way, I use siege towers instead. Still, I sometimes use laddermen as trap detectors. Works pretty well from an ecnomical aspect.
The best way i found to detect trap is using the cathedral to scan the area since it has the largest area coverage. If there any black spot, and you can't build it there, i am sure thats a trap. You can also detect assasins. You will see black spots moving, it is assasins.
You can also use laddermen to abuse tax mechanics. Since they only cost 3G, you recruit a few hundred of them and then shut down your food ration, put taxes on max and disband them all at once. Yeah sure you haven't seen your popularity drop so fast ever before but the tax money don't stink and it will take forever before enough people leave that it becomes unaffordable to continue killing your popularity. Congrats, now you have all the money for development/recruitment that you could dream of.
The issue with monks is, they are really slow and die really fast to archers. They are probably the most cost efficient in a melee fight, but it's almost impossible to assault a castle with them because they just get shot to bits.
Have to disagree on the Pikemen: 1. they are extremly resistant to crossbows 2. they are kinda fast for heavy infantry 3. they also resist fire very well 4. they are excellent in demolishing walls/towers/gates 5. the ability to fill up moats combined with their tankieness 6. they are more resistant to traps, but maybe thats just a feeling i got (didnt check it) In my humble opinion the best siege infantry in Stronghold
Moved them to top of the S tier on another list: ruclips.net/video/XRFevJilXbQ/видео.html You might argue they belong to S+ right next to Knights but it's really hard to judge with no standards tbh
Macemen are underrated. They are easily S+. They are Shocktroopers, best for Blitzkrieg. A Horde of Macemen is like a Horde of Hungry Ravenous Orcs. They are Fast, Brutal and Unstoppable.
Honestly, I like this tier list and I have no complaints except I would've kept slingers at A-tier. I absolutely adore using them and they're just SO CHEAP. They still cost 12 gold like a regular archer, but you don't need to wait on a weapon being used. Plus they fire faster than an archer as well though they do have a smaller range.
@@Honeyhoney-nn4ki I don't see why you'd produce spearmen over monks. Also yes the fire and oil throwers are good but I think placing pitch is much more efficient
@@Honeyhoney-nn4ki That's okay I get it hahah. I put them in S because I think they don't quite have the same impact on the game like the other S+ do. Pikemen are the best melee unit imo
Dude, excellent video. I've been playing this game on and off for 12 years and will be playing it this summer. I literally forgot monks exist, I need to start using them!
Fun fact about the archers, if you buy 5 bows and train 5 european archers instead of 5 arabian archers, they still cost less to the arabian counterparts
@@ididottom4902so, if you will take 75 european archers against 43 arabian archers(the same cost), european ones will win with great majority European archers are more cost efficient
Hidden bonus to Monks -- Fire Ballistas and perhaps other artillery don't automatically target them when they amass for an attack. You have to manually direct your siege weaponry to attack a Monk. I learned that the hard way when I had a force of Fire Ballistas assembling for an attack on one of my enemies and the Abbott managed to wreck half of them before I realized what was happening. For some reason they don't shoot enemy Monks unless you make them. However aside from this unusual downside to Fire Ballistas (or hidden bonus to Monks), I would have said Fire Ballistas are S+ tier. And really any unit that can create Fire is at a significant advantage. The damage by itself would be reason enough since a group of say 15-20 Fire Ballistas will utterly destroy 100+ approaching Crusader units or Pikemen and shred tanky units like it's nothing. But the deadliest weapon in the desert is Fire... These things can assault a stronghold all on their own. I like to make like 40-50 Fire Ballistas although this is probably overkill and park them out in front of the castle. They move slowly but can annihilate everything that comes near at a time. So you move them outside the castle, the enemy approaches with their whole army including of Horse Archers and... You outrange them and kill them all. Then the tanky melees follow and you slaughter all of them too. Then advance and then you burn all their crops and outbuildings, and anything unlucky to be caught in the fire is now dead regardless of how tanky it is. Have it approach the castle walls and it kills everything defending the walls by itself. Then you bring it a bit closer and then you shoot over the walls and set all those buildings clustered close together on fire and ruin their whole damn day. My usual comp though to kill enemies in crusader is about 40 Fire Ballista, 100 Horse Archer, and 30 Assassin. If I need to knock a few walls down I bring 10 catapults but most of the time I don't need em. The only times they're really necessary are when the opponents are on a really tall hill or have high ground advantages and the fire ballistas don't have enough height to shoot over the walls and into the city. Then I shoot at the walls enough to lower them enough for the Ballistas to get in there and set fire to the granary, weapons buildings, etc
Yes monks are very underrated but tbh impractical. In masses above 200 they can shred most castles if protected from enemy ranged units or already breached. They have a surprising amount of HP and damage and are pretty fast for their body weight. They have 2 main downsides though: 1. They're impractical to recruit. Die need the most expensive and biggest building in the game to recruit them and apart from a slight popularity bonus, it's not used for much else, also the AI likes to target it. And for some reason I can never properly set an alternative waypoint. 2. They're extremely weak against masses of archers. This is why weaker AI like the Caliph actually is stronger because he masses them a lot. Funnily enough crossbowmen are actually bad if your enemy uses monks lol. Pikemen need to be S tier. And I never care about shields because I don't like exploiting the game this way. Shields and Horse archers are the most OP combo in this game.
late game be like... friend: we can't defeat them they have too many crossbowmans and archers me (stronghold economy veteran) : hold my beer while i convert my 60k gold bread economy in horse archer / shields half map size army enemy team : why game so laggy my 700 horse archer / 100 shields army go : BRRRRR
I started playing Stronghold way back in 2003 and I agree with most of these. Horse archers and Macemen are my "drive by squad" because they are so fast with good dps. And build 50 catapults and just level whatever buildings they have. Large amounts of catapults work amazingly well against infantry groups. And I'm pretty sure I've never even considered building shields. I will have to start doing that.
Tunnlers are quite underestimated. Yes, their tunnel attack sucks but in combat they are on par with spearmen and have higher attack speed Pikemen and assasins inflict bonus damage against other armored Units Source: Udwin
There's a weird thing with Knights where they seem to be get stronger in numbers ie one swordsman will beat one knight but 25 knights will beat 25 swordsmen just about and 50 knights will be beat 50 swordsmen quite handily. Totally pointless because you'd never build that many but still kind of cool.
Funny, I played an online match with my friend just once… we were dominated by a man named AsLan who used horse archers, shields and assassins. It was a free for all but me and my friend had no choice but to 2v1 him. ‘‘Twas a great night despite getting slaughtered. Love the content man!!!
You can combine h.arch. with shields for extra OP synergy. Mobile archer force with immunity to archer fire, counterable only by catapults, which will be dead in few sec. into an engagement
with all this being said and done i still much prefer to make knights amap because hearing them go "CCCCCCCCHAAAAAARGEEEEEE CCCCUT THEM DOWNNNN" is so cathartic
@@thatguybrody4819 True! Pikemen are also so badass fighting enemies stronger than them. "*As you command!* Noothing scares oos! Take heart, lads! *It'll be a bloody fight!*"
Put slowest troops (such as pikeman, european swordman, etc) to defend your castle if necessary while you think you are vulnerable, then the rest (if you have more than 150s troops) are attacking...
An unpopular opinion, but I think you're ranking Normal Archers a bit too low here. Imo Arabian Archers should be B-A tier, depending on where you put Normal Archers. The selling point of normal archers is that they are just so spammable. Their expendability makes them suitable for so many roles: - filling towers - usable on virtually every map. All they cost is wood and a little gold. In a pinch you can always grab wood from the market. - only cost one item: a bow, where crossbows cost a crossbow and leather. This makes archers really really easy to quickly mass. - meatshields for siege weapons. They stop enemies from coming too close and they shoot anything that comes near. You can also have them attack in melee as a last ditch effort to let your siege survive for long enough (12gp isn't too hefty to throw away) - filling moats - breaking down walls if need be - a surprising counter to siege. Sure, 1v1 siege wins, but archers are so spammable that by a sheer numbers advantage you win cost efficiency for your losses. An equivalent number of archers beats a fire ballista - lastly, you can command your Fletcher workshops to move to crossbows when you're done, meaning no cost is wasted on investment I'd probably put normal archers at the top of A tier or the bottom of S
You see the lack of "standard settings" for skirmish matches makes the tierlist so much harder to make, if the matches were started with 0 gold and low resources suddenly units like archers and slingers would dominate the early game and what you said about the fletchers switching to crossbows would totally make sense, but sadly not everyone likes to play like that. There's also 40K gold start on maps with huge amounts of resources, why would you ever make archers when you can make the units from S and S+. Most competitive RTS games have a progression/teching mechanic which makes most of the units viable, sadly this is something Stronghold Crusader lacks and that's why I said you can't really take my tierlist seriously. Tierlist can change on different maps and settings.
Swords are amazing as body guard units, my brother got a few dozen assassins over my walls one game and since then I've taken no chances. I put about 34 of them keep at the start of every game to keep my lord safe. Things have to go really wrong for that to not be enough.
A tower full of crossbow men, shield, and mangonel is indestructible defense, the only threat is trebuchet but it can be one-shot by mangonel since mangonel attack range is far more
Funny thing is original Stronghold and Crusader (non-HD or maybe earlier versions) had crossbowmen shoot strong projectiles like they do now, but their distance was shorter than Longbowmen's, and I think but I'm not certain the Arabic Bow's distance was same as Crossbowmen's (i.e shorter than longbow)
The thing about shields is that they are incredibly awful to manage. Doesn't help that move and leave device actions are both on the same key in shc lmao
Before : sike, I need all these unit to break this wall... Now : haha horse archer go "blot out the sun" After watching this video : that Damn portable shield can climb the wall? Wtf?
Arabian Swords are great if you want to rush an enemy right at the start of the game without doing any building first. They are a cheap and reliable way to attack a defenseless enemy lord without needing your own weapons.
@@Askhat08 if he has walls built up, sure. If not, I use swords because they fight better and will more efficiently deal with any units thrown in my way, as well as obviously the Lord.
In every skirmish, my late game army usually ends up consisting of: -Horse Archers -Arabian and European Swordsmen -English Archers -Pikemen -Catapults -Battering Ram I usually use the horse archers to run circles around the enemy and pepper tbem with arrows, or as a distraction so my siege engines can tear down a hole in the wall and start pouring in.
1000 gold for 200 of them so yeah, they can become expensive when used extensively, but often I just use them to kill the enemy cuz they're so cheap and fast, and they can also get rid of an entire army...how? Well when you get into a castle, the troops on the keep will rush out to kill the slaves so set fire to the buildings that they are going to walk past so that when they go through those flaming buildings they just catch fire........and die....
Lets be honest... in all of the different strongholds (except legends because they throw their spears which can be helpful) spearmen are just cannon fodder
1.Pikeman have good fire resistance to fire,they good used to take all fire on they.2.Firethrowers cost 100 gold common,they have small range,easy to kill,small fire area,only useful for defense against heavy and fast unit when they going to castle to kill lord.
Monk is better for defense, put them behind ur wall, set on aggressive stand.. u will see their potential, i not recommend it for attacking ur enemies, coz their movespeed not fast (they can run when u set on aggressive stand) and too weak. Arabian archer is faster, wider range, higher damage than archer... For early game archer is more efficient, but in late game arabian archer is better than archer Shield also good to protect a whole bunch of catapult.. catapult can throwing cow or stone to sweep ur enemies Sometimes mangonel can kill ur own army Tips, spend ur money for dog cage, this dog is good, only 100gold u get 3 dogs, when these dogs die, dog cage can produce another dog Ps. Sorry, my english not good enough
Got screwed yesterday by siege engineers with firepots. I had just stormed the castle of one emir and thought i could march on to the next. But i didnt see the pot on the full keep. And i had 90 game speed. The fire hit me while marching through a choke point. He didnt even burn his own castle down. So I think they can be very useful in a last stand situation against slow armoured units.
I agree mostly, I would rank up the ladder though. Not for their designed purpose, but as cannon-fodder. cheapest unit in the game, fast as hell, can follow almost everyone, can take more than one arrow hit (unlike slaves). so to soak and divert arrows, find traps, set pits on fire, they are excellent at doing that!
Love the video! Have a question tho regarding defending your castle. Would there be any reason to ever use archers instead of crossbowmen? Or would it be better to mainly use crossbowmen when building tower defenses?
I think fire ballista are more superior to catapults in the sense that they can light up a whole castle and also have infinity ammo. But, both have their own place in different strategies.
8:35:Fun fact:Its not just that the arabian bowmen have a higher dps they also have more health because if u look at them u'll see that they're actually wearing spiky helmets,hence the higher hp because they have more armor and can't be headshot as easily XD(either that or the regular bowmen have less damage per shot lol)
Slingers are actually a counter towards heavy units. But their short range and very low hit points make them obsolete as soon as you can train crossbowmen. Other range units outrange them, so it's easy to protect against them by just shooting them down first. So they basically need archers as support in order to compensate for their lack of range. So I would put them in C. I would also put the spearmen lower. They are extremely fragile and has a mediocre speed, unless when they randomly charge. Their only real use is to kick down ladders. But archers can usually shoot them down before that becomes an issue. They are cheap though, and have a decent mobility. Macemen fills this role a lot better though, due to higher everything. So the spearmen would be either C to me. They are still faster than heavy units, and stronger than slaves. So they can be used as an early defence against them. Archers are still better at this though, but the spears are a useful backup in case you don't have walls yet. I would put horse archers somewhat lower. A tier. Their weakness is being fragile, which means other archers can shoot them down. That is only a real issue if the archers are in towers or on walls, as the horse archers are stronger in melee than archers and can quickly close in. I was surprised by the use of the portable wall guys. I have never seen a good use for them before this video. Putting them in towers would then make archers even more powerful.
this video is epic ... you are perfect including all this information about the game in one video ... thank you so much again you are damn perfect man .. god bless you .. ❤❤❤
There's no shift queueing command in this game unfortunately, I think there's a mod for it though I'm not sure. My personal way of doing it is I try to place them on bottom left corner of my screen so my cursor only has to move a short distance for every shield/catapult.
you forgot to pint that lancers can attack laddermen while on top of walls AND can run if on aggressive stand if you want them as a kind of defensive measure
Fastest and strongly aggresive troops such as maceman or stealthy such as assassin are good for quickly assault defenseless opponent when your distance is near against it...
If you want cost efficient, just use million spearmen.. But in the end, it's not so cost effective since you need so many of them.. And even with million spearmen they would still be too vulnerable
I have to disagree with the placement of the mangonels. While yes, they do one shot units with those rocks, their horrible accuracy makes them only useful when facing down massive hordes of enemies, which the AI rarely send your way (I'm talking armies in the hundereds of troops). Ballistas have the range needed to take care of those pesky siege units that your archers and crossbowmen can't quite hit, have perfect accuracy, and there's no risk of friendly fire damage. When it comes to what siege engine I'm putting on my towers, it's always the ballista.
I mean technically I did place balistas slightly higher than mangonels for almost the same reasons (It's ranked from left to right) but would you rather have them at B? That's too low imo.
@@Jefflenious Admittedly, I did post that comment before I saw the ballista on the list, but at least in my opinion, I would put them down in B. Mangonels are a bit more on the niche side for thinning out larger armies, but ballistas are more of a "jack of all trades" when it comes to defending your stronghold. They can deal with siege units, and armored units pretty well. You should have a few mangonels on your towers just in case, but overall I feel the majority of you tower mounted siege units should be ballistas
@@aeroosprey There is an offenive aspect that should be considered here. If magonels are within range of the enemy keep (force fire can give even more range) they can cause a loooooot of damage over time. This is actually the one case where I prefer them in the towers over ballista if they aren't going to be critical to defense.
Dude you should put Arabian Swordsman in tier A for these reason: 1. They're have same DPS as Crusader Swordsman 2. They're easily to recruit (If you have enough gold thou) 3. Even they're can be killed 3 shots Crossbowmen, but they're more substain to Archer arrow and they can be by Archer arrow in 40-50 shots 4. Alternative choice for your Lord bodyguard (Because they're easily to recruit) 5. They're little quicker than Crusader Swordsman
honestly i think, in B and A it kind of gets vague, not because the units are alike, but becasue every single unit has a perk, that if used correctly, would make this unit the most useful for 1 type of player out of that rooster
Good info! But does it still protect normally? I mean, usually the enemies will target the shields. WIll they target the shield if nobody is manning them?
@@twentytwo138 It still protects, the shield still counts as yours, atleast in the original stronghold crusader it works, I remember spamming and dropping shields over and over when sieging. If the shields losing hp means anything.
Stronghold Crusader is like a solid Whickey long as world exists exposure.... 20 years old game still can hold you long enough in-game even now, in age of Uber-graphics, RTX and whatever, you name it. This simple graphics looks amazing even now. And I'm not talking about this game as a Sandbox. This is a perfect Sandbox, you know. I could agtee with ranking of units. But it all depends by playstyle and situations. I see the ranking like this: 1. Rush tactics - Horsearchers, Macemen, Assassins. Nothing can stop this guys from killing if you have advantage. 2. Best possible Defence - Crossbowmen, Mangonels, Balistas. Nothing left to say. 3. Cannonmeat - Slaves, Spearmen. Easy enough to sacrifice this guys to get a result. 4. Late Game - Swordsmen, Knights, Arabian Swordsmen. Needless to say that this dudes can hold up everything when there're many of them. Everything other is very situational, IMHO.
I see you've been binge watching some of my videos! Glad you enjoyed them and welcome! What you said about the tier list is true though, I mean I said it many times getting an accurate tier list is almost impossible since there's no standard game mode or map settings for the game, so things can change depending on the situation. Also you might wanna check out the updated tier list (Check pinned comment)
in offline game build 200 horse archer pretty much secure victory 😂😂.. they're just OP units in SHC. i love use these combination unit when sieging: 200+ Horse Archer & +/- 20 Macemen/Assassins & Catapults. For defense: a lot Crossbowmen, some Arabic Bowmen, 3+ shield for towers, ballistas, and sometimes i use mangonels too. I also love allied with most Arabian lords, especially Saladin (likes skirmishing with various units, especially the OP Horse Archers, though not as fanatics as Wazir in Horse Archer) and Nizar (likes skirmishing with a lot of Arabian Archers and Assassins) they have great economic management and various tricks when skirmishing or attacking enemies (just like in real life 😂)
Very good man🤝🏻 also I didn't know tunnellers could dig from a distance and I always put them close to walls. Also why use ladders when you can succeed with SIEGE TOWERS!
![Gucci Mane & Sexyy Red - You Don't Love Me [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/j7IBqyFKT4c/mqdefault.jpg)
"this game is dominated by archers"
*20s later*
"I'm surprised no one uses monks"
I don't like how they look
Monks is powerfull bro, you can't use monks like me
@@abdallahelsharkawy3701 they r cheap..but the problem is the higher their number the hard to control
@@Honeyhoney-nn4ki welp, im a very late game attacker so id need armies in the hundreds anyways
@@abdallahelsharkawy3701 well every one has their own choice.nice
Shields in the towers was a big design mistake in this game really. 'You were supposed to destroy the tower archers, not join them!' :D
😂😂😂
True 😂
I genuinely never even thought of trying putting shields on towers. It's just something that obviously should not be possible :D :D
What about catapulting those towers? 😂
@@samphunter actually it's quite genius. It's a good tactic that could theoretically even be useable in real life.
My only disagreement is Assassins:
- They are vulnerable against arrows.
- Have you heard about our lord and saviour, the moat?
Yes moat counters a lot of melee units in this game, being invisible and having one of the highest DPSes in the game is still cool though.
@@Jefflenious plus they do extra damage against armored units
Not only the moat, you can place a lower wall and then a normal wall as well. Assassins will turn stupid mode on and climb on lower walls but won't be able to climb higher.
And also caliph easily counters an assassin only army with his pitch. It's still unstoppable if you didn't prepare for a 300 assassin attack but you gotta spend time to replenish them after each battle meanwhile with horse archers not so much.
Yeah but for me the biggest advantage is that they are fast, I normally don't use europeans, because the weapon workshops take up too much space and I am a great producer of bread, so the mills and bakeries take up enough space as it is, and I don't use too many resources on my castle in order to sell as many of them as I can, so when I kill all the units of an enemy, I send in assassins to kill the lord, because they are really quick............
And assasins are very cheap as well.
Horse archers with shields stonks
or Fire ballistas with shields but its not so mobile and shields cant catch up too them moving them together. but once formed together its unstoppable.
Very very very very strong but, if hit by the mangonel instan dead :(
Just a casual ananas match
Crossbows with shield on the walls
@@fantasymapping7535 Catapult says hi!!!
Mangonel for me is an S++ tier in small maps, where your towers can reach enemy base - it's such an devastating siege unit, once you get like 3-4 towers close to enemy base with Mangonels - it's simply GG; - no cost for small stones, stones almost 1 shot everything and they also do siege damage over time. You can simply target fire some ground path in enemy base, and go macro your base. You look at enemy after 5mins, and you see deserted base with lord alone in the keep
So true 😂😂
hahahahha I did that too xd
Yup lol I completely crippled The Wazir on The Big One with a mangonel tower next to the sea.
makes the enemy waste gold on stone for repairing walls constantly and it's gg in a few mins. best tool in small maps indeed.
I always thought shields are useless, but damn, putting them on towers seems kinda op even
It is. Against bots at the beginning of the game I place a single tower with a mangonel/ballista depending on how close to the enemy castle it is, 20 crossbowmen, 10 shields and 10 arabian bowmen. Unstoppable defense unless the enemy starts mashing you with mangonels too and you don't get rid of them fast enough.
No need of shields when you have the tallest tower(10 stones) just put them ahead of Square ir Round tower and your archers & crossbows will be saved
I also thought that at first, then I started playing Extreme and found out that it is quite impossible to win many missions without them
I just knew that shield can climb wall 😂
I would have never guessed you could even do that until I saw it on youtube. I found this out after playing the game for a decade.
I've got a few disagreements:
1. I would definetly place pikes in S list - they are great counter against xbows and fairly cheap/fast moving for heavy infantry.
2. Knights also should be in S list - they are one of very few units extensively used in 'expert' games (along with catapults, assassins and horse archers with shields of course). The reason for using of knights is simple - they are only unit that could match horse archers in terms of speed; and they are capable of decimating a fairly large forces of horse archers if you have better micromanagement than your opponent of course).
I tend to agree more or less with the rest of the ranking though. Good job, mate!
I agree with everything you said, I definitely placed knights way too low.
Pikemen though they hard counter archers but at the same time they lose to every melee unit (Except knights) in the game, also crossbowmen do well against them. Maybe higher spot in A but it's hard for me to put them S.
@@Jefflenious But crossbowmen is fairly weak against pikemen. Pikemen are best unit for breaching xbows defensive lines head-on (they are way cheaper than swordsmen and knights, their speed is at least sensible and they can endure up to 17(!) xbow shots - this is by far the best result in the game). Knights are also can break through crossbowmen defensilve line head-on due to their speed and nice armor (which can endure up to 10 xbows shots) but they are simply too expensive units for such objectives. Swordsmen are useless against xbows due to dramatic lack of speed, inferior armor (up to 12 shots) and high cost. More agile (but also more fragile) troops like macemen or assassins are also no match against massive xbow fire in head-on charge. Pikemen are by far the most cost-effective solution for breaking through massive xbows defensive lines in game.
I would partially disagree with this assessment.
Pikes are slow and get beaten by quite a few melee units. Notably, swordsmen, knights, assassins, monks, arab swordmen and macemen. Also massed crossbows still work pretty well against massed pikes. Also, they use iron via the armourer shops which is quite valuable and sells for a lot. If you pay for the goods via the market they end up being quite expensive as troops.
Knights should be in A, but S is too high. They die to massed crossbows too easily, and they require stables which take space and only benefit them, and they only supply four horses at once. In small maps this makes them hard to mass which is what they need to beat crossbows. Also, they cost the most material wise of any unit. Their only purpose is to destroy shields, catapults and other siege quickly. Lastly, to add insult to injury they can't climb fortifications, so if you have any crossbows on towers they're screwed, and they can't go into castles to kill lords, which is a huge reason you use melee.
@@Jefflenious Pikemen have a Bonus against Armored Units, Yes in 1v1 Fights cleary Swordsmen win, but Pikemen are faster moving, meaning if it comest o battle they can even mass up faster than the Swordsmen do, means their DPS gets much higher in terms of speed then the Swordsmen. In mass Combat Pikemen outrade Swordsmen, move faster which is a huge advantage for Sieges, can Digg pitches, and are in general cost effective.
Pikemen (S Tier)
Knights are the Ultimate Assault and Schockunits next to Macemen, yes they have a high cost, but can also rade enemy economy quite effectivly and even breach a well defended Gate with low numbres. In general Pikemen and massed Macemen would be the only concern.
Knights (A) Tier
with the rest of the list i agree
@@dragonlord4643 Yeah knights are too low, I think they can even get to S because they're probably the best melee units with unlimited economy.
Pikemen ARE good but thing is every time I tried to use them in online matches I was just wondering why I didn't play macemen or knights instead, I felt like I'm handicapping myself because they're too slow and low on DPS. If we had a larger sample size on SHC online matches this would've become so much easier
Another great aspect about pikemen is their ability to sap, so you can fill moats in even under heavy fire
Would have put pike en way higher
- good speed
-super tanky
-can take a lot of crossbow hits
-ok vs fire (better than swordmen)
-can dig
-great vs walls
pikes are arguably best for an eco/balanced army, way better than the swordsman
They also are the only units (that I know of) that can tank stake pits.
Yup they deserve S+ bcz they can withstand most arrows then any other unit ..except the king like unlimited arrows lol
plus they are anti armor
the pikemen should throw away their pikes and use crossbow instead
Hey guys new list here: ruclips.net/video/XRFevJilXbQ/видео.html
Wanted to correct some of the misjudges I made on the list, check the new list before commenting, Thanks!
I agree with everything in this tier list especially s and s+ tier every online match is dominated by horse archer+shield+catapult and these guys are the only units people should make if they want to win
I would change one thing, I would put the pikemen in S-tier, simply because they tank fire the best of all units, and you can get fire in nearly every game, and they got armorpiercing capabilities. Rly try 100 monks against 100 pikemen, they would just smash the monks, but other wise it´s complete like it is. Just know fire is op in this game.
Idk why but everytime i use slingers against any armored unit the armored unit takes a lot of damage so i feel like slingers are like cheap anti tank units
If im wrong then i guess in dumb
@@idkanymore1034 I always had the same feeling but no they don't deal bonus damage to armored, they're just way too cheap and you can get a lot of them easily
It is accurate for me , i usually use the macemen , crossbow-men and the Arabian black horse the most , they work in most situation .
Shields should be countered by flaming arrows tbh
Since flaming arrows are just visual it would be great...^^
@@kleinfeicht fire arrows can light enemy castles on fire
Still FireArrows are just visual no more damage
but ten they should make flame cost somthin
@@Tre_Ent ....pitch? Maybe 10 gold
Never used laddermen the intended way, I use siege towers instead. Still, I sometimes use laddermen as trap detectors. Works pretty well from an ecnomical aspect.
That's the best use case I've heard so far lol
I think it's best to use slaves
The best way i found to detect trap is using the cathedral to scan the area since it has the largest area coverage. If there any black spot, and you can't build it there, i am sure thats a trap. You can also detect assasins. You will see black spots moving, it is assasins.
You can also use laddermen to abuse tax mechanics. Since they only cost 3G, you recruit a few hundred of them and then shut down your food ration, put taxes on max and disband them all at once. Yeah sure you haven't seen your popularity drop so fast ever before but the tax money don't stink and it will take forever before enough people leave that it becomes unaffordable to continue killing your popularity. Congrats, now you have all the money for development/recruitment that you could dream of.
U can see use pitch to spot assassins walking around your castle as well 😏
Insightful ! I'm glad that there are people who are still making videos on this game . It's one of my favourite strategy games !
Great video. Thanks for making it. I just started playing this game again after a 15 year hiatus and I’m addicted again.
The issue with monks is, they are really slow and die really fast to archers. They are probably the most cost efficient in a melee fight, but it's almost impossible to assault a castle with them because they just get shot to bits.
you assault castles with ranged units anyway, not melee
you can use them very well as a last line of deffense for your keep, just put them in the aggresive stance
Have to disagree on the Pikemen:
1. they are extremly resistant to crossbows
2. they are kinda fast for heavy infantry
3. they also resist fire very well
4. they are excellent in demolishing walls/towers/gates
5. the ability to fill up moats combined with their tankieness
6. they are more resistant to traps, but maybe thats just a feeling i got (didnt check it)
In my humble opinion the best siege infantry in Stronghold
Moved them to top of the S tier on another list: ruclips.net/video/XRFevJilXbQ/видео.html
You might argue they belong to S+ right next to Knights but it's really hard to judge with no standards tbh
Macemen are underrated. They are easily S+. They are Shocktroopers, best for Blitzkrieg. A Horde of Macemen is like a Horde of Hungry Ravenous Orcs. They are Fast, Brutal and Unstoppable.
They're really good for skirmishing, but don't think they're broken (S+ is for broken units lol)
I always love playing them with horse archers, such a devastating mobile combo
The Unofficial Crusader Patch fixed this game and made it more enjoyable, every stronghold crusader fan should check it out!
Share the link
Link?
I didn't expect to watch the whole video
Honestly, I like this tier list and I have no complaints except I would've kept slingers at A-tier. I absolutely adore using them and they're just SO CHEAP. They still cost 12 gold like a regular archer, but you don't need to wait on a weapon being used. Plus they fire faster than an archer as well though they do have a smaller range.
For me personally:
S+: Horse Archers, Crossbowmen, Shields, Catapults
S: Arabian Archers, Macemen, Pikemen, Assassins, Slaves, Fire Ballista, Trebuchet, Tower Ballista
A: Swordsmen, Monks, Knights,
B: Arabian Swordsmen, Regular Archers, Slingers, Fire Throwers, Tower Mangonel, Ram
C: Laddermen, Tunnelers, Spearmen, Siege Tower, Oil Pot Thrower
@@Honeyhoney-nn4ki I don't see why you'd produce spearmen over monks. Also yes the fire and oil throwers are good but I think placing pitch is much more efficient
@@Honeyhoney-nn4ki wait do you mean spearmen or pikemen? Cuz spearmen die in 3 arrow shots
@@barbapapapoezzj oh sorry i havent played it for soo long so thats why i mistook it with spearmen. lol
@@Honeyhoney-nn4ki That's okay I get it hahah. I put them in S because I think they don't quite have the same impact on the game like the other S+ do. Pikemen are the best melee unit imo
Dude, excellent video. I've been playing this game on and off for 12 years and will be playing it this summer. I literally forgot monks exist, I need to start using them!
Have fun shredding swordsmen! They're not very good against arrows though be careful
Fun fact about the archers, if you buy 5 bows and train 5 european archers instead of 5 arabian archers, they still cost less to the arabian counterparts
but european archer is also worse than arabian one, cause arabian one has higher attack rate and the difference is quite decent
@@ididottom4902so, if you will take 75 european archers against 43 arabian archers(the same cost), european ones will win with great majority
European archers are more cost efficient
Hidden bonus to Monks -- Fire Ballistas and perhaps other artillery don't automatically target them when they amass for an attack. You have to manually direct your siege weaponry to attack a Monk. I learned that the hard way when I had a force of Fire Ballistas assembling for an attack on one of my enemies and the Abbott managed to wreck half of them before I realized what was happening. For some reason they don't shoot enemy Monks unless you make them.
However aside from this unusual downside to Fire Ballistas (or hidden bonus to Monks), I would have said Fire Ballistas are S+ tier. And really any unit that can create Fire is at a significant advantage. The damage by itself would be reason enough since a group of say 15-20 Fire Ballistas will utterly destroy 100+ approaching Crusader units or Pikemen and shred tanky units like it's nothing. But the deadliest weapon in the desert is Fire... These things can assault a stronghold all on their own. I like to make like 40-50 Fire Ballistas although this is probably overkill and park them out in front of the castle. They move slowly but can annihilate everything that comes near at a time. So you move them outside the castle, the enemy approaches with their whole army including of Horse Archers and... You outrange them and kill them all. Then the tanky melees follow and you slaughter all of them too. Then advance and then you burn all their crops and outbuildings, and anything unlucky to be caught in the fire is now dead regardless of how tanky it is. Have it approach the castle walls and it kills everything defending the walls by itself. Then you bring it a bit closer and then you shoot over the walls and set all those buildings clustered close together on fire and ruin their whole damn day.
My usual comp though to kill enemies in crusader is about 40 Fire Ballista, 100 Horse Archer, and 30 Assassin. If I need to knock a few walls down I bring 10 catapults but most of the time I don't need em. The only times they're really necessary are when the opponents are on a really tall hill or have high ground advantages and the fire ballistas don't have enough height to shoot over the walls and into the city. Then I shoot at the walls enough to lower them enough for the Ballistas to get in there and set fire to the granary, weapons buildings, etc
Yes monks are very underrated but tbh impractical. In masses above 200 they can shred most castles if protected from enemy ranged units or already breached. They have a surprising amount of HP and damage and are pretty fast for their body weight.
They have 2 main downsides though:
1. They're impractical to recruit. Die need the most expensive and biggest building in the game to recruit them and apart from a slight popularity bonus, it's not used for much else, also the AI likes to target it. And for some reason I can never properly set an alternative waypoint.
2. They're extremely weak against masses of archers. This is why weaker AI like the Caliph actually is stronger because he masses them a lot. Funnily enough crossbowmen are actually bad if your enemy uses monks lol.
Pikemen need to be S tier.
And I never care about shields because I don't like exploiting the game this way. Shields and Horse archers are the most OP combo in this game.
Or fire ballista inside a gate. They are invincible to arrow fire.
@@csabakatai5095 thats a bug actually and fixed with the unofficial community patch
late game be like...
friend: we can't defeat them they have too many crossbowmans and archers
me (stronghold economy veteran) : hold my beer while i convert my 60k gold bread economy in horse archer / shields half map size army
enemy team : why game so laggy
my 700 horse archer / 100 shields army go : BRRRRR
I think its really worth mentioning that arabic archers survive a crossbowman hit where european archers dont
What if they are shoot in the head
I started playing Stronghold way back in 2003 and I agree with most of these. Horse archers and Macemen are my "drive by squad" because they are so fast with good dps. And build 50 catapults and just level whatever buildings they have. Large amounts of catapults work amazingly well against infantry groups. And I'm pretty sure I've never even considered building shields. I will have to start doing that.
How's the creed going?
Tunnlers are quite underestimated. Yes, their tunnel attack sucks but in combat they are on par with spearmen and have higher attack speed
Pikemen and assasins inflict bonus damage against other armored Units
Source: Udwin
never used a portablr shield in the game before. Sounds interesting
Trebuchet below the catapult? This is slander! Catapults cannot even throw 90 kg projectiles, and their range is far below 300 meters.
There's a weird thing with Knights where they seem to be get stronger in numbers ie one swordsman will beat one knight but 25 knights will beat 25 swordsmen just about and 50 knights will be beat 50 swordsmen quite handily. Totally pointless because you'd never build that many but still kind of cool.
Yeah it's the same with macemen, because of their movement speed they stack on top of each other much quicker than slow units
Funny, I played an online match with my friend just once… we were dominated by a man named AsLan who used horse archers, shields and assassins. It was a free for all but me and my friend had no choice but to 2v1 him. ‘‘Twas a great night despite getting slaughtered. Love the content man!!!
You can combine h.arch. with shields for extra OP synergy. Mobile archer force with immunity to archer fire, counterable only by catapults, which will be dead in few sec. into an engagement
S++ = lord. I wonder if we can buy lords in barrack.
Haha, I wanted to include lords in here as well but it was too hard to judge what tier he belongs to.
the lord can smack swordsman with 4 hits and super tanky against all projectile
with all this being said and done i still much prefer to make knights amap because hearing them go "CCCCCCCCHAAAAAARGEEEEEE CCCCUT THEM DOWNNNN" is so cathartic
Za twoją chwałę! Sorry i needed to do it.
pikemen too. HOW MANY FITS ON THIS THING EH?! PIKE FODDER! _RUN THEM THROUGH!_
@@thatguybrody4819 True! Pikemen are also so badass fighting enemies stronger than them. "*As you command!* Noothing scares oos! Take heart, lads! *It'll be a bloody fight!*"
very nice bro, got some insights here
Very good comparision.Thanks a lot for the information.
Put slowest troops (such as pikeman, european swordman, etc) to defend your castle if necessary while you think you are vulnerable, then the rest (if you have more than 150s troops) are attacking...
Ladderman in C tier? Out outrageous!
You're way too generous. They are F at most without Unofficial patch.
Actually wanted to give them their own tier but tunnelers and oil pots are not that much better
An unpopular opinion, but I think you're ranking Normal Archers a bit too low here. Imo Arabian Archers should be B-A tier, depending on where you put Normal Archers.
The selling point of normal archers is that they are just so spammable. Their expendability makes them suitable for so many roles:
- filling towers
- usable on virtually every map. All they cost is wood and a little gold. In a pinch you can always grab wood from the market.
- only cost one item: a bow, where crossbows cost a crossbow and leather. This makes archers really really easy to quickly mass.
- meatshields for siege weapons. They stop enemies from coming too close and they shoot anything that comes near. You can also have them attack in melee as a last ditch effort to let your siege survive for long enough (12gp isn't too hefty to throw away)
- filling moats
- breaking down walls if need be
- a surprising counter to siege. Sure, 1v1 siege wins, but archers are so spammable that by a sheer numbers advantage you win cost efficiency for your losses. An equivalent number of archers beats a fire ballista
- lastly, you can command your Fletcher workshops to move to crossbows when you're done, meaning no cost is wasted on investment
I'd probably put normal archers at the top of A tier or the bottom of S
You see the lack of "standard settings" for skirmish matches makes the tierlist so much harder to make, if the matches were started with 0 gold and low resources suddenly units like archers and slingers would dominate the early game and what you said about the fletchers switching to crossbows would totally make sense, but sadly not everyone likes to play like that. There's also 40K gold start on maps with huge amounts of resources, why would you ever make archers when you can make the units from S and S+.
Most competitive RTS games have a progression/teching mechanic which makes most of the units viable, sadly this is something Stronghold Crusader lacks and that's why I said you can't really take my tierlist seriously. Tierlist can change on different maps and settings.
Swords are amazing as body guard units, my brother got a few dozen assassins over my walls one game and since then I've taken no chances. I put about 34 of them keep at the start of every game to keep my lord safe. Things have to go really wrong for that to not be enough.
Black monks are better and cheaper to defend the keep. They can also defend your castle because they run quick if you set them in "aggressive" stance
A tower full of crossbow men, shield, and mangonel is indestructible defense, the only threat is trebuchet but it can be one-shot by mangonel since mangonel attack range is far more
Funny thing is original Stronghold and Crusader (non-HD or maybe earlier versions) had crossbowmen shoot strong projectiles like they do now, but their distance was shorter than Longbowmen's, and I think but I'm not certain the Arabic Bow's distance was same as Crossbowmen's (i.e shorter than longbow)
I was surprised he put bowmen as equal because arabic bow distance was shorter and normal bows are cheaper
@@pprb123 in current version bowmen and crossbowmen have same distance
The thing about shields is that they are incredibly awful to manage. Doesn't help that move and leave device actions are both on the same key in shc lmao
Before : sike, I need all these unit to break this wall...
Now : haha horse archer go "blot out the sun"
After watching this video : that Damn portable shield can climb the wall? Wtf?
Thank you for all your videos!! Your channel is a S+++++ Tier!
Arabian Swords are great if you want to rush an enemy right at the start of the game without doing any building first. They are a cheap and reliable way to attack a defenseless enemy lord without needing your own weapons.
There are Assasins for that.
@@Askhat08 if he has walls built up, sure. If not, I use swords because they fight better and will more efficiently deal with any units thrown in my way, as well as obviously the Lord.
i have been playing this game for about 3 years and all the time i was using horse archers and assassin .
In every skirmish, my late game army usually ends up consisting of:
-Horse Archers
-Arabian and European Swordsmen
-English Archers
-Pikemen
-Catapults
-Battering Ram
I usually use the horse archers to run circles around the enemy and pepper tbem with arrows, or as a distraction so my siege engines can tear down a hole in the wall and start pouring in.
amazing man best video ever on strong hold
You could also mention that slaves are basically free moat since you can just spam like 200 of them and then make your moat appear out of thin air
1000 gold for 200 of them so yeah, they can become expensive when used extensively, but often I just use them to kill the enemy cuz they're so cheap and fast, and they can also get rid of an entire army...how? Well when you get into a castle, the troops on the keep will rush out to kill the slaves so set fire to the buildings that they are going to walk past so that when they go through those flaming buildings they just catch fire........and die....
Friend of mine did a walkthrough in just a few days. He showed me the shields unit, and with that I could finally beat the game over 50 maps
love it, I wish to see more videos
get some horse archers make a lot of shield men , that's it u have basically created an undestructable army ....
Knights: am I a joke to you?
Cow with trebutchet will destroy this
Horse archer and hundreds of monks. Wins every battle with cheap infantry but costly archer cavalry
👍
best part of the shields? they run at the same speed as the horse archers
For the Bugs and a better balanceing, i recommend downloading the unofficial patch
what buffs and nerfs?
Lets be honest... in all of the different strongholds (except legends because they throw their spears which can be helpful) spearmen are just cannon fodder
1.Pikeman have good fire resistance to fire,they good used to take all fire on they.2.Firethrowers cost 100 gold common,they have small range,easy to kill,small fire area,only useful for defense against heavy and fast unit when they going to castle to kill lord.
good fire resistanse? you kidding me? 15 tiles with 2 firethrowers and pikemans are youseles
@@sendis5863 better than 2-3 tiles and burned already
Good work I love it
Cool edit, keep it up
Thanks! Wasn't as clean as I wanted it to be since it's my first time doing it but glad you enjoyed it.
Nice list 👍
Thanks!
More stronghold videos plx 😍
Monk is better for defense, put them behind ur wall, set on aggressive stand.. u will see their potential, i not recommend it for attacking ur enemies, coz their movespeed not fast (they can run when u set on aggressive stand) and too weak.
Arabian archer is faster, wider range, higher damage than archer... For early game archer is more efficient, but in late game arabian archer is better than archer
Shield also good to protect a whole bunch of catapult.. catapult can throwing cow or stone to sweep ur enemies
Sometimes mangonel can kill ur own army
Tips, spend ur money for dog cage, this dog is good, only 100gold u get 3 dogs, when these dogs die, dog cage can produce another dog
Ps. Sorry, my english not good enough
Good work dude!!!
Great video for stronghold fans !! Good to got these knowledge :)) time to change a childhood plan to play it !! 😊😊😊😊😊
Crossbow men not in S++ tier? Heresy to my child self! Had lots of fun watching thanks for the upload :)
Got screwed yesterday by siege engineers with firepots. I had just stormed the castle of one emir and thought i could march on to the next. But i didnt see the pot on the full keep. And i had 90 game speed. The fire hit me while marching through a choke point. He didnt even burn his own castle down. So I think they can be very useful in a last stand situation against slow armoured units.
Awesome video!
I agree mostly, I would rank up the ladder though. Not for their designed purpose, but as cannon-fodder. cheapest unit in the game, fast as hell, can follow almost everyone, can take more than one arrow hit (unlike slaves). so to soak and divert arrows, find traps, set pits on fire, they are excellent at doing that!
dud ur awesome, one of the only people ik still playing this gamw
Love the video! Have a question tho regarding defending your castle. Would there be any reason to ever use archers instead of crossbowmen? Or would it be better to mainly use crossbowmen when building tower defenses?
For igniting pitch traps
I think fire ballista are more superior to catapults in the sense that they can light up a whole castle and also have infinity ammo. But, both have their own place in different strategies.
8:35:Fun fact:Its not just that the arabian bowmen have a higher dps they also have more health because if u look at them u'll see that they're actually wearing spiky helmets,hence the higher hp because they have more armor and can't be headshot as easily XD(either that or the regular bowmen have less damage per shot lol)
Aye agreed on that, as the normal archers have more range and accuracy if you manually control them though they are just weak when taking damage
Slingers are actually a counter towards heavy units. But their short range and very low hit points make them obsolete as soon as you can train crossbowmen. Other range units outrange them, so it's easy to protect against them by just shooting them down first. So they basically need archers as support in order to compensate for their lack of range. So I would put them in C.
I would also put the spearmen lower. They are extremely fragile and has a mediocre speed, unless when they randomly charge. Their only real use is to kick down ladders. But archers can usually shoot them down before that becomes an issue. They are cheap though, and have a decent mobility. Macemen fills this role a lot better though, due to higher everything. So the spearmen would be either C to me. They are still faster than heavy units, and stronger than slaves. So they can be used as an early defence against them. Archers are still better at this though, but the spears are a useful backup in case you don't have walls yet.
I would put horse archers somewhat lower. A tier. Their weakness is being fragile, which means other archers can shoot them down. That is only a real issue if the archers are in towers or on walls, as the horse archers are stronger in melee than archers and can quickly close in.
I was surprised by the use of the portable wall guys. I have never seen a good use for them before this video. Putting them in towers would then make archers even more powerful.
this video is epic ... you are perfect including all this information about the game in one video ... thank you so much again you are damn perfect man .. god bless you .. ❤❤❤
how to quickly create a portable shield
There's no shift queueing command in this game unfortunately, I think there's a mod for it though I'm not sure.
My personal way of doing it is I try to place them on bottom left corner of my screen so my cursor only has to move a short distance for every shield/catapult.
Search for the Unofficial Crusader Patch. Its done by german authors but you find english guides there as well.
Been plying Strongly since I was 7. I barely ever used shields. Really still learned smt today.
Arabian Horse archers with Macemen ,
And some siege equipments and u r good to go(for attack)❤️❤️❤️❤️
BTW tge best game i have played
you forgot to pint that lancers can attack laddermen while on top of walls AND can run if on aggressive stand if you want them as a kind of defensive measure
Fastest and strongly aggresive troops such as maceman or stealthy such as assassin are good for quickly assault defenseless opponent when your distance is near against it...
i fear no man
but that thing..
"The dude who only makes Horse archers and assassins"
It scares me
I was expecting more cost-efficient discussion, but overall this one is pretty good.
If you want cost efficient, just use million spearmen.. But in the end, it's not so cost effective since you need so many of them.. And even with million spearmen they would still be too vulnerable
Me uses archers and pikemen only for 12 years🙂👌
Match made in heaven,like milk and cookie.
I have to disagree with the placement of the mangonels. While yes, they do one shot units with those rocks, their horrible accuracy makes them only useful when facing down massive hordes of enemies, which the AI rarely send your way (I'm talking armies in the hundereds of troops). Ballistas have the range needed to take care of those pesky siege units that your archers and crossbowmen can't quite hit, have perfect accuracy, and there's no risk of friendly fire damage. When it comes to what siege engine I'm putting on my towers, it's always the ballista.
I mean technically I did place balistas slightly higher than mangonels for almost the same reasons (It's ranked from left to right) but would you rather have them at B? That's too low imo.
@@Jefflenious Admittedly, I did post that comment before I saw the ballista on the list, but at least in my opinion, I would put them down in B. Mangonels are a bit more on the niche side for thinning out larger armies, but ballistas are more of a "jack of all trades" when it comes to defending your stronghold. They can deal with siege units, and armored units pretty well. You should have a few mangonels on your towers just in case, but overall I feel the majority of you tower mounted siege units should be ballistas
@@aeroosprey There is an offenive aspect that should be considered here. If magonels are within range of the enemy keep (force fire can give even more range) they can cause a loooooot of damage over time. This is actually the one case where I prefer them in the towers over ballista if they aren't going to be critical to defense.
@@lakecityransom That’s what I do in almost every mission, when I am in enough range of the enemy :D I usually build like 6-10 towers with them :D
S tier - horse archers, maceman, shields; A tier - knights (mounted), assassins, Xbow, catapult; B tier - slaves, archers, balista, A swordsman, Firethrower; C tier - siege tower, mangonel, arabian archers, monks, D tier - pikemans, spearman, ram; E tier - slinger, swordsman, tunnelers; F tier - rest
spamming catapults with portable shields is my favorite finishing move. after you're done, just send a couple of assassins to kill the lord
Dude you should put Arabian Swordsman in tier A for these reason:
1. They're have same DPS as Crusader Swordsman
2. They're easily to recruit (If you have enough gold thou)
3. Even they're can be killed 3 shots Crossbowmen, but they're more substain to Archer arrow and they can be by Archer arrow in 40-50 shots
4. Alternative choice for your Lord bodyguard (Because they're easily to recruit)
5. They're little quicker than Crusader Swordsman
honestly i think, in B and A it kind of gets vague, not because the units are alike, but becasue every single unit has a perk, that if used correctly, would make this unit the most useful for 1 type of player out of that rooster
Extra, you don't need to man the shield, just move the shield to position, unman and build another shield.
Good info! But does it still protect normally? I mean, usually the enemies will target the shields. WIll they target the shield if nobody is manning them?
@@twentytwo138 It still protects, the shield still counts as yours, atleast in the original stronghold crusader it works, I remember spamming and dropping shields over and over when sieging. If the shields losing hp means anything.
Stronghold Crusader is like a solid Whickey long as world exists exposure.... 20 years old game still can hold you long enough in-game even now, in age of Uber-graphics, RTX and whatever, you name it.
This simple graphics looks amazing even now. And I'm not talking about this game as a Sandbox. This is a perfect Sandbox, you know.
I could agtee with ranking of units. But it all depends by playstyle and situations. I see the ranking like this:
1. Rush tactics - Horsearchers, Macemen, Assassins. Nothing can stop this guys from killing if you have advantage.
2. Best possible Defence - Crossbowmen, Mangonels, Balistas. Nothing left to say.
3. Cannonmeat - Slaves, Spearmen. Easy enough to sacrifice this guys to get a result.
4. Late Game - Swordsmen, Knights, Arabian Swordsmen. Needless to say that this dudes can hold up everything when there're many of them.
Everything other is very situational, IMHO.
I see you've been binge watching some of my videos! Glad you enjoyed them and welcome!
What you said about the tier list is true though, I mean I said it many times getting an accurate tier list is almost impossible since there's no standard game mode or map settings for the game, so things can change depending on the situation. Also you might wanna check out the updated tier list (Check pinned comment)
Highest tier is slave I think, you can burn whole city if you can sneak him
It's also worth mentioning mangonels can kill your own units and npcs as well
Spearmen: triggering the pitch trap and sacrificing since 2001
+ occasional moat digging
Catapults can break portable shields, so if you use catapults combined with any good mele units, they can be defeated only with other catapults
Yeah moved them to S+ on the updated tier list video
I usually use arabian swordsman, arabian horse archer, slaves (to burn enemy's farm), monks and catapult to destroy enemy's castle
in offline game build 200 horse archer pretty much secure victory 😂😂.. they're just OP units in SHC. i love use these combination unit when sieging: 200+ Horse Archer & +/- 20 Macemen/Assassins & Catapults. For defense: a lot Crossbowmen, some Arabic Bowmen, 3+ shield for towers, ballistas, and sometimes i use mangonels too.
I also love allied with most Arabian lords, especially Saladin (likes skirmishing with various units, especially the OP Horse Archers, though not as fanatics as Wazir in Horse Archer) and Nizar (likes skirmishing with a lot of Arabian Archers and Assassins) they have great economic management and various tricks when skirmishing or attacking enemies (just like in real life 😂)
The only thing i would disagree with you is the Pikeman....i like them lol, i would put them in the S tier, but thats just me, good video tho.
Very good man🤝🏻 also I didn't know tunnellers could dig from a distance and I always put them close to walls. Also why use ladders when you can succeed with SIEGE TOWERS!