Let's Play Stronghold - Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Part 1
0Losing the troops we were pursuing in a fog, we find ourselves without enough supplies to continue forward. The Rat has gone with The Snake on a hunting trip, though he has sent a small siege force to prohibit our return. Starting to build a base on an island, we must be prepared to make a stand.
This level introduces us to The Snake, whom The Rat begs for assistance (thereby giving us the first talking appearances of both villains). The Snake personally hates us and wishes for our head on a spoke, losing his right eye to our father. Still, right now he has no reason to fear since we are considered a band of outlaws. From this level forward we will be taunted by the enemy, specifically The Rat, not long before his attacks.
Similar to the last level, the significant difference and new buildings revolve around a new form of food production. Dairy Farms and Hunter's Lodges have been deactivated, meaning we need to learn how to make bread. Unlike the previous two forms of food creation, bread is a multi-step process that requires several buildings, but can feed your people in an extremely efficient manner (as shown in this video, we even find ourselves able to boost consumption to double rations without taking a hit on our supply). This multi-step process means that, similar to dairy farms, ceasing production due to the death of the farmers or other workers can result in starvation for a short period due to the length needed to get everything going.
To create bread, first a Wheat Farm must be created somewhat close to the stockpile, but also on the ground floor. Luckily, this level is quite flat, so placement is extremely easy. A Wheat Farm will harvest a large amount of wheat (we only needed one during the length of this level), all of which will be placed on the stockpile. This means that stockpile expansion is becoming more serious, no longer is wood the only thing needed to be placed on it. A Mill will take the Wheat placed on the Stockpile and convert it to Flour, which will be placed on the Stockpile as well once completed. Similar to a Wheat Farm, only one is really needed to feed a normal village. One bag of Flour will be taken by each Bakery, meaning multiple can be supported quite easily (we had four for food production in this level) and will be converted to Bread that will be placed in the Granary. As stated, it takes a bit to get functional due to the multi-step process, but once started you will often find yourself with an excess of Wheat and Flour. Not only will your stockpile be filled with more resources than needed, but four Bakeries is more than enough to feed 24 people on double rations, which means you can afford to tax your people quite heavily without losing popularity (needed for the massive amount of Archers we need in the course of this level).
This level also is perhaps the first that I have fully struggled with, all previous levels being simply close shaves that I ended up surviving against even with foolish mistakes. This level is a wake up call, it is quite brutal and will destroy your defenses in seconds due to a massive amount of siege engines (if you don't chop down as many as possible when they spawn into the map).
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