Stronghold Definitive Edition: Combat Guide

Stronghold Definitive Edition gameplay relays on two primary concepts: Economy and Combat. To view an economy guide, visit Stronghold Definitive Edition: Economy Guide.
=== Combat Essentials ===
==== Terrain Advantage ====
Units take significant reduced ranged damage if they have terrain advantage. The elevation must have a height difference of at least 16** to have terrain advantage. It takes an archer 5 arrows to kill another archer at the same elevation. It takes the same archer 14 arrows to kill another archer with terrain advantage. Melee units receive the same damage reduction from ranged units, however damage reduction is not applied to melee attacks. Thus having the high ground in an only melee engagement provides no benefit. The picture below displays terrain differences required to create height advantage. Yellow archer B is at a height of 16 and has terrain advantage over Orange archer A, who is on the valley floor. 
Terrain and tower height also provide increased range of the units and may reduce accuracy of incoming unit attacks (causing a complete miss rather than just damage reduction).
**Note that the height of 16 refers to raising the terrain 16 times in map editor
Terrain advantage in combination with shields can provide massive power differential. Shields can sustain a large amount of ranged attacks, while vulnerable to melee. The shield must also be directly between the arrow path of the enemy and the targeted archer. Ranged units always prioritize targeting other ranged units. Although they do not target the shield, they will hit it rather than the archer due to its much larger hitbox. The image below shows a seemingly small hill with a single blue archer behind a shield. This shield is actually at a height of 16, receiving damage reduction. In the scenario, the blue archer wins the engagement. Albeit, if orange moved his archers around the shield, they would easily defeat the single archer. If you post enough shields in the front of a tower with height advantage however, the enemy may not be able to maneuver around them.
Terrain advantage in combination with shields can provide massive power differential. Shields can sustain a large amount of ranged attacks, while vulnerable to melee. The shield must also be directly between the arrow path of the enemy and the targeted archer. Ranged units always prioritize targeting other ranged units. Although they do not target the shield, they will hit it rather than the archer due to its much larger hitbox. The image below shows a seemingly small hill with a single blue archer behind a shield. This shield is actually at a height of 16, receiving damage reduction. In the scenario, the blue archer wins the engagement. Albeit, if orange moved his archers around the shield, they would easily defeat the single archer. If you post enough shields in the front of a tower with height advantage however, the enemy may not be able to maneuver around them.The image below shows the terrain advantage of buildable towers. It assumes the towers are built on the same elevation. Notably, the round tower, square tower, and defense turret receive no terrain advantage against each other. Although the square tower and round tower do receive terrain advantage against the perimeter turret. Changes in elevation between tower placements could affect the terrain advantage outcome as a tower is pushed beyond the 16 height difference threshold. Not shown in the image is the stone keep, where the lord resides. This has slightly less height than gatehouses, the only difference being that the perimeter turret receives terrain advantage against the stone keep.
The image below shows the terrain advantage of buildable towers. It assumes the towers are built on the same elevation. Notably, the round tower, square tower, and defense turret receive no terrain advantage against each other. Although the square tower and round tower do receive terrain advantage against the perimeter turret. Changes in elevation between tower placements could affect the terrain advantage outcome as a tower is pushed beyond the 16 height difference threshold. Not shown in the image is the stone keep, where the lord resides. This has slightly less height than gatehouses, the only difference being that the perimeter turret receives terrain advantage against the stone keep. Additionally, small gatehouses have terrain advantage against stone walls. There is exactly a 16 height difference between small gatehouses and stone walls, as small as the difference may seem.
==== Population and Military Units ====
Castles are limited to producing 24 idle peasants, then population growth stops. However, you can increase this number of peasants by building excess buildings, then putting them all to sleep or deleting them. The working peasants will return to the campfire and can immediately be turned into military units. This is essential for games with peace timers, as no combat units can be created until the peace timer ends. Having excess work buildings that can be converted to military units creates large power differentials in the early combat phases of the game. Woodcutters provide the most cost effective population increase at 3 wood per peasant. Mills provide the most space efficient population increase, but costs 6.7 wood per population increase. 
The Power of Engineers
Siege equipment is largely overpowered. In a game where weapon trading is turned off, engineers and siege can still be produced indefinitely with gold and easily multiply the effectiveness of troops built in a barracks.
===== Catapults and Trebuchets =====
Catapults deal 80 damage per hit to towers (with a smaller chance of dealing 60 damage). They require 2 engineers and 150 gold to build.
Trebuchets deal 240 damage per hit to towers (with a smaller chance of dealing 180 damage). But also attack 3 times slower than catapults and are stationary. They require 3 engineers and also cost 150 gold.
Both units will kill any other unit in one hit, including siege, although rather inaccurate. They are both capable of friendly fire, killing any friendly unit that crosses path with their projectile. They can both deal plague damage over time by launching cows. Each Dairy farm build, provides 3 cows to use as ammunition, which regenerate over time. A single cow can inflict massive damage on stationary troops. Both units are killed by 2 mangonel hits.
Pros of Trebuchets:
* Trebuchets are much more cost effective as they use 3x less stone to do the most amount of damage. Catapults can run out of stone very quickly, and be hard to restock as each unit must be individually selected (unlike in Stronghold Crusader). This makes trebuchets better in most scenarios for tower engagements.
* Trebuchets also fire projectiles in large arcs, allowing it to hit targets over walls. Because of this, trebuchets can and should in most cases be build behind towers. A trebuchet can hit another trebuchet behind a wall, but will hit the tower first if its target is immediately behind a tower. Most siege battles are won by effective use of trebuchets behind towers.
Pros of Catapults: 
* Since they have a shallower trajectory, they can kill enemy units better with stones. However this means they must also be in front of any defenses to be effective. 
* Movement allows them to better sneak up on groups of enemies to inflict plague damage.
===== Shields =====
Shields are essential for any ranged engagement. As discussed in the "terrain advantage" section above, a single archer behind a shield with terrain advantage can kill 10 enemy archers. They are almost free, costing 1 engineer and 5 gold. 
===== Siege Towers =====
Siege towers can supplement early game rushes by allowing units to quickly climb enemy walls and open gatehouses. Unlike ladders, where units must slowly climb the ladder and risk almost certain death as the ladder man dies mid climb, siege towers instantly teleport the unit onto the wall and can survive a large amount of arrows. Additionally any unit can climb a siege tower, allowing for crossbows to take over an enemy tower. If the enemy gets a unit on top of the gatehouse, they can open it.
=== Rushing Strategies and Counters ===
==== Most Common Rushes ====
Players most often rush with mace men or knights due to there fast movement speed. Typically mace men rush to kill the enemy lord and knights rush to destroy important buildings such as the granary and armory. To effectively rush, you must build excess industry buildings (often woodcutter huts), then put them to sleep after peace time ends to receive more idle peasants. These idle peasants can then be instantly turned into military units. When attacking with units, a player can spam click the target, allowing them to bypass defending units. This allows mace men to rush into the castle quickly and kill the lord. A defender can counter this by spam clicking their defenders to re-intercept the mace men. The spam click also works well for knights that target granaries or armories.
==== Rush Counters ====
* As discussed above, the defender must spam click (repeatedly and rapidly click) to re- intercepting mace men if the attacker is also spam clicking their units, otherwise the mace men will run straight through. 
* Layered walls slow units faster than towers and gatehouses. Towers and gatehouses allow multiple units to attack them at a once, getting destroyed quickly in a rush and creating large openings in defenses.
* If an opponent will out produce you in mace men, you can counter with swordsmen and crossbows. Swordsmen trade much more effectively, but most be kept at your keep at all times due to their slow movement speed. Crossbows should be positioned in a tower central to your base to kill any mace men that do not go for your lord, as your swordsmen are immobile.
* Knights are best countered by knights. If outnumbered, supplementing with crossbows will give you a home advantage, so long as they stay in the keep or a tower. If you have extra time, knights are powerless to moats. Consider digging a moat behind layers of walls.
* Additionally, you can build towers and gatehouses immediately around your keep to slow mace men rushes. 
* Of course, the best counter is to have the better economy from the start to produce the most units. 
==== "All In" Rush ====
If you have enough weapons in storage and high enough population to arm, an all in rush may secure the win. This involves turning off all industries to provide the maximum number of available units. Once units are trained, your population will permanently decrease as idle peasants are maxed out at 24. If you manage to convert all your peasants, you will have a maximum population size of 24, also allowing you to very cheaply produce positive fear factor. After training all your units, quickly build 10 good things for an extra 500 gold to receive 25% increased unit health. Your economy is now in shambles, so you better win.