Popularity | Key elements of gameplay Stronghold: Crusader II Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
Popularity, as in all of the previous Stronghold installments, is one of the key aspects of the gameplay. It directly influences the development of your castle, because it affects your peasants behavior - if you want to recruit any troops, or fill your buildings with workers, you will have to keep it above 0.
The popularity is influenced by a number of different factors, such as:
- Food rations
- The value of your taxes
- The availability of beer and / or religious rites
- Random events
The popularity is described with three different icons:
- Green - it means that your popularity is positive. In this state new peasants will come to the castle - the higher the value, the faster they will come.
- Gray - it means indifference. Nothing will happen in this state - no peasants will leave, nor join your castle.
- Red - it means that your popularity is negative. In this state you will start losing your peasants - the higher the value, the faster they will leave.
As you can see, the popularity has a huge impact on the gameplay, because without new peasants you won't be able to hire any army, nor fill your production buildings. Mastering this mechanic is crucial in critical situations - when you have a huge surplus of food, gold, ale and/or candles, you can increase the distribution of those resources (while lowering the taxes - or even give your peasants a bribe) to significantly increase your popularity. It comes in handy in situations where you need to quickly hire (or simply rebuild) your army - with a huge, positive popularity rating, you should be getting up to 2 new peasants each second! In other scenarios (when you are not pressured), all you have to do is to keep your popularity above 0 - prevent it from going below 0 at all costs, as well as do not keep it much higher than 0 if you don't need peasants at the moment, as you will simply be losing resources.
Apart from that, the popularity is affected by the amount of free space in your Hovels - if there are any free spots, you will gain a slight increase. Additionally, some accidents, like enemy invasion, may decrease your popularity, not to mention random events, which can both yield positive, as well as negative effects.