Quick Links
It’s possible to focus purely on raw production and military capability inStronghold Crusader, but if you’re looking for an edge over your opponents, using the game’s Fear Factor mechanic is a great way to do so. Giving your people the finest entertainment that a medieval peasant can expect - or threatening them with the period’s creatively brutal punishments - will impact your economy and combat efficiency, sometimes in unexpected ways.
You’ll generally want to pick one means of encouragement of the other and stick with it throughout the game, so read on to learn everything you need to know about Fear Factor, and how to make the right choice.
How To Place Fear Factor Buildings
Buildings that influence Fear Factor, categorized asGood ThingsandBad Things, can be found in theTown Tab, alongside housing and religious buildings. They each have their own submenus; selectthe flower button for Good Things, and thenoose button for Bad Things.
As you can probably guess, Good Things willincrease your Popularity, while Bad Things will decrease it. The only exception areflags and banners; technically listed under Good Things, these arepurely decorativeand have no impact on gameplay.
Fear Factor Effects
You’ll gain a level of Good or Bad Fear Factor based on thenumber of buildings of each typethat you have:
Both Levels have a maximum of five, sobuilding more than twenty Good Things or five Bad Things is redundant.Also,Good and Bad Levels cancel each other out.
You can see your overall Fear Factor alignment byclicking on one of your soldiers.The number of boxes over their health bar indicates their current combat bonus or penalty, and thus the level; green boxes are Good, red boxes are Bad.
Effects Of Good Things
For every Good Level, you’llgain one Popularity per monthand your soldiers will dealfive percent more damagein combat. However, all of your workplaces willproduce goods ten percent sloweras people waste time strolling in gardens or dancing at the maypole.
At the highest possible Good Level of five, you’ll therefore receivefive Popularity and a twenty-five percent damage boost, but produce resources at half the normal rate. With the extra Popularity, you’re able to probablysupport a larger populationand build extra workplaces to make up the difference, provided there’s space, or you can use the extra goodwill toraise taxes and bring in more Gold,buying what you need from the Market to make up for shortfall.
The combat bonus is great for units that are already powerful attackers, like Knights, Assassins, and both factions' Swordsmen. The extra Gold from tax income can be spent at the Mercenary Post, where you don’t need to worry as much about resource production to recruit troops since Arabian units bring their own gear.
For every Bad Level, you’ll insteadlose one Popularity per monthand your soldiers will dealfive percent less damage in combat.However, whenever workers drop off resource that they’ve produced, there’s achance that they’ll provide extra, working harder to avoid punishment. The chance of getting extra resources is randomized, but it’s designed to work out to about afive percent increase in overall production per Bad Level.
This means that at a Bad Level of five, you’lllose five Popularity per month and your troops will be twenty-five percent weaker when dealing damage, but you’ll getan average of fifty percent more resources from the same number of workers.Use the extra production to supply enough Inns for your entire population, and you should be able to more than overcome the Popularity penalty; the combat debuff is there to stay until you ease up on the torture devices, however.
Cheap, weak troops like Archers and Spearmen have less to lose from the combat penalty since they already deal very little damage, and by producing extra spears and bows you’re able to more easily field them in massive numbers. An intimidation focus is therefore good for building your army forquantity over quality.
