STRONGHOLD CRUSADER IS A PERFECTLY BALANCED GAME WITH NO EXPLOITS - Excluding the cow only challenge 

"i want a challenge in these games" -plays against the rat.

Stronghold crusader is a very good game, still enjoy playing it.

You are missing all the best exploits for this game!! 1. Use woodcutters posts instead of ox tethers, they only cost 3 wood and are 3x3 instead of 2x2. 2. You can move catapults or ballistae onto your walls by creating 2 gatehouses, move commanding them through the first one, and then closing the gatehouse on them during the brief period of time they are actually in the gatehouse. If the units are able to exit through another gatehouse, they will start moving across your walls towards it. Just give them the stop command when they are in your desired location and boom! Catapults on your walls. 3. If you have access to iron, you need nothing else! Build as many iron mines as you can, build plenty of houses, then turn your game speed down to 20 and super quickly toggle the 'sleep' button on your iron mines. The game will not disband all of the existing workers, but it will create a whole set of new ones, meaning your iron production sky-rockets. Sell iron and buy literally everything else you need. You can even do this exploit multiple times on the same buildings for better results, and there are other buildings you can do this to as well, like ox tethers. 4. Assassins will not scale walls and enemies will not attack walls if there is an opening that is 'relatively' close by. Meaning you can funnel the enemy very effectively into murder tunnels. Just place some crossbowmen, fire throwers, and shields on your walls and you can't lose to the AI. 5. Woodcutters. They are almost as strong as spearmen, they are free, they are infinite. Use the tactic above, then place a couple dozen woodcutters posts outside your castle, now you have an infinite stream of units that will slow down and deal some damage to any enemies making their way through your murder tunnel. Seriously though, mass woodcutters don't mess around. 6. (Mostly a multiplayer exploit) You can also make assassin-proof walls by building your castle with low walls then adding a second layer of crenellated walls. For some reason assassins cannot move between the two. 7. Ranged units target other ranged units first and you can dodge arrows. You can protect an entire attacking melee army with a single (horse) archer if you micro it well enough to dodge the incoming arrows. Less of an exploit, but if you want to win in general, fire is op. Use slaves or fire ballistae to light up an enemies base and then just watch the ensuing chaos (If they have wells or large water pots you will need to deal with those first, or make sure fire fighters don't have proper pathing to the source of the flames.) Also not really an exploit, but it is cheaper and generally more efficient to not produce any food at all and instead get everyone super drunk. The -8 popularity for No Rations gets offset by the +8 popularity for max tavern coverage. Again, not too much of an exploit, but if you need to field huge armies very quickly, get a ton of houses, then build a ton of Large Water Pots. Any time you need peasants to recruit into your army, just put the water pots to sleep and then wake them up when your army is full. If you don't do this you are just limited to creating armies of ~24 units at a time, which is inefficient.

the man who says "wood needed" at a constant rate haunts my nightmares after all these years/

Daily reminder that warcrimes can be excused if you do it to aquire tea

As someone who actually played this a ton back in the day, I expected him to use the catapult's special action where they fire dead cow corpses at the enemy which functions as basically medieval chemical/biological warfare

“Sir, the enemy has blockaded our gates!” “What’s their army look like?” “They haven’t got one, they’ve just posted cows in front of each gate.” “Those dastardly villains! Order the troops to attempt to bypass the cows.” “Not possible sir, the cows are very angry and moo threateningly at anyone who comes near.” “Very well, order the slingers to find a position and kill the cows.” “Sir, the slingers can’t get a good angle on the cows.” “Well, tell them to keep trying until they do. How’s our infrastructure faring unmanned?” “It’s all collapsed completely from disuse sir.” “To be expected, they’ve been unmanned for almost 2 seconds. Keep training new slingers until we open up the gates, I’ll survey the situation from the roof.” “Yes sir!”

Making the AI rage quit on you. That is the Spif way.

Spiff:*pauses the game* Also Spiff: And this is a game that can’t be paused.

TBH when I read the title I thought you were gonna catapult cows over the enemy walls. The truth was... a lot more surprising than that.

"Age of Empires II was much more impressive" Age of Empires II didn't implement cows until The Forgotten expansion. Which came out _in_ _2013._ Stronghold Crusaders was 11 years ahead of it's time in terms of cow technology.

Never heard of age of empires, but the stronghold games hold lots of child memories to me

"pure unadulterated HD graphics"... *Watching in 360p*

"A perfectly balanced game, even with the cow only challenge" And Spiffing Brit Lied

playing against rat is basically same as free build, it doesnt matter how much gold u give him, he is useless lol

I used to play the Stronghold games religiously, I remain a huge fan of the Stronghold franchise to this day and hold it up there with the likes of Age of Empires.

Who else thought he just recruited an entire army of cows and send them to the enemy?

Can we get "out of context" compilation for 2018 first before we proceed?

"...20 assassins to keep him occupied in one on one combat..." HMMMMM.

"Here comes Bessie!"

Good lord no, I prefer Stronghold Extreme Edition ! *sips tea*

And good job on creating an illustrative example of how traffic jams affect economy. Though using Stronghold Crusaders instead of City Skylines to do so is a rather new one...

"Sleeping with the enemy will be a lovely little start" -spiff 2019

I loved this game growing up...it's a classic

I got 5 cups of tea and 7 coffee makers in the trash

Ox carts don't move resources in general. They only move stone.

"There is no pause function" was that sarcasm? game pauses while he opens the menu press p for pause lol

Fun fact: Cambridge has a small population of free-roaming cows. On average, they kill about 1 tourist ever 10 years. Very OP.

"What's for dinner mom?" "Deer meat." "Again!?" "Yes, we have to eat them before they stampede and kill us all."

I don't usually drink tea but the more I watch Spiff the more I want to drink some. Brainwashing at its best.

Fun fact : more people have died as a result of cows, than sharks. Cows are legit deadly 😂, while sharks are practically harmless compared to how movies and games portray them.

"The AI can't phone the police to come save them" clearly these AI haven't watched enough Monty Python. Also, this is definitely one of my favourite old games and I still play it on occasion.

Is any game safe from Spiffing? Obviously not, NO game is safe from the Tea Addict!

The real cheese of this game: if you build enough churches/chapels, happy buildings (flowers, monuments) and give them alcohol (tea) you don't have to give them any food at all. Really, you will have 100 happiness and you can even tax them and there will be +1 happiness left. It is so much easier for them to enjoy the tea rather than eating. source: been playing this game for 10 years now

Game Ranger was actually bundled with the HD version, which is interesting. It enables you to play this game, and many others in multi-player very easily. Although most of the players have either modems and wooden pc's or are toxic beyond the scales. Or don't speak English at all. Also, yes there is a pause function, it's... P... Ox's carry only stone from the quarry. Slaves can be killed even by the woodcutters, they are used to cause massive fires (depending on enemy's defenses) It's strange you managed to block the enemy gates, because normally you can't build near enemy units. And you also could've put the stations to sleep to save up on peasants.

Hey, slaves aren't weak to wooden houses. The opposite, in fact!

What about "Cossacks is a perfectly balanced game with no exploits"?

Three crusading kingdoms: Meh. Deer reproducing at a high rate: *IT'S ALL OVER.*

Glad to see someone else still paying this in 2019, its my family game sice 2002, we connect over IP and play multiplayer at home.

"I do enjoy starving some peasants" -Spiff 2019

I'm shocked that you didn't use Cow Catapults to finish off the enemy with plague to continue the cow-theme for the episode.

Stronghold Crusader is my child hood.... And yes I still play it

Sees: "114" Says: "eleven hundred and fourteen" What a thousand peasants between friends...

My favorite exploit of this game is to amass a huge army of archers, along with a ridiculous amount of ballista, then build a serpentine of walls with no gates for them to attempt to enter my castle by. their path-finding will naturally take the path of least resistance, so if you leave a small hole for them to enter through, even if they have to travel through a maze to get to it, they will not attack your walls(for the most part). So you just stack your archers on the wall, place your ballista at the end of a long straight stretch of the path in the walls so they cant be attacked by archers or enemy siege engines, then let them come forth! Do this until you build an absolutely magnificent force of heavy ground units, open up one hole in their wall, and send your army to easily defeat their king. You can also stack way more archers in singular areas such as on walls or in towers, by sending a full load up the stairs, then deleting the bottom step. this also prevents the enemy from scaling your walls(minus assassins) to kill said archers.

i really like how all the games he plays are so perfectly balanced and he must just have a great taste in games to always find ones with no exploits

AI: You need to move! Unit: The pathway does not exist! AI: YOU NEED TO MOVE! Unit: The pathway... DOES NOT EXIST! AI: *YOU NEED TO MOVE!!!!!!* Unit: THE PATHWAY DOES NOT EXI-

There actually is a 0retty big community but its mostly German and focused on fixing the game and not multi-player but there are discord servers full of guys whod like to battle you online

Well, you've done it now! I've been trying to figure out what game this was for like 3 years, thank you! I played it for all of a day back like 16 yrs ago.

*Picks weakest AI opponent* *Doesn't build castle after 1000 years* *Shocked Pickachu face*

huh im gonna bet 5 on the rats against the british

I love how he absolutely exploits this game, builds trebuchets, but doesnt know to press "p" for pause

Best exploit. Archers. Turn speed down. Get massive amounts of Archers and build one tower. Just one. Start sending small groups of Archers to stand on the tower and you can fill it with as many as you want as long as none of the Archers arrive while you're sending. Want 200 Archers on one tower perfectly fine

I never build chopping blocks. No axes is good axes, that’s my motto.

"pay me taxes, and fight in the front lines for me" the most american thing i've heard in a while

My favorite use of ox tether is to place it inside of enemy's castle, when he has fire balistas or fire throwers and make him burn his entire castle down (:

You can pause with P Also yes I play this game against other people, there's still a community

The moment when you watch an HD game in 144p....oooooo like nothing changed

Game Ranger holds the multiplayer side of Strongholds Crusaders HD. So if you want to play online, use Game Ranger.

Good God you're always so effing hilarious that even though I'm a partial quadriplegic and my abs don't work, you still manage to make me laugh so hard and so long I feel like my abs are cramping and hurt from all the laughter. Good stuff (Yorkshire TEA!) keep your flag high :D

As soon as you said it's a resource i was already thinking about the good old "close the gates of your enemies castle with small buildings and starve them" cheese

Right in the childhood feels 69/10, would make tea again

Stronghold Crusader was and still is one of my favorite games

you can get infinite archers into the towers by putting them into small groups and using ctrl # groupings to send them up into the tower. as long as theres room when the command is given you can keep sending troops into the tower. most i had in one tower was around 500 archers

There is also an exploit when you pause the game and deactivate a building (press zzz), reactivate then continue, you get +1 workforce, practically infinite production on zero footprint. Best game. 10/10

It is possible to play online, but you need to use gameranger. Also I love your videos you cheeky brit.

I figured you would break Stronghold after you broke Age of Empires. Break Age of Mythology or Stronghold Legends next.

I do have some modems knocking around actually. I’m old enough to remember being blown away by my 56k modem; it was quite the beast compared to my old 28.8k. Quake 2 MP never felt so good.

23:08 “So I’m sending over a team of twenteen assassins” -Spiff 2019

Stumbled on the cow exploit back in the day, Magic.

The rat is such a weak ai, you could beat him with slaves only

The plural form of Ox is *Oxen* . Sorry I had to do it.

Brings back memories from when i was a kid playing this game on my old computer and just absolutely struggling to play

I was hoping for a Stronghold : Crusader game to be exploited by you, m'Lord!

No one plays it? You clearly haven't seen the gameranger community

I started to panic at about the 3 minute mark. I felt like something was missing in my life. Then you reminded me I hadn't got my tea yet. That was a narrowly avoided disaster.

This video has been following me around for two weeks seriously everywhere I go on RU-vid this pops up lmao

I love how you just keep refreshing those classics.

How beautifully HD! 😍

Had a cracked version as a kid. Later on i bought stronghold crusader extreme, which i still do enjoy playing every once in a while.

Anyone yet told him about quickly clicking idle/active on the wheat field, sendind additional workers to it, able to support 200+ bakeries from but 1 field? Heared he likes autoclicker.

normally i watch in 480 but those graphics makes me feel like i'm watching in 1440

_"Oooh, double rations!"_

YAY! This is an absolutely fantastic ripper of a game, that I still play regularly to this day. I love Age of Empires, but something about the more intimate scale of creating a castle as opposed to an entire landmass is nice and cosy.

Holy cow, an exploit I actually didn't know about and we did play that game to death back in the day at lan parties. Though we only ever knew about a similar exploit with woodcutters which would also make the ai delete all outside industry however they would attack those, more often than not with slaves which - given that most ais and the kalif especially plaster their entire base with tar fields - usually resulted in their entire base and army spontaneously combusting into one giant inferno

Yay! The game that introduced me to RTS, and it will always be my favorite, even if I suck at it

I'd love to see you do a "completely broken" video on Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

I actually love the shit out of this game and I was stoked when I found a serious, somewhat professionally madd video about it. Thank you :D

In all my years on RU-vid, I must say, this is the most splendid channel I have discovered. The Queen herself would approve.

I'd love to see you messing about with the EU4 AI.

Holy crap 250k already?! I remember watching around 50k not too long ago. Good job spiff!

No one: Spiff: NOW I CAN SIT BACK, RELAX, AND...

This was utterly amazing, holy cow.

I still play this game and I might have found one of the easiest and fastest ways to kill an enemy. Step 1: Set up granary and purchase a bunch of food immediately. Step 2: Buy a mercenary tent and purchase a bunch of assassins (relatively high health, quick speed, sneaky) Step 3: Bum rush all of your assassins to the enemy side and target enemy king before he can build walls and a large army. Step 4: Super quick win! Honestly this method is how I win most battles now lol. But you have to be super fast and find ways to make a bunch of money early on.

Yes! Finally! My favorite RTS =) fine, I'll get tea this time

Wow, this really turned into a big cowtastrophy for the A.I.

One of my first RTS games I played as a kid. I still play Stronghold Crusaders 2 and love making maps in the map editor, which is what i remember doing a lot when I played as a kid.

( spiff getting this on RU-vid trending) Me: I'm so proud of this communi-TEA

This game had one of the funnest map editors of any game I've ever played!

I actually still love playing this game. I've had it for years and I always go back to it because it's still a lot of fun.

HMM... It is one of the best RTS games I have ever played. And also you uploaded this video exactly one year before close down of school in the Czech republic XD.