Stronghold Warlords, in the core, is still a management game apart from defeating your enemies. This RTS asks you to manage fortifications, the economy, recruit units, and build armies. The one main aspect in managing a nation is to make the peasants your subordinates or even your countrymen. Be a cruel tyrant to them or become their beloved Godly figure. All these come down to your popularity in the game. There are many factors you can manipulate to increase or decrease your popularity. So for all those players struggling to keep their nation together, here’s how to increase popularity in Stronghold Warlords.
Stronghold Warlords has a reworked popularity system with extensive and varied economical rewards. The popularity growth is largely centered around rice production. Also, rice is the only essential food available. Vegetables, meat, and tea are luxury food that affects your popularity meter. Clothes take over the role of ale from previous installments as a luxury resource. Taxation retains the central role as the de facto means of money and polarity in one.
How to Increase Popularity in Stronghold Warlords?
To increase popularity in Stronghold Warlords, you can decrease the resources you take away from the peasants and return them more resources rations back, for example, tax & rice. Increased popularity will give you additional units to recruit by increasing the population. But if you are already maxed out in your population or don’t find it necessary to recruit more units, then you decrease your popularity. This will help you to get more tax and resources to build more buildings and spread out. Below are all the factors you can manipulate to increase or decrease your popularity:
Taxation
Decreasing your daily tax amount is the best way to increase your popularity. This will bring more peasants to your castle to work and live in the area. Make use to keep an eye on your funds though, a broke nation is an easy prey for the hostile enemy armies. Increase Tax when you have enough popularity, to make money for new units & new buildings.
Rice Rations
Increasing peasant’s rice rations is an easy way to get more Popularity fast. But this is will inversely affect you in the later game where you will need this resource to build more upgraded buildings. Rice is the staple food of your people’s diet. Failing to provide it from your granary will affect your popularity by -30.
Vegetable Rations
Vegetables are a reliable crop that boosts popularity. They are the ideal food type to make the staple food source of your population. By doing this you can save your rise either for buildings or give to peasants in emergencies where your popularity is getting too low. You need to collect them from Vegetable Field, unlocked during 3rd mission in-game. Vegetable Field allows a vegetable farmer to grow vegetables but has a long startup time.
Housing
Housing determines the population limit of your stronghold. You need to build more buildings to accommodate more population and recruit more units. The best idea is to build higher quality houses. Fine Houses will boost your popularity if its quality is greater than the total worker count. The same applies to Superior House. Both hold 8 residents but the quality boosts from 12 to 20 from Fine House to Superior House, just by using extra resources. This is a great way to increase your popularity.
Meat Rations
Works like other rations, but a bit harder to find. Meat farms provide a popular luxury food and can be placed far from the granary due to infrequent drop-offs.
Tea Rations
Works like other rations, but bit harder to farm. Tea is always in high demand, giving a consistent popularity bonus at each ration level.
Clothing
Works like other resources in-game. Ideally if your early on in the game, you can keep the value on “0” without any great negative effects.
Fear Factor
The fear factor can be changed by placing different types of buildings in the area. Some examples are:
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Zen Garden
Has a very small positive effect on the fear factor. The positive fear factor boosts popularity and troop damage but makes workers less productive.
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Taiko Drums
Has a small positive effect on the fear factor.
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Kung Fu Plaza
Has a medium positive effect fear factor.
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Manzai Theatre
Has a medium positive effect on the fear factor.
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Events Plaza
Has a large positive effect on the fear factor
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Opera House
Has a very large positive effect on the fear factor.
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The Stocks
Has a very small negative effect on the fear factor. The negative fear factor increases worker dropoff amounts but reduces popularity and troop damage.
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Torture Cage
Has a small negative effect on the fear factor.
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Rope Suspension
Has a medium negative effect on the fear factor.
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Torture Chair
Has a medium negative effect on the fear factor.
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Iron Maiden
Has a large negative effect on the fear factor.
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Torture Press
Has a very large negative effect on fear.
These buildings are crucial when you expand your area of influence. Placing good buildings will increase your popularity. While placing the bad buildings will decrease it. The more popularity score you earn, the faster you can get access to new units to serve as warriors and workers. The negative popularity score will limit you from earning them.
Managing and keeping your popularity is a must also for wartimes when the people need to fight for you. If they are being tortured by your fear-inducing buildings and heavy taxes, they will leave your stronghold and there will be no one to guard your fortifications. So to conclude the points in a nutshell, reducing taxes is good for people, but not for your treasury. Rice will be the staple food of the people, change them to vegetables. Both rice & taxes are also necessary to build new buildings. Build better housing structures to save rice and increase popularity. After the conclusion of the third mission what focusing on vegetable fields. Make sure to make vegetables the staple food of your people.
That’s everything you need to know about how to rotate a building in Stronghold Warlords. While you are here, get more tips & tricks by checking out more of our Video Game Guides and also read more Stronghold Warlords tips like: