“This, my lord, is the real stronghold. Not stone and mortar. But numbers. Speed values. Attack cooldowns. Your enemy knows how to shout ‘For the King!’ I know that a Pitch Ditch does 15 damage per second and that fire arrows have a 70% chance to ignite it.”
“Prepare my quill, little mouse. We have a crusader lord to teach… that his ‘brave knights’ are just slow, overpriced units with a fatal weakness to a 2-gold torch.”
The flickering torchlight of the Arabian library cast long shadows on Al-Rashid’s face. He wasn’t a lord, a general, or even a soldier. He was a scribe —and his latest obsession was driving his Emir to distraction.
The Emir chuckled. “So? My Hashishin will stab him in the back before he raises his sword.” stronghold crusader unit stats
The library fell silent. The Emir looked from the parchment to his own war tent, where he had just lost a siege because he sent 50 Templars into a chokepoint defended by 30 Macemen and 10 Crossbowmen on a tower.
And that night, the siege began not with a horn, but with a multiplication table.
The Emir stared at the scribe. Then he smiled, a cold, hungry smile. “This, my lord, is the real stronghold
“My lord,” Al-Rashid whispered, unrolling a massive, meticulously drawn parchment. “I have finished the calculus of blood.”
He unrolled a second, blood-stained sheet. “Maceman. Cost: 20 gold. Attack: 25 (crushing type, ignores 2 points of armour). Speed: 14. He’s weak against arrows. But against a slow, armoured Templar? He lands three hits for every one of the knight’s. It’s not power that wins. It’s frames .”
He rolled up the parchments and handed them to the Emir. Speed values
Al-Rashid pointed to a column of tiny numbers beside a drawing of a hooded figure. “The Assassin. Speed: 18. Attack power: 40. Hit points: 50. The Lord’s Swordman, by comparison, has a speed of only 12, attack power of 35, but a robust 120 hit points.”
He moved his finger to a sketch of a chainmail-clad knight. “The Templar. Cost: 40 gold. Armour: a staggering 5. He can take an arrow to the chest and barely grunt. But look here—” he tapped a footnote, “—his attack speed is glacial. One swing per 48 frames of combat.”
“So,” the Emir murmured, “the battle is not won by courage. Or faith.”