Sir William

Sir William
Personal Information
Real Name	Sir William
Nicknames	Royal Champion
Appears on	Stronghold 2/deluxe
Strategical Information
Difficulty	Medium
Melee Troops	Spearmen Swordsmen Pikemen
Ranged Troops	Archers
Siege Engines	Catapults Cats Laddermen

Sir William is one of the main protagonists of Stronghold 2. He is also featured as an AI opponent in Kingmaker mode.

Apperance and personality

Sir William is a typical lord of the age with longish hair and a beard. He has a fair appearance to him and can easily be described as handsome. He wears a large griffin on the chest of his metal armor. He also wears a maroon colored cape, sometimes featuring a fleur-de-lis symbol. William wields a sword in battle.

William is a valiant and noble person, who considers chivalry a main factor for his life. He is unendingly faithful for his king, as well as comrades he encounters during his quests. William's relentless pursuit for skirmishes makes him a stubborn and overconfident person, which is often his undoing. He however is a very subtle and courteous knight, manifesting him as an overall positive character.

Biography

Sir William is an influential lord and close advisor of the King. He takes care of most military matters in the country, defending royal interests and leading skirmishes against his opponents. William usually works alone, however he forges temporary alliances in order to further his progress. He holds various castles and estates throughout the country. William courts Lady Seren, a woman of the church in high rank.

Path of Peace

William is sent to bring order to a remote island by the King. He however prioritizes his own personal matters, 'leading a 'crusade elsewhere', as well as devoting time to court Lady Seren. William's acts leave his estates neglected, which is to be cleaned up by the new aspirant, Matthew Steele.

Steele successfully manages to prevent disaster, while he also slowly takes care of wolves, outlaws and other problems in the countryside. William grants his estates to Steele, as well as a few swordsmen as military aid.

William eventually returns to the island after Edwin's attempt to overthrow Sir Grey in order to take the former in custody. As the King holds a royal feast to celebrate Steele's accomplishments, he signs up for a jousting tournament, only to fall from the saddle. He is tended and taken care of by Edwin, the new jester, although he does not appear to recognize him.

Path of War

The King suddenly vanishes after the court falls into disarray. Prior, the King is to hold a feast to commemorate his service and the period of five years' peace. Pascal Deveraux, William's brother in the King's office, plots to dispose of the King and destabilize his rule. He poisons the King's food, almost killing him. As the King survives, he instructs William to control the court, however he has to leave for a skirmish, as the rampaging Olaf Grimtooth devastates the countryside. William's absence leaves Pascal in charge.

Deveraux immediately seizes the opportunity to dismantle the King's rule. He signs a decree to sell the Royal Guard's weapon stocks and disband it, leaving the King without a proper military and guard. Constable Briggs gets notified of this and immediately extracts the King to a secure location, leaving the entire leadership to its ashes.

William with his former page, Matthew Steele, starts wandering around the country to search for his master. He trespasses in Lord Barclay's lands in the process to find whether he is kept at him. Barclay and his garrison is poised to stop the intruders and they start a pursuit. However, a misfired projectile from the garrison causes Barclay's forces to be cut off from the two, who escape after killing a group of spearmen sent to intercept them.

William then heads to Flanders to obtain allies, sending Steele to Friar Jacob's monastery to help out. As Steele starts his first settlement, William spots Olaf's forces on the move and informs Steele of the development. He also requests him to produce some cloth to help the people of Flanders through the incoming winter, having been promised archers. He also promised Steele reinforcements and a constable to guide him on military affairs. The reinforcements do not arrive, but the constable, Briggs, manages to quickly teach Steele how to produce a simple defense, allowing him to repel Olaf's forces, as the warlord himself had severely underestimated Steele's capacities.

Steele confronts William over the lack of reinforcements and that he was at Olaf's mercy, but William tells him that he wanted to teach Steele lessons on war. He then taught him siege warfare, besieging one of Seren's castles to rescue Edwin, who was being held captive and that Seren had conspired with dark forces. Steele's forces were able to seize the castle flag, forcing the defenders to retreat. Edwin then brought the two to the borderlands where Sir Grey was fighting the Bull. After rescuing Jacob's monks from the local wolves, Steele obtained a letter from the King stating that William was a traitor but kept it secret from him. Edwin then asked William to accompany him south alone, which he accepted.

William was led into a trap by Edwin and captured by Olaf. However, Steele becomes aware of his capture and besieges Olaf's warcamp, freeing him before he could be hanged. He then leaves to recover, sending scouts to inform him of Steele's progress. Steele kills Olaf and subdues Edwin before the forces of Barclay, Pascal and Seren arrive. William gets into an argument with Grey, the latter pulling out to avoid bloodshed. Fortunately, Seren had no malicious intentions and Steele was able to repel the siege, although his foolhardiness left him in peril. After reconciling with Seren, the two head to the monastery where the King is being kept. At this time, Barclay also parleys with Steele, wishing to recruit him to his alliance.

The Blue Path

Steele decides to remain loyal to William and the King despite the former's clumsiness. Fueled by hatred, William immediately sets forth to his brother's lands, stranding him on a peninsula but is soon surrounded by Pascal's loyal vassals. Sir Grey's attempt to relieve William fails, forcing Steele to intervene and eliminate all of the enemy vassals, including Sir Hugo Blanc.

William and Steele starts to undermine the Hawk's influence on his lands. Soon they face the combined might of the Bull, Pascal and the Hammer. Steele's skills show once again and soon they kill Deveraux in his own castle. After the battle, Sir Grey comes to save the two from Barclay's forces, but he is killed by Barclay himself during the retreat.

William soon sees the King in the Abbey. They quickly make peace and make clear that William was never considered to be a traitor, much to his confusion. The King then makes preparations for an all-out attack on Lord Barclay's castle, which successfully concludes with Barclay's surrender.

The Green Path

Steele abandons William and his company due to his foolhardiness and constant battles. Barclay, wanting the crown for himself, sends Steele to William's lands in an attempt to stall him while he tries to find where the King is after Steele demands a fair share for the crown.

Arriving in William's territories, Steele tries to convince William to join him, but William is disgusted by Steele's betrayal and refuses to, being loyal to the King. Steele begins to slowly claim William's territories and repulsing all of his attacks in the process. During the battle, the Bull and his clan arrive to help Steele's forces, while Sir Gray comes to assist William, although both groups are quickly slain in battle. Steele's troops eventually finish William off.

Castles and strategies

William is a skillful and tactical opponent. He is adept at building economies and pouring troops against his enemies, slowly overrunning their defenses. His defenses are minimal, but perform well against low-scale attacks.

Castle

William builds tight castles with a square-shaped enclosure. He builds a few square and round towers on various corners with ballistae and mangonels, running stone walls and moat around the keep. He keeps numerous archers on the walls and his castle is usually swarming with troops. Traps are not built, however wall-mounted rolling logs are located in various open wall segments. William builds his production buildings outside of his castle.

Economy

William's economy is extensive and more productive than normal. He gathers iron and stone, as well as he provides all food types for the granary. He builds the Lord's kitchen and several statues for honor, as well as supplying the kitchen with pigs and wine. William also gets a huge boost from taxes, through the utility of ale and religion. His weapons production is also well-covered and is a bit profitable through pike production.

Unit compositions

Similarly to Olaf, William focuses on very few troops but trains them in large quantities, making them very dangerous against unprepared opponents.

• Defense: archer (guarding walls, personal defense), swordsman (guarding spots), pikeman (guarding spots)
• Harassment/estate force: archer, swordsman, catapult
• Offense: archer, spearman, swordsman, catapult, cat, battering ram

How to deal with

Defense

As an AI, William is one of the more aggressive lords, often attacking just as fast as Olaf does due to his low variety of units. William will send plenty of archers as the primary bulk of his forces, assisted by many catapults, some cats and sometimes a battering ram. William also sends a group of 10-15 swordsmen who are specifically tasked with killing enemy lords. Placing archers on towers should help eliminate his own archers while axe throwers and/or crossbowmen make short work of the swordsmen.

Offense

Like Olaf, William's low selection of troops means that he trains them in extremely large quantities. If William has estates, he will generally overflow them with a massive amount of archers, so use Burning Carts to rout stacked groups of archers in estates. Swordsmen will also be present in estates, although they should prove no problem once the archers are eliminated.

In his castle, William places many archers on the gatehouse and some towers, while the others will have ballistae on them. Similarly to his estates, William has a tendency to overflow archers on them, making sieges very difficult unless attacking with a massive force. When sieging with smaller forces, use trebuchets to destroy the towers and kill his archers in the process from a safe distance. Cats are useful in soaking up arrows but many of them will be required with a head-on attack if many archers are present on the towers. William has very few melee units in his castle, making it a matter of eliminating all of the archers for a quick domination.

Note: William has a bugged castle design, where one of his round towers is rotated so that it is accessible from outside and it is possible to dominate his castle. There is an utility on this link that can be used to fix this problem.

Quotes

For the Kingmaker quotes of Sir William, see Sir William/Quotes

Trivia

• Sir William can be referred as a 'mascot' character for Stronghold 2, being featured on the disk cover, the loading screen and the title screen.
• William's crests and shields feature a large griffin, a trademark of his.
• Sir William is the brother of the Hawk, Pascal Deveraux. It is possible that he also carries the family name of Deveraux, yet does not use it.

Gallery

RUN FROM BARCLAY!