Warlord

Warlords are neutral players appearing alongside AI and human players in Stronghold Warlords.

Overview[]

Warlords are independent governors, who have their own fiefdoms and control their own castles. They are adept at one aspect of leadership and they can be conducted diplomacy with by any player.

While affiliated with a player, Warlords support them through their exclusive perks and set of commands. The player can issue the following commands:

Send resources: For a limited amount of time, the player is sent a trickle of goods.
Send relief force: After a set amount of time, the player gets a few units near their keep.
Attack a target. The Warlord spawns an army group and marches against a target estate. The warlord commences the attack on his own.
Providing bonuses. For a limited amount of time, the player is provided other resources, such as Spirit or Diplomacy points.
Upgrade castle: The Warlord extends its castle, building additional defenses and adding to its troop garrison.

Furthermore, the efficiency of warlords can be by spending by upgrading their rank, which improves both their shipments and passive perk effect. In order to use these options, players must generate and spend diplomacy points.

It should be noted that Warlords can never be crippled economically or militarily, namely they can always have the preset relief forces/attack groups ready, as well as they can always provide the resource shipments requested.

Controlling warlords[]

Capture by force[]

It is possible to take a Warlord by military force. This is done by "killing" their lord - forcing them to kneel -, and standing close to him for a few seconds. After enough time has passed, the Warlord becomes under control.

A Warlord's lord are comparable to the player's in strength, excelling in single troop combat, but can become quickly overwhelmed even by a handful of melee troops.

Keeping a steady garrison around a Warlord's barricades is a good idea in case a diplomatic takeover is a possibility.

Diplomatic takeover[]

It is also possible to take a Warlord by diplomatic influence. This involves spending diplomacy points on their panel in order to gain influence (20/10, or 50/20). Players must wait a little while after they got influence. When a Warlord's influence threshold has been met, a player can demand obedience from the Warlord and they will be granted his ownership after a capture bar has been completely filled. Different warlords require varying amounts of influence to take over.

Converting diplomacy into influence can be set to auto on a Warlord's panel, which will always select the 20/10 option.

Influence also decays over time, forcing players to regularly invest more into it in order to preserve diplomatic control.

Types[]

There is a total of 18 different warlords available. Twelve is available in the base game, with an additional 6 warlords coming from DLCs.

Warlord	Coat-of-arms	Description
	The Mouse	Adept at basic industries. Easy to siege, offers various basic resource shipments.
	The Pig	Adept at food production. Easy to siege, offers various food shipments.
	The Crane	Adept at estate management. Easy to siege, offers various benefits related to gold and diplomacy.
	The Tiger	Adept at siege warfare. Allows the construction of a siege camp and various army options.
	The Ox	Adept at industries. Easy to siege, offers various raw material shipments.
	The Turtle	Adept at constructing fortifications. Hard to siege, offers various upgrades to his castle.
	The Horse	Adept at mounted combat. Easy to siege, offers various mounted army options.
	The Dragon	Adept at gunpowder and siege. Hard to siege, offers various army options.
	The Bear	Adept at military support. Hard to siege but easy to capture through diplomacy, increases the buff radius of Imperial Bannerman.
	The Beetle	Adept at defence. Quite hard to siege but quite easy to capture through diplomacy, offers the construction of Field Hospital for troops healing.
	The Wolf	Adept at military support. Hard to siege, increases the damage of allied infantry units.
	The Lion	Adept at military support. Hard to siege, decreases the cost of allied siege units.