 In this tutorial, UnikUnok shows us a great new way to construct small wooden gatehouses and warns of some possible issues and how they can be overcome. The small wooden gatehouse is one of the best loved eye-candy tricks in the original Stronghold and has a wide variety of uses.
Submitted by UnikUnok, Aubergine, EarlListibald
All that is required to use this tutorial is your imagination and a steady hand! The Small Wooden Gate is by far the most versatile and although it's not the strongest gate by far, when it comes to eye-candy usage no other gate type compares. To be able to fully utilize the Small Wooden Gate you must first liberate it from its default defenses. This can be easily done, by following the instructions below: Step 1. Place two 3x2 tile stone columns. Make sure they are parallel and have a distance of 3 tiles in between them. Use stone, as it will contrast better with the wooden gate. This will help when you are placing the gate later.
Step 2. To make placement of the gate easier, flatten the screen (press "spacebar") and line up the front of the Small Wooden Gate with the footprint of the two stone columns.
Step 3. Move the Small Wooden Gate over the columns. Line up the front of the gate so that it is flush with the two stone columns.
Make sure it is the front of the gate you line up with the columns and not the base of the stairs! Step 4. Place the gate. The picture below will be what immediately appears if the instructions have been followed correctly to this point.
At this point, you may just decide to delete the stone walls and end up with something like this: 
But we want a proper small gatehouse... Step 5. Place two small Defense Turrets over the wall spurs that are connected to either side of the Small Wooden Gate. You can cover one spur completely with each tower.
The picture above shows the first of the two towers being applied - do the same on the other side with the second tower then continue... Step 6. Now destroy or delete the two defense turrets you placed. All that now remains is your newly liberated Small Wooden Gate.
Open Or Closed, Sire? In some versions of the game, and always in v1.0 (unpatched) the gatehouse can sometimes get a little confused as to whether it is open or closed when first created: 
To get round this problem, open and close (or close and open depending on circumstances) the gate and it should sort itself out. The Hidden Evil Before you start building wooden gates from here to China, there is one fact you should know. No visual or physical trace of the wall spurs will remain after you delete them. However, the game will consider anything placed on the tile where a wall spur once was as part of the Small Wooden Gate. That means when the gate is destroyed, a 1 x 3 tile hole will be ripped into the surrounding fortifications on either side of the spot where the Small Wooden Gate once stood! Keep in mind as well that while working in the editor, if you decide to change or delete something that you placed on a tile that was once occupied by a wall spur, the wooden gate will delete as well! In other words, you will have to go back to step one and start all over! Now before you decide to forgo the Small Wooden Gate altogether due to the above nuisance, I have found a way to not only eliminate the problem but to turn it into a minor advantage. - Rotate the gate 180! The 1 x 3 tile hole appears on the front of the gate. The back of the gate (where the wooden platforms were) is fair territory. You can build a wall two tiles thick and it will not be affected by the Small Wooden Gates collapse.
- Place towers on either side of the Small Wooden Gate. This will give you some creative looking gatehouses. When the gate collapses a 1 x 3 hole will be ripped into each tower. This damage is “interesting” to say the least. The towers themselves will be undamaged in regards to hit-points as a result of the gates collapse.
- Lower the walls that connect to the gate using the rock-lowering trick. When the gate collapses, the 1 x 3 holes will appear but in their place will appear two 1 x 3 land spurs as tall as the former wall tiles had been. These of coarse are impenetrable and will ensure the breach gets no wider as seen in the picture below!
Picture from UnikUnok's Henn Dommen map which also features a massive flood This is an advantage because of the fact that gates disappear completely when they are destroyed. When a Large Stone Gate is destroyed, a 7 tile wide hole suddenly appears out of the dust cloud of the gate’s collapse - that's a big hole! When a Small Stone Inner Gate falls, a 5 tile wide hole is rent into your fortifications - a medium sized hole.. With the Small Wooden Gate, that hole is only 3 tiles wide - a much smaller breach and thus easier to defend!
To show a small portion of their versatility, here is a gallery of Small Wooden Gate designs... Defence Outpost Taken from UnikUnok's Kenilworth map, this defence outpost is truly one amazing sight, made possible by the use of small gatehouses, flattened wooden walls and palistone walls:
Custom Wooden Gatehouse Taken from UnikUnok's Southern Cross map, this gatehouse was constructed using the same techniques as above as well as monumental use of the lowered walls trick:
While the gatehouse in the middle might look like a normal gatehouse, notice how the wooden platforms are raised above it - to do this, create the small gate described in this article and then add wooden platoforms either side of it (on raised terrain).
Tiny Gatehouses Taken from the same map, these tiny gatehouses show just how versatile the design can be. The small gaps either side of the gates hide the "holes" that can appear in adjoining structures when it is destroyed.
Henn Dommen The following pictures are taken from UnikUnok's The Cumberland Downs which makes great use of small gates in castle and river defences:
In the image above, the gates are used to protect a wooden bridge over a river. The bridge is made from wooden platforms.
Berkhamstead These are some of my (Aubergine) favourite pictures with small wooden gates taken from UnikUnok's Berkhamstead map.
Extreme Wooden Gatehouses Droooool! Check these amazing multi-level wooden gatehouses from UnikUnok's Ambush at Manathma map:
We have saved the best for last... Small Wooden Gates can be used in game. That means you can build them while you play, not just in the map editor. The process is tricky and includes a lot of need to know facts to fully utilize this eye-candy trick. A tutorial on how to use the Small Wooden Gate in game amongst other stuff will follow up this one in the coming weeks.
The Knight on horse calls the guard (as can be seen in the screenshot):
"Listen, boy..., if I happen to see one of you guys carrying away any cheese from my dairy farms again, I will start a little war!" Happy map making!
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