Honor is a major gameplay element introduced in Stronghold 2.  Honor is required in order to buy promotions, recruit certain troops, buy estates and even complete some mission objectives.  This tutorial explains the new honor sustem, how to gain honor and how to use the honor you gain...

Submitted by LordBritian, Mehmet WitchHazel and Aubergine

Honor is a new "virtual" resource type that relates to the status of your Lord in the game.  The more honor you acquire, the more powerful (in terms of status) you become and as a result more options become available to you.

2 honor points

20 honor points

Whenever honor is gained, a crown will float up from the location where the honor came from.  The number beneath the crown will show how much honor was gained.

There are many ways to gain honor and we strongly reccommend that you utilise as many as possible to ensure that your honor grows at a good rate.  Before we learn about those, there's a few things you need to be aware of first...

Buildings that generate honor must be placed in an estate that you own. Should an enemy capture that estate, you will no longer receive honor from the buildings withing it - instead that honor will go to the enemy!  As such, we recommend that you build most of your honor generating buildings in your main estate that contains the Keep.

Most resources will require at least o­ne stockpile to be placed in your main estate:

Stockpile - storage for most resources

As well as producing your own resources, you can cart them in from other estates:

Carters' post - transfer goods between estates

Many maps will contain estates that are dedicated to creating cloth or wine, etc., for the sole purpose of helping you achieve honor.

An estate creating cloth

While it's good to take advantage of such estates, don't rely o­n them as your sole source of honor - should an enemy capture them you may experience difficulties when recruiting troops, etc.

Alternatively, you could just buy them at the market place:

Marketplace - buy and sell goods

Many activities that generate honor require the Lord to be available for his civilian duties.  If you've moved the Lord around or have had him fighting, etc., then he will not perform any civilian duties until you tell him to.  To allow the Lord to take part in his civil duties, click o­n him then press the button shown below:

Instructing the Lord to resume his civilian duties

He will usually just return to the top of the Keep to watch over his land when this button is pressed but as soon as a civil event occurs he will then automatically participate in it.

If more than o­ne event happens at the same time (eg. church service and a courtroom hearing), the Lord will participate in the closest event.  It therefore makes sense to place most of the buildings that the Lord will attend close to the Keep so he doesn't have far to walk.

Gaining Honor

Punishing Criminals

As your population grows, crime will start to become an ever increasing problem.  Luckily, you can gain honor by punishing criminals!

Note: The crime system was overhauled in patch 1.20 - prior to this version it did not work properly.  We stronghly reccommend using v1.20 or above to get the best results from the crime system.

In order to catch criminals you first need to place guard posts:

Guard post - locates criminals

The criminal will then be escorted to the dungeon (part of the courthouse) by a guard:

Criminals are taken to the dungeon where they await their visit to the courtroom for sentencing

When the courtroom is free, a criminal will be taken to receive the sentence passed down by the judge:

The criminal will be given a sentence in the courtroom and then marched to a punishment device

There are lots of punishment devices available and some devices produce honor as shown below: 

Branding Chair 3 honor	Burning Post 2 honor
Executioners' Block 1 honor	Flogging Post 5 honor
Gallows 0 honor	Gibbet 7 honor
Humiliation Mask 8 honor	Stretching Rack 4 honor
Stocks 9 honor	Torture Wheel 6 honor

In order to use some of these charming devices, you will need the assistance of torturers from the torturers' guild:

Recruit torturers at the torturers' guild

• Honor Received: 0 to 9 depending o­n device used to punish the criminal
• Requirements:
• Guard posts
• Courthouse (includes dungeon)
• One or more punishment devices
• Torturers' guild - also improves speed at which criminals are punished
• Frequency: Depends o­n crime rate (number of criminals), availability of Torturers' Guild and punishment device used.

Church Mass

If a church has been placed in your estate, and services are being held, your Lord will attend mass if he is not carrying out any other official duties. Besides the monthly popularity bonus (if you provide candles for mass) the Lord will get a honor tribute for each mass he attends.

A church

You can choose to make mass longer or shorter depeding o­n how many candles you want to use but this has no effect o­n the honor gained if your Lord attends:

Lord attending mass with no candles.

The Lord is not the o­nly person to attend the service - expect a portion of your workers to take time off work in order to attend the service and sometimes nearby military units may even decide to go to church. Although these can be unwanted side effects, it's a very good way to earn plenty of honor.

• Honor Received: 150 each time the Lord attends a service, regardless of service length
• Requirements:
• Church placed in your main castle estate
• Lord must be available to attend the service
• Frequency: Less than o­nce a year

Hosting a Dance

If a Ladys' bedchamber (also known as the Solar) has been placed in your estate and there is sufficient cloth o­n your stockpile, the Lady will make dresses in preparation for a dance.

Placing a solar will bring a Lady to your map...
She will then make dresses using the cloth o­n your stockpile

It should be noted that the Lady will need page boys from the Lords' kitchen to collect the cloth from the stockpile and transport it to her:

Lords' kitchen

A page boy delivering cloth to the solar

You can either buy cloth from the market or alternatively place some sheep farms and weavers' workshops to produce it yourself:

 
Wool  from the sheep farms is used to produce cloth at the weavers' workshop

Once the Lady has made 4 dresses, she will host a dance at the Keep to show off the Lords' hospitality to their friends and gain honor as a result:

A dance in the Keep

Each dress requires o­ne sheet of cloth - so you o­nly need 4 sheets of cloth per year to host a dance.

• Honor Received: 200 per dance
• Requirements:
• Solar (Ladys' bedchamber) placed in your estate
• Lords' kitchen placed in your estate (to provide pageboys)
• 4 Sheets of cloth o­n your stockpile - the Lady will use these to make 4 dresses
• Frequency: o­nce a year, if 4 dresses have been made

Hosting a Feast

Have some other Lords and Ladies over for dinner and gain their honor for your efforts.

I order to host a feast, you first need to prepare the food.  There are several types of royal food used in a feast:

Vegetables from the vegetable garden

Eels and ducks from the eel farm (pond)

 
Grapes from the vineyard are processed in to wine at the vintners' workshop

Pigs from the pig farm

As with other resources, you can either produce these foods yourself as shown above, or buy them in at the market.

All of these royal foods are stored and prepared at the Lords' kitchen:

Food and wine is stored and prepared for the feat at the Lords' kitchen

The Lord's kitchen will house the pigs, eels, ducks, vegetables and wine for your guests until they arrive. Also note that the eel farms produces both eels and ducks, so you must place twice as many of them compared to your other royal foods in order to guarantee an ample supply.

You can place Lords' kitchens in several estates as this will usually result in feasts being prepared quicker (assuming those estates are producing royal foods).

The amount of honor gained at a feast will vary depending o­n the amount and variety of your royal foods as well as the number of guests that attend.

For the analytical types amongst you, the formula is:

Honor = 10 + (4 x Guests attending x Food types eaten)

Thus if you have 3 food types and 4 guests you will receive 58 honor points at your feast.

The number of guests will vary depending o­n the size of Keep you have placed:

Keep Type	Guests Seated
Saxon Hall	3
Small Keep	5
Medium Keep	7
Large Keep	9

• Honor Recieved: Click o­n the Lords' kitchen and the information panel will show you what honor will be gained at the next feast.
• Requirements:
• Lord's kitchen placed in estates that produce royal foods
• At least o­ne of the following royal foods:
• Pigs
• Eels
• Ducks
• Vegetables
• Wine
• Lord must be available to attend the feast
• The seating space of the Keep will place the limit for the number of guests - either 3, 5, 7 or 9 depending o­n the size of the Keep
• Frequency: When sufficient royal food is available, but never more than o­nce a year

Multiple Food Types at the Granary

A most reliable way to gain honor every month is to feed your peasants and workers multiple food types at the granary:

To do this, you need at least two of the following food types:

Apples from the apple farm (orchard)

Cheese from the dairy farm (cow farm)

Meat from the hunters' post
(the map must contain rabbits, pigeons or deer)

  
Wheat from wheat farms is processed in to grain at the mill
which is then processed in to bread at the bakery

Honor is gained by having more than o­ne food type, with a two-fold increase for giving double rations.  If you disallow consumption of a food type, then that food type will not yield any honor.

For the analytical types amongst you, the formula is:

Honor at Half/Full/Extra rations = Number of food types eaten - 1

Thus if you have 4 food types but o­nly allow your civilians to eat 3 of them, you will gain 2 honor a month.

As long as you have more than 1 type of food being consumed at the granary, honor will be awarded if the granary is set to Half Rations, Full Rations or Extra Rations.

If you set your granary to Double Rations, the honor awarded will be doubled allowing you to get either +2, +4 or +6 honor per month depending o­n the number of food types consumed.

Honor at Double rations = 2 x (Number of food types eaten - 1)

Thus if you have 4 food types but o­nly allow your civilians to eat 3 of them, you will gain 4 honor a month at double rations.

• Honor Received: Between +1 and +6 depending o­n number of food types and rations
• Requirements:
• Granary
• At least two of the following food types eaten:
• Meat
• Apples
• Cheese
• Bread
• Set to double rations to double the honor gained
• Frequency: Every month if at least 2 food types are eaten

Sponsoring a Joust

What better way to gain the admiration of your people than by sponsoring the jousting tournaments:

A jousting tournament

Note: Although the manual states that you can place a wager o­n the Joust, there is currently no feature in the game that allows this.  Hopefully it will be added in a future patch (as of 1.20, it's still not been added).

Simply place a jousting arena in your main estate and wait for a tournament to begin:

Jousting Arena

After placing the arena, it takes 6 months for it to become fully constructed.  When it is fully constructed a 6 month jousting tournament will begin. At the end of the tournament, the cycle will repeat itself automatically - the arena will be rebuilt, taking 6 months, and then there will be another tournament, etc.

Just like the church, jousts have o­ne side effect that you need to keep in mind: A portion of your workforce will take a break from their jobs to watch the jousting tournaments.

• Honor Received: 20 per month for six months (total of 120 per tournament).
• Requirements:
• A jousting arena placed o­n your main estate
• Frequency: Cycle is six month building and six months jousting, thus o­ne tournament will be held each year.

Married Life

If your Lord is married then when he pays the Lady a "visit" in her bed chamber (solar) he will receive some honor!

The Ladys' bed chamber (Solar)

There is no actual marriage, so you don't need to place a church.  As soon as the solar is placed, "Married Life" will begin!

Note: Sometimes the Lady will take a bath and she needs a page boy to hold a towel for her while she gets out of the bath.  If there are no page boys available (ie. you haven't placed a Lords' Kitchen) then she will not be able to get out of the bath and the Lord won't be able to, well, you know...

We're not going to attempt to try and describe this activity any more graphically! Remember, "marriage" is not a word, it's a sentence!

• Honor Received: 1 honor per "meeting"
• Requirements:
• Solar placed in your main estate
• Lord must be available to "attend"
• Lords' Kitchen required in order to provide page boys to hold towels while the Lady gets out of her bath...
• Frequency: About o­nce a year (hope it's worth the wait!)

Moving swiftly o­n...

Creating Sacred Scrolls / Manuscripts

Sacred manuscripts are highly sought after and therefore a perfect source of honor.

When you place a monestary o­n your map, 6 peasants will be recruited to work as monks.  They will spend their days writing the manuscripts for you.

Monks in the monestary create Sacred Holy Scrolls

These scrolls are not available in the shops!  You can o­nly get them from the monestary.

Usually you will have around 6 monks working o­n scrolls at any given time and it will take them between 18 to 24 months to finish their scrolls.

If you recruit fighting monks, the scroll writing process will be disturbed when the monks writing them are converted to fighting monks and this will result in delays in their completion.  Progress o­n the scrolls affected will o­nly resume o­nce new monks arrive at the monestary to continue the work.

• Honor Received: 5 honor per scroll delivered. Usually 6 scrolls are delivered at a time.
• Requirements:
• Monastary
• Monks working at the monestary
• Frequency: Undisturbed monks will complete their scrolls every 18 to 24 months

Placing Statues

Many people honor those who honor themselves, thus placing statues o­n your estate reminds your people of your greatness and in turn increases your honor.

As long as you have enough gold, you can place as many statues as desired.  Although each statue brings o­nly a small amount of honor each month, the fact that they are small and you can place lots of them can soon result in a large monthly increase in honor.

There are two varieties of statue, but both cost the same and result in the same amount of honor being gained each month:

Each time you place a statue, o­ne of the designs above will be placed seemingly randomly.  If it's not the design you want, erase it and then place another o­ne until you get the desired type of statue - but remember you are spending money each time you place o­ne!

Unlike many other methods of increasing honor, they don't consume any resources (other than initial gold to build them) and they don't require the Lord to be available.

• Honor Received: 2 per statue
• Requirements:
• Sufficient gold to place the statues (250 per statue)
• Frequency: O­nce a month

Musicians' Guild

Placing a musicians' guild will allow you to recruit jesters and minstrels (this happens automatically) and that these will increase the honor of feasts as well as increasing popularity around your castle at all other times.

Musicians' guild - recruit Jesters and Minstrels

• Honor Received: 10 honor per feast
• Requirements:
• Musicians' guild
• A feast
• Frequency: o­nce per feast

Completing Quests and other Mission Objectives

In some maps, you can gain honor by completing quests and other mission objectives. Read the mission objectives carefully to find out which quest must be completed in order to gain the honor.

Using Honor

There's no point earning all this honor if you don't plan to put it to use! Now we'll go through the ways in which you can use your hard earned honor...

Military Unit Recruitment

Some troops require both gold and honor to recruit.  This applies to both normal military units and also mercenaries.

Unit	Honor	Gold	Weapon	Armour	Building
Maceman	1	20	Mace	Leather	Barracks
Archer	2	12	Bow	-	Barracks
Crossbowman	2	20	Crossbow	Leather	Barracks
Pikeman	2	20	Pike	Metal	Barracks
Swordsman	8	40	Sword	Metal	Barracks
Knight	25	100	Sword	Metal	Barracks
Light Cavalry	2	40	-	-	Mercenary Post
Assassin	200	100	-	-	Mercenary Post
Horse Archer	2	80	-	-	Mercenary Post
Thief	50	10	-	-	Mercenary Post
Monk	1	25	-	-	Monestary
Fighting Monk	10	1	-	-	Monestary

Buying Estates

If there are neutral estates o­n the map, you can bring them under your control by purchasing them with honor.

You would usually o­nly want to buy estates if they produce something that is of use to you such as food, weapons or goods that will lead to honor such as cloth or wine.

• Honor Required: 100 honor per estate

Rank Promotions

In Kingmaker maps, you can climb the rank ladder from a lowly Freeman all the way to Duke. There are ten ranks in all and to rise up it takes more and more honor.

Here is the list of ranks and the honor cost to move from o­ne rank to the next:

Emblem	Rank	Honor Required
	Freeman	-
	Yeoman	+10
	Squire	+15
	Knight	+30
	Knight Batchelor	+50
	Knight Errant	+100
	Royal Champion	+150
	Baron	+200
	Earl	+250
	Duke	+300

So, to gain promotion from a Freeman to a Squire it would cost 10+15 = 25 honor.

As a Mission Objective

The o­nly time you don't want to spend your Honor, is when your must meet a mission objective of a pre-determined level of Honor.

Our Reccomendations

Having now played the game for some time, we're able to make the following reccomendations:

• Whenever possible, use the granary to gain honor - it's o­nly a small amount per month, but it happens every month!
• Place as many statues as you can afford - although each will o­nly produce 2 honor per month, you can place hundreds of them!
• Use the humiliation mask and torture wheel (depending o­n how fast you want punishment) to gain honor from punishing criminals - these particular devices have been chosen because they give the best balance of punishment speed and honor gained.
• Buy cloth (rather than produce it) so that dances can be held
• Place some royal food buildings (eg. vegetable garden and pig farms) but buy the rest at the market (eels, ducks and wine)
• Place a jounsting arena - it keeps the people happy and brings in decent amounts of honor
• Place a monestary if you have the room and required resources - it will help your honor grow and also provide a cheap source of military units (monks)

That's all for now!

This ends all that you need to make the most use of you time and energy in Stronghold 2 concerning the new Honor system. Enjoy your new found knowledge and may the Honor of Knights, Lords and Ladies be with you always.