The stockpile is required to store many types of resources (such as wood, candles, etc) and is essential to most building and production activities in an estate.  This tutorial gives a building use, name derivation, construction requirements, occupants, building description and placement tips.

Submitted by Mehmet, Aubergine, WitchHazel

Building Use

Storage for resources: Ale, candles, cloth, flour, grapes, hops, iron, pitch, stone, wheat, wood and wool.

For more information o­n the resources that can be stored o­n the stockpile, please click here.

Name Derivation

The word stockpile is derived from the words "stocks" (quantities of resources such as wood, etc) and "pile" (resources stacked o­n top of each other).

Construction Requirements

The stockpile is found o­n the Industry palette and has the following requirements:

Pallete Button	Building Button	Kingmaker Rank	Wood	Stone	Iron	Gold	Workers Needed	Blueprint Size	Placed Size	Can Rotate
Industry	Stockpile	Freeman	0*	0*	0	0	None	9x7	7x7	Yes

* Although the building has a stone floor and wooden walls, etc., it does not require any resources to build in order to improve gameplay.

The building must be placed o­n relatively flat land with sufficient access o­n two sides where the entrances are.

Additional requirements:

• Can be placed in both castle and village estates
• Only 3 stockpiles per estate
• On large estates, you have to place the stockpile within a certain (as yet unspecified) range of the Keep or village flag

Occupants

This building is unmanned but is visited by almost every worker in your castle at some time or other as well as oxen and wood carts in order to make deliveries or collect goods.

Building Description

The stockpile consists of a huge stone floor, split in to 30 sections called "piles" o­n to which your resources are placed.  Each pile can store stocks of o­ne type of resource - for example, you cannot have stone and iron o­n the same pile.

When the building is first placed, or when it is empty, it is shown with its roof and walls.  As soon as goods are delivered to the stockpile the roof and walls dissapear to make it easier to keep an eye o­n your stock levels:

There is an entrance at either side of the stockpile and a walkway through the center allowing access for workers, oxen and carts to deliver and collect goods.

Placement Tips

The primary consideration when placing a stockpile is proximity to the other buildings that rely o­n it.  Because workers have to travel to and from the stockpile you can improve their performance by reducing the distance they have to travel.

For example, at the start of most maps, wood and stone are vital to you success as they allow you to construct buildings, castle walls and weapons, etc.  As such, initial stockpiles should be placed near to your saw pits and stone quarries.  As your estate develops, other things take priority such as the production of bread which requires wheat and flour to be stored o­n the stockpile.

In Stronghold 2 you can place up to three stockpiles per estate.  Workers who need to store goods will automatically store them in their nearest stockpile in order to reduce their travelling time. When a stockpile becomes full, deliveries will be automatically re-routed to the next closest stockpile in the estate.  If all stockpiles in the estate are full, you will have to sell surplus goods at the market or use the carters' post to transfer them to other estates.

Workers who need to collect goods from the stockpile will again automatically go to the nearest stockpile that contains those goods.

So, obviously, if you place your stockpiles and other buildings in such a way that related buildings surround a shared stockpile, production will become faster. Let's take bread making as an example.  The following buildings would all benefit from being near to the same stockpile:

  
Wheat farm, mill and bakery - all should share the same stockpile
to improve performance of bread production

Wheat from the farm is stored o­n the stockpile where it is then collected and taken to the mill to be ground in to flour.  The flour is then taken back to the stockpile where it is eventually collected and taken to the bakery.