The church, in Stronghold 2, is a major source for both popularity and honor. This tutorial gives a biulding use, construction requirements, occupants, building description, placement tips and also shows you how to use candles to increase popularity...

Submitted by Aubergine, WitchHazel, LordBritian, Mehmet

Building Use

Your peasants, workers, military units and even the Lord will occasionally attend the church during Mass. If candles are used at Mass, popularity will be gained. If the Lord attends Mass, honor will be gained.

Name Derivation

The word "Church" comes from the Greek word "kyriakon" (cy-ria-con), meaning the Lord's house, a term which from the third century was used, as well as "ekklesia" (which soounds very similar to the Spanish word for Church, "Iglesia"), to signify a Christian place of worship.

Construction Requirements

The church is found o­n the Civillian 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	Church	Knight Bachelor	0	50	0	500	1 Priest	14x7	12x5	Yes

The building must be placed o­n relatively flat land with sufficient access to the main entrance.

Additional Requirements:

• Can be placed in both castle and village estates
• Only o­ne church per estate
• To gain popularity, candles must be present in the estate where the church is placed

Occupants

A priest must be employed in order for the church to become operational. When the church is placed, an unemployed peasant will automatically become a priest and move in to the church.

During Mass, any nearby peasants, workers, troops and even the Lord will go in to the church and sit down to pray and listen to readings from the Priest.

Building Description

The church is a lage building constructed of stone. At o­ne end there is a large bell tower, which uses buttresses to strengthen it's walls.  The remainder of the church consists of a large congregation room where people sit during mass.  Due to the size of the roof, further buttresses are required to strengthen the walls.  A wooden door is located o­n o­ne side of the main part of the building:

Another striking feature of most churches is the cross that appears o­n the building and the stained glass windows:

Inside the church there are several main features:

Up to 25 candles can be placed o­n a table (near the tower) inside the church. The more candles, the more popularity gained (see chart later in this tutorial). 

The priest stands behind his pulpit and holds mass:

The bowl in the foreground is the baptisimal font (fountain).  Behind the priest is the alter.  Before Vatican II, the priest faced away from the congregation hence the alter being behind the priest.

There is enough seating for a congrgation consisting of 18 people. A church full of workers or military units could cause you problems!

Votive Candles

The candles to the right of the table are votive candles which represent prayers rising to God (not a sacrifice as some would believe).  In modern times, most votive candles can be found near statues of the Sacred Heart or Mary.

It was a common medieval practice to make an offering (at a favoured shrine) consisting of a candle or number of candles equalling in measurement the height of the person for whom some favour was asked.  This was known as "Measuring to" the figure depicted by the statue or shrine, usually a saint.  The practice can be traced back to the time of St. Radegund (587 AD) and later throughout the middle ages.  It was especially common in England and the North of France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Placement Tips

Whenever Mass is held, nearby people will be drawn to the church. As such, it's usually best to keep the church away from workers and military units otherwise your production and military may be adversly affected during Mass.

Where possible, place the church at o­ne far corner of your estate and then have plenty of hovels nearby. The unemployed peasants will be more than happy to attend Mass and this will not affect your production or military.

Remember that the Lord will attend mass if he is o­n civilian duty and within range of the church - depending o­n how important honor is to you, you may wish to ignore the advice above and put the church as close to the Keep as possible.

Another thing to take in to consideration is the resource cost of placing a church - it's not the sort of building you want to have quickly destroyed during an invasion. Keep it away from the castle walls and away from stray rocks thrown by enemy trebuchets and catapults.

Church Settings - Mass Length

As soon as you place a church, and a priest is employed to work there, Mass will be held o­n a regular basis. However, without candles the mass will not yield any popularity. For information o­n how to produce candles, please see our tutorial o­n candles.

The following chart summarises the various church settings, number of candles used and the amount of popularity gained:

Note: The number of candles shown o­n the church settings panel indicates the number of candles you have available in your stockpile and not the number of candles that will be used during mass.

Gaining Honor

If your Lord is free to tend to his civilian duties then he may decided to go to a nearby church during Mass. He usually does this o­nce a year or less, depending o­n how busy he is and how far away the church is from the Keep.

Whenever he does, regardless of the Mass type (even if no candles are used), 150 honor will be gained!