How to Kill Monitor in Stronghold: My Mistakes
Seriously, who even asks this? It’s not like you’re going to boot up your old PC and fire up a game of Stronghold just to see if you can figure out how to eliminate those pesky little monitor towers. But here we are, aren’t we? I spent about six hours in one session, back in the day, trying to figure out how to deal with them without losing half my keep to their ridiculously accurate archers. Turns out, most of the advice out there is garbage.
Honestly, trying to hunt down a guide on how to kill monitor in stronghold felt like searching for a unicorn. You’d find forum posts from 2003, or links to dead Geocities pages. It was a mess. What I finally figured out, through sheer bloody-mindedness and a lot of wasted troops, is what actually works.
This isn’t going to be a walk in the park. Nothing about dealing with a well-placed monitor tower in Stronghold is. But by the end of this, you’ll know how to stop those archers from raining down hell on your villagers and your walls.
Dealing with Those Annoying Monitor Towers
Alright, let’s cut to the chase. Those tall, skinny towers with the archers perched on top? They’re a nightmare. They have insane range, good accuracy, and they can see pretty much your entire base from a good vantage point. Trying to take them down with just spearmen or swordsmen is a fast track to a very expensive funeral for your army. I tried that. Lost about 70 gold-heavy knights in one go because I underestimated their reach. Felt like a complete idiot, staring at the empty camp screen.
First thing you need to understand is the sight radius. Those things are like surveillance cameras with pointy bits on the end of their arrows. If your builders are trying to get close, they’re toast. If your archers are trying to engage, they’re probably too far away to do anything, and then the monitor archers start picking them off one by one. It’s brutal. The edge of their vision, where they start pinging you about your peasants wandering too close to the border, that’s your warning zone.
Finally, after my seventh attempt at breaching a fully manned monitor emplacement, I realized brute force wasn’t the answer. It was like trying to hammer a screw into a wall. You *might* get it eventually, but you’re going to make a huge mess and probably break something important. You need a smarter approach. You need to think like the game designers, not just like a guy with a big army.
The Humble Spearman: Your Secret Weapon?
Everyone talks about archers. Everyone talks about knights. But the lowly spearmen? They’re your unsung heroes here, and I know that sounds wild. Most guides will tell you to get yourself some crossbowmen or macemen, but I disagree. Here is why: spearmen are cheap, they’re relatively fast to produce, and their attack range, while short, is just enough to get under the monitor tower’s effective killing zone if you’re careful. Seriously, I spent about 250 gold on three units of spearmen to clear out a single monitor tower that was wrecking my economy, and it worked. They were battered, but they did the job. (See Also: How To Monitor Cloud Functions )
Their armor isn’t great, so don’t expect them to tank a lot of arrows if they get spotted too early. This is where timing and a bit of micro-management come in. You have to move them in waves, or with a bit of cover from your own archers (positioned safely behind walls, of course). The key is to get them close enough to start swinging without getting shredded immediately.
The sound of their pikes clanking against the wooden supports of the monitor tower, that’s the sound of progress. It’s a satisfying, if slightly brutal, symphony of destruction. You’ll hear a different kind of thud when they connect with the tower itself, a hollow, wooden sound that means you’re chipping away at their defenses.
Siege Equipment: Friend or Foe?
Now, siege equipment is where things get interesting, and also where I’ve seen people waste a fortune. Catapults and trebuchets? Great for taking down castle walls. Less so for picking off individual monitor towers from a distance without them turning your expensive siege engines into firewood first. Their accuracy isn’t always the best for those smaller targets, and if an enemy army spots your siege workshop setting up, they’ll often prioritize destroying it before you even get a single shot off. It’s like sending a slow-moving, giant tin can into a hornet’s nest.
There’s this one spot on the second map in the original Stronghold campaign, the one with the river bend and the choke point near the enemy castle. I tried setting up trebuchets to take out their main monitor defense. Took me three tries to get them built, and by the time the first one fired, a squad of enemy knights had ridden right through my poorly defended flank and smashed the whole operation. Cost me over 500 gold and an entire game day.
The best siege weapon for dealing with monitor towers, in my experience, is actually the siege ladder. No, I’m not kidding. It sounds absurd. But if you can get a couple of siege ladders up against the tower’s base, your troops can swarm up and take it from the inside. It’s risky, sure, and requires you to get them close enough to deploy without being annihilated, but once your troops are inside that tower, it’s game over for the monitor’s archers. It’s a high-risk, high-reward situation.
When to Attack and What to Bring
Timing is everything. If you’re going to assault a monitor tower, do it when the enemy is distracted. Maybe they’re pushing your other defenses, or maybe there’s a big raid happening on the opposite side of your keep. That’s your window. Ideally, you want to attack when their attention is fully occupied elsewhere. This feels like managing a busy kitchen during peak dinner rush; you can’t focus on the sauté station if the grill is on fire. (See Also: How To Monitor Voice In Idsocrd )
So, what do you bring? A good mix. I’d recommend at least two units of spearmen to get in close and do damage to the tower itself. Then, support them with a unit or two of archers positioned behind them, or on a nearby higher ground if you can get it. Their job isn’t to duel the monitor archers; it’s to provide suppressing fire and take out any melee troops that try to intercept your spearmen. And for God’s sake, bring a couple of engineers with macemen or swordsmen behind them, just in case the AI decides to throw a suicidal melee unit at your spearhead. The macemen, with their higher damage output, are surprisingly effective at clearing out any immediate threats to your spearmen once they’re engaged with the tower.
You’ll also want to have a small contingent of your best melee troops (knights, if you can afford them, or even well-armored macemen) ready to sally forth and deal with any reinforcements that might appear. It’s a multi-pronged approach, almost like a surgical strike rather than a full-blown assault. You’re not trying to conquer the entire enemy base; you’re just trying to neutralize that one irritating threat.
What If the Monitor Tower Is Too Far Away?
If it’s truly out of your melee units’ reach and your archers can’t get a clean shot without being picked off, you might need to consider a more indirect approach. This could involve creating a diversion on one side of the map while you send a small, fast group of units (like scouts or light cavalry, if available in the specific Stronghold version you’re playing) to harass the tower’s defenders from an unexpected angle. Alternatively, you might need to build up a larger army than you initially planned and take out the surrounding enemy defenses first, clearing a path for your siege equipment or melee troops to advance safely. It’s a chess match, really.
Are There Any Cheap Ways to Deal with Monitor Towers?
The cheapest way, in terms of gold and resources, is usually the spearmen-and-siege-ladder combo, assuming you can get the ladders deployed. If you can get two units of spearmen with siege ladders to the base of the tower without them getting mown down, you can often take it with minimal losses, assuming your other defenses are holding. It’s not pretty, and it requires a bit of luck and good map positioning, but it’s often the most cost-effective method when you’re strapped for cash.
Can I Just Ignore Monitor Towers?
Ignoring monitor towers is usually a bad idea, especially if they’re placed where they can see your resources, your production buildings, or your main path to expansion. Their constant arrow fire can slowly but surely wear down your villagers, damage your buildings, and make it incredibly difficult to move troops around your own territory. Think of them as a persistent annoyance that, if left unchecked, can cripple your economy and your military progress. The Consumer Reports of medieval warfare would likely give them a “Do Not Recommend” rating for any player who values peace of mind.
My Biggest Mistake: Over-Reliance on Archers
Looking back, my biggest screw-up was always assuming my own archers could out-range and out-shoot the monitor tower archers. That was a foolish assumption. The game’s AI, particularly in later levels or on harder difficulties, is designed to make those monitor towers incredibly deadly. Their range is often just slightly, infuriatingly, longer than your standard archer’s. I remember one game where I had a massive contingent of about 15 units of archers, all lined up, ready to take down a tower. Within two minutes, I was down to three units, and the tower was still standing, spitting arrows like a gatling gun. (See Also: How To Monitor Yellow Mustard )
It was a painful lesson, and one that cost me dearly in terms of wasted resources and lost time. The visual of my meticulously trained archers falling one by one, a pathetic trickle of arrows bouncing harmlessly off the tower’s defenses, is seared into my memory. It felt like watching my perfectly crafted strategy crumble, not because it was bad, but because I misunderstood a fundamental mechanic of the game.
This experience taught me that sometimes, the most direct solution isn’t the best. You have to think about the weaknesses of the enemy’s strengths. The monitor tower’s strength is its range and vision. Its weakness is its static nature and its vulnerability up close. You exploit that weakness.
Comparing Tactics: What Works Best?
Here’s a quick breakdown of what I’ve found works and what’s mostly just marketing noise in the world of Stronghold monitor tower annihilation. This isn’t an exact science, mind you. It depends on the map, the enemy’s placement, and how much gold you’ve managed to hoard.
| Tactic | Pros | Cons | My Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mass Archers | Can work if the tower is isolated and you have superior numbers. | Often out-ranged; vulnerable to counter-attacks; expensive to replace. | Waste of time and gold most of the time. Only use if desperate and you have a huge advantage. |
| Spearmen + Siege Ladders | Cost-effective; can take down the tower quickly if successful. | Requires precise deployment; vulnerable during ladder placement; high risk if initial assault fails. | My preferred method for cost-efficiency and speed. High risk, high reward. |
| Catapults/Trebuchets | Can deal massive damage from a distance. | Slow to deploy; vulnerable to enemy raids; often inaccurate for small targets; expensive. | Better for walls. A last resort for towers. |
| Melee Assault (Swordsmen/Macemen) | Effective once they reach the tower; good against reinforcements. | Very vulnerable en route; slow to advance; requires significant escort. | Good as a secondary force, not the primary assault team. |
Conclusion
So, you’ve seen the options. The spearmen with siege ladders are often your best bet for a cost-effective way to kill monitor in stronghold, but it’s a gamble. If you’re feeling particularly audacious, or if the map layout gives you an edge, going for that close-quarters assault with your spearmen is the way to go. Just make sure you’ve got archers ready to lay down some covering fire and some macemen to handle any surprises.
Remember that time I lost those knights? That was a hard lesson in not just throwing units at a problem. It’s about understanding their strengths and weaknesses, and the tower’s too. Monitor towers are a pain, a real pain, but they are far from invincible.
Ultimately, the best way to kill monitor in stronghold is through careful planning and execution, not just brute force. Have a plan, bring the right tools, and be ready to adapt. Don’t be afraid to experiment; that’s how I learned what works and what’s just a shiny distraction.
Recommended For You
