Stronghold What Matters?

[Stasis_Sword]

Okay so I have a stronghold. I fixed the road south, the main keep and the place I can sleep. My question is now what?

 

1). How quickly/how much money should I be throwing at these upgrades? I'm in Act 2 and trying to figure out much I should be spending on this relative to getting new equipment and spells.

 

2). I actually lost money between taxes and bandits this last cycle. Any advice on getting/keeping revenue positive?

 

3). Are certain upgrades substantially better, or is it mostly a bunch of +2 prestige/+1 security unlocks?

 

4). Do most of you eventually fully upgrade the place or is it more get these 10 upgrades (I'd love a list) and leave it as is?

[MaxQuest]

1). As you do feel comfortable. It is arguable better to spend your last money on buying a build-related weapon (e.g. Tall Grass, Borresaine), and use only your surplus gold on the hold upgrades.

 

2). Higher security. Although it will still be random.

 

3). The only one that is must-have for me is Warden's Lodge, because of the bounties. Ah and Barbicans as you need them for further map passage.

Botanical gardens and Curio shop can also be useful for the plants and creature parts they generate.

Also I like building Craft Hall and Towers, as DEX and PER are my favorite resting bonuses.

 

4). I upgrade it fully. You need high prestige for the chance of getting high-level adventures.

Edited March 20, 2016 by MaxQuest

[Ymarsakar]

Early game, money is needed for certain items and what not, so I normally wouldn't upgrade the stronghold except maybe to get the garden, brighthollow to rest, and the warden's lodge for bounty quests.

 

After every 2 primary quest or big dungeon crawl, you should probably have enough to fund a building unless you need to save up for one of Winfred's goodies.

 

Revenue from taxes, you shouldn't worry about that too much. It's not nearly enough to cover hirelings or compare against what you can get by selling random loot from dungeon crawls. The random attacks, which happen as you rest (not as quests proceed), can also provide a nifty source of income, since some of the enemies drop loot.

 

So after a few months, you'll get random attacks popping up (unless you use console to pre trigger it).

 

I think most people fully upgrade the stronghold, because they have too much copper at near end game. These days, the more you upgrade your prestige, the more likely you are to get an artifact due to getting a micro adventure on Turn (quests advance turn, which is the only thing that does).

Edited March 20, 2016 by Ymarsakar

[Braven]

The main purpose of the stronghold (besides the rest bonus), is to get the quests with unique (and often strong) items. For that reason I recommend getting the keep first to get the quests going. Then, the bounty hunter is good as it is a nice source of EXP and gold. Then get the inn and something with a rest bonus. After that, you can wait a while and spend gold on other things if you want. The rest of the upgrades are less important but eventually you want to upgrade everything since gold is plentiful and getting prestige will unlock more frequent and better quests offering better items.

 

One other benefit is getting plants and monster parts. Two building do this. However, you can also buy these from merchants so I don't think there is a huge rush to build those.

Edited March 20, 2016 by Braven

[KDubya]

it is a good way to buy Vithrack brains for upgrading to exceptional. Free crafting stuff shows up in the chest which helps with crafting.

 

Basically once you get to level eight and have built the shop that sells the brains you can upgrade everyone's weapon to exceptional and add a lash easily and cheaply. Going beyond exceptional is severely limited due to extremely rare components. You can even make up a few specialized generic weapons with the various Slaying enchantments - a Kith one for bounties, a spirit one  etc. The extra accuracy and damage can make a big difference. At level four adding a Kith slayer to a Fine Estoc can really make a difference clearing out the castle.

[Braven]

it is a good way to buy Vithrack brains for upgrading to exceptional. Free crafting stuff shows up in the chest which helps with crafting.

 

Basically once you get to level eight and have built the shop that sells the brains you can upgrade everyone's weapon to exceptional and add a lash easily and cheaply. Going beyond exceptional is severely limited due to extremely rare components. You can even make up a few specialized generic weapons with the various Slaying enchantments - a Kith one for bounties, a spirit one  etc. The extra accuracy and damage can make a big difference. At level four adding a Kith slayer to a Fine Estoc can really make a difference clearing out the castle.

 

Brains can be had for around 100-200 copper from a vendor in Defiance Bay and the merchant automatically restock after a bit so there are no limits to how many you can buy.  Actually, all the enchantment supplies can be bought in Defiance Bay (plants, animal parts, gems) if you know where to find the merchants.

 

It is still nice getting all of the "free" plants and animal parts from the stronghold, but if you are tight for gold, you can wait on it a while since there are other easy ways to get exceptional enchantment parts.  Also, merchants are the only easy way to get gems without venturing into higher level areas.

Edited March 21, 2016 by Braven

[Crucis]

Honestly, I found that as you got the SH's security and prestige ratings really high, over 40 and then over 50, you started making more than enough money to pay for your retainers. 

 

Anyways, there are some items like the Main Keep and the Bailey that are pre-req's for building other items.  So build those first.  I would suggest not putting off building the barracks, because my experience has been that the security personnel are worth the cost.  They may not be able to reliably repel attacks on their own, but as you get your security rating high, they're more than able to keep the raiding on your taxes rather low.  IMO, they pay for themselves after not all that long.

 

Personally, I've never really had all that much trouble keeping enough gold in my PC's balance and have always been able to keep a SH build project always running (until I ran out of things to build).  Early on, I might have to choose to do the cheaper projects over the more costly ones.  But in the long run, they all got built regardless.

 

The Warden's house is very good for the bounties, though I wouldn't be in a huge rush to get it built because those bounty fights are often fairly tough and if you build it too early, your party may not be up to the challenge of those fights quite yet.  Other things can bring you more value than the Warden's house if your party isn't ready for the challenge of those bounties.  ALSO, one of the first 4 bounties occurs in an area that is only accessible after Stormwall Gorge has opened up (at the end of chapter 2, IIRC), so that's another reason to not rush to build the warden's house until you're near the end of chapter 2.  (And until you've finished the first 4 bounties, you can't get the next set of 4 bounties.)

Edited March 21, 2016 by Crucis