Stronghold Warlords Diplomacy guide: Diplomacy Points, Warlords, edict, ranks, more

Mastering the art of Diplomacy is one of the key things you will need to do in order to become a good Stronghold Warlords player. With this guide, you will have a complete understanding of how diplomacy works and how to use it to your advantage.

Stronghold: Warlords is the newest game in the series of popular real-time strategy games coming from FireFly Studios, with a focus on a region of Southeast Asia, during the era of Great Khans, Imperial warlords and Shogun commanders.

In its basics, it is a good old Stronghold game we all know and love, but one of the key new elements are titular Warlords.

With the power of diplomacy (and raw strength), you can force these Warlords to do your bidding and help you in achieving your strategic victories.

Essentially, Warlords are neutral rulers which control part of the maps from their Strongholds, and which will pledge allegiance to either you our your opponents.

When they are under your control, they can give you various strategic bonuses which will help you on your path to victory.

Let's take a look at all of the important components of Warlords and Diplomacy in Stronghold: Warlords.

Stronghold: Warlords Diplomacy Points: How to get them

(Picture: FireFly Studios)

Amongst many resources in Stronghold: Warlords, the most important one when it comes to diplomacy are Diplomacy Points.

You will use Diplomacy Points to either buy Warlord's loyalty, to invest in various services they can offer, or to upgrade Warlord's rank.

By default, you will earn around six Diplomacy Points per minute without doing anything, but that's hardly enough for what you will need, so upgrading your Diplomacy Points income is vital early in the game.

Getting more Diplomacy Points is not that complicated at all. There are two types of Diplomacy buildings that will generate more Diplomacy Points, the Consulate and Emissary buildings.

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To build a Consulate, it will cost you 200 gold and you can have a maximum of four Consulates operating at once.

Emissaries cost 500 and they will generate even more Diplomacy Points, but you can have a maximum of two at once.

You can accelerate Diplomacy Points generation even more if you make roads that will connect your Emissaries and Consulates with the Stronghold, making them yield 33% more Diplomacy Points.

Stronghold: Warlords: How to control Warlords.

Use the Warlords map to interact with warlords (Picture: FireFly Studios)

As we've mentioned already, Warlords are independent factions that control regions of the map and which can swear allegiance to you or your enemies, either with bribery or with force.

If you choose force, you will need to conquer Warlords with your army. To force a Warlord to become your servant, lead the army to his Stronghold, defeat his personal guard and then the Warlord himself.

The best strategy to defeat the Warlord is with ranged units, as he will decimate any melee units that are within his range. It will be painfully slow to bring him down with ranged units, but at least you will save yourself from losses.

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Once the Warlord is depleted of his HP, he will bend and you will need to move your units near him and he will automatically become yours, with his perks at disposal.

If you don't want to wage war against them, you can use your Diplomacy Points to buy their obedience.

• Click on the Diplomacy Point logo in the bottom left corner.
• This will open the warlord map.
• Select the region you want under your control.
• Click on the icon of bowing man.
• Here you can buy Obedience in exchange for Diplomacy Points.
• When you have enough Obedience, you can Demand Obedience.

And now you control them, but keep in mind that other players (or AI) can do that as well at any point.

How to use Warlords: Edicts, perks, ranks, upgrades

Each warlord will provide you with different bonuses and edicts (Picture: FireFly Studios)

In Stronghold: Warlords there are 8 unique warlords, each offering their specialized services.

Each Warlord has some basic perk, and then they have Edicts, various demands you can request from them, and which cost Diplomacy Points.

Each Warlord starts with basic Rank 1, which you can upgrade up to Rank 6, which will improve their Edicts and give options for new ones. 

• Warlord Mouse
  - You can request shipment of rice or wood 

• Warlord Crane
  -  Increases housing quality
  -  You can request shipments of Gold and Diplomacy Points

• Warlord Pig
  - Extra Diplomacy Points
  - You can request shipments of rice, wood, or meat.
• Warlord Ox
  - Increases worker productivity
  - You can request shipments of wood or stone.
• Warlord Dragon
  - Increases Fear Factor
  - You can request Relief Force (2 Fire Lancers at Rank 1)
  - You can launch an attack (Sends a huge army to a designated region)
• Warlord Turtle
  - Improves the quality of towers, turrets, and gatehouses
  - Can upgrade castle and Man the Walls, which will put  Archers and Crossbowmen to defend walls.
• Warlord Horse
  - Allows you to produce more cavalry.
  - You can request 4 Auxiliary Cavalry (Rank 1)
  - You can launch an attack with 4 Horse Archers (Rank 2)
• Warlord Tiger
  - Melee units do more damage
  - You can launch an attack (Imperial Soldiers)

Keep in mind that all these perks and Edicts (shipments requests and attack launches) are becoming increasingly more powerful the more you rank up that Warlord, from Rank 1 to Rank 6.

And that's all you need to know about the diplomacy in Stronghold: Warlords! Now use this to your advantage on the battlefield!