This guide covers five very important points about the lions in Stronghold Crusader HD:

1. Their self-imposed circle of slaughter
   
2. Their natural reproduction
   
3. What the Lion Sleeps / Lion Awakes events do
   
4. How the Lion Attack event works
   
5. The best defense against lions

Another five important points are added at the end as a bonus.

Let's first clear up this little matter: there are no lions in SCHD, per se. None of the lions have manes. All the Leos are lionesses. Nevertheless, we shall continue to call them lions.

As you know, the game designers of SCHD meant for a game world to be in motion, to show life. They made the trees sway with the wind, the apple orchards to bloom, smoke to billow from bakeries and lions to run.

They made the lion to not only show life but to also take life.

• The lion is the only animal which hunts and kills: both people and other animals.
  
• It is the only animal which can be sent by game event to kill and terrorize.
  
• It is the only animal which can sleep through an entire game if left undisturbed.

Lions can be such a ferocious foe that some games have been designed in which lions are the sole enemy.

I was surprised at how little has been told about the lions in SCHD, thus it prompted this guide.
(SCHD Version 1.41)

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Lions want to be left alone, to lazily nap their lives away, without human interference. They presume an enormous circle around themselves which cannot be intruded into without penalty of death, hence the name "circle of slaughter". If a lion is left undisturbed and unprovoked, it will sleep the ENTIRE game in the center of its imaginary circle.

How enormous is the circle of slaughter?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The circle is about 100 spaces across; a radius of about 50 spaces on the map. One space is measured by one column of block or one pixel in width. Fifty spaces on a map is about four cathedrals placed side by side. Lions demand a lot of domain.

Each sleeping lion has their own circle of slaughter. How nice. A moving lion does not have a circle of slaughter; only sleeping lions do.

The circle of slaughter is intended only for humans, nothing else. This should not be a surprise. Entering this circle is certain death to a human. (Lions don't attack women carrying babies or little children.) Lions do not like to be disturbed by any human, even when the human is a far distance away.

What does it take to disturb a lion? To intrude into its so-called circle?

One misstep, that's all.

If a farmer, hunter, worker or soldier enters into the circle of slaughter, about 50 spaces or less of a sleeping lion, it awakes and goes to attack the alleged intruder. If the human attempts to run away, to leave the circle, the lion pursues until it catches the human.

If a person is walking towards a pride of sleeping lions, then the whole pride will rise to attack since every lion's circle has been transgressed. After killing the poor soul, the pride will lay down to rest to regain their energy.

If a person intrudes into only one lion's circle of slaughter, of a pride of sleeping lions, then only that one lion, not the entire pride, will rise to punish the intruder - as shown on the right. With the punishment doled out, the lion will rest beside the dead body to regain its energy.

Once a lion has moved a far distance from the pride, it does not return to the pride. It is still part of the pride, though. The game code continues to track the lion as part of the pride and includes it in actions which involve the whole pride (like Lion Awakes events or an archer attack).


Resting after an attack is different than when a lion sleeps. A resting lion is tired and has to regain its strength. It does not have the energy to enforce a circle of slaughter as it rests. A human can approach very close to a resting lion without being slaughtered.

In the picture to the right, a lion has killed a mace man is resting even though another mace man is standing nearby. A resting lion does not have a circle of slaughter.

• If a human passes within 1-2 spaces of a resting lion (swatting distance), like a farmer going to a field, the lion will rise and attack the human, then continue resting.

After about three months or resting, a lion is rejuvenated and redraws its circle of slaughter around itself.

• If another human is within its circle of slaughter (within 50 or less spaces), the lion will rise and pursue the human. And the cycle of killing and resting and sleeping and redrawing its circle starts again.
  
• If another human is NOT within its circle of slaughter, the lion will sleep (yes, even after resting) until one of three things happen:
  
  • A human eventually strolls into the circle, which rousts the lion to intercept and slaughter intruder.
    
  • Another animal (camel, deer, rabbit) passes within 1-2 spaces of the resting lion. The lion will instantly attack and kill the animal, then lay back down to sleep.
    
  • The Lion Awakes event triggers the pride to wake up. More on this in section (3).

The circle of slaughter does not pertain to other animals, only humans. But a lion does slaughter other animals.

A lion will attack a camel, deer or rabbit, especially if they are within swatting distance of the lion - whether the lion is sleeping or moving. The lion's swat always kills a deer or rabbit. A camel can endure several swats and may be left only wounded by the lion.

Lions hunt rabbits and deer. They don't hunt camels and they ignore birds. A lion will never attack another lion.

The prides are randomly selected by game code to hunt and it might be just one pride, two prides, every pride or no prides. A pride selected to hunt stays asleep until a roaming herd of deer or colony of rabbits get too close, then the pride rises up and hunts, resting between kills. The pride will stop hunting if deer or rabbits become too far away.

If the pride has not been selected to hunt, then the other animals can roam incredibly close to the sleeping pride without being devoured. Camel and deer will pass close but lay to rest a distance away from a pride of lions. Rabbits never learned this lesson. Rabbits will hop right into the laps of sleeping lions. We know how that ends.


There is an exception to this. Once a lion has tasted the blood of a rabbit or deer by happen chance, it desires more and leads its pride to hunt. The pride becomes hunters.

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Lions spawn new lions. They reproduce.



There are three interesting things about their reproduction (OK, maybe four, even five)

• Lions reproduce only when they are laying down, never when they are walking or running. One lion in each pride becomes the "Mama Lion" and all offspring come from her. (If the Mama Lion is killed, another lion in the pride takes her place as Mama Lion.)
  
  
• A Mama Lion will *usually* reproduce the same number of times as there are starting lions in the pride. Said a different way, a pride which starts with four lions will spawn only four new lions. A pride which starts with three lions will spawn only three new lions. A pride of one lion will spawn only one new lion. This is for the entire game.
  
  Sometimes a Mama Lion spawns "extra" lions. I have seen this occur after many years have passed and the pride has never been disturbed. It does not happen often.
  
  
• Newly spawned lions do not appear beside the Mama Lion. They appear briefly in a sitting position imposed on the Mama Lion - see picture to the right. They then lay down to sleep (of course) and become stacked under the Mama Lion. For this reason, it is impossible to tell how many lions are in a sleeping pride; the new ones are hidden under the Mama Lion. When the pride rises and moves, then one can count the lions.
  
  
• In general, prides spawn new lions in the order the prides were placed on the map. The first placed pride spawns all its new lions first, then the second placed pride spawns all its new lions, and so on. This doesn't hold true all the time, but most of the time it does.
  
  
• The time it takes for a pride to spawn all its new lions varies. There appears to be about a 33% chance of a new lion every month; a roll of the dice imposed by the game code. I have seen a pride of four lions receive its four new lions in six months while another pride waited for over two years. By the odds, it should take about a year for a pride of four lions to replicate.

Lions do not start new prides. The number of prides remains the same (or less if killed off) as the number placed on the map by the map maker.

The “natural” reproduction of lions should not be confused with the “artificially induced” arrival of lions when the “Lion Attack” game event is triggered (see section (4)). These are two very different ways that lions are added to a game. Natural reproduction adds lions depending on a random timetable and how many lions start the game. The Lion Attack event inserts lions according to the trigger and the level (1-10) set in the event.

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Lion Sleeps event puts all prides of lions into a deep slumber. The Lion Sleeps event turns off the circle of slaughter. And it turns off the desire to hunt. In fact, humans (and animals) can approach very close to the slumbering lions without being eaten alive. But, a lion will instantly awake and attack anything within 1-2 spaces of it; then return to a deep sleep.

This includes soldiers. However, if a soldier attacks a slumbering lion, the lion will awaken and fight back. It returns to sleep again if it survives.

A Lions Sleeps event will not put marauding lions, released by a Lion Attack event, to sleep. Lions created by a Lion Attack event are not affected by a Lion Sleeps event.

Remarkably, lions also reproduce while in the deep slumber of a Lion Sleeps event. Don’t ask me how.

There are two things which will end (stop) the Lion Sleeps event:

1. Archers and slingers can bring an entire pride out of its deep slumber. An arrow or rock shot at any lion while it is under the Lion Sleeps event immediately brings the whole pride to its feet. After they kill the intruder, they go on the hunt for the closest human. The pride is no longer controlled by the Lion Sleeps event.
   
   
2. The Lion Awakes event, which is described next, ends the Lion Sleeps event.

So, lions put to sleep by event are stationary but still defensive. This event is used to pause lion activity, except reproduction!

The Lion Sleeps and Lion Awakes event actions work together. A sleeps event must come before an awakes event, otherwise the awakes event does not work. That makes sense.


Lion Awakes event stirs up prides of lions with the smell of human blood and a deadly yearning in their savage claws. The awakened prides go on a hunting spree for humans which can only end in death. An awakened pride will not sleep or rest; they attack.



This event has 10 levels to choose from. Each level awakens the matching number of prides. For instance, level 2 awakens two prides of lions, and level 8 awakens eight prides.

• If there are only three prides of lions on the map, for instance, than any level beyond 3 awakens all three prides.
  
• If there are 15 prides on the map, then the highest level 10 awakens 10 prides and the remaining five prides lay sleeping (not in a deep sleep anymore) with their circles of slaughter turned back on.

The prides are awakened in the order in which they were placed on the map, so the first pride placed on the map (if not killed off during the game) awakens first, and so on. If a pride is killed off, it is not included in the order.

In the picture below, five prides were placed on the map, in order of left to right, and put to sleep. When the Lion Awakes event triggered at level 3, then the first three prides placed on the map woke up and started their man hunt.



The number of lions per pride has no bearing on the event. If the Lion Awakes event is set at level 2 and the first two prides only have one remaining lion each, then only two lions are awakened.

When a pride is awakened, it goes after the closest human on the map, regardless how far it has to go. It does not necessarily head straight to the Keep, but eventually does because that’s where lots of humans are. (If an archer kills a lion, then the pride instantly makes a bee line for the archer. They hate archers.)

The Lion Awakes event does not cause a drop in your Lord’s popularity even after it is announced that lions are attacking and their roars can be heard across the land and they are killing villagers by the droves. The people still love their Liege.

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The Lion Attack event inserts new lions onto the map. They magically appear, wide awake and ready to kill. Fortunately, their blood lust does not spread to the prides already on the map; they remain napping as the newcomers go on the hunt for the closest humans.

• It doesn’t matter if lions are already on the map or not for the Lion Attack event to work. It will spawn lions even if there are no lions on the map.
  
  
• It doesn’t matter if lions already on the map are deep asleep from the Lion Sleeps event, the Lion Attack event will spawn new lions which are awake and hungry and moving towards the closest human (women with babies and children are ignored).

The Lion Attack event has 10 levels to choose from. Each level adds about 3-4 more lions to the mass of marauding man-killers. Here are the approximate number of lions per level:
Level 1 = 3 to 4 lions
Level 2 = 6 to 8 lions
Level 3 = 10 to 12 lions
Level 4 = 13 to 15 lions
Level 5 = 16 to 19 lions
Level 6 = 19 to 21 lions
Level 7 = 22 to 24 lions
Level 8 = 25 to 27 lions
Level 9 = 28 to 31 lions
Level 10 = 32 to 35 lions

Multiple Lion Attack events can be timed for the same month to create a horde of hundreds of lions.

The Lion Attack action event sends a cold terror through everyone; popularity drops 20 points immediately. The drop in popularity begins to rise after the attacking lions are killed or six months have passed.

This is most important:

The Lion Attack event spawns lions at the spot at which the map maker placed the very first pride of lions on the map. This is the spot at which all lions will spawn every time a Lion Attack event is triggered.

You cannot reset the spawn spot, regardless, so choose the placement of the first pride of lions with the Lion Attack spawn point in mind.

Of course, if no lions were ever placed on a map, then the Lion Attack event would not work because there was not a spot for them to spawn at. (Solve this by placing a pride of lions and then erasing them from the map; the spawn spot remains for a Lion Attack event.)

Q: What happens if the spawn spot is covered over with water or rock? Will lions spawn somewhere else?
A: No. Lions will not spawn with the Lion Attack event since there is not a spot to spawn at. The ONLY way to reset a spawn point is to delete the map and start a new map.

Q: What happens if the spawn spot is covered with a farm or building or wall during the game?
A: Lions will still spawn if a farm or wall are built over the spawn spot. They appear on top of the wall. A building (or ruin) blocks the spawn spot and lions will NOT appear. (One could purposefully block a spawn spot with an enemy barracks, for example, which once razed then allows lion attacks from that spot.)

Q: Does the pride of lions sleeping at the spawn point also awaken to attack when the Lion Attack event is triggered?
A: Only the lions added by the event go on the attack. All the other lions on the map ignore the newcomers.

Q: Can a Lion Attack event be stopped by a Lion Sleeps event? Will the Lion Sleeps event put the attacking lions to sleep?
A: Sadly, no. A Lion Sleeps event has no effect on the blood thirsty lions launched by a Lion Attack event.

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The game designers of SCHD created a unique adversary in the lion; a very different adversary than enemy soldiers or bandits. A very deadly killer in close combat.

• Offensively, a lion is about the same as a swordsman, killing in about as many hit points as a swordsman does. The lion does not shy away from attacking. It moves far faster than a swordsman, bringing its savagery swiftly to its quarry, fighting to the death.
  
  
• Defensively, a lion is like a spear man; vulnerable to arrows, rocks and swords. Its tawny coat offers it little protection.

Know this: lions hate archers and they hate rock slingers too. They hate being wounded from a distance. If a lion is attacked by arrow or rock, the entire pride rises to take revenge on the attacker. Even lions separated from the pride join in.

Worse still, once the pride has exacted its revenge, it turns its rage towards every other human it can find. An archer or slinger turns an entire pride into attack lions.


You already know this: different soldiers fare differently when attacked by a lion. Some live, most die.

Here's a table of the outcome of a single lion verse a single soldier, facing off on level ground in close hand-to-claw combat. The soldiers in this table are the ONLY soldiers who can survive and win such combat, in the order of best remaining health.

(A "lion swat" is a bodily hit from a lion with its front paw, always the right paw.)


What does this table tell us?

In hand-to-claw combat, the best defense is a swordsman, European or Arab. They will kill a lion quickly but also lose about half their health. They usually can’t live past a second lion attack.

An assassin can kill a lion with his long sword, but he almost dies as well.



In the next table, these are the soldiers who DIE when attacked by a lion, in the order of how many lion swats it took to kill them and the remaining health of the LION. Again, they faced off on level ground in close hand-to-claw combat. (The remaining health of a lion was determined by how many swats it could muster against a pike man before it died.)


This table tells us:

• The jabs of a pike man inflict small amounts of injury to a lion but the pike does keep the lion at bay, lessening its deadly lunges. The two spar in a long, drawn out battle until finally the lion prevails. The lion is hardly the winner for it is barely alive. The drawn out battle allows other soldiers to join and for this reason, pike men are essential to blunt a lion attack.
  
  
• Mace men die easily (their leather armor can withstand one more lion swat than those without any armor) but inflict substantial damage to a lion leaving it nearly dead.
  
  
  
• Monks are almost as effective as mace men against a lion. Who knew?
  
  
• In hand-to-claw combat, the archers (all of them) die quickly and inflict little harm to the lion. From a distance, the archers are deadly to lions.

The best overall defense against a lion are archers since they can kill a lion from a far distance. This is why lions hate archers. It takes three arrow hits to kill a lion (two arrow hits from crossbow). On level ground, a squad of archers protected by armored soldiers is a lion’s Waterloo.



An Arab rock slinger can also kill a lion in 3 hits but has to be much closer to a lion than an archer. A lion can reach and kill a slinger at the cost of only 1 wound.

A crossbow man fares the same as a slinger since it takes forever for a crossbow to reload.

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You will notice that lion prides, when placed on a map, are either three or four lions in number. It is a random choice made by the game code as the pride is created. Repeated tests did not find any rhyme or reason for a pride being three in number verse four in number.

One can easily erase lions from a pride. One cannot add lions to a pride; a pride can never be larger than its starting number of lions.

Why?

The game code treats each addition of lions, each placement on the map, as a new pride. Even if lions are placed upon the same spot on the map. For example, one may create a cluster of 18 lions in an abandoned village from five clicks of the mouse. This represents five distinct prides to the game code, not one big pride of 18 lions.

This becomes important when using the Lion Awakes event. If the Lion Awakes event triggers at level 3, then only three of the five prides in the abandoned village will awaken.




“No Lions on Map” is an event condition which triggers only when, well, when there are no lions on the map.

If there are no lions, then the Lion Sleeps / Lion Awakes events won’t work. BUT the Lion Attack action event does work whether there are lions on the map or not.

This condition of no lions on a map can become a game goal (win condition) or part of the game story. For example, the first enemy invasion is held back until after all the lions are gone.

This event is also useful for triggering a Lion Attack event; timing an attack only after all the starting lion prides are killed off.

These are the things which will stop a lion, which a lion cannot pass across:

1. Rock, including rock cliffs
   
2. Rivers and lakes (water)
   
3. The sea
   
4. Walls and buildings (& ruins)

Lions cross or pass through everything else: farms, grassy farmlands, scrub lands, bare earth, sandy soils, marshes, oil patches, quarry rock, iron deposits and stream crossings.

In marsh land and oil patches, a sleeping lion will sink out of sight but still be very much alive.

Lions can climb steps, pass through stone gates and enter stone towers. They can even enter a Keep and attack whomever is on the roof.


If you wall a lion into an enclosure or confine it some other way, it goes into a perpetual sleep mode. Even a Lion Awakes event will not awaken a captured lion. Lions will not die in captivity; they remain alive for the entire game. A captive pride will reproduce.

Once released, the lions will stay asleep and stay put until a hapless human enters the circle of slaughter or an archer looses an arrow at one of the lions.

Fire will kill or wound a lion.

Flames of fire throwers or burning pitch pits will kill a lion, or badly wound it. Fire from burning farms and buildings do the same.

The fire carried by a slave does nothing to a lion; his torch falls beside his dead body on the second swat of a lion, sometimes on the first swat.

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In this guide, we walked through five important things to know about lions in Stronghold Crusader HD.

(1) We found out that sleeping lions insist on having this enormous circle of slaughter around them (about 50 spaces in radius) and woe be it to whomever intrudes into that circle.

We already knew that lions hunt rabbits and deer, but maybe it was not known that rabbits are like hopping nachos and salsa dip to lions. They can't stop until its all gone.

(2) We also knew that lions reproduce, but maybe not that they only reproduce laying down and usually have no more offspring than the starting number of lions in the pride. The oddity of new lions being stacked under the Mama Lion is just weird.

(3) We learned about the Lion Sleeps and Lion Awakes events. The levels of the awakes event match the number of prides to be awoken, and they awake in the order they were placed on the map.

(4) The Lion Attack event can launch anywhere between three to 35 kill-crazy lions upon terrified humans. The event works whether there are lions already on the map or not.

The spawn spot for a Lion Attack event is where the first pride of lions was placed on the map.

(5) It is no surprise that swordsmen are the best slayers of lions in hand-to-claw combat. It might be of surprise that assassins are included in this club.

Pike men, as it turns out, stall a lion's attack as the two take numerous jabs at each other. The delay can allow archers and soldiers to join in and turn the tide against a massive onslaught of man-eaters.

This guide recommends that, on level ground, a covey of archers, well protected by armored soldiers, is the absolute best defense against attacking lions. Pike men should be used to blunt and stall the attack.


Overall, we learned that lions add more than motion to a map; they can be used to add challenge and excitement and yes, even some anxiety. Their inclination to sleep, to reproduce, to hunt and to kill can be crafted to make very entertaining and very enjoyable games.

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I hope this guide has proved useful. If it has, please consider a positive rating.