I don't know what you're doing but cmon....

[SaltyBurst]

First off this is going to be a rant. A long one at that about things I have experienced in this game for the last few weeks that I've personally owned it.

Now, I am not a game devoloper, nor do I have any quick solutions or knowledge on how to fix this game but this game is really, really, and more really, broken.

First experience of the game was terrible. The game loaded fine and everything worked perfectly for the first 20 minutes. I realized at that point that going into skirmishes and trying the "campain" method of this game was what I wanted to do when I started to understand the basic's and know-how of this game.

Going against an opponent, who was AI, decided to somehow glitch a unit into my wall so that half of my base was cut off from being able to be built on. So I dealt with that and had to think smaller in industry.

Second thing I noticed is that I built a stable for my troops to have horses to ride. Men on the ground are extremely slow and arches barely touch them while firing. I think an increase to their movement speed vs an increase to actual bow damage ( slight ) would allow for better gameplay other then me just walking at a slow march toward enemies with arrows firing down on me. So I built those troops that have the ability to be mounted and used the hotkey for that mount. I noticed that 2/3 of them actually mounted and the third got on his horse and then dismounted. His character displayed the ability of being mounted ( so I couldnt just build another stables and get him another horse ) AND his horse just stood there like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ and I was unable to slaughter or kill the horse to make him respawn in my stable. This glitch has happened more then once, espacially if they are moving while you hit their hotkey they will just striaght up not care and keep marching but yet the horses spawn and the guys just walk away from them.

AI in this game, at least from what I experenced, is pretty tough. Now I was a guy who used to play games like Empire Earth and Age Of Empires, so I love the theme of those games and wanted to try another. This game with its limited building space ( yet you can make siege tanks within short range of someones walls and pump out a zillion cata's if you want ) is retarded game design. I've noticed that even AI have bigger spaces to grow on and instantly build whatever they need to do whatever they want ( AKA Cheat Mode AI ).

Another thing about this game is it will randomly crash. I have had to unistall and reinstall this game several times in order to actually get in maybe an hour's worth of gaming.

Lets talk industry -

Now food.... Food is retardely high for a population and only til you get to be about mid game ( without blowing gold to get food ) does your population only half fed. I have in every single game devoted 1/3 of my civ population toward food in all markets ( depending on which supply is lower ) in order to keep up with even just 50 people.

AI / Military -

I can't tell you how many times AI have hired about 40 Assassins to roam my base and come straight for my king and just slaughter him without me being able to stop them. I literrely in one game built enough Assassins of my own to defend my Lord just so this dumb AI would stop sacing him the whole game. Deathmatch isnt revolved around a single unit. Kingdom's didnt fall because their king was killed, life still moved on and someone else replaced that dude. I think there should be a penalty for a king dying but not your overall destruction of an hour worth of gameplay that you fought to protect against.

All in all my hands hurt after writing all this and I am sure there are a million more things I could discuss about this game but REALLY? 50 US dollars for a game that seems like it still should be in Beta and you wonder why people aren't buying copies left and right of this thing.

Expand your team, make this game something truly awesome like how Age Of Empires or Empire Earth truly were.

[The Skirmish Lord]

A few tips -
Knights
They have improved since the game first came out but can be buggy - here's a workaround.
before you click on the mount command, make sure none of the knights are moving. If they are walking, there is a chance their horse won't find them resulting in the knight showing that he's mounted but he won't be. If there are enemy units nearby, put the knights in stand ground mode so they won't move towards the enemy while trying to mount their horses.

Food
If you want to feed everyone and get rich, build wheat farms, mills, and bakeries. The ratio is roughly 1 farm supplies 1 mill supplies 5 bakeries; it will vary depending on the distance between buildings. The other option is to put them on quarter or half rations. Half rations with four types of food still get you +5 popularity. Full rations with one type of food gets you +0 popularity.

Crashes
If you run the game in a window, I've heard that it will crash more than if full screen but I've never verified that myself. Make sure your antivirus is in game mode. Take a look at the Firefly support site - http://support.fireflyworlds.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/List/Index/13/stronghold-crusader-2
Also check the troubleshooting link on that page.

Assassins
Assassins are part of the game you have to defend against. It's much worse in multiplayer when you're dealing with real people that are much better players than the AI. To kill assassins, you have to engage them with ground troops and have archers slaughter them. You also have to think ahead to have a safe spot to run your lord to; such as behind a wall of pikemen! You can also stop them by putting soldiers on your walls. Once an assassin is spotted, your archers will start shooting them. Since they are unarmored, they die pretty quickly. Assassins add a lot to the game so far as strategy goes. You can kill an opponent by luring his forces away from one area which will allow your assassins to sneak in and kill the lord. They're also very good for taking over an unguarded gatehouse.

AI
Yeah, it cheats but I've never seen an RTS game where they don't cheat to some extent. The AI may cheat but its very stupid. The thing to remember when playing the campaigns is that each can be solved with a different approach. If one approach doesn't work, then try using a different econmy or different military units.

Give the game a chance and you'll find it to be a lot of fun and very addictive. Once you get the basics down, try a multiplayer game which is much more of a challenge than single player.