Crownhold Siege and Warfare

Crownhold’s Steam store promises that you will build an army and lay siege to your enemies. Demo playthroughs never played that layer: a warfare tab sat in the interface, locked or empty, while the opening hours stayed on gold, knowledge, stone, wood, and ships. The full release on 17 August 2026 is larger. Steam’s public achievement list names the late systems that sit past the old demo wall. This page is how to read those names without turning them into a fake combat spreadsheet. Pair it with the late-game progression page and the achievement list.

What is proven versus guessed

Proven, because Steam wrote the blurbs: you reach Expansion 10 (Master of the Realm), you cross the Guarded Pass, you complete a first Royal Arsenal craft, and you complete a first vassal treaty. Named places appear as achievement titles: The Walls of Thorndale and Ashes at Ashford. Two more titles, Molten Iron and No Ship Shall Pass, exist without a public subtitle on the stats page we scraped. Guessed, and therefore not written here: siege DPS, army sizes, unit counters, and how many clicks a wall takes. If a later video records those numbers, this page can cite them. Until then, treat the achievement string as the fact and the UI as the teacher.

The walkthrough still owns expansions 1–6. Do not skip that chain hoping a siege tutorial will appear at the monastery. Harbor, trade hegemony, and a first prestige still come first. Warfare is a late verb. The review was right that hour one is not Crusader Kings; it was incomplete if it implied the retail build never leaves the clicker.

The order Steam’s completion rates imply

On the public stats page, roughly four in ten players had reached expansion 10 in launch week. Slightly fewer had crossed the Guarded Pass. About a quarter had crafted at the Royal Arsenal and signed a vassal treaty. Thorndale sat much lower. Ashford, Molten Iron, No Ship Shall Pass, and Chronicle Complete were rare. That curve is not a speedrun bible, but it is a sequence hint: finish the documented economy, hit expansion 10, then the pass, then arsenal and vassals, then the named walls. If your run is still buying Crop Rotation, you are not “behind on sieges.” You are still in the early-game build.

Use the how to play loop until idle gold, knowledge, and wood are boring. Use trade and exploration until countries exist. Then watch for a warfare tab, an arsenal workplace, or a banner that names a pass. Hover every new panel. Crownhold still hides upgrades on hover, including whatever the arsenal crafts.

Royal Arsenal

Engines of Conquest asks you to complete your first Royal Arsenal craft. That is the only official sentence. It tells you the arsenal is a crafting workplace, not a lore painting. Staff it the way you staffed the guild: open the panel, read the bill, do not invent a production rate. Molten Iron, whose subtitle Steam omitted, is a reasonable neighbor in the same industrial family — iron, heat, engines — but we will not pretend we have the tooltip. If your client shows a molten-iron craft, that is the in-game answer.

Do not prestige away an arsenal you just unlocked because the monument looked shiny. Prestige still rewinds expansion progress. Read how to prestige before you reset a map that finally grew a war building.

Guarded Pass, Thorndale, Ashford

Break the Guarded Pass is explicit: cross it. Treat the pass as a map gate after expansion 10, similar in spirit to how fog gates earlier expansions, not as a multiplayer raid. The Walls of Thorndale and Ashes at Ashford are titled like siege beats. Steam did not print their subtitles on the stats page. Named walls and ashes are enough to say: later content has places, not just percentages. Walk there when the game names them. Do not farm a walkthrough that lists HP we never measured.

Vassals and the sea

Oaths of Fealty is a first vassal treaty. That sits next to trade hegemony rather than instead of it. You already know how countries appear: expedition ships and discovery, then deals, then influence. A treaty is a diplomatic spend once those countries exist. No Ship Shall Pass has no public blurb; the title points at a naval lock, blockade, or harbor challenge. Keep trade and exploration open when ships become hostile instead of commercial.

Decrees are not sieges. By Royal Decree is “accept your first decree.” Castle click-power upgrades in the opening hours already used similar language. Late decrees may be different. Read the panel. The buildings page now flags the arsenal beside the older workplaces.

How to use this page in a session

If the warfare tab is still locked, this page is a map of names, not a button you can press. Play the economy. If the tab opened after expansion 10, walk Guarded Pass first, then look for the arsenal craft and a treaty prompt. If you are staring at Thorndale or Ashford, you are in the thin air of launch-week completion rates — expect the bills to be large and the wiki to stay humble. The achievement list is the checklist. The late-game page is the expansion and prestige ceiling (Tier 6, Gold Prestige 22, three monuments, Chronicle Complete).

We still will not publish a fake army DPS tool. The Tools Hub said that on purpose. When a recorded run shows actual siege clicks, this guide can grow a numbered subsection. Until then, Steam’s own achievement text is the highest-resolution public source, and your client is higher still.

Related reading inside this same Guides dropdown: walkthrough for the teaching chain, trade and exploration for ships, how to prestige so you do not reset a war map by accident, and controls when a new hover panel misbehaves. Launch notes hold the date and the 21-achievement count. Demo vs full explains why older videos stop before this page starts.