Stronghold 4 How to Get Gold: Taxes and Market Sales

In Stronghold 4, you get gold primarily by taxing your peasants and by selling surplus resources at the market. In the demo gameplay shown by a community creator, the player repeatedly raises taxes in the bottom-right panel to fund purchases, and later uses the market's auto-sell to convert spare wood into gold mid-siege.

How to earn gold step by step

1. Grow your population

   Build hovels (30 cost) and houses (50 cost) so peasants arrive. Hovels and houses hold the same number of people, but houses generate more honor.

2. Keep happiness positive

   Taxing drops happiness, so raise food rations, keep the granary stocked, and watch daily events, which can raise or lower happiness each day.

3. Set your tax rate

   Open the bottom-right panel, where you control food rations, tax rates and total happiness, and raise the tax slider. The panel shows the happiness modifier as you do.

4. Sell surplus at the market

   Place a market (it sits among the town buildings like chapel, inn and mansion). Some missions restrict what the market can buy, but selling works where it is available.

5. Use auto-sell when gold is short

   The market supports auto-sell and auto-buy settings, for example selling resources automatically when they climb above a threshold. During the demo's final invasion, the player auto-sold wood to refill his treasury instantly.

Spending gold and what to check

Gold pays for market purchases (wood, stone, weapons like crossbows and leather armor), gold-cost defenses such as man traps, and arming troops. If your treasury runs dry mid-attack, sell everything you can spare: in the demo the player sold all his hops and ale, then bought crossbows and leather armor to hire more crossbowmen. If taxing is not bringing money in, check that happiness has not collapsed — bad events, an empty granary or over-taxed peasants will hurt your income, so balance rations against the tax slider.

Check note

Verified against the official Stronghold 4 Steam page and a full community demo playthrough on YouTube, checked on 2026-11-02. The tax and market mechanics are player-observed from the demo, not officially documented; official confirmation is still outstanding.