Stronghold 4 Train Levy: Barracks Guide and Gold Cost

To train levy in Stronghold 4, place a barracks, select it, and queue levy units — each levy costs 6 gold and takes one peasant from your population. This comes from players playing the current free Steam demo, where levy are described as basic but inexpensive peasants used for early defense.

Prerequisites

Before you can train levy, you need the basics that the demo's early missions walk you through:

• A working wood economy: place logging camps near trees and a stockpile connected to them.
• Food production (turnip or apple farms) and hovels for housing, so your population grows.
• Enough gold to pay the levy cost. In the demo's tutorial mission you start with none, so early bandit raids are handled by a small starting levy group before you expand.
• Spare, unemployed peasants. Each levy consumes one person, so a large levy force alongside farms and woodcutters requires more houses.

Training levy, step by step

1. Build the barracks

   Once the mission asks you to raise soldiers, place a barracks from the military building menu. In the demo you can only have one at that stage, so position it where it can be defended — players suggest placing it inside your future walls rather than at the map edge.

2. Select the barracks and queue levy

   Click the barracks and pick the levy option. Each unit costs 6 gold and one peasant, making them the cheapest military unit in the demo. Queue as many as your gold and idle peasants allow.

3. Group and position them

   Drag-select your new levy, group them (control-groups work as expected), and station them near whatever you want protected — wood camps and farms are the usual bandit targets. Levy are unarmored with basic weapons, so win by numbers against bandit raids rather than quality.

4. Reinforce after losses

   Levy die cheaply and often. Keep gold flowing (raise taxes if your happiness buffer allows) and re-queue levy between raids while you build toward real units — an armory plus fletcher and poleturner workshops unlock bowmen and spearmen, which cost gold and honor.

What levy can and cannot do

Levy are a stopgap. In the demo's economic mission they hold off early bandit raids, and paired with your lord they can absorb small incursions. Against armored attackers or larger invasions they melt quickly; that is when spearmen, bowmen, walls, and towers take over. Note that unlike levy, the better units consume honor in addition to gold.

FAQ

What do levy cost in Stronghold 4?

In the current demo, each levy costs 6 gold and one peasant, with no weapon requirement — unlike archers or spearmen, who need bows or poles from weapon workshops.

Where do I train levy?

At the barracks, the first military building you place. Select it and choose the levy entry in its training menu.

When does the full game arrive?

The official Steam store page lists a December 7, 2026 release date into Early Access, with the free demo available now as of 2026-11-02.

Are levy worth it?

Yes, for the first few raids. They are explicitly the inexpensive option, and players report they are enough to defend wood camps and farms while the economy ramps up.

Page last checked 2026-11-02 against the official Steam store page for Stronghold 4 and player demo footage on YouTube. Exact costs and unit behavior are confirmed only for the demo (v0.26) and may change before launch.