Knowledge Base

As promised, here are my old notes for when I was hexediting Stronghold Crusader HD's savegame file.

For Stronghold Crusader HD, the file is ~/Documents/Stronghold\ Crusader\crusader.cfg
To set the Crusader campaign level unlocked, modify byte 0x0343
00000340: 0000 0e00 0000 0200 0000 0e00 0000 0000  ................
                ^
                +------ bye 0x343 is 0E which means mission 14 is unlocked.
The mission status bytes start around 0x035A
00000350: 0000 f945 0000 4f00 0000 1100 0000 c700 ...E..O.........
+

Each mission takes 4 bytes, with the first byte representing how many months it took you to complete.

6D00 0000 = 6D 00 00 00 , so 6D = 109 months or 9.0833 years. A regular mission will have 0000 as the last 2 bytes.
A mission where you used the chicken button to advance without actually playing the mission, will have these exact bytes:
50FB FFFF = 50 FB FF FF, and must be calculated differently. The second two bytes, or FFFF represent that you used the "chicken," but I don't know how the 50FB ends up being exactly 100 years.

References

Original research

See also

Hexedit stronghold.cfg to easily unlock military campaign missions | Knowledge Base