Manor Lords has the potential to be the most authentic and realistic medieval game ever made. It’s fascinating that only one developer is working on the game. Grzegorz “Greg” Styczen has spent the last seven years on his project. Our Manor Lords Tips and Tricks will show you how to build your settlement, how to satisfy your people’s needs, and what else you need to consider to be a successful lord.
Table of Contents
1) How to build farmhouses correctly
The house building mechanic is very convenient in Manor Lords. You can make your manor as big or as small as you want. Simply select four corners on the map and then decide how many farmhouses you want in that area.
Each of your farmhouses should have enough room for expansion modules. You can tell if your farm has enough space by the hut icon with the hammer. A house icon with a plus sign appears next to the living space. If any of these features are missing, your layout is too small and you should make adjustments.
When planning, it’s also important to consider what exactly the backyard will be used for. If you want to plant trees or vegetable patches, you’ll need to plan larger than if you want to build chicken or goat coops. Workshops don’t need to be too big to work either. Once a farmhouse has reached level 2, you can turn it into a workshop.
2) City planning tips
Manor Lords can quickly confront you with tedious grinding and hard work. So we thought we would give you a few beginner’s tips to help you save time and build efficient villages. Let’s start with the roads. It would be best if you kept them as short as possible so that your people don’t take too long to get to the market and can buy or sell quickly.
Plan a central marketplace at the beginning of the game. You’ll need it at the latest when you want to move to the next settlement level. Your inhabitants will also want large enough sales outlets early on.
Your warehouses in Manor Lords should also be centrally located. They are used to store wood and food, among other things. If you click on the barrel icon and look at the board, you can see how many months’ supply you have. Your people must have enough to eat and be able to heat their homes at all times. It’s important to remember that firewood consumption is twice as high in the winter than in the summer.
Here are some more quick tips:
- Build tethering points for oxen so that goods can be moved more quickly.
- Build wells over water sources and as close to houses as possible.
- Take soil conditions into account when planting vegetable fields.
3) Grow slowly
Don’t push yourself to build new factories or other facilities. Manor Lords is a game that emphasizes slowing down. If you rush the construction process, you won’t be able to keep your population satisfaction under control and it will drop below 50%.
Always make sure that your citizens’ basic needs are met first and that they have enough space to live in. Your goal must be to raise the satisfaction rate to 60 percent. If this is the case, you’ll have a good level of immigration and can build new production facilities accordingly.
If you try to grow too fast, you are more likely to achieve the opposite. In the worst case, you’ll have to reassign families to new occupations and locations, which will set back your progress. It’s better to expand slowly but steadily.
4) Take care of your people’s needs
Basic needs and happiness are closely linked in Manor Lords. Your city can only thrive and grow sustainably if all of your people’s needs are met.
Food supply
You need one unit of food per farmhouse per month. The source of this food is up to you. You can choose from vegetables, meat, bread, honey, apples, eggs, and berries. Keep in mind that vegetable patches don’t produce food during the winter. Therefore, it’s best to have a balanced food supply.
Firewood
Firewood is one of the most important resources in the game. Therefore, one of the first buildings you build should be the Woodcutter’s Lodge. It’s best to build it near a wooded area so that the walking distance is short. As the game progresses, you can even use a charcoal pile to produce coal from the wood to make consumption more efficient.
Clothing
To provide your people with clothing, you need basic materials such as leather, linen, and yarn. The most important factory for this is the Tannery. This is where animal skins are turned into leather, which is then sold on the market. A Weaver Workshop turns sheep’s wool into yarn, and a Dyer’s Workshop produces dyes from berries.
Farmhouses
In the first stage, a farmhouse serves as a home for a family. This meets the basic need of not being homeless and having a roof over one’s head. By expanding and upgrading the living space, the inhabitants can pursue a specific craft. To reach the third settlement level, you must also improve it with roof tiles and planks.
Taverns and beer
Your settlement isn’t just for working. Entertainment shouldn’t be neglected either. Therefore, you should produce barley and turn it into malt in a Malthouse. A brewery will make beer, which you can serve in a tavern.
Religion
The last basic requirement in our Manor Lords Tips and Tricks is religion. First, build a wooden church and use the holy ground for burials. Upgrade your place of worship to a stone church as soon as possible.
5) Increase your settlement level
When you reach a new settlement level in Manor Lords, you’ll receive development points that you can invest in permanent upgrades. To reach a new level, your settlement must reach a certain size and your farms must be sufficiently developed.
To find out what is required to reach the next level, click on the name of your village at the top of the screen. Make sure you meet the basic requirements and complete any building requirements.
6) Specialize your regions
The development tree for your settlement in Manor Lords has four branches, each of which is relatively short. There is a reason for this: your settlements can only be upgraded to the sixth level. This means that you can only spend a total of six points, which can’t be reset. This makes it especially important that you think carefully about the direction you want to take with your village.
For example, if the soil isn’t very productive, it’s better to avoid building complex fields. Plan your villages according to the resources in the area and take advantage of local strengths. Where there are iron and clay deposits, you can build mines, furnaces, and an armaments industry. You can then use packing stations to send goods to settlements that can’t produce them.
7) Watch your resources
Resource deposits in Manor Lords react realistically to your behavior. For example, if you cut down a forest completely, you’ll run out of wood. You must counteract this by hiring a forester to regulate the forest and plant new trees.
Berries and wildlife are also affected by your settlement. If you build too close to the forest, the animals will migrate and look for a new home. Berries will also disappear if you clear the forest in which they grow. Also, be careful not to hunt too many animals in a short period of time and not to harvest all the berries. Only if the resources are allowed to regrow can they be maintained in the long term.
As for clay, stone, and iron deposits, their veins aren’t infinite. Eventually, the mines will stop producing. You need to plan for this so that you don’t have to buy something later that you could have built yourself with a better strategy.
8) Manor Lords tips on trading
Without trading, you won’t reach the sixth level. To satisfy all your people’s needs and build all the necessary buildings, you’ll need to buy any missing resources and sell any surplus goods. You can also use the profits from trading to buy new farm animals and expand your farmstead.
In the beginning of Manor Lords, you’ll interact with traveling merchants. But as soon as you are able, you should build a trading post and hire a family to run it. Create trade routes and focus on selling things that you don’t primarily need to satisfy your people’s needs, and of which you produce more than you consume.
To ensure smooth transportation, you’ll need a few oxen. It’s also a good idea to assign your own families to the warehouses. They will ensure that they are always organized and will stay on-site when construction projects or other matters need to be dealt with.
9) Take care of bandit camps
The Middle Ages aren’t always peaceful. Prepare for war to protect your settlement in Manor Lords. For one thing, there will be a bandit attack about two years into the game, which you should be prepared for. Second, there are bandit camps scattered throughout the map that may not directly involve you in battles but will regularly steal your resources.
Build up an army to wipe them out, and later even to wage war against other lords. Don’t start training soldiers too early. Your priorities for the first year will be building up and meeting your needs. However, once you’ve survived the first year, you can start smaller campaigns.
10) Building pauses
There are two types of pauses in Manor Lords that you should use to your advantage. By pausing the game, you can take the time to fine-tune your strategy and think through your next steps. Especially in critical situations like winter, time becomes an enemy that you have to face.
The other aspect is building pauses. These allow you to prioritize supply chains, construction projects, and production processes. For example, if you need a large amount of lumber in a short amount of time, you can pause buildings that aren’t needed to get it. Smart pauses let you put your people where they need to be.
Build your village with PLITCH!
Even in Early Access, many complex features are already available in the medieval game. Our Manor Lords tips and tricks are a good starting point for your first settlements. Thanks to the Manor Lords cheats from PLITCH, you can customize your game even more. For example, you can set the annual royal tax, your influence, or the king’s favor.
Increase or decrease the amount of silver in the treasury or give your region all six development points. You can also set the cost and speed of construction. You can make the game easier or harder with our single-player trainer.
Check out this video to see our Manor Lords cheats in-game and this blog to learn more about PLITCH!
Happy Gaming!
English 
Deutsch