Manor Lords is a city-builder with some incredible depth and complexity. Players familiar with the genre can still get a grasp after the first failed run but for others, it may take a few tries since one silly mistake can leave your whole town starving for the entire winter.
After my failed runs, I have finally managed to get a stable self-sustaining town with Tier 3 buildings where the citizens are satisfied and the wealth prospering. Thankfully for you, these 10 beginner tips for Manor Lords will save you some of those failed attempts.
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Sort out Food and Firewood first
Before you place down anything, even housing, make sure you have your food and firewood supply sorted. Your first building will be Logging Camps but after that put down a Forager near the Berry Deposit in your starting region.
You can put down the Hunting Camp later to add food variety and to get Hides, but the next thing should be the Woodcutter’s camp for Firewood. Once both food and firewood are sorted, only then start building houses.
Be Careful with Deforestation
When placing your logging camp and Woodcutters camp, they will pretty much start deforesting all around them in a circular radius. If you deforest areas where the Berry deposit and hunting grounds are, it will destroy that deposit forever.
The better way to do this is to place a Forester not far from the Logging Camp so that the family assigned to it will constantly plant new trees around the area. This will ensure you only cut down the trees your citizens are growing instead of the natural forests.
Build the Biggest Burgage Plot Layout Possible
If you have tried building some Burgage Plots, you may already know that if you give them a big enough space you also get a Backyard Extension. But do you know you can make Burgage Plots in a perfect size that makes it so that a single plot can accommodate two families?
For this, you will have to make a single plot at a time by making the assigned area just wide enough that isn’t big enough for two separate plots but still can accommodate a separate smaller house. You can see a house icon with a plus sign within the borders when you do this correctly.
Have Multiple Fields for Farming
Farming can seem like an easy way to have everything produced in-house rather than trading but after I got to experience how tough long-term farming is, I can assure you it’s not. One of the biggest early mistakes you can make is having only one field for a particular crop.
If you constantly farm a given crop on a single field, it is going to lose fertility at a rapid rate. So what you need to do is have multiple fields that rotate different crops every year. While doing this, make sure that each year at least one of the fields is focusing on the crop that you need every single year.
Never Let Raiders Reach Your Town
When playing on the default scenario settings, Raiders will raid your town after your second winter. You absolutely need to be prepared for this attack because if you fail to stop them from reaching your town, they will burn down your entire village and kill all the families living in it.
Even with a few survivors, this will essentially put you in a full restart with an added effort to also painstakingly remove the destroyed structures manually one by one, it is pretty much a failed run at his point. So make sure you do not let them reach your town and take the fight far from it.
Also Read: How to Get Weapons in Manor Lords
Rally your Troops without Equipment
The Raiders are moving to your town and you realize you still haven’t prepared for it. Well, I wouldn’t blame you because producing weapons and shields for the troops by year 2 itself is a tough task to achieve. One thing that I never realized during my first failed run is that you can actually rally your troops even if it says that you do not have enough equipment.
Your starting town will already have Spears and Sheilds and despite the spearmen militia asking for 30+ of them, you can still click on “Rally troops” which will still give you half the squad size by utilizing as many of those weapons you have. This will give you a capable enough squad to defend against that first Raider attack on your town.
Use High Ground in Combat
If you find yourself outnumbered by your enemies, don’t lose hope as you can still come out as the winner, the solution? use high ground. There are many elevated hills and even cliffs around the map which can be utilized for combat.
Track your enemy’s movement and look at the ground between your troops and the enemy troops. Then place your troops in a way that when the enemy pushes from their direction, your troops will be standing on the higher ground while the enemies approach upwards using the slope. This will give your outnumbered troops the best fighting chance.
Start Exporting Early
Trading can be extremely lucrative when done right, but it all revolves around the Regional Wealth of your region. This is why accumulating regional wealth early by exporting goods and materials can prove to be extremely beneficial to the stability of your town.
Start exporting items like Planks, Stone, Firewood, etc. in the early game itself before you even start importing anything which will ensure you have a good amount of wealth accumulated. This will help you put down Backyard Extensions and other building upgrades quickly.
Be Careful when Turning Citizens into Artisans
Whenever you add Level 2 Backyard extensions onto a Burgage Plot, the family living it instantly change their job and turn into Artisans that only work at the plot itself and they cannot be unassigned either.
If you only had one unassigned family constructing buildings and you happened to put down an extension on their house, you would lose that family and never realize the construction has stopped. So, make sure you manage your assigned and unassigned families before adding backyard extensions.
Do not Expand to Other Regions too Quickly
The map in Manor Lords consists of multiple different regions, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. some have richer deposits for mining while some favour farming with fertile grounds. But no matter how tempting it may look to start expanding into other regions, you should avoid doing this until your first town is properly stable and self-sufficient even through the winters.
You might not realize that every region has its own pool, of materials, resources, and money and it is pretty much like starting a new town from the start. If your first town still can handle itself without your constant supervision, you will be torn between managing both towns and ending up failing both of them. Make sure your first town is properly developed before you move on to another region.
