Manor Lords – Gameplay FAQ + Tips

F.A.Q. (Frequently Asked Questions)

Is there any reason, to put a worker to the Store?

Dedicated stall workers will bring items 1 by 1 into their stall. Its very ineffective. After its full they will stand next to it pretending to sell, basically wasting manpower. Granary/storehouse workers use carts to bring items into stalls, no one needs to work the stalls that way, people come and take what they need and bring it into houses.

I’m getting a bonus to approval for having ‘food variety in the marketplace’ even though the food stall is always empty

Food variety bonus takes into account house extensions(eggs, milk, vegetables), even if your stall is empty. Currently, clothing doesn’t seem to be used in any way, so if your workers fill up clothing stalls with 1 type it will never be emptied, you need to make more stalls to get more types available.

Workers waste time transporting items by hand when handcarts are available

Handcarts are available to storage-building workers. Not to everyone. If you don’t load your stoarge builings with enough workers, the workers of the facilities have to get their ressources themselves.

How do I get more people to assign?

That’s basically it, one house = one family = one worker.

How does crop fertility work?

From my experience, planting wheat (the yellow one forget what its called in the game) for 1 season depleted the soil about 50 percent, from about 80 starting. I was going to leave it furloughed for 2 years (with crop rotation on its default settings) but in 1 years time i noticed that the soil had returned to its original starting percent. I did not explore planting different types of crops during the rotation.

How to prepare for the first winter?

Build 5 houses for your families. 1 house for each family. Gather firewood, with the appropriate building, which the families will use to battle the extreme cold. Gather extra food, berries cannot be gathered in the winter, so get them early.

Is there a button to prevent workers from doing tasks like construction?

No, construction seems to always have idle workers enabled.

Woodcutters for logs don’t work

Check your Ox(en). If they are busy transporting logs to building sites for example or if you don’t have a free worker to handle the Ox(en), they won’t haul the logs to the woodchopper camp. People are sadly not strong enough to carry around a giant ~300kg log themselves.

How to upgrade the burgage plot?

All the green and red diamonds must be filled with a yellow dot to upgrade. You need 1 water, 1 fuel, 2 clothes, 2 food, 1 church and 1 ale. There is a legend in the house menu that shows what the symbols mean with a tooltip.

How trading works?

There are 2 currencies in the game, the one on the right and the one on the left. The one on the right comes from the goods you sell and belongs to the people, it also allows you to buy goods. The one on the left comes from taxes and belongs to you, it is used to pay the king’s debt. So, if you tax your peasants too much, you won’t have any more money on the left and you won’t be able to buy anything.

Only one hitching post?

If you hover the mouse on the buildings or on many things you see how many you can have and what is locked in the game or where you need items what not in the demo and many more. This sure things what locked in the tech tree or on the points what you get if you upgrade your villages.

How to get level 2 burgage plot?

Make sure your house plots are large enough to make expansions (aka long, not wide) and that you’re making tools (tools are required for the veggie plots, money for the goats and chickens, to make money build a trading post and understand how the trading system works).

Then you need these things:

• Market stalls (they don’t need to be manned, just present, they fill up) in a central-ish location.
• Church.
• Tavern along with it’s ale production line (farm making barley, malt maker turning barley into malt, then the alehouse which makes the ale and delivers to the tavern).

With all of that done you will be able to get level 2 burgages.

My Ox Heinz got stuck in red territory

There’s a button in settings that lets you bump villagers and oxen when they get stuck. Usually a couple bumps is all it takes but you could probably push it across the map if you need to in the future.

How to get treasury for the tax I have to pay?

You need build a Bailey, which is setting a place for the lord. Than you build you manor and than you can build your tax building, and set your tax. You get your money from you have available to your peoples.

How to get chicken for the burgage?

Earn money via the trading post. Chicken coop and goat shed cost 25 bucks each. No need for livestock trading post for the burgage plots.

How to remove roads?

Click on the road button and then hold alt and left click on a road you want to delete.

How to place Manor?

To build the Manor, first build a square like bailey area, with plenty of room for the manor and tax collector. Place the gatehouse somewhere on the bailey wall, connected to the road, this will then prompt the villagers to construct the bailey and gatehouse. The Manor itself is placed on the walls inside the bailey.

How could I get sheep’s and assets?

Build a livestock trading post and be sure to also be exporting goods from your regular trading post to earn money to buy the livestock with.

Changing jobs by households?

There is not unfortunately. A possibility for the future however.

How to build two houses at once?

• Size matters. Or area to be precise. The game automatically divides the plot into two if certain parameters are met.
• The first side of the square, or first an second pin for the area, will determine the side your houses will point at or connect to a road.
• Depending on the width of that side the game determines if the plot will be split into multiple plots or if it’s just wide enough for a single house.
• The depth (distance between 2nd-3rd and 4th-1st pin) will determine if you can install an add-on (vegetable patch, chickens coop, goats) once the house is build. If the area shows only a house icon, only that fits, of there’s an additional + you can add an add-on.

How do you enable taxes in region?

You need to build the bailey (wall) and entry (guard house) first, then plop the the manor house on the fence, then you can add the tax collector after that like the manor house. Once that’s build you can click on the collector and set taxes and tithes.

How to assign more workers to a building while its under construction?

You can’t. But if there are idle villagers, they will automatically go and help build it.

Tips You May Not Know

1. Biggest thing is expanding. If you expand too fast, you’re going to kill your village. One building per season is usually good.
2. Logging, resources requiring timber etc is limited by the number of oxen, so build a livestock trader quickly after creating a trade post so you can move more logs and be more efficient
3. Once you’re at the level, manor house, bailey, etc, they are supremely resource intensive, be careful
4. Always have extra pop for emergency building and farming. It seems counterproductive, but you can balance a large population especially if you have a good trading post with extra materials to export and you can import food.
5. Worker slots are determined by families, not physical people, keep that in mind as you expand any kind of building that needs workers
6. Early game, don’t spread out too much, it’ll cause logistical nightmares trying to transport resources over long distances, which can cause workers to not work their primary jobs causing problems later on down the line
7. Long story short, expand slowly. Not the most riveting sure, but it will keep your village alive. Aside from the tax missions from the king, don’t worry about the missions guiding you. Build at your pace, at your leisure, you don’t lose anything from not building those lvl 2 burbages and not completing the mission
8. Expansions cost tools. Either set up a trade route for tools if you don’t have the materials, or create a logistical chain to build them (iron mine, bloomery, smithy) Also a smithy eats firewood like crazy, turn it off during the winter

Buildings That Meed Workers

1. Granary, especially if you have multiple households with diary, eggs and veggies. I had to assign 3 or things wouldn´t get moved in a village of 80.
2. For upgrading houses I had to assign workers to the stalls and build 2 of each for variety, until the upgrade is needed the stalls functioned well on idle workers alone. Firewood the exception.
3. Farms seemed on/off, so I assigned 2 families for 3 fields with space for 3 workers each and ticked the idle on. Seemed to work.
4. Hunters need workers assigned.
5. Firewood needs workers assigned.
6. All production buildings need at least 1 worker, relying on idleness didn´t work for me. How many more? With a town of 80 only the brewery needed 2 peeps.
7. Wood chopping would probably be the building I changed the most between idle workers and the number of assigned peeps. As I reached 80 the building actually functioned well on idle people alone, but I am a natural born turtler.
8. Had at least 2 workers at the trade building at all times, they only move 1 item at a time which makes it very slow to fill the building.