Beginner's Guide

If population exceeds the housing capacity of Burgage Plots homeless people will lose Approval, risk Freezing during winter and cannot be part of militia units.

Unassigned Families work on construction automatically.

While human Families need to be assigned manually, livestock workforce is shared between all buildings by default. Livestock can be manually assigned to a single workplace in the Advanced tab. Remember that at least one unassigned oxen is necessary for most building constructions.

Every region in Manor Lords has its own Resource Deposits and Soil Fertility. If the starting region has low Soil Fertility, consider setting up Trade early. Each map is made up of 8 regions.

Supplies
In Manor Lords, families need Food and Fuel resources. Every Burgage Plot consumes 1 Food and 1 Fuel resource per month. Fuel consumption in the Winter is doubled. Additionally, some workplaces consume 1 Fuel per month as well.

Supplies in the region panel above shows how many months are left until supplies run out.

Seasons

 * Spring (Mar-May): Frequent raining, seasonal deposits regrow.
 * Summer (Jun-Aug): Crops grow. Possible droughts.
 * Autumn (Sep-Nov): Harvesting, plowing and sowing crops.
 * Winter (Dec-Feb): Seasonal resources are gone. Fuel consumption is doubled and lack of Fuel resources might cause freezing. Sheep shearing forbidden.

Policies
To enact Policies, you need to raise your Administration Level by building administrative buildings, like the Manor. At the moment only two policies are available, both at Administration Level 1:
 * Hunting Grounds: Wild Animals on Rich Deposits breed twice as fast, as the cost of 50% reduced yields from Crops.
 * Strict Fasting: Citizens skip every 5th meal. Reduces Food consumption, decreases Approval.

Militia
The male villagers will be evenly distributed between all militia units. They will then try to find the required equipment - the weapon and shield depends on the unit type, while the maximum quality of body armor and helmet depends of the villager's Residential Level. After bringing all the necessary equipment home, the unit recruits are marked as ready to rally.

Each militia unit is made up of 36 men and their required equipment. There are 4 unit types:
 * Militia Footmen require Sidearms and Small Shields
 * Spear Militia require Spears and Large Shields
 * Polearm Militia require Polearms
 * Archer Militia require Warbows

Alternatively, mercenaries may be hired. Mercenary bands have two or three special unit types, are paid from the Treasure and have a set cost each month.

Development
After you reach the next Settlement Level, you will be granted a Development Point to spend. Unlock Development Branches to make your region more efficient.

Development is divided into 4 Development Branches, each one with 10 or 11 unlocks.