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.

Agriculture
Orchardry New upgrade: Apple orchard Produces Apples. Apple harvest happens around September every year. Until the trees are fully grown, which takes around 3 years, the orchards produce only a fraction of the yield.		Sheepbreeding Sheep grazing on the pastures slowly multiply.		Heavy Plow New upgrade: Add a plowing station Enables employing Oxen at the Farmhouse for significantly faster plowing of large fields, as well as bringing crops back to storage more efficiently.
Rye Cultivation Unlocks Rye crop for Fields. Similar to Wheat, Rye can be processed into Flour, but it's more resilient and therefore can be grown in places with lower fertility.	Irrigation Dramatically lowers the amount of damage caused by Droughts.		Fertilization New upgrade: Fence up Allows to use a Fallow field as a Pasture, which rapidly restores lost Fertility.		Bakeries New upgrade: Bakery extension Produced Bread from Flour with twice the efficiency of the Communal Oven. Converts all inhabitants to Artisans, locking them from being assigned to other jobs.
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Commerce
Foreign Suppliers New building: Firewood cart New building: Food cart		Trade Logistics Establishing a new Trade Route always costs a maximum of 25 Regional Wealth.
work in progress	work in progress	Better Deals Removes the tariff from foreign imports, effectively reducing all import prices by 10.	work in progress
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Industry
Basic Armormaking New upgrade: Armorer's workshop Enables production of Helmets Converts all inhabitants to Artisans, locking them from being assigned to other jobs.		Charcoal Burning New building: Charcoal kiln
Advanced Armormaking Enables blacksmiths to craft Mail Armor, which can be used to equip citizens of Burgage Plots of Level 3 and above, or promoting a new Retinue.	work in progress	Deep Mining New upgrade: Upgrade to a Deep Mine Enables the building to extract resources indefinitely if placed over a Rich Deposit.	work in progress
Master Armormaking Enables blacksmiths to craft Plate Armor, which can in turn be used to upgrade the Retinue.	work in progress	work in progress	work in progress

Hunting
Beekeeping New building: Apiary		Forest Management Doubles capacity of all Berry deposits.		Trapping Enables hunters to skillfully lay traps in the forest, which gives a passive income of Meat.
work in progress	Advanced Beekeeping Enables beekeepers to also collect Wax.		Advanced Skinning Doubles the amount of meat harvested by hunters and butchers and from goat pens.		Pelt Extraction Hunters also collect Hides from traps.
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