The medieval strategy game Manor Lords features intricate city construction, large-scale tactical warfare, and extensive economic and social models. Manor Lords like any RTS game has tons intricate features which makes it a tough game to master. Hence, you should know the vital steps to master the game.
Manor Lords Starter Guide
More Roads More Efficiency
The first key item to be aware of in Manor Lords is not the quantity of production but the efficiency of it. Roads make it easier for your workers to transport, and nearby storehouses make the distance shorter. Hence, make sure all your production buildings are connected to the main network and that storehouses are nearby. Be sure to make a road from your starting supplies to the first warehouse to dramatically speed up transporting the materials to safety. If you don’t transport them, they will degrade over time and disappear. so it’s worth doing as soon as possible.
Farm Location
Picking a good location for your farm is key to efficiency. Making it central to several different green areas gives you more options to build farms on cultivatable lands.
Storehouse and Granary Placement
One of the biggest sources of lost productivity is traveling time. Place storehouses and granaries near high-production areas like Farms or Workshop locations for tools, clothing, beer, etc. It will cut down walk time and exponentially increase your production efficiency.
Granary Upgrade
A granary can be upgraded for three pieces of wood which increase the storage capacity from 500 up to 1500 and adds a secondhand cart. Carrying by hand, our villagers will only grab one item at a time but if they use a hand cart they can take 10 so it’s well worth the investment.
Trading Post
To earn money you must sell items through the Trading Post. Pick an item that you have a surplus of set a Target quantity below your current stock assign workers to the trading post and they will begin to bring supplies for a traveling Caravan to purchase. Sometimes you only make a small amount and other times you can make close to 400 in one trade.
Tax Collection
You can make a fortification by first building a bailey wall, then a gatehouse, and finally the manor house. The manor house adds five families to your town, so make sure you have enough food and firewood to support them. It also allows you to build tax collector buildings. The tax collector can be built inside the Bailey fortifications, which opens up two options:
- Geld
- Tithe
Geld collects taxes based on current wealth and deposits them into our personal possession. Tithe turns our Town’s wealth into influence which can be spent on expanding the lands around our starting location. A quick note neither influence nor personal wealth do anything in the demo but they will be very important when we get to full release.
Crops and Farm Rotation
Crop output can be optimized by turning crop rotation on and having three plots. I like to have two Farms rotating emmer barley and fallow and one Farm rotating emmer flax and fallow. Make sure the fallow rotates such that only two Farms need attention each year and the third Farm is on fallow. This ensures that workers are the most efficient they can be.
Ores & Mining Pits
When mining ore, make sure the mining pit is directly over the icon or you won’t produce anything. Ores can be used to make iron bars which can be turned into tools. Beware making tools uses firewood as well and it’s easy to burn through your winter supplies quickly.
Windmill
A windmill with efficiency in the 90s can easily supply enough flour to operate more than one communal oven. I find two to three communal ovens are needed to keep up with the supply from one efficient windmill.
Forester Hut
A Forester Hut can be put down to replenish the trees in an area in case you cleared your entire forest. It takes some time, but once the trees are planted they will grow tall and provide Timber. The Forester’s Hut can easily be moved to a new location and replenish more trees.
Manor Lords Tips & Tricks
Tip 1: Best Possible Map (Trick)
The game loads incredibly fast, so restart if you get a bad spawn. Having berries only is not as good as having animals to hunt, and having more than one group of animals is even better.
Tip 2: Moving Buildings (Tip)
Many of the starting buildings can be moved for no cost click the arrows at the top then place it somewhere else. This is great for following the tree line as it gets chopped down.
Tip 3: Hotkeys (Tip)
There are numerous hotkeys to speed up efficiency and navigation. The best and basic hotkeys are Q and E, which can be used to take away or add workers to a building. I highly recommend using these hotkeys. They will save you a tremendous amount of time when moving workers around.
