Welcome to the immersive world of Manor Lords, a game that skillfully combines historical realism with deep strategic gameplay elements. This game challenges players to build a town, manage resources, plan town layouts, and survive the harsh realities of medieval life. 

Whether you’re a seasoned strategist or a newcomer to simulation games, mastering the initial steps is crucial for setting up a successful medieval settlement. This comprehensive guide will provide detailed strategies for starting your game on the right foot, ensuring your early decisions pave the way for a prosperous community.

Key Strategies for a Perfect Start in Manor Lords

Manor Lords demands careful planning from the outset. Here’s how to make sure your settlement has the best possible foundation:

Initial Setup and Resource Allocation

• Location, Location, Location: Choose your settlement location wisely. Your first actions should be to place a hunting camp near dense wildlife populations. It has no construction cost and will allow you to assign people to hunt. These workers will produce meat and hides. You should also build a foraging hut near a source of berries, providing a reliable food source that requires no upfront resources.
• Granary and Water: The granary is where you’ll store food. Try to place it near your food-gathering buildings to reduce your workers’ travel time. You’ll also need to build a well to provide your town with clean water. Use the ‘underground water’ overlay to locate good options for building the well.

Building Your Economic Foundation

• Essential Constructions: Make sure to upgrade the homeless people’s tents. The upgrade creates a worker camp, which reduces the loss of approval vs the standard homeless people’s tents. You’ll also want to build a logging camp early on and set the logging area to encompass only trees – no wildlife or berries!
• Resource Management: As your workers collect resources, they will fill their respective working assignment buildings. For example, the hunting camp can only hold a certain amount of hides before it is full. Once full, workers will no longer gather hide. This is where the marketplace comes in! You can craft a marketplace area so excess goods can be sold and distributed to the rest of the community. You’ll need about 10-15 slots in your marketplace, so make sure the plot is large enough.

Optimizing Your Workforce

Managing your workforce effectively is vital for maintaining efficiency and growth:

• Strategic Employment: Always adjust your workforce according to your settlement’s growth stage and current needs. Initially, focus on hunters and gatherers to ensure a steady food supply. Set your hunting limit to half of the population of wild animals. For example, if you have 20 available wild animals, set the hunting limit to 10 to avoid completely depleting this food source. Also, ensure you have at least one person assigned to the logging camp to acquire this precious building resource.
• Upgrading Housing: Upgrade housing as resources allow. Improved living conditions lead to happier, more productive workers, accelerating your town’s growth. These upgrades also give you access to important backyard additions like vegetable gardens and chicken farms.

Building and Expanding in Manor Lords

Expansion must be strategic and well-planned:

• Prioritizing Buildings: After establishing your basic infrastructure, prioritize buildings that contribute directly to economic stability, such as additional housing and resource-specific camps like the forge or mill. When building housing lots, build “double plots” and leave additional room for expansions behind the home. This way, you’ll get added efficiency for add-ons like farms. Lastly, build a church as soon as you can! It’ll give you the necessary bump to get you over 50% approval, which is required to attract more families to your town.
• Layout Efficiency: Keep your town’s layout compact to reduce the time citizens spend walking between buildings. This efficiency is crucial for speeding up resource delivery and construction.

Advanced Tips and Tricks

For more experienced players or those looking to enhance their strategy:

• Market Placement and Trading: Efficiently placed markets optimize your internal economy. As your town grows, you’ll likely need a few more distributed marketplaces to ensure all families have easy access to requested resources.
• Resource Flow Optimization: Plan your town layout with resource flow in mind. Efficient paths between resource collection, storage, and usage points are essential for maintaining a stable economy.

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Even experienced players can make mistakes that hinder their progress:

• Overexpansion: Expanding too quickly can lead to resource shortages and unhappy settlers. This is especially true when settlers need to travel long distances to reach food and supplies. Consider starting another set of houses near key resource points like clay and iron when needed. Expand your town only as fast as your resources and workforce can comfortably support.
• Defensive Neglect: Do not overlook your town’s defense. Regularly upgrade your militia and defenses to protect against raids and other threats. In the early days, you’ll rely on recruiting townfolk to your militia. Later in the game, you can use funds from your treasury to purchase missionaries to defend your lands.

Getting Off To a Quick Start in Manor Lords

Manor Lords offers a challenging but rewarding experience for those who invest the time to understand its depth. By meticulously planning your initial setup, managing your workforce efficiently, strategically expanding, and preparing for potential pitfalls, you set your medieval town up for success. Experiment with these strategies, adjust to the evolving challenges, and your settlement will survive and thrive in the harsh medieval landscape.

Stay engaged with the community for more tips and share your success stories and strategies. Your journey in Manor Lords is just beginning, and the possibilities are as expansive as the lands you aim to control!

By Fred

Fred has been gaming since his dad brought home a recycled PC from work and installed Hugo's House of Horrors as a toddler. He continues to play games almost daily across PC, console and mobile and may have a slightly addictive personality.