I haven’t played much of Manor Lords because it was so difficult. I was having trouble keeping a civilization alive with neighboring armies ransacking my villages, or not stocking enough resources before winter set in to survive the season. But it seems like a game the author of this article should check out.
It is pretty difficult at first! Like many other city builders there’s a sort of, objectively-correct build order that you have to follow, and I find that building a trading post as soon as possible is pretty essential because you need to replenish on tools.
I’ll go into the other stuff I’ve learned in the spoiler section if anyone is interested.
spoiler
Most territories give you access to Furs or Salt which are goods you don’t need (salt is used in tanning later on) so it’s best to just sell these at a trading post. If you have a route selling these or wooden products (machine parts / shields), you don’t face any money problems.
Since raising an army is impossible without iron, and very hard to do early on in the game, i believe the game expects you to utilise mercenaries quite early on. This is pretty easy to do when you have one of the afforementioned trade routes - you don’t need as many mercs as you expect.
So to clarify, the build order is basically:
Lumberjack
3 burgage plots with room for an expansion, which gives you room for 1 more family after expansion is built
1 food gatherer (usually forage hut or hunters hut)
storehouse + granary
Salt mine or Hunter if you haven’t already, so that you have stuff to sell
At this point you’re good to go - you’ll be generating enough timber to make a Trading post in the near future [4 timber], and can staff it with the extra family that joins. There’s wriggle room to do other stuff before you do this
Some tips from previous updates that I think still stand:
In a previous update, it was recommended that you build burgage plots with a garden as small as possible, because it makes it easier for the villagers to fully work that plot, which makes it more productive.
Chickens are some of the best source of food (They do seem a good deal more productive than goats and pigs)
You will be relying a lot upon your burgage plots to produce food
There are many things i still haven’t grasped with manor lords - beer economy and the farms (i don’t get why the workers do nothing for winter, it’s a bad system to have to reassign them all). I revisit it for about 4 days every 6-12 months.
It is pretty difficult at first! Like many other city builders there’s a sort of, objectively-correct build order that you have to follow, and I find that building a trading post as soon as possible is pretty essential because you need to replenish on tools.
I’ll go into the other stuff I’ve learned in the spoiler section if anyone is interested.
spoiler
Most territories give you access to Furs or Salt which are goods you don’t need (salt is used in tanning later on) so it’s best to just sell these at a trading post. If you have a route selling these or wooden products (machine parts / shields), you don’t face any money problems.
Since raising an army is impossible without iron, and very hard to do early on in the game, i believe the game expects you to utilise mercenaries quite early on. This is pretty easy to do when you have one of the afforementioned trade routes - you don’t need as many mercs as you expect.
So to clarify, the build order is basically:
Some tips from previous updates that I think still stand:
There are many things i still haven’t grasped with manor lords - beer economy and the farms (i don’t get why the workers do nothing for winter, it’s a bad system to have to reassign them all). I revisit it for about 4 days every 6-12 months.