Manor Lords tips: how to get started and what to do first

If you need some help working out what to do first in Manor Lords, you’ve come to the right place. Manor Lords is a medieval citybuilder that provides precious few tips on what buildings to prioritise first, or how you should go about building up important resources such as food and fuel to keep your citizens going during the long winter months, so we’ve put together some advice to help you find your feet.

These are all tips that have helped us in our own playthroughs of Manor Lords, so read on below to find out how to get started and what to do first in a new game of Manor Lords.

On this page:

Play the Rise To Prosperity scenario first, especially if you don’t want to worry about combat

When you first start a game of Manor Lords, you’re presented with three starting scenarios: Rise To Prosperity, Restoring The Peace and On The Edge. We’d recommend starting with Rise To Prosperity first, especially if you’re more into the citybuilding aspects of the game, and don’t want to have to worry about combat, raising armies and fighting off raiders. This mode is purely focused on growing your settlement into a large town, and is the friendliest setting for getting to grips with the game as a whole.

Build a Logging Camp and prioritise getting your outdoor supplies into a Storehouse

When you first start a game of Manor Lords, you’ll have a starting supply of materials lying out in the open, which you’ll need to get into a Storehouse as quickly as possible so they don’t get spoiled by bad weather. By building a Logging Camp and assigning a family to it, you’ll start collecting enough timber to be able to build additional buildings, such as that all-important Storehouse.

Have at least one family free to help with construction

It can be tempting to assign every available family to a specific building in your village, but you’ll need to hold some back so you have free helpers to transport goods and help with construction. Otherwise, you won’t be able to add any new buildings to your town.

Make sure you have multiple sources of food to last the winter

Constructing a Forager Hut is a great way to get food when you’re just starting out in Manor Lords, but this will only get you Berries – which stop growing when Winter rolls around. To make sure your citizens don’t starve or leave in a huff because they’re unhappy, it’s vital to make sure you have other sources of food coming in. Consider building a Hunting Camp to start getting Meat, as well as converting one of your Burgage Plot’s Backyard Extensions to start producing Vegetables or Eggs. Then, you can start thinking about building Fields and a Farmhouse, so you can start growing different kinds of crops.

Level up your settlement by building and upgrading Burgage Plots

As your town grows and becomes more prosperous, one of the best ways to make it more efficient is to increase your settlement level and start spending the development points on special features to help maximise production. In order to level up your settlement, however, you’ll need to build and level up your Burgage Plots, which are the houses that your citizens reside in. These also have their own requirements to fulfil before you can level them up, and most involve making sure they’re located near a Marketplace, Church, Tavern and a Well. As a result, you’ll want to keep this in mind when it comes to constructing these buildings, as they won’t be much good if they’re too far away from each other.

Set up a Trading Post to make money quickly

Learning how to trade effectively is one of the cornerstones of Manor Lords’ economy, and building a Trading Post enables travelling merchants to come to town so you can buy and sell surplus goods you’ve accumulated. We’d recommend exporting excess goods first, so you can start getting more money – or Regional Wealth, as it’s known here. Once you have enough Regional Wealth in your coffers, you can start thinking about importing goods you need to help with other upgrades you’ve got your eye on, but the most valuable items to start importing first will likely be livestock – which need a separate Livestock Trading Post building to be constructed before you can start importing additional oxen, horses and mules to speed up construction times, or sheep and lambs to start making materials such as Wool and Clothes.

Keep fuel supplies high by unlocking the Charcoal Kiln

In addition to consuming food, your families will also consume fuel such as Firewood or Charcoal each month to keep themselves warm. A Woodcutter’s Lodge, which turns logs into Firewood, is a good way to fulfil this need early on in Manor Lords, but spending a development point to unlock Charcoal Burning will give you access to the Charcoal Kiln. This can convert 1 firewood into 2 charcoal, making refuelling twice as efficient as before. It’s a great way to make your firewood go further, especially since many of the Industry buildings also need to be refuelled once a month to keep up production.

We’ll be updating this beginner’s tips guide with more advice in the coming days, particularly around how to prepare for battle and raise armies if you’re playing the Restoring The Peace and On The Edge scenarios, but for now, this should hopefully give you a bit of direction of how to set up your town in the early hours of Manor Lords.

For more help getting started in Manor Lords, find out the best development points to unlock first to help bolster your settlement even further, as well as how to get important resources such as tools, planks and rooftiles for construction and trading.