Hello and welcome to Manor Lords.
If you're reading this then the chances are that you have been getting your butt handed to you - either by the Brigands, by the Baron, or by starvation and stagnation - just like I once was.
And although you know you need to 'get good', the game doesn't seem to offer any easy explanations about how to get there.

This, my friend, could be just the guide for you.

The goal of this guide is to lay out some of your first moves and to help get your city on a firm footing which will allow you to survive the first year and prosper afterwards.
There are many more detailed guides that can help you further develop and perfect your city from there. I am not going to delve deep into the mechanics of the gameplay. My goal is only to offer beginners an easy way to get off to a good start.

When the game begins, you're going to want to hit pause and survey your region and see what it has to offer.

There will be a variety of resources available to you - a mix of Berries (food), Wild Animals (food and hides), Salt, Iron, Fish (food), Clay (building material), and Stone (building material) - and some will have crowns over them, which I'll explain later. These resources will all help you in some way, some immediately, and some later on.

Also check out the overlays. To build a Well (necessary for your Burgages) you'll need to place it over an Underground Water source. Your villagers will need to go to the well for water, so your city will need to begin close to one of these sources.

Then check the fertility overlays: Emmer (wheat), Flax, Barley, and Rye. Dark green is best. This won't help you until later - farming is very manpower intensive! - but growing wheat gives you grain which is ground into flour at a Windmill and cooked into Bread at a Bakery or Communal Oven. Flax can be made into Linen at a Weaver Shop and sold as Clothing. Barley is made into Malt at a Malt House and then into Ale at a Brewery and served at a Tavern.
If your fertility is in the red or yellow, it will be easier to have Sheep Farms. This will require you to build a Sheep Farm and a Pasture, as well as a Livestock Trader which will use Regional Wealth to import sheep. You will then be able to produce Wool which is made into Yarn at a Weaver Shop and sell it as clothing.

As I said, this won't help you right away, but it's important to know the direction your towns can grow in later.

That done, go back to your settlers. The very first thing you're going to want to do is build a Logging Camp.


Raw Timber is the fundamental building block of the game, and as your initial Settler Camp has a limited amount, you'll need to build the Logging Camp before anything else.

Placing the Logging Camp is a significant choice. You'll want it close to your town site, you'll want it near a significant source of wood, and you want it connected to roads. Ideally, put it in a location where you can go in several directions to get wood, and this is why: your loggers will work out from the Camp in a circle and trees take years to grow back naturally.

Once you've built the Logging Camp, you want to click on it and ASSIGN A LOGGER. Next, go to the Advanced Tab, and click on Limited Work Area. Then you'll select a circle area in one direction. This will focus all of your lumberjacks on the section you choose.
For the first year, just let them work. But next year (I always switch January 1st) move the loggers to a different section.
In the future, you'll want to build a Forester's Hut nearby (red circle in the pic), and you'll want the Forester to plant new trees in the section your lumberjacks just cleared. It takes the new trees 1 year to grow, so your Logging Camp will need to have three sections with the Lumberjacks working 1 each year and the Foresters working another. Here's an example:

That done, build roads around your Logging Camp. Now go click on the Hitching Post you started the game with, and relocate it adjacent to the Logging Camp. This will allow your ox to help your lumberjacks fetch the timber quickly.

Building #2: Now, immediately build a second Hitching Post and order a second ox. It will be here in about a month. Oxen are the work trucks of the Medieval Era. The more you have, the more you can do. I usually have 6-8 for a Medium Town but 2 is fine until you start earning Regional Wealth.

You will soon need to build a Saw Pit to make Planks, and you'll want to build this next to (or near) your Logging Camp as well, but hold off for a bit because we need to prioritize some other buildings first.

After these two initial buildings, the build order is less important, so long as the essential buildings get built. Below is my personal list, but feel free to mix it up as you see fit.

Building #3 will be your new Well. Remember the underground water overlay? Find an ideal spot for your new town - ideally near some resources and a Kings Road - and place your well.

Now you need to take a moment and consider your city planning.

Your town - like any town - is going to need a center, and at the center will be all of the buildings that serve the entire community. In this case, it will be the Well, a Granary, a Storehouse, a Marketplace, a Church, and a Tavern. All the things a growing Medieval town needs.

You decide for yourself how all of these things will fit, but you'll want room for these buildings in the middle of your town with the Burgages (residential homes) and the production facilities located around them.

The key part is the Marketplace. You'll want an area that accomodates roughly 20-30 stalls and you'll want a Granary and Storehouse immediately nearby. I prefer to make my Marketplace square or rectangular.

Building #4, #5, and #6 will be your Granary, Storehouse, and Marketplace in any order.
Your Marketplace isn't a building, it's just a space. The Granary and Storehouse workers will utilize it to put up Stalls that your villagers will use to get goods. This is very important for your game play, but other guides do a much better job of explaining how Marketplaces work so I'll leave it to them.
Here is one of my layouts:

Now, assign one worker to the Granary and one to the Storehouse. This is temporary - once they've picked up the stores from the Settler Camp, remove the workers - we need them free for other tasks.

You should now have 3 of 5 workers assigned - a Logger and 2 Warehouse workers - which leaves 2 free for building.

Now let's make your people not be homeless. This is critical because Homelessness is bringing down your approval rating (sad face) and new settlers won't start coming until your approval is above 50%.
Your first Burgages will be built close to your town center, and you'll want to build them long. How long? About this long:

You're building these first few long because all of these Burgages will have a Vegetable Garden (eventually) which will supply your town with a substantial amount of food. The size of the yard matters (ONLY for vegetable plots) because if it's too small, the yield will be low. Later Burgages only need to be long enough to accommodate a small additional area for chickens, animals, or workshops.

Building #7 will be 5 Burgages.

This will require 10 Timber from the Lumber Yard (goes quickly with 2 oxen!), which is why you didn't build a Saw Pit yet, which takes Timber to make Planks.

Once your Burgages are built your villagers will move in automatically. You will no longer get a homelessness penalty, although you still have a residual penalty, and the villagers will bring their families (a wife and son) which will assist with their work.

Now, you should have 30 Regional Wealth remaining after the purchase of the ox, which will allow you to build 2 Vegetable Plots at 15/per. Pick 2 Burgages and build a Vegetable Plot in each, and let your people start growing food.

At this point you'll receive an UPGRADE point. Don't use it yet, I'll get to that.

The problem with people is that they're needy, and your new town's worker drones are no different. They need things like food and firewood to survive, and they don't know how to get it unless you tell them how.
So they're needy AND dumb.


Building #6 will be a Woodcutter's Lodge. That's a fancy name for someone that cuts firewood. Place the Woodcutter's Lodge anywhere near your town where there is a decent amount of trees. The Woodcutter isn't as greedy as the Logging Camp. He works out in a circle from his Lodge, but he takes trees much more slowly. When he exhausts the local supply, simply move him somewhere else.
Later, you can pursue (if you choose the Upgrade) Charcoal Kilns which will dramatically increase your supply of firewood, but for now 1 Lodge is enough.

Assign a Woodcutter. When you get to 40 firewood, unassign him because you need workers free in the early game. Keep the firewood between 10-40 for the 1st year and you'll be fine.

Gathering Food is more tricky, and is often a constant concern during the early years of a settlement in Manor Lords.
Remember the various Resources around the map? What you're going to look for are Berries, Wild Game, and Fish Ponds. Each will provide food, and each has a specific perk.

Fish Ponds are the best resource for food. A single fish pond can provide your settlement with an abundant food source for years. Remember the upgrade perk? If you have a Fish Pond with a crown over it and use the Pond Management upgrade, you can have a pond with ~1500 fish that you can access even during the winter, which is ample even for a large town with excess to trade.
I've been known to restart my game until I get a starting region with a Fish Pond. No shame in my game.

Berries are a decent source for food, but they're unavailable from November-March. However, they will also provide you with a source of Dye (with a Dye Maker shop) and they can also gather Herbs for medical uses (you can build a Gatherer's Hut even without berries, just for the herbs)

Wild Animals are a decent source for food and hides, but they can get depleted quickly. A plain source will have 20 animals, of which you can hunt 10 before the Hunter stops hunting by default to allow the herd to replenish (you can change the amount but I don't recommend it). Game will recharge slowly, but you can't expect to gather more than 1-2 animals per month.
In addition to the Meat, game also provides Hides, which a Tanner can then turn into Leather at a Tannery, and the Leather serves as a clothing source. You will need Clothing eventually to upgrade your town, so if you have Wild Animal resources available, you'll want to utilize it soon.

Building #7 will be a Food Gatherer, for either Fish, Berries, or Wild Animals.
Assign a worker, and gather ~50 food, or as much as you can before you are limited.


What, you think you can raise a bunch of pagans in Medieval Europe? Don't be surprised if you get a Spanish Inquisition, which no one ever expects.

Welcome to your first building challenge. Remember that Approval Rating? You need to get that over 50% to get more settlers, and the Church is how you do it. If you click on one of your Burgages, you will see its needs.
The yellow area is for your church, and the red areas are for your marketplace. Before you can upgrade your Burgages to Level 2, these will all need to be satisfied, but I'll get to that at the end.

To build the Church, you need 5 Timber, 10 Stone, and 20 Planks.
You should have just enough Stone in your starting stockpile. The Timber is being taken care of at the Logging Camp. Remember that Saw Pit from the Logging section? Well now is the time to build it.

Building #8 will be a Saw Pit. Build it next to the Logging Camp and assign a worker to it. Set a Reserve of at least 5 (for the Church) but preferably more like 10-12.
Once you have all of the materials you need,

Building #9 will be a Small Wooden Church.

This will pop your approval up over 50% shortly, and whenever your approval is over 50% you will get one new settler each month on the 2nd, and they will automatically move in to any vacant Burgage. If no vacant Burgage exists, you won't receive them.
And you know what, you don't have a vacant Burgage. Better fix that.

Building #10 will be at least ONE new Burgage.
Build this one/these ones near your town center. You can make them half as long as the ones with Vegetable Plots so long as they have sufficient space behind the house for additional workshops/food production (denoted by a dashed line through the center of the building plot).

Your town should now have most of what it needs to survive the first winter.

You have enough places for your people with new vacant Burgages to allow growth.
You have a Church boosting your approval rating
You have a Logging Camp and a Saw Pit producing Timber and Planks.
You have food from Vegetable plots and from whatever resource you are gathering.
You have water, and you have Firewood.

These are the basics. Here is what else you need, and what you will focus on next:

- A clothing source to make your people happy and to upgrade your Burgages
- Regional Wealth to purchase upgrades and buy necessary items
- Stone for advanced buildings
- A Manor House for defense


If you have Wild Animals, your clothing will be easy. Hunters provide Hides. Build a Tannery, assign a Tanner, and he will produce Leather which will be taken to market by the Storehouse workers.

If you don't have Wild Animals, it's a bigger issue.

Clothing can be acquired from:
- Flax, which requires a farm and a Weaver Shop and is very labor intensive
- a Sheep Farm which requires the purchase of sheep (cost $20-30 each from a Livestock Trader) and a Weaver Shop
- Burgage Animal Plots with Goats, which requires 2 Planks and 15 Regional Wealth each
- Or importing it through a Trader

The simplest way is with Burgage Plots with Goats, but to build those we first need to earn some Regional Wealth.

Building #11 will be a Trading Post


Build a Trading Post somewhere near your Storehouse/Granary and a Kings Road. Immediately surround it with roads on each side (it's very finicky, the roads need to be touching on all 4 sides of the structure).
Now assign a worker, and you'll need to set up a trade route.
At this point, you'll likely only have Planks and whatever you're gathering to trade. Pick those (setting a minimum amount so you still have what you need) and let your trader do his thing. It takes a little time but eventually he'll begin earning you $ in the form of Regional Wealth.
The red circle below denotes IMPORTS only. You have to pay for a foreign trader to come visit you.
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As soon as you get $20, buy a Horse for the Trader. This greatly speeds up trade.
Once you get at least $15 more wealth, begin building Animal Plots on your Burgages and buy Goats (not oinkers). These will provide 1 Meat food and 1 Hide every 5 months.
You will also need to build a Tannery to process Hides into Leather for the Marketplace.

You can also establish a trade for Leather or Yarn or Linen along with a desired amount.

You will only be able to get small amounts at first, but you will get more over time. You only need a minimum for the early game to get your Burgages upgraded to Level 2.


The next thing you'll need is Stone. Hopefully, you have a Stone resource in your region. If so, Building #12 will be a Stonecutter. Otherwise, you'll need to mine whatever other resource you have - Salt, Iron, Clay - and trade it for Stone. You need to get 25 Stone to build the next structure.

Building #13, and the final building for this early game guide, is your Manor House.....for your Manor Lord. *sigh*

The Manor House is a multi-functional building. It allows you to set a tax rate to grow your Personal Wealth (NOT Regional Wealth!), it allows you to set certain policies, it allows you to begin building a castle, and - most importantly - it gives you a free personal Retinue of 5 soldiers you can use in combat.
The retinue can be grown to 12 soldiers - or a max of 24 soldiers with a Garrison Tower attachment built onto the Manor House through the Castle Builder function.
The Retinue is customizable (for funsies) and also GREATLY helps with fighting local Bandits and raiding Brigands, or even the Baron and his mercenary hordes.
That makes the Manor House essential for the early game. You want that Retinue.

To build the Manor House, you'll need 25 Stone, 5 Timber, and 20 Planks. None of those should be a problem once you have the Stone.

Pick a place for your Manor - it doesn't really matter, but for optics it's nice to build on a hill and if you're planning to build a big castle you'll need to consider the layout.


Once your Manor House is built and you have a Retinue, click on the crossed swords icon at the bottom and Rally your military, which at this point will consist of your 5 Retinue soldiers and 20 Spear Militia (if you have a default start). With these 25 men, find a local Bandit Camp and go attack it.
Tactics are somewhat important. Once you get close to a Bandit Camp, a group (of 18) will come out to greet you. Set up your Retinue on a hill and let the Bandits come to you. Set your Spear Militia immediately nearby. Whichever cohort the Bandits attack, use the other one to attack the Bandits in the rear and you'll make quick work of them. Send the Militia home and deactivate them. Send your Retinue to the Bandit Camp and plunder it before sending them home and deactivating them too.

TAKE THE PLUNDER FOR YOUR PERSONAL USE, ALWAYS.

Bandit Camps have good plunder, and you'll have the choice to either give it to a town or keep it for yourself. Giving it to a town gives a local region Regional Wealth. Taking it for yourself adds Personal Wealth, which is much more important.

You need Personal Wealth to:
- Buy more Retinue soldiers at $50/per
- Hire Mercenaries
- Send new Settlers to a Claimed Region ($250)

After this first combat, you have the option of hiring mercenaries to take care of Bandits from now on, which will still earn a profit but less than if you do it yourself.
Keep attacking new Bandit Camps whenever they show up. Sooner is better because they steal stuff, but mobilizing your militia in winter is better because there is less work.
If you have an adversary on your map you'll need to do it immediately to stop the Baron from getting the plunder before you. Use mercs if necessary.

I'm only adding this section because Development Perks can have a HUGE impact on your game and once you choose, you can't un-choose. So choose wisely!

Foraging Perks:
1. If you have a fish pond, get Pond Management. That's a no-brainer. Your food issues are over.
2. Beekeeping allows you to build 2 Apiaries (more is a waste) w/ up to 700 honey per year! Good for food and trade.
3. Forest Management (for Berries) is good but it only affects max capacity, not the rate of growth. It's easy to 'over harvest' the berries and therefore not take full advantage of this perk if you choose it.
4. Trapping isn't worth it. You get ~10 extra meat per year.

Farming Perks:
1. Orchardry for the long game. Build them as extensions off of your Burgages (need plots 4x as large as Vegetable Plots, minimum) and take 3-4 years to fully grow, then 3 apples per 2 trees per year, harvested by the family at the Burgage (be careful about what job they're assigned to!). Good for food and trade.
2. Sheep or Plough. Sheep if you want your Sheep herds to grow without paying for them. You'll be drowning in wool and you can build a butcher shop to kill the extra sheep to avoid overcrowding. Ploughs if you have a lot of farming. It allows your farmers to plow fields using oxen which goes SO MUCH FASTER. You need this if you plan on farming.
3. Bakeries. If you grow emmer/wheat or rye, this is a nice perk. You can bake 4 bread from 1 flour at a Bakery Burgage upgrade. You'll have more bread than you can handle.
4. Rye. Excellent if you want to grow grain in regions with low fertility. Requires Orchardry.

Mining/Production Perks:
1. Deep Mines. Requires Charcoal Kilns first, but Deep Mines allow you to mine a resource with a crown permanently. It never runs out. Kilns also produce a crap ton of firewood.
2. Armor making. Meh. I never use it.

Trading Perks:
I never use them, not recommended.

S/O to Chilled Sloth for his excellent guide here:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3352539206

By now it should be Spring or close to Spring, Year 2, and this guide has come to an end.

At this point your town should have its basic needs met and should be manageable, you only need to grow and specialize and make tweaks as necessary.
Keep raiding Bandits and growing your military to gain Personal Wealth, and once your approval is high enough, set some low taxes to gain even more.

Good luck, Lord, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

May God’s Grace guide thy path!